I realized, looking at these stitches that my issue is not so much “how do I learn this?” or  “what weird things can I do with these stitches in a straight line?” but rather, “How the heck could i use these in a finished piece of embroidery?” My samplers are full of variations. The transition to stitching in a finished piece is sorely lacking. Hence the bouquet in buttonhole stitch, and my use of these three stitches to finish my little complimentary Elmow of my parrot-squid-cthulu! I think he turned out cute.

And because I’ve become fascinated by the look of photos of embroidery from odd angles, here’s my beauty shot of this one! Click any of these to see them in more detail!

These are all stitched on fabric samples I received from an interior designer that was going out of business. They’re the perfect size for trying out designs and stitches, and have a built-in margin at the top to bind into a book when I’m done with the year.

This one is an intermediate-level freestyle embroidery design. It’s intermediate mostly because Peking knots in gold thread are a pain to do; not because of any real difficult stitches. But it’s almost tested, the fabric is ordered to stitch a model, and hopefully that means I can offer a kit to all of you sometime very very soon!

The knots around the bee have been removed, along with the gold running stitch (the latter by accident while removing  the knots) because they were just too big in the Kreinik braid. So now the dotted line is in the braid, and the knots are in one strand of DMC metallic – thought THAT is going to change, as I detest working with the stuff, and wouldn’t impose it on anyone if I can avoid it! But I don’t have any pictures of the new version.  Click on either of the photos to see more detail.

Today is also my TENTH wedding anniversary. Wow. Who’d have thunk it?!  The EO is a wonderful guy, my inspiration, and a good part of my strength. I’d probably do just fine without him, but he makes life so much better by being here. I hope I do half as much for him. We won’t be celebrating today. For 10 years, every time we’ve tried, something has interfered – often physically (like me breaking my elbow on the way to the sushi restaurant…). We no longer give it the opportunity-maybe in a couple weeks. Maybe. But we won’t tell the universe what we’re doing!

Going forward in March Elmows will be released as follows:

• 4 weekly patterns and individual designs as always at 99 cents each.

• The last Wednesday of the month I will post the entire monthly set, including one additional bonus design for $2.99.

They will be available for one month additional. So patterns posted in February will be available through March, and so on.

A month after they are pulled, the design packs (NOT the individual designs) will be available on Etsy and GoldenCircleDesigns.com for $5.99. The format will probably be PDF, although I may make these designs available to shops in printed format as well.

Dora still loves to sit in boxes. Her mother sculpts them into shreds.

My Monday Treasure for this week isn’t actually embroidery. It’s a kitty. This is Dora. She’s our kitten. She came with Pookah, a stray we adopted with the house. (Little, sad, starving black face poking her head over the windowsill and wanting to come in, but scared of the people… now she’s a happy love… she came pregnant with 4 kittens, and gave birth 5 days after we had her checked out by the vet.) Dora is Dora the Explorer. Last out of Mom, first out of the box… (and now back IN a box).

Dora’s had a hard life, you know. She has to be tormented by those birds outside, and NEVER gets fed enough! The things she puts up with living with us!  She has to fight back by stealing thread, and making sure that her fur gets included in all stitched items I produce.  She’s also the only striped kitty in the world, you know. That makes her special. When she was born, we had 3 cats living with us in addition to Pookah. ALL of them were black, including Pookah! Dora, her sister and brother were striped, and her other sister was solid grey. But otherwise all kitties she knows are black! So, she’s special.

The year I was laid off from my day job, in fact the day AFTER, Dora got really sick. It turned out that she, at 5 years old, had kidney failure. It happens, though rarely in a cat that young. She took all our emergency pet fund that year, but she recovered, and now has to have subcutaneous fluids pumped into her every other day. (How fun!) But she’s doing great, and her numbers come up normal at all her checkups now, so I have hope that we’ll have her around for quite a while yet.

She’s my treasure. Mondays or otherwise.

One of my defining characteristics as a stitch dilettante is that whenever things get stressful I have a tendency to start a new project with string – often in a technique I’ve never tried before.

Things I’ve learned this way include: needle tatting, needlelace, reticella, pulled work, drawn work, lace knitting, and thread crochet. Add to this the fact that I’ll also start a new project just to try out something new, or because I like the “pretty picture,” and you can see how I might end up with unfinished rugs, ornaments, pillows, cafe curtains, and more tucked into nooks and crannies all over the house.

Last year was especially stressful, with my Dad passing, and my husband fially recovering from a fight with lyme disease or Starry, or whatever they’ve decide to call tick-borne diseases in Carolina, because we all know deer ticks won’t cross the Mason-Dixon line. (Sorry. That’s another rant.)

Rather than starting new techniques last year, though, I became a designing fiend. And I drew a lot – filled many sketchbooks with small doodles that really only belong in the trash can. I played in mixed media – how do you feel about mixed  media cross stitch designs?

And I actually started finishing my UFOs from those nooks and crannies – especially the knitting. And I started slipping out into the world more – in January I found that two of my designs had made it onto the pages of the Nordic Needle catalog – the printed one!

This year I feel in a much better position to keep moving on into the world.  It will be an adventure.

The flowers and leaves are all buttonhole stitch. Stem stitch flows easily from buttonhole, and can be seen as a very shallow buttonhole stitch, if you really stretch it!

Stems are stem and chain stitch. I especially like the little yellow-green leaves with the open buttonhole, and the buttonhole flower tips are a traditional crewel technique. Stitched in silk and cotton.

Remember that Elmow #16 was complimentary, if you’re looking for something to stitch right now, and the last 12 Elmows are still available for purchase.

Last week’s TAST was Fly stitch. I did a small sample, but I’m afraid this is a stitch that I’m just not very creative with. It’s not one of my favorites, and it really felt like an extension just to get this little bit done. I’m happy with the results, though, and have ideas for dandelions done in fly stitch now… so I did get quite a bit out of it!

And yes, all the lettering was done in fly stitch. THAT I may work out a whole alphabet in! With more care than I gave it, it could be really cool.

I think what I really liked here was the opportunity to work with Vikki Clayton’s silk threads again. The red is her 6 strand floss. The purple is from a skein I picked up at the needlepoint shop – it’s called “High Cotton,” and is a six strand matte floss that is thicker than normal strands. It doesn’t shine, but it didn’t knot up either. I can see quite a few things this thread would be really good for, and I look forward to trying it out on them. It’s a bit spendy, though.

This coming week is buttonhole stitch. Yay! options. LOTS of options for creativity with that one!

But Watch this Space! I am determined to take this opportunity to experiment and expand my design abilities…

Join us! (This week is Fly stitch).

Sharon has also updated her Squidoo pages on Hand Embroidery and on Needlework Samplers. Some very interesting links there!

There will be no Elmow this week as I’m celebrating the holidays with my family, and trying to get ready for the new year.

I’m still thinking through the Elmows — there hasn’t been much call for them. I’ve been told that the micro-payment makes it hard for people to actually “get out the card.” So I’ve got a question for you…

Would you prefer me to gather several together every month and offer them as a compilation, rather than one at a time in dribs and drabs? Would you prefer different types of designs? Would you rather I just go away and leave you alone? (and yes, that last one is a valid thought – you might want me to just offer my designs on the main website and Etsy and leave this blog to discussions of actual stitching. If that’s the case, I want to know!) 

Discuss, please. I want my designs and the blog to be useful to you.

ETA – OK, so I rearranged the posts, and this ended up being later than Solstice! HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!