A New Little Cowboy!

I am stitching up a project for a sweet baby boy that has just been born.  We had a cowboy themed baby shower earlier this summer for his mom and it really inspired me to make a cowboy themed hand embroidery pattern set.  I am so glad I did because now I am embroidering a project for his nursery.   I started by putting together several of the motifs from the Cowboy pattern packet and transferred them onto this beautiful linen fabric:

I have done some of the stitching but now I am re-thinking the floss color I am using for the rope.  I had used the variegated floss you see on the left and I liked it until I was done.  Looking at it, I realized it wasn't going to be a good match with the other strong colors in this project...

such as the red I am using for the name.  So I switched to this brown and I am so much happier with it.  I am thinking I will use silver metallic thread for these horse shoes you can see above the name:

 they will match the spur I have already done on his boot:

The baby's nursery is all done in barn red, brown, blues and cream.  I hope these colors will be perfect!

Organizing - Floss and Color

I am in the process of organizing all my embroidery floss.  I really like to see how beautiful it looks neatly stored in these plastic floss boxes.  I have a small bunch of skeins still left to wind up on their bobbins.

I was looking at the order of colors on my color wheel and I decided to arrange my floss in that order.   Such a nice collection!  It looks like I have a lot of floss and a good color selection doesn't it?  Well...

..during my organizing, I came across this list that I picked up from the fabric store quite a long time ago. 

It lists all the floss color numbers that DMC offers.  There is even a check list to mark off the colors you have.  Imagine my surprise when I checked off all of my floss and realized that I have 89 different colors - wow! But that is out of a possible 454!!!  I have only tried about 20% of their colors.

I find I tend to buy the same colors over and over.  I need to branch out - I would love to collect the whole list of colors.  I wonder about any of you?  Do you keep track of your floss colors and does anyone have a whole color collection?

Laura Wheeler Pattern - Update

One of the projects on my list of works-in-progress is the Laura Wheeler vintage pattern for a dog.  Do you remember this?   I have the doggy put together and the next step is to add his nose.   I have cut the nose pattern piece out of this nice black fabric.  You only need one piece.  I am a little concerned about attaching this because the only instruction on the pattern piece or direction sheet is to "sew up dart" where indicated - nothing about turning the raw edges under or stitching it in place on the dog!  I think I can probably figure it out...

I used this pink fabric for his tongue.   I am remembering to put a sample of each of my fabrics in my sewing journal

and of course to record all the details of the pattern!

I will make sure to post a picture when I finish this - I still need to find eyes and a ribbon.

New Embroidery Pattern Set - Seafood

I have a new hand embroidery pattern packet available.  This one is called Seafood.  There are so many images in this packet.  I am having a lot of fun planning out all the different stitching projects I want to do.

I have already stitched this anchor and waves.  I used double rows of stitching for the waves.  One row in blue back stitch and then a row above that in white chain stitch.  I think the double rows really add some dimension and texture.

I am also working on this lobster and some text. Do you see the double knot stitch?  It has to be one of my favorite stitches.  I did the heart in chain stitch

I have a lot more stitching planned!

Here is a picture of the pattern packet :