July's Trunk Show is at Emily's Stitchery!!

Emily's Stitchery in Northbrook, IL is hosting my trunk show in July!  Here is a look at their awesome set of my Hoot Owls, notice those cute little feet and the fun fabric used for the welting!!

A Quartet of Owls and More!

I have been waiting a long time to see these owls from my Hoot Hoot! club come back from West Coast Finishing and they were so worth the wait!  Judy G. used mostly stash threads, so I love to see the variations between these and the original series models. And as always, I just love Sue Parson's finishing! Great work, ladies!

And here is a trio of my designs made up into pillows for your perusal, each has some interesting variations as well. 

This is my Alpine Puzzle, courtesy of Fancy Stitches.  I love that this small 6x6 design has been inset into a much larger pillow, and the color, wow!  The bright had green is a very tiny part of the stitched piece, so I love that that color was chosen for the fabric, really makes it pop!

This is my Floating Hearts design, an 8 x 8 design that has been made into an only slightly larger pillow, and the extremely bright original colors have been greatly toned down, but I really like it!  Good work to the ladies at Gone Stitching!

This amazing transformation of my Lilly Damask design is courtesy of Rita S.  Originally in hot pink and lime green, Rita transformed into a very formal and elegant royal purple and green to better match her home decor.  Love it!

Keep those great finishing photos coming folks, I love to see your creativity!

Judy's Owls

Judy G. has recently finished stitching all six of my Hoot Hoot! owls, using my stitch guides but her own stash threads, and they came out great, like all of Judy's stitching.  I'm so happy to show the whole set off to you here today.  Hopefully sometime soon I'll have more photos, when they come back from the finishers!

Holiday Owl

 Spring Fever Owl

Patriot Owl

Harvest Owl

Winter Snowy Owl

Spooky Owl

Happy July 4th!!

A gallery of some of my favorite Americana designs for you this long weekend-- hope it's a great one!!

Patriot Owl

"Sammy" the 4th of July kitty

Stars & Stripes framed

Stars & Stripes pillow

Summer Stitching

Hi all!  Hope everyone had a fantastic July 4th weekend!  In keeping with the season and summer stitching, I'd like to share some of my summer holiday canvases and some fantastic stitching and finishing.

This is my "Uncle Sam's Happy Fourth" canvas.  It's part of a set of four designs all built around the major holidays.

The cutie pie below is "Sammy", who was last year's Summer Challenge canvas over on Stitcherie.  The group had so much fun stitching him, and everyone really made their canvas their own with lots of great personal touches.  This is Judy Gartman's Sammy-- she used such great stitches and her finished banner is so summery!

Palma Seljan's Sammy is also very fabulous, I love the buttons and the multi-color beach blanket!  Note each canvas has touches of "Ada's Rainbow" from Gloriana silks, my signature color.  Part of the challenge criteria was to use that color somewhere on the canvas.  Both ladies met that challenge very well!

This is "Stars N'Stripes", stitched by Judy Furie.  She and I both love glitz, I love all the beads, sequins and metallics she used here!

Last but not least is my Patriot Owl, part of the Hoot! Hoot! series.  This one is beautifully stitched and photographed by Angie Laube.  Note her matching magnet too!  Nice work Angie!

Hope this gets you in the mood for some summertime stitchin'!  Until next time, stay cool and stitch on! 

Happy July 4th Weekend!!

My Stitcherie friend Judy G. put it best-- Have a Hoot on the Fourth!  I hope that it will indeed be a hoot for all of you, with plenty of stitching time and a great big sparkly fireworks display!  Judy finished her Patriot Owl from my Hoot Hoot club just in time for the celebration.  I'm happy to note she used sequins for the eyes on this one also-- I used a different technique for the pupils on each of the six owls for variety but also, if one way turns out to be your favorite, by all means do them all that way!   (That's what Judy says she plans to do!)

