Really! A rose garden…canvas by Needle Deeva and the last of the 6 Valentine Hearts stitched and ready for debut at Sample It Night at TNNA. Sample it Night happens every market on the Friday night before the show opens and right before the Galleria. It is a selection of designers, thread companies, accessories and book authors that assemble for an hour of wild and crazy shopping! It is sort of tease, so that the buyers will come and visit you in their show booth over the weekend.

Needle Deeva designed a selection of new hearts, which I had the pick of the ones that I wanted to stitch. Yes I selected this one and saved it for last to stitch as I looked for ideas. A beautiful rose, wonderfully simple, yet it could be very elegant.

I poured through every embroidery book that I have in my stitching library. I had even bought a few new ones and studied every type of rose to be made with silk ribbons or even bullion’s. I looked and looked and studied and then I had an idea. I would try this wonderful flower that I learned from Wendy and Laura of Aristea. I had this River Silk in my stash from another Needle Deeva Heart that I stitched earlier this year and it just worked! The needlepoint gods were looking favorably upon me and I didn’t struggle or even need to use any bad words while speaking to myself. Trust me the bad words would come later!

The rose was finished and I was thrilled with the way it came out. I added a few loopy French Knots in the middle with Gloriana ribbon and then it was time to figure out a background. Originally I was going to do a pattern stitch, but then I thought it needed something bolder. I would do something with beads or did I want to use Swarovski crystals instead?

The crystals won! and why there bad words spoken? well…I am normally very careful when using the crsytals not to pour allot out on my beading tray at once. If they happen to spill or the cats would knock them over that I wouldn’t lose allot of them. Yes they happened to spill and yes I spent way too much time pulling the couch apart and searching with a flashlight to find every single one so that I would have enough crystals to finish the canvas! I figured that the stitches at the very edge of the canvas didn’t need a crystal as the finishers would be the ones speaking those bad words! By the way it was not the cats that spilled the crystals, but rather my own carelessness.

AlleyCat is looking and wondering what she can take out of here that would make a wonderful toy! I would like to report that she soon settled down after this and just watched me stitch. Of course the cellphone and tv remote are never far from my reach when I settle in. and until next time…keep on stitching