Some garden pictures:

I wanted to share a few pictures from my garden. This is a pale yellow snapdragon - I started these from seed. It is really easy - the seeds are so tiny you don't even put dirt over the top of them, just lightly press them onto the soil My roses didn't really like the cool wet spring we had but you wouldn't know it from these next two blooms. This rose is "Queen Elizabeth".

This is "Ingrid Bergman". This is one of my all-time favorite roses. The deep red color is so beautiful - the buds almost look like velvet and then they bloom into this:
I also planted tomatoes from seed: I have a lot of tomato flowers and some tomatoes! I hope these will ripen - the pacific northwest isn't known for it's summer heat!

I also planted zucchini and hubbard squash and sweet corn. If my corn ever develops any ears I will post a picture :)

New hoops, floss and...

Last week I bought some new embroidery hoops. This brings my "collection" up to 10. I mostly have wooden hoops, the largest of which is 12-1/2" diameter and the smallest, 3-1/4". I even have an oval wooden hoop. I love the wooden hoops but now I am really loving using these new plastic hoops. These are the 7", 8" and 10":
Here is what the 10" looks like as two hoops. You might notice that one of these two hoops looks a little different. The hoop with the screw is just like a regular embroidery hoop. But the rim of the hoop that you place the fabric on has an edge that extends out a little larger than the hoop.
This acts like a little platform for your fabric to rest on.
The hoop with the screw then opens up wide enough to go over the bottom hoop and fabric. When you tighten the screw, top hoop sits just up under the extended edge of the bottom hoop. This set-up makes the snuggest, smoothest surface for stitching.
I also bought some new floss. These are such pretty colors - do they remind you of anything? Maybe colors you would use to stitch a gingerbread cottage or gingerbread man? I have a new pattern in the works!

100 Stitches - Zig-Zag Coral Stitch

Here is the Zig-Zag Coral Stitch. This is the latest stitch on my attempt to work through 100 Stitches! I used my brand new floss for this stitch:
It is perle cotton DMC #335. Isn't it beautiful? I bought this last week... along with some other items that I will show a bit later. But now onto the stitching! For this demonstration I am using the #24 chenille needle. You might also notice I already have two parallel lines drawn on my fabric. Hopefully, this will keep my stitches in line as I demonstrate. My practice stitching was all over the place! This stitch is done from right to left. The first step of the stitch is exactly like the coral stitch. You come up through your fabric, and then keeping the floss in place you slide your needle under the floss without catching it and bring the tip of the needle over the floss, forming a loop: Then you pull the floss all the way through forming a raised knot:
Here is where it turns into the zig-zag coral stitch. You now bring your floss over to the other parallel line at a bit of a diagonal and you slip the needle under the floss and then over the floss, again forming a loop:
Pull the floss through forming another raised knot:

then go back to the first line and form a regular coral stitch knot and just continue back and forth along your stitching line:
Until you have a nice line of stitches!
This was a fairly easy stitch for me to learn, I love the finished line of stitching - it looks like lacing. This stitch is #55 and is in the knotted stitch category of 100 Stitches.

Color - little flower project

The floss pictured here is DMC# 340. Do you like this tint of blue:

with this tint of yellow - DMC #727:
with this tint of red DMC #603?
According to my new color wheel - a "tint" is a pure color (in this case blue, yellow, and red) with white added to it. These three tints are three colors apart from each other on the color wheel. This means they are a triad and make a beautiful color combination. I used them on this little flower stitching. You may also notice, I am showing off my open chain stitch for the picture border!

100 Stitches - Open Chain Stitch

Time to share the latest stitch I have learned from 100 Stitches. As I have learned the hard way, some stitches require precise guidelines to help with stitch width and stitch size consistency. This is definitely one of those stitches!
Using a ruler and a pencil with a light colored lead, I drew two parallel lines. I made my two lines 1/4" apart. The first step is to come up through your fabric at the start of the line on the left side.

Pull your floss all the way through and then hold it down against the fabric, right where it came out, so that it stays in place. Now push the needle down into the fabric on the start of the line on the right side. Bring the needle tip out on the left side line, making sure the floss stays under the needle tip:

Pull the floss all the way through. This will form a loop - make sure you don't pull tightly:

Now your floss is back on the left side, just like when you started out. Just make the same stitch as before - push your needle in on the right side, bring the needle tip out on the left side:

Pull through forming the loose loop:

And then back in on the right, out on the left side:
Just keep stitching in that same way until you have a beautiful stitched line. To finish, make a small stitch at each side of the final loop.
Like a lot of these stitches, the underside of the stitching is almost as interesting as the topside!

This stitch is much easier to understand by looking at the pictures than it is by reading the explanation. It took me a bit of practice, but now I really like stitching with it. That beautiful floss I used is dmc #4240 color variations perle cotton floss. This stitch is #42 and is in the linked stitches section of 100 Stitches.

A little early for this wip...

Even though we are having beautiful warm weather right now, I am busily stitching up a huge set of autumn napkins!

I plan on using all the autumn colors like orange, red, yellow, and brown. I love these two shades of orange. The brightest, which is outlining this leaf is the almost neon-bright dmc#608 "bright orange":

I am going to use a running stitch to decorate the hems. Here are orange, green and yellow:

I am really liking the way they are turning out!

Color - my new color wheel!

I love the fact that embroidery floss comes in such a huge variety of colors. I know that one of my favorite parts of embarking on a new stitching project is the process of selecting colors. I want to learn more about color theory and color relationships and so I bought this color wheel. It is so much fun to use and has so many interesting color facts and advice. For instance, I have this little stitching project from "Shhh...Baby's Sleeping":
What colors to use? I know I want to use this beautiful blue as this is for a baby boy.
According to the color wheel, a nice relationship would be a triad of colors. That means three colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel and will always look pleasing as a combination:

So the other two colors in the blue triad are red:
and yellow:

I think that makes a beautiful color combination!

I am using the blue to outline the ball in back stitch:
and red for the stripes - I used the split stitch here:

now all three colors for the french knots and
satin stitch stars!

I think I am really going to enjoy this new color wheel and all the new color combinations it suggests! Speaking of color, I have to include this picture of my sweet pea bouquet looking so pinky and beautiful on my shelf!