grit embroidery sampler

Grit embroidery pattern can be found here.

This past week has been a whirlwind, I'm still recovering from Shepherd's Harvest, but each night when I get home from work I try to do something in the garden. Yesterday I planted some hollyhock seeds and some canna lily bulbs along the western fence. Tonight I pulled some weeds and praised the seedlings in the lettuce bed.

I'm finally posting my grit embroidery sampler to our shop. It was a thrill to create. It just sort of popped out of me and then I had to tackle a bunch of obstacles trying to figure out how I could make it work and make it into something I would hang on my wall. I got there, but not without pulling out a lot of stitches and a lot of edits to my pattern file in photoshop. Right now I'm printing the patterns using my ink jet printer, but I'd love to know how the pros do their work.

C'est la vie - such is life. Trial and error and a lot of pretty bits along the way.

I'm planting flowering kale in the garden this year. I love the way these guys "flower" without really being flowers. They look like those tissue paper flowers we all made in grade school to celebrate spring strewn along my garden walk. Fun and silly. I need that right now.

For those of you interested in how I framed my project. I got a frame on sale at one of those craft stores whose frames seem to go on sale to 50% off every month and then wrapped the fabric and taped it around the glass that would usually be used to protect the photo behind it. This might not work for a piece that's going to be hung in a kitchen or bathroom . . . but I placed mine in our living room. I also sewed a fabric edge around my piece and accented it with a feather stitch border.

I worked so hard on those stitches, I didn't want to smash them behind glass.

Happy evening, everyone.