New Stuff, Earlier Stuff, Stitching Stuff!

My Newest Santa Experiment

Happy Monday to all of you! It's a sunny November day and the temps are expected to be in the mid 50's. That's quite warm for this time of year in the northern part of the U.S.  The weather makes this post seem out of season but Christmas is just 6 weeks away so it's time, or maybe even a little past time, to start thinking about holiday stitching.

First up is a brand new experiment for me. I tried my hand at wool applique and embroidery. I drew this Santa maybe ten years ago and he just sat waiting patiently in my sketchbook. My friend and neighbor, CB does this type of work and I relied on her for guidance and even some fabric. I blew the design up and stitched away. It was fun to work on this thick wool because there is little drag on the thread. It stitched like butter. I intend to turn it into a pattern but if you look closely (not even very closely) you can see I have some things to work out. While I'm puttering away with this, here are some holiday PDF patterns that you can get started on now! Click on each photo to take you to the pattern page in my Threads of Inspiration shop.

Christmas Sweater Ornaments

Scandinavian Inspired Star

Redwork Santa

Dickens Christmas Spiral

Happy Stitching!

More Color Inspiration

 

Maple Leaves

As promised, I have a few more color inspirations from my wander the other day. We are having another glorious sunny fall day and I have the most gorgeous maple tree in my backyard where these leaves are from. When looking at objects for color inspiration it is always so interesting to note, especially in natural objects like leaves, rocks and sticks, just how many hues and values can be found. These leaves range from a deep yellow all the way to a dark brown, with many colors in between. Of course, sticking with a few keeps stitching a bit easier.

DMC 720, 728, 801, 920, 922

Thistles

There are a few plants in our garden that have great seed heads and we leave them all winter for the birds. Since we get so much snow, they also are an interesting contrast in color and texture against all of that white.

DMC 869, 898,938, 3032

Autumn Color Palette

When seen as a whole, all of the colors from the this post and the last create quite a lovely autumn color palette. 

Row 1:  351, 922, 921, 920, 945, 720

Row 2:  3822, 728, 726

Row 3:  472, 471, 320, 3052

Row 4: 316, 917

Row 5: 3781, 869, 801, 938, 898, 3032

What are the ways you come up with color palettes?

Backyard Autumn Palettes

Backyard Color Inspiration

 

Autumn Greetings!

This time of year is so beautiful as the trees change their wardrobe and show off their brilliant colors. The changes inspired me to think about fall embroidery. I am frequently asked how I choose colors for my stitching. Often it’s intuition, but I think finding new ways to experiment with color choice is helpful, so I took a walk in my yard to see what inspiration I could find. The trees have only just begun to turn here so I wasn't expecting a lot but I was surprised to find pink in the Autumn Joy Sedum and drying hydrangeas along with reds, oranges, yellows and browns of leaves, berries and seeds.

You can never go wrong with color choices when you let nature take the lead. I looked closely at what I had gathered and used my trusty DMC color card to pull out colors that matched. A note, my color card has actual thread in it, as opposed to printed color patches, so you can see the true color. If you design your own embroidery it is a tool I highly recommend! Even if you don’t, it would still be useful. You can find it here.

Here are a few of my color palettes and their inspirations.

From a distance the fruit on this crabapple branch looks bright red but on examination, it is various shades of orange.

DMC 351, 921, 3052, 3781

Again, from a distance, Yarrow looks so grayed out and dusty, but looking at it closely shows sparkles of vivid yellow.

DMC 320, 472, 726, 3822

Autumn Joy Sedum is the last inspiration. I was surprised that this fuchsia could still be found in the garden. 

DMC 316, 471, 917, 945

I am saving a couple more for the next post, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you are looking for some fall inspired embroidery projects I have two in my shop you might have fun making.

Autumn Trees Pattern

Tis Near Halloween Pattern