Snow days and a quilt update

We have had almost a week of snow!

We get snow most winters but not usually this much and it usually doesn't stay this long.

I love the gray sky:

and how beautiful the landscape looks

covered in white:

Rego and Berit LOVE the snow and everything about it!

Chasing snowballs, eating snow...

it's all good!

Speaking of snow, do you remember my snow quilt project?

I have made some progress with stitching motifs in the small plain fabric squares:

and I have decided to use the open cretan stitch for all the borders around the blocks:

I like this stitch, It is quick to do and suits the patchwork-y look of this quilt. So far so good - I will keep you updated on my progress.

snowman and snowflakes

Here is a snowman I've just finished stitching. I really like the look of this, especially with the snowflakes:

Do you like the color combination on his striped scarf? I do! This is not a color combination I would have thought to put together just looking through my embroidery floss collection. I had started with black floss for his top hat and I love the color combination of black and acid green so I put those together.  Then I wanted some colors that went with the green. The acid green floss nicely matches the "yellow-green" color group on my color wheel.  The complementary color group for the yellow greens is the "red-violet" group:

I had several beautiful floss colors that matched the colors in the red-violet group so I made this combination.  I especially like the way it looks on the scarf fringe. 

Here are the colors I used, with their floss numbers:

progress on my snowman quilt:

Do you remember my snowman quilt project? Well, I have been busy working on it and I am almost finished with the quilt top:I finished stitching the last two snowmen - one in red: and one in mostly blue: My next step is embroidering on the small squares. I am using images from the Snow! embroidery pattern packetRight now I am adding all the beautiful emroidery stitching over the seams. Here I am using the open cretan stitch: I want to use many different stitches to embellish the seams. I love the way they look. This project has been so much fun and I am learning a lot about quilting. One thing I need to figure out is the order of sewing everything together. I actually sewed all the inside blocks together, sewed all the outside border pieces together (making sort of a frame) and then sewed the frame to the big inside piece. Is this the right process? I would appreciate any tips - here is my quilt plan so you can see the pattern I am using. I will keep posting my progress!

little snowman - almost done!

Do you remember my little snowman wip? I am now done with the stitching:I started this stitching not really knowing what I was going to do with the finished product - I knew I loved this pale blue fabric and wanted it for my background. I love red and light blue together and I think the brown and white just finish this off. I have a lot more of this light blue fabric and also quite a bit of this beautiful red fabric:I am thinking I could maybe make this into a quilt square? I don't really know anything about quilting - I have only ever made one and that was just sewing 4" x 4" squares together and then putting a backing on it. I have been calling this little image snow baby because he is so little compared to the rest of the snowmen I am planning on stitching: Maybe I could do some quilt squares featuring all of them?

Color - whites and grays

I have been stitching snowflakes and snowmen - mostly on white fabric. I love the look of white on white but look at these beautiful floss colors: the are all pearl cotton floss, size 5. The gray on the left is dmc #414, the middle one is dmc #762 and the one on the right is dmc #5200. I wanted to try the grays on white so I stitched this snowflake border with the medium gray #762: I think it looks beautiful against white fabric!The white floss looks good on white and also on this powder blue fabric: Now to find a project for the darker gray floss!

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!

Blue metallic snowflake - finished!

I just finished the blue metallic snowflake!I had been a little worried about doing all the lazy daisy stitches with this metallic floss but they were relatively straightforward. I had a more difficult time with all the french knots! But I think it looks really nice when seen as a whole:

Snowflakes and metallic floss

I am busy stitching up a snowflake border:and a single snowflake with the word snow under it: I am bravely stitching these using...metallic floss!So far so goodwith the silver:The blue, however, is giving me a little trouble! I am attempting lazy daisies with this so maybe that is to be expected! I just can't resist the beautiful look of the metallic floss! The blue is dmc Jewel Effects E3843 and the silver is Precious Metals Effects E168

Snow! wip

I have a new work in progress to show! This sweet little snowman is just one of several featured in my new Snow! embroidery pattern packet - here is what the packet looks like:
Here is a close up view of the lettering - this is in back stitch. I used three strands of this beautiful wintry blue embroidery floss. I am also using this white cotton pearl floss - this is turning out to be the perfect floss for the snowman because it looks so chunky and almost glistens...I bet it will be perfect for snowflakes too!Does anyone happen to know the dmc color of this blue? For some reason, I did not record the number! I have a whole color range of blue floss but this is all I have left of the wintry blue I am using for this project:

I better save this to match at the store!