Needles & Needle Books

Aren't these sweet needlebooks? These were both made for me by my mom: This little green and white one is the one I use everyday. I keep all my #24 chenille needles in it. I love it - especially the front cover with this blue flower and button! This needlebook is one that she just made - she used one of the cupcakes from my cupcake embroidery pattern to make this little felt applique for the front. Notice those french knots!
This is what the books look like inside. They have felt pages for needles.
I really needed another book because I have just ordered some new needles! My 1st Bambina recommended that I try chenille needles in size 26. She suggested ordering them online from Colonial Needle. I did, and I also ordered a packet of size 28:
I love these new needles. The size 28 is so delicate (and sharp!) I took a picture to show the size difference in the needles:
The size 24 is at the bottom of the picture, above that is the 26 and at the top is the size 28. You can see how much finer and shorter the 28 is than the 24! I am thrilled with these needles and my new needle book and can't wait to start using them!

Strawberry Pillow - Completed!

I finished my strawberry pillow: This was a really fun and very quick project. I made a small pillow pattern that fit one of the images in the strawberry embroidery pattern packet.

For the back of the pillow, I stitched together a sort of patchwork quilt:

I love the way it turned out. To fill the pillow, I used loose polyester fill. It really made for a nice puffy pillow!

100 Stitches - Flat Stitch

Next up on the 100 Stitches endeavour is the flat stitch. Here it is making up this Dr. Seuss-like flower: You may recognize this flower image from the strawberries embroidery pattern packet. This is the flower increased in size by 250%. Sure makes it easy to see for this demonstration :) Rather than my regular floss, I am using dmc #4180 variegated pink perle cotton floss! I think this floss will look neater and be easier to see in my close-up stitch pictures. I am stitching this on a light weight 100% cotton fabric and using a #24 chenille needle. Notice this blue pencil?
This is to mark some stitching lines. 100 Stitches suggests that you draw two lines down the center of the shape you are filling to act as stitching guide lines and to designate the size of the stitch. Hmmm...let's hope I will be able to see these lines well enough!
The first step is to come up through your fabric on one edge of the shape: Now go down through the fabric at the farthest stitching guide line and come back up through the fabric at the edge of your shape: 100 Stitches stresses that this is all about stitching alternately on each side of the shape you are filling. The needle is always coming up through the fabric on the outside line of the shape. So now you pull the thread through and put your needle back down on the far stitching guide line and back up on the outside line of the shape:
And then back again:
Just keep alternating side to side. The stitches should be close together and overlap each other:
Just keep going until the shape is filled!
Repeat for each petal, add some back stitch around the center and put in some french knots and you have:

This stitch is very easy and really fun to do! It is stitch #10 and is in the Flat Stitches section of 100 Stitches.

strawberry pillow wip and some garden pictures

I am working on a pillow project! I started out with this simple embroidery of a strawberry. This is from the strawberry embroidery pattern packet. I stitched SO MANY french knots! The whole strawberry, stem, and flower center are all filled with french knots. For the red, I used dmc #321, the yellow is dmc #726 and the green is dmc #907. I used the split stitch to outline the strawberry, back stitch for the lettering and the stem and flower petal outlines. This will be the front of the pillow.
I am planning on making the back of the pillow a quilted panel! And by quilted, I mean small squares sewn together in a patchwork pattern :)
I am going to use this sweet strawberry fabric, first seen here and some white squares too. I plan to sew the front and back together with this beautiful green rick-rack as the trim. I will post my progress pictures on this as I go along, but in the meantime, I also wanted to share some beautiful flower pictures. We are having a really wet spring - very typical for the pacific northwest! Everything is so green and pretty. This is a chive flower in my herb garden:

Two years ago, for my birthday, I received these amazing allium bulbs. I have purple - which always bloom first:
and white - which is almost in bloom:
I am developing a new flower bed outside my shop/garden shed and I started these foxglove plants from seed! I also have several foxglove plants in this bed that are native to this area. The native plants always have a pinky-lavender flower. I wanted some other colors too so I bought a multicolored seed packet and now I have white to pale pink and a beautiful yellow. I love these plants and so do the bees!

100 stitches - Coral Stitch

The next stitch I have learned on my 100 Stitches saga is the coral stitch. I used three strands of dmc floss - color number 995 - a beautiful electric blue! I stitched this with a #24 chenille needle on 100% cotton. This stitch is worked from right to left. First come up through the fabric and pull your floss to the left. Make sure it stays there! 100 Stitches suggests holding it down in place with your thumb.

The coral stitch is essentially a line of floss held down with tiny stitched knots. You can determine how far apart you want the knots for your decorative purposes. To make the first knot, go into the fabric and take a very small stitch by coming up under the laying down floss

Here is a larger view of what the position of everything should look like:

Now you pull your floss all the way through making sure the needle goes above the lower line of the floss "loop"

now pull the needle all the way through...

now pull to the left to form a knot!

Next, determine how far away you want the next knot and do the same setup again. Under:

through, over, and pull to the left!

keep going and to finish simply take your needle back down through the fabric right at the final knot.

Here is what my coral stitching looks like - heehee...I need a bit more practice before I use this in an actual project!

For me, this stitch is a hard one to make look even and neat. For some reason, I have trouble with the knotted stitches - it seems like right at the critical "knot forming" second when I am pulling the floss and seeing the knot form, something either in my pulling tension, pulling direction or needle position goes wrong and I come up with an uneven knot. I know it will get better with practice - it did with the bullion stitch :) This stitch is #54 and is in the knotted stitches section of 100 Stitches.

Rainbow of Stitches contest - green entry

Here is my green entry for the Feeling Stitchy Rainbow of Stitches contest! This little image is of a pea pod, like the ones I am growing in my vegetable garden this year:

They are doing really well and the plants are already about 3-1/2' high - no blossoms yet. I really like the way pea vines use their curly spirals to hold onto the support strings:

It makes for a perfect picture to stitch!

I used the back stitch, threaded back stitch (for the border), and the split stitch on one side of the pod. I used three different shades of green floss. The lightest shade is dmc #907. The other two are shades were already in my stash all wound up on their bobbins so unfortunately I don't have their color numbers.

Rainbow of Stitches pink entry

This is my latest entry to the Feeling Stitchy Rainbow of Stitches contest - for the color pink! This is a pillowcase edge pattern from the flowers embroidery pattern packet.

I stitched this using my new variegated dmc #4180 perle cotton floss - I love the color effects! I also love stitching french knots - I used them around the flower center:

For my next color, I am going to use green - I have just finished a sweet little design and am stitching it up! I will post a picture as soon as it is done.