Red Tea Set

I wish this were a real tea set! I love the look of this tea pot in red with delicate gold accents:I stitched this using red pearl cotton and this gorgeous gold metallic flossI used some images from the Tea embroidery pattern:I used one of the matching teapot sugar and creamer sets along with the appropriately sized tea word: This would look really good on a tea "cozy":or in a picture frame: but I think I am going to frame this in a wooden embroidery hoop, decorate the hoop with red and gold ribbon and give it to my sister! It should look nice in her kitchen and she loves tea!
I hope you noticed - and were impressed - that I used the double knot stitch on the decorative stripes and the herringbone stitch for the gold bands!

I made some embroidered Christmas presents...

I have some Christmas presents to show that I have just finished embroidering. (Kathy & Mark and Karen do not read any further and definitely don't look at the pictures!!!) I just completed these three linen tea towels:This red towel is for my sister Karen who has a beautiful red kitchen. I used some of the flower patterns from the Tea embroidery pattern packet. I used the chain stitch for the border and flower center, french knots and back stitch for the petals:For my sister Kathy, I made this black towel with the green and lavender border. This pattern is one of the border patterns from the strawberries pattern packet. I love the way this looks - I know Kathy will too!
For my brother-in-law Mark I made this tea towel:
You might recognize the chevron stitch that I used to make a nice looking border:

Mark makes the absolute best espresso! He always makes me a latte :)
I made all of these towels from linen fabric. Karen and Mark's are 100% linen and Kathy's is a linen/cotton blend. It was a new experience for me to stitch on these because they were a much looser weave than I am used to! I had so much fun with these and now I can wrap them up!

Summer teapot wip and two sweet garden helpers!

Here is a little "summer" looking teapot wip. I love this aqua and pink color scheme! I think the french knots all over the teapot make it look like a fun, casual teapot you could take outdoors. In addition to the french knots, I used the chain stitch to make the decorative lines on the body of the teapot.

That is the back stitch you see outlining the teapot body. I also used the backstitch for the flowers and the lettering. Now the question is, what am I going to make with this? I had originally planned on a tea towel. I would just hem it and add some trim. This would make a really cute towel - I stitched this on a really big piece of fabric so I could make something bigger. I was thinking I might want to use these little pieces:

There is a creamer, sugar bowl, and two matching tea cups. I think these would look perfect on the other end of a towel or perhaps I could make a small table cloth? I will post a picture of whatever I come up with! Now onto some nice summer garden pictures! Remember my pea project?
My pea plants are all in full bloom, taller than their supports and are producing yummy sugar-snap peas!
I also have started some nasturtiums:
And this is a non-edible sweet pea. This is the first flower of this plant to bloom. I have these planted in front of a trellis so that I can support them as they grow tall and hopefully produce tons of flowers! Sweet Peas smell so good and they make really nice cut flowers.
We had a cold, wet and rainy June, so my roses have not been doing very well - however this reliable yellow bloomer always has beautiful blooms:
I also wanted to post pictures of my two garden helpers. They always keep me company and are interested in everything that is going on. This is Berit
and this is Rego

Tea Embroidery Pattern Packet

Here is what the pattern packet for the

"Tea" embroidery pattern looks like.

This packet turned out to be eight pages! There

is the introduction page, the main pattern and

then six pages of embellishment patterns. There are so many fun ways to draw teapots, cups and

all the tea accessories.

This is what the main pattern looks like all stitched up. I used the silver metallic floss for the tea tray to make it look like a silver tray. Metallic floss is SO difficult to stitch with but it just looks so beautiful when you are finished!
The covered sugar bowl and creamer were really fun to stitch. In the embellishment patterns, there is a sugar bowl with the lid removed and you can see all the sugar cubes.

So far, I have made two tea towels - one with the main pattern and one with this yellow diamond patterned teapot.

I just love the color combination on this tea towel -

here is a close up of the word Tea at the bottom of the towel.

And I am making this tea tray doily. I really love the way it is turning out!

I do think however that it needs some sort of finishing trim around the edge.