It really is! This is a new Raymond Crawford canvas, well it was new at the January Market. I sort of fell in love with it…you know it is so sleek and elegant. Raymond pulled it off the wall at breakdown time and handed it to me to stitch it for him.

Sure! I was thrilled…but that was easier said than done. Sometime my eyes are way bigger than what my fingers can complete and I take on waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more stitching than I should. What was I thinking? I loved this design and it’s not very big…piece of cake!

I wanted to try the new Sundance Sparkles as I envisioned it in my mind as the just the right thread to use for the gold. I had my order placed with Sundance and waited patiently for the threads to arrive, which did just before I went to the Dallas market. It would have to wait till later, can’t work on it now. Where does the time go to? I decided I better get stitching on this before Raymond fires me!

I tried to empower my inner Barbara Elmore and manipulate the thread for the best effect, but it was too heavy and overpowered this delicate star. The star was shelved while I came up with something else. Robin King lays out her stitches in Photoshop to help her envision what it will look like…I actually stitch it, look at it from a distance and then photograph it. Sometimes I see something in the picture that I like or don’t like.

I auditioned beading the gold and after a few hours I am thinking “am I out of my mind or what?” so the beads came out. Staying with the beads, I then thought brick beading, where the beads nestle into a canvas hole and that didn’t look right either. Still staying with the beads, I stitched a skip tent with gold Kreinik and then filled in with beads. That wasn’t right as the swirl effect was lost and again that came out.

Now my burning question is…why do I always do reverse stitching right after I have vacummed the rug? Never seems to fail! Okay well enough with the gold beads. I then stitched a 4 way Continental over 1 and that came out…well how about a T stitch? that wasn’t it either.

Have you counted all the ways that I have started stitching this gold? After a few choice words, I decided that I am stitching this the way that I would stitch it for myself. The next stitch that I went to was skip tent, stitching in diagonal rows as I wanted to keep the open canvas holes clean. That was it! The beautiful gold shows up through the stitching and the movement of the swirls was not lost.

Raymond wanted French Knots for the holly berries, so that’s what I did there, using different sizes and shades of red Kreinik to give illusion of 3 different berries. Last but not least were the leaves and what was I missing on this piece? Beads! I used one of my favorite green beads in one of my go to stitches.

How was your Memorial Day weekend? was it a stitchy weekend? I stitched, I watched baseball, I paid my respects to the fallen brothers and sisters who payed the ultimate price for our freedom. In between all the stitching, my Navy niece and her daughters were visiting here from Northern California and we went to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park Sunday afternoon. What a nice time we had…well I did anyway and it was great spending time with them. The favorite moment was when Bella who will be 7 years old on Thursday saw an okapi and gave it a new sort of a name which I like better…it is a zorse! Well she explained, it had the stripes of a zebra on its legs, but the rest of the animal was brown like a horse. What else could it be?

Sylvester was lending a helping paw as I was trying to finish up the stitch guide for Raymond. Why does he need to park himself right there, right now? and until next time… keep on stitching