Cottage Garden Needlebook

Here, at long last, is my Cottage Garden needlebook, made up and ready for service. It is the cover project from Inspirations #53, designed by Kris Richards. I bought the kit in 2007, started the embroidery shortly thereafter, and finished the stitching early last year. 18 months ago!!

It's been languishing because I wanted to change the inside design to add pockets for needle packets, but there wasn't really enough fabric in the kit. And I really liked the pink and cream yarn dye that came in the kit:

But finally I realized that with a basement full of fabric, I could surely find something else that would also be nice. I came up with this romantic print from the Mary Rose collection by Quilt Gate:

The needlebook measures about 6" x 6" closed. I'm using it to keep all my milliner's needles in one place. So I added three 2" x 3" pockets to the inside front...

...and the inside back:

A nice thick wool felt came with the kit for the pages, which I cut to 5" x 10". It stays well inside the cover, which was my intention!

There is a three loop closure made from ribbon and beads, which was only partially successful. My first plan was to use elastic. That would have been better, but I couldn't find it in the right colour. Next time!

With this design, the back cover is just as nice as the front:

So, there it is, only my second finish for 2014, and it's already August! Time to pull up my socks and finish off a couple more that are close to the end. Now the challenge is to avoid pulling out another Inspirations kit from my stash until I get at least a few more things done!

Back to Spring?

Yes, it is autumn here in Toronto, where we have been having some really spectacular weather recently, with mild, sunny days and cool nights. So it is not appropriate at all for me to have revived this project, Breath of Spring, but, that's what I've done.

Mary Corbet posted a photo of her grasshopper from this project a few weeks ago, which made me guiltily aware that I hadn't touched mine since March! I was hung up on this bee:

I stitched the left wing at least three times in long and short stitch with varying degrees of success. This time I stitched them both with closely worked rows of stem stitch in one strand of DMC floss. You may recall that I am doing something similar for the Viceroy butterfly on the Meadow quilt too. Anyway, I'm finally happy with the bee!

I went on to lay in a lot of the green stems and background leaves in more stem stitch, with one or two strands of floss:

There are a lot of inconsistencies in the instructions. I'm sure that Inspirations has published corrections, but I am just taking the opportunity to do my own thing instead. These large flat leaves below are one example:

They were supposed to be worked in a very bright Kelly green solid coloured floss, but instead I borrowed some of the hand dyed floss from the grasshopper. I covered the outline with split stitch in a co-ordinating DMC floss (which you can see on the left), and then worked a slightly open fly stitch with two strands of the hand dye (on the right).

When it's finished I want the flowers to be the first thing you see, not the leaves, so I'm hoping that these more muted colours and open stitches for the leaves will blend into the background a little better.

It would be nice to have this done by spring, because I am thinking of putting it on the front of a new spring/summer bag. However, that is probably a long shot, based on past experience!

What's Next?

Obviously, with two projects recently finished, I am now allowed to start two new ones! My next embroidery project will be Breath of Spring, the linen tote bag with an embroidered pocket from Inspirations 56:

This kit has been ready to go with the threads all sorted as long as Cottage Garden was. I was a little put off when I found that the kit came with a pre-printed panel:

I hate it when the lines show around the stitching. But, now that I am starting it, I am also glad that I don't have to transfer that complex pattern! There are 17 different elements to stitch in this pattern, so, many blog posts to come!

My next Bonheur des Dames counted thread project will be the monthly sampler for August, Aout:

If anyone knows how to insert the special character for the "u", please send me an email or let me know in the comments. I can never figure it out!

I have already started both projects. As I was putting the first stitches into the Aout sampler, I realized why I love counted thread work so much. It's because you start with a completely blank canvas, with no prior markings on it. So it's like creating something out of nothing, and it actually feels more creative to me than an embroidery pattern, even though with counted thread projects you are usually more of a slave to the design. There's something magical about watching your first stitches grow.

So, lots to do! Plus, I need a break from Celtic Spring, which is at the stage now where it is nothing but the gold braid for the forseeable future. I can only do so much of that at a time!