A Little Stitching

I've not felt like stitching the picture on the big slate frame, so have been working on a series of small things either in a small frame or held un-stretched in my hand. At the moment I am working on Wildflower Hearts, a freebie from Caron Threads. The original was worked in Caron Wildflower, an overdyed thread that comes in a series of beautiful colour combinations; I can't stretch the budget that far, but have adapted what I have in stash. A dark terracotta and a dark forest green matte stranded cotton, both overdyed with a red and a yellow fabric marker to give a subtle variation in tone, rather than the pronounced variation of the original.


The Rhodes stitch hearts are worked with two threads, as is the reverse faggot stitch of the surrounding square. I have used a single strand for the back stitch, and to save fastening off and fastening on for the rice stitch squares, I have made each stitch twice with a single strand. When I have finished the square, I think I shall surround it with the remains of the fabric I used as backing for these postcards. The colours are quite a good match, despite what the camera says, and I think it would make a cushion for somebody.

What else have I done lately? Not a lot, as we seem to have been on a merry-go-round of nurse-doctor-hospital-nurse-doctor-hospital, but hopefully now we are out of the loop again until halfway through January, and I can get back into my usual routine of total idleness interspersed with gentle bouts of finger twiddling.

A Little Bit Over the Top...

...but what the commissioner wanted... fancy Christmas cards to make up for the fact that they are getting M&S hampers rather than individual presents....She told me exactly what she wanted to say, and where, so the labels have computer generated messages in a dark colour picked from the backing papers. It doesn't show so well in the photo, but the ribbons are brown, coffee and cream on this one, and there is a discrete amount of glitter dabbed onto the backgrounds.



The second card has the same papers in a different colour-way, and a different type of ribbon. The papers are from Artylicious. These are both Easel cards, in case you are thinking that they look a little strange; the camera angle doesn't make it obvious. As usual, I can't do a job without making a mistake; I got the gold labels mixed up and the yellowy gold ended up on the red card instead of the gold card. As you can see, it doesn't match the peel-off colour like the other one would have done...