Brazilian Embroidery French Hydrangea

Finished all the Stems and Leaves on the Brazilian Embroidered Heart. I am now working on the French Hydrangea. Finished a knitted dishcloth and tatted several more small hearts.

Green House

Spinach, lettuce and radishes taste so good this time of year. Here in New Mexico we grow the Giant German Radishes. When the temperature is cool the radishes are very mild no matter how big they get. However, in the heat of the summer they become hot and pithy. Spinach does not grow in hot weather but thrives in the green house during the winter. We keep heat in the green house so it doesn't freeze. The geraniums are in full bloom, they tend to sleep during the hot, summer months.

Brazilian Embroidery

The second flower is the Cast On. It is an easy stitch but like patting your tummy and tapping your head!! It took me 3 hours just to do the center of the daisy. I am working on a lap frame so my hands are free. In the picture I notice the french knots in the center of the daisy has a line. I believe I did the french knots in a row and should be started in the center and work out. I will probably take it out as it is very noticeable especially in the picture. The leaves are satin stitched and the field flowers are french knots.

Row of Crowns Lace

Just finished 43 Motifs of the pattern Row of Crowns for my red hat. The pattern is from Jon Yusoff at http://tatsaway-patterns.blogspot.com/. Thank you Jon for all the beautiful patterns you have shared with us. Jon has a new pattern called Hearts-Entwines and has very good visual and clearly written out. It is on my "do to" list after I have finished all these hearts for my Secret Valentine!

Tazzie

Tazzie got a hair cut and she is 2 pounds lighter. Pomeranians have wool they do not have hair like our Junk Yard Dog Cinder. Cinder is a border collie mix and lived in a tunnel the first 8 months of her life. My husband rescued her and she has turned out to be a good house dog! The two are the same age and play well together.

Brazilian Embroidery

Finished the first motif in the Brazilian Embroidery Heart kit. The stitches are bullions, knotted lazy dazy, steam stitch, french knots and pistol stitches. The pattern stamped onto the cloth is hard to understand what stitch to use. So one needs to look at the printed, color pattern as well as the instruction page.

Silk Ribbon Dying

What fun we had dying all this silk ribbon for our projects. The dyes are highly concentrated steam-fix silk dyes from http://www.ribbonsmyth.com/. Very easy to work with. Our project we are working with is "Lady in the Garden". It is done on Trigger Poplin cloth from JoAnne's and the background is sponged painted with watercolors. I used DMC for the stem stitch around the lady, arbor and pathway. I will add some tatted butterflies and maybe a few tatted flowers.

Brazilian Embroidery

Tuesday, Two ladies and I traveled to Amarillo, TX for classes in the art of Brazilian Embroidery. It is 110 miles with an hour a head of us so we had to leave at 7am for a 10am class. We met some nice ladies and Susan traveled from OK further than us. We were given our kits by Edmar "Carol's Heart" and a doodled cloth to practice stitches. We learned the basic first 5 stitches and now we have 2 weeks to start the embroidery of our heart.

Butterflies

Butterflies are one of Gods beautiful creatures. Perhaps that is why we all love to make them. Jane Eborall has a wonderful pattern for beginners learning the SCMR and Split Ring. Linda Davis has an excellent video on split ring http://www.howiedee.plus.com/ . With Linda and Jane by my side I have mastered the split ring. These butterfies are so easy you can work them up in no time anywhere you are. They can be used in many projects. The Shuttle Birds Tatting Guild of Spokane, WA will be having a Butterfly Challenge Workshop, April 17 & 18. Their challenge is a 4 ring butterfly; How many variations can you create?!! Hummm sounds interesting!

Dimpled Rings are made by joining into a previous joining picot distorting the shape of the ring to form a heart instead of a circle. This is the correction to the directions below and should read:
R 5 ds 5 ds p (very small) 5 ds + (join to very small p on the same ring) pull through gently then make sure your ds slides 5ds p 5 ds and cl r. RW Chain 5 ds P 5 ds slide ds up to make a slight curve.

Dimpled Hearts Edging

Dimpled Hearts
I finished 31 dimpled hearts for an upcoming project. Dimpled hearts are very easy and there are two ways of making them. Make a ring of 8 ds; NOW do only 4 of the first 1/2 ds then work the last 4 of the 1/2 of the ds (this will make your heart indent) tat the last 8 full ds and close. You need to form the ring into a heart.
Second method of dimpled hearts. Make a ring of 5 p 5p 5p Join to the p you made before and pull up tight, (make sure your ring still slides) continue 5 p 5 and close the ring. To continue make a chain of 5p5 and another ring.

Silk Ribbon Heart

The Vintage Quilting Society meets at the Senior Center every Wed. We are learning Silk Ribbon Embroidery and have finished our Heart Wreath. The Heart Wreath is from the book, "An Encyclopedia of Crazy Quilt Stitches and Motifs" by Linda Causee. I highly recommend this book for a reference. Next week we will begin dying the Silk Ribbon in the Microwave. I have 3 tatted hearts and an edging started for my Secret Valentine Exchange on a Yahoo Group. I am waiting to see if we can show our work.