Ruth Schmuff has also been busy working on one of my Patriotic designs-- she has cooked up a stitch guide for it over at Bedecked & Bedazzled, read more about it over on her blog:

This is my Uncle Sam's Happy Fourth canvas and it was inspired by the fireworks display I am lucky enough to watch each year-- within walking distance from my house, a big red barn in the background and bunting decor everywhere, just wonderful and so Americana! (And I do bring a picnic basket too!) 

Wishing you all a very happy, safe, sparkly and stitchy Fourth!

Threads on Parade!

The first owl in my Hoot Hoot series, the Spring Fever Owl, shipped out to participating retailers this month, and my distributor, Ruth Schmuff, was pulling the thread kits for the series.  She remarked on the variety of colors and thread types used throughout the series and I kind of wished that I was there to see all of the threads together in one big kit.  I stitched them owl by owl so I never had all the threads out at once. As I referred back to my photocopies I made of the threads I used to refresh my memory (when I am done stitching, I take all the thread and materials I used and put them on my photocopier to make a reference picture for the future, just in case there are ever any questions regarding the stitch guide) and I thought that I should have taken a regular photograph of each thread kit as well.  So I went to the thread stash and pulled the threads again and took these photos.  I think I will do this in the future for other things I stitch.  It will be a nice way to show what you will look forward to working with for each owl and it's a nice little scrapbook project for me! 

Here is the kit for the Spring Fever Owl, those shiny black dots are the big Holographic sequins for her eyes:

                           

Here is the Summer Patriot Owl kit, complete with the sequins for his star-spangled wings:

The Fall Harvest Owl features Swarovski crystal sequins and some wonderful silks and velvets:

The Winter Snowy Owl kit is very pastel so I photographed it against a darker background.  The beads in the tray are the black Delica beads I used for his eyes:

The Spooky Owl Kit has all your traditional Halloween colors, plus some rick rack for fun embellishing:

The Happy Holidays Owl is all vivid greens and pinks plus more Holographic sequins:

                         




If you are a thread-a-holic like I am, I know you enjoyed looking through all these gorgeous threads too.  Just walking into a needlework store that is well stocked with threads makes my mouth start to water and then my pocketbook start to hurt!  But I have never regretted any purchase, even when I have ended up buying duplicates of threads I already have as there is nothing like having plenty of stash at home and finding just the thread you happen to "need" for your project in the convenience of your own house!  Hopefully, those of you in the Owl Club will enjoy these new additions to your thread collection.  Until next time, Happy Stitching!

Introducing Summer's Patriot Owl from the Hoot Owl Series

I'd like to start introducing you to the owls in my new retailer club series that is starting next month. Hoot Hoot! is the series name and it is a set of 6 retro inspired owls that combine seasonal and holiday themes. The owl for summer is Patriot Owl and his red white and blue color scheme reflects not only summer but all the holidays that set the season, Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day. Here at home I set out my patriotic decor in mid-May and leave it up all summer long until mid-September. I hope Patriot Owl will inspire you to celebrate all summer long too!

Here he is all finished as a cute stand up, with cording, silk wings and a coordinating wooden base. This is him before finishing, but completely stitched. Threads include Au Ver A Soie, Silk Lame' Braid, Fyre Werks Soft Sheen, ThreadWorx Floss, Silk N' Colors and more!
I made an effort in this series to make each owl unique in threads and techniques, so there are very few stitches or threads that are used twice anywhere in the 6 designs. I also wanted to try something new and/or unconventional on each owl, either in threads or stitches and sometimes both. On the Patriot Owl, I used the new Kreinik Hot Wire thread on his chest to make the zig zags. With the fine wire running through the core of the metallic, this thread is a dream to couch with as the wire holds its shape beautifully, but is also very flexible.
Again, in an effort to give the stitcher maximum variety, I made a point to stitch each owl's beak differently. This one is done in a variation of fern stitch using Trebizond silk.
I hope you have enjoyed this sneak peek of Patriot Owl. If you would like to see even more detail photos of this and the other owls in the series, please visit the photo albums on my Facebook page. The Hoot Owl club starts shipping next month and will be available at shops nationwide. If you don't have a local needlepoint shop (I myself am of one of the many who don't) check my EyeCandy website for a list of retailers that will do the club via mail order.