Blossoms

Look at me, stitching things I didn't design/create the pattern for... Crazay. This is from the book Classic Orientals for Needlepoint and Cross-Stitch by Mary Duckworth. It makes you wonder if she had to pay for each word in the title and thus couldn't at least stretch to Classic Oriental Designs. Oh the 80s.

I actually made myself do French knots this time, instead of my usual Chinese knots cheat. The pattern called for the black to be done in the darkest pink of the pattern, but it didn't look great in the picture. I'm thinking about outlining the outer circle in black as well.

I've also got this Creative Needle Imari collection, which has some gorgeous designs. I'm still kind of "Oh what to do next..." in terms of stitching. I have some non-craft projects I really need to work on though, including scanning a few thousand family photos.

My mom is finally all moved, so at least I'm not thinking about/attempting to help with that anymore. I had my nephew over here the other morning, which started out rather traumatically (a bathroom accident and then bread in my toaster oven catching on fire), but ended with Shirley Temple. Apparently Benjamin was tap dancing about for the rest of the day.

Four Animals - WIP 01

Here's a peak at my new project.

It will eventually be a set of four animals, the bear plus a deer, mouse, and rabbit. I'm stitching them on monaco cloth, but only going over one thread. The deer will be the bear's right and it (and the mouse) will be stitched in a slightly lighter brown.

The designs all come from art deco and traditional Japanese motifs.

I'm happy the weight of the election of over with. My anxiety level was really skyrocketing. Yesterday was my nephew's birthday though, and that was a wonderful distraction. I can't believe he's four!