LITTLE IRIS

A walk round the garden this morning, and another small bunch of violets for the kitchen window sill. Found a favourite one "Greyfriars Bobby" growing  far from where the original plant was. This is one of the few remaining ones I have of my Kerry Carman violet collection, its a lovely grey mauve for embroidery friends I would describe it as a  little darker than DMC 3835.

The first of the little lemon Iris are coming into bloom, these are the petite flag iris, the flowers stand about 6-8 inches tall. These came from my mothers garden over 20 years ago and have moved with us every time we moved house.

 I have also been stitching a small iris, this time on a tiny needle keep, it is a design I have used before on a scissor sheath and I was very pleased to have a reason to stitch it again.

Here is the chart for this design and if anyone would like how to make the little needle keep, leave me a message with your email address and I will send you my page of  "how to notes"

WINTER POSY CHART

Have managed to improve on the
copy of the chart but as yet cannot
match the colour chart to the graph,
hopefully with more time and practise
I will get it right. Unfortunately colours
change when I take it through both
the scanner and the printer.

Just click on the chart to get a printable copy.

WHEN THE BELLBIRD SINGS........

When The bellbird sings at dawn... his song brings joy to linger the whole day through.


When we lived in Coromandel, there was one bellbird who visited our garden most mornings. We called him Charlie and he was quite a friendly bird.
Charlie was the inspiration for the design on this etui and is the only time I have designed a bird in cross stitch.
The embroidered birds in my album were all stitched with short straight stitches using one thread of stranded. (floss)
I have posted this design specially for my friend in Germany, who enjoys stitching both flowers and birds.

HARBINGERS OF SPRING

Welcome,wild harbinger of spring!
To this small nook of earth;
Feeling and fancy fondly cling
Round thoughts which owe their birth
To thee, and to the humble spot
Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot.
- To a Crocus [ Bernard Barton (English Poet 1784-1849)
This morning its truly feels as if spring is on its way, lovely sunny and mild and everywhere I look in my garden clumps of crocus are boldly flowering, there seems to be more than I remember having ever planted.
I continue to pick violets of different colours and enjoy having a posy of them on my kitchen window sill. A lovely deep pink one that is flowering really well has been in the garden for a few years now, but never flowered this well before, unfortunately as much as I would like I can't match its colour to any embroidery thread.
With spring around the corner I had better post my Winter posy, I have just finished stitching this piece and the chart will have to be posted later.

TODAY'S MAIL

Today was good news for mail, first I learnt that the pendibulle I sent to Romania was finally there, its been a long six and a half weeks waiting to know it had safely arrived. It was stitched on 40 count linen in the colour choice of my exchange partner DMC 498. This is my second pendibulle, the first one went to a friend in Australia and I forgot to take a photo. I enjoy making these and think they would be lovely filled with lavender but one can't do that for overseas postings.
Then in today's mail I received a parcel from France and in it was a zigouioui from my exchange partner, stitch in lovely soft green shades on linen.

EXCHANGES

Big thrill this morning, word came that my Zigouioui had arrived in France. great as my previous posting from June is still in the mail and has not arrived, possibly its being delivered by a snail! These are both exchanges for EMS Cross Stitch Forum

This is the one I sent to France.
A Zigouioui is a decoration made with a square of fabric and the corners are folded in on top to the centre. I stitched this one on 40 count linen using Jane Van Keulen's lovely hand dyed fine tencell thread.I stitch one earlier in the year on an Easter theme. Both are my own designs.