SARA LEE'S LITTLE HOUSE

I just had to share with you Sarah Lee's Little House, she is the youngest of the group of young embroiderers I teach every week in an after school group out at a country school and she is the first in the group to finish this project.

The door  was stitched first as a practise in running stitches, and it can be opened to see who is living there, (there is a princess)

Then the door frame and windows which were counted satin stitch . After that came the fun of adding all the extra bits  including a tree at the back to cover the join of the canvas and finally the base was glued on, and the roof made with fabric glued to card, that can be lifted off so things can be stored inside.

 We were thrilled when Sarah Lee won both the Judges choice and Viewers choice for the crafts at the school resent Calf and Pet Day

AUTUMN EXCHANGES

Autumn was the theme for a bookmark exchange on EMS Forum. and I received this lovely one from Terri in USA. It is almosr too nice to use, meanwhile it sits by my computor so I can enjoy it.

I send my bookmark to England and had a lot of fun stitching a design that I adapted from http://www.leschroniquesdefrimousse.com/ I think her little elf designs are really cute and it was quite simple to change this one into a bookmark. The design is called  "L'automne arrive..." and can be found on the web site, on  the left side under the heading Les Lutins.

PINK VIOLETS

I should have added this picture on my previous posting-

ON VIOLETS

The eyes of violets are filled with dreams.......

I picked another another bunch of tiny violets this morning, this deep pink  one is flowering really well this year however  I don't know its name.......below is "Greyfriars Bobby" a wonderful gray- mauve shade and a special favourite and it is even more grey mauve in the real thing..

Others I have and know by name are Suffolk Lady a soft mauve and Lancashire Lad a true purple, these three are  from The Kerry Carman violet collection.  I enjoy having tiny posies of violets on my kitchen window sill, beside some special pieces of china. This tiny cup and saucer belonged to my sister's tea set that our mother played with as a child, only a few pieces are left and I treasure these piece Joan shared with me. It is tiny, the cup is only 3cm  high.

The  little jug that insists on being at the bottom of my posting and not where I want it  is  "Victorian Violets" from the Englands Countryside Collection by Hammersley China also sit on the window sill with its sugar bowl.      Do you know the violet "Freckles" ? white with what looks like ink spots on the petals? I noticed that after a long effort to get it to grow, it has this year seeded freely,  specially up against the stepping stones in one part of the path, and from the look of the buds there will be a good showing of blooms shortly.        Violets have a wonderfully long flowering season as long as they are picked frequently, and once the weather warms up the summer flowering ones will mke their appearance.    For my embroidery friends, here is a chart of pink violets for a card or book mark,

My recommended colours are DMC 3687 pink; 3688 light pink; 743 gold; 3346 green; 3364 light green.

If you wish to stitch this design as dark purple violets use 550 purple; and 552 light purple.

The stitch count is 80 h x 18w. 

Friends

Two dear friends have  been to visit, we share 5 days together here at the cottage, the weather was decidedly wintery but that did not matter as we sat by the fire and stitched and chatted,and shared what we had been working on. Ann and I bounced ideas off one another.. I am now quite inspired.

One of the things we did was stitch together some of my little pin cushions for the sales table at the coming Coromandel Guild Exhibition, these were a shared project with each of us doing different parts.We made six for the guild then one each for ourselves. mine is the unfinished one in the photo however all the parts are here ready so it will not take long to put together once the stitching finished.
 Since their visit I have managed to finish one of My Bride's Tree pieces. I have been slipping well behind. Must admit I have not done my July piece yet, meanwhile here is my piece for August , a rose to represent beauty in the home. I had a couple of false starts, the first rose I wanted to stitch was going to be far to big......I am mounting them all on the same size cardboard circles, next I tried this chart as a red rose and it looked like a blob!! Having changed it to pink I am reasonably happy with it. The chart is a very old danish one by Clara Weaver that I have had in my collection for many years. Stitched on 40 count Permin linen with one strand of DMC thread over 2 fabric threads.

Septembers piece is all but started...... hope it will not take too long and I can share it with you.