Easter Embroidery Patterns

I have a few Easter embroidery finishes and a new work-in-progress to share.  First up is this sweet egg basket and flowers: 

I used an Easter basket motif and two border patterns from my Easter embroidery pattern set:

I finished stitching it yesterday and washed out all the water soluble marker lines.  Then I pressed it and took a few pictures.  When I was uploading the pictures, I spotted a mistake that I hadn't seen before - look closely at the ribbon hanging off the bow:
 

I forgot to finish the edge on the right-hand side!  It was only a few stitches missing so I was able to fill them in. 

It looks much better now! 

The stitches I used on the ribbon are the Herringbone Stitch for the inside and the Stem Stitch for the edges.  I used the Blanket Stitch for the handle.  The scalloped rim of the basket and the accent lines on the front of the basket are all done in Stem Stitch.  The outline of the basket is done in Split Stitch and Back Stitch.  I used all of these stitches on the eggs and also French Knots and Chain Stitch: 

The flowers and the green curvy lines are Stem Stitch.  There are also Lazy Daisy Stitch and more French Knots:

Here are the floss colors and numbers I used for this project:

My other finish is this decorated egg.  This was so fun to stitch and since I used such easy stitches, it was very quick to finish!  This is Stem Stitch for the egg border and the flowers, French Knots, and Cross Stitches with a Straight Stitch in a contrasting color over their middles:

Here are the floss colors and numbers I used for this project:

My new work-in-progress is this little duckling.  I am picking some nice colors to finish this:

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!

Snowman and some new floss

I finished stitching up the "Let It snow" snowman:This was so fun to stitch. I am surprised at how good the white floss shows up on my white fabric! I really like the way it looks.You might notice that I used my newly learned herringbone stitch to decorate the band around the broom: Much as I love the white-on-white look of this project, I am excited to try stitching some snowmen and especially snowflakes on this new pale blue colored fabric I just bought:
See that white pearl cotton floss? I bought that and some black along with these other pearl cottons:It is less expensive to buy these spools of the pearl cotton than the skeins. However, at my fabric store, they have a very limited color selection of the spool floss - by limited selection I mean only black and white!

100 Stitches - herringbone stitch and threaded herringbone stitch

This complex looking stitch is the threaded herringbone stitch.It is a variation of the herringbone stitch: These two stitches together are up next on the always exciting 100 stitches journey! These are extremely easy stitches to do. They do benefit from having guidelines though - just to keep everything even. I drew two parallel guidelines 3/8" apart:First up is the herringbone stitch. This stitch is worked from left to right. The first step is to come up through your fabric on the left edge of the lower guideline: Now bring your needle to the top line, a little to the right of where your floss came through and take a small stitch from right to left: Pull your floss all the way through: Take your needle back down to the lower guideline, a little to the right of where your floss came through and take a small stitch from right to left. Notice the needle is staying under the working thread:Pull your floss all the way through:Now take your needle to the top guideline, a little to the right and take a small stitch from right to left:Pull the floss all the way through:Take your needle to the lower guideline, a little to the right and take a small right to left stitch:Just continue on and you have done the herringbone stitch!
Now for the threaded herringbone stitch - select a nice contrasting color - I chose the complementary color to violet which is this nice yellow:With the new color, bring your needle up through your fabric right along side the first stitch. Now, carefully slide your needle under the right side of the first stitch but not into the fabric:Pull it through and carefully slide it up under the left side of the second stitch - again under the floss but not catching any fabric: Continue threading in and out until you have this:
These are both
such beautiful stitches! I love the suggestion donna!ee made a few posts ago, that I show the underside of my stitches as I go through 100 Stitches. So I made sure I took a picture of the herringbone stitch from the underside:These stitches are #15 and are in the flat stitches section of 100 Stitches.