Beads & Old Lace

We had a lovely time up in Galena yesterday. I never want to leave when we're there!

One of my favorite shops is a bead store called, The Bead Bar. This has to be the best bead shop I've ever been in! You will never see so many beads in one place as you will here! I of course made quite a dent in my spending $ in that store:



I tried to make good choices and picked things that I don't usually see here where I live. It's difficult as I always want one of each!

I don't have any stitching to share today, but I did get a huge mound of vintage lace all painted up Saturday afternoon. This is a wonderful batch, mostly crocheted, some knitted, some tatted and a bit of old manufactured lace:



I hope to get this and some other things packaged up and listed in my Etsy shop later this week.

I do plan to have stitching time later today so check back for an update tomorrow on my green & yellow purse!

More On Purses

We had some errands to run this morning and while out & about, we stopped at Borders bookstore and look what I found:



This is the most delightful little book on the history of handbags and purses! It's about 450 pages and is loaded with gorgeous color photos of handbags from pre-1890's through now. Of course I'm most attracted to the embroidered and beaded bags but even the Lucite and Bakelite handbags are interesting to look at.

It's a wonderful reference book for the collecter and a great source of inspiration for the needleworker and purse designer! Also, if you just like to look at photos of pretty purses, this book is loaded with eye-candy!

I found this book over in the Antique & Collectible section if anyone is interested in checking it out.

And speaking of purses, here's an update photo of my green & yellow purse:



I did more beading on the ribbon. I used yellow silver-lined seed beads on the points of the Fan Stitches. That adds alot of sparkle without being distracting.

I then added a SRE spray which still needs to be beaded. Yes, this another rare piece for me as I don't do alot of SRE! I had wanted to do the leaves with ribbon too but I didn't have any ribbons in green. I think I'll contact Pat Winter and see if she'll put together a small custom package of green ribbons for me.

I don't think I'll have time for a blog post tomorrow. Scott & I are going to drive up to Galena, Illinois for the day. It's a 2 hour drive so we'll have to leave at 7 am to make it worth the drive time and we probably won't get back until about 5 or 6 tomorrow evening. We really love it up there so we decided to do a nice day trip and spend some time looking in the shops.

For now, I'm off to start painting a huge mound of vintage crocheted lace for my Etsy shop. I have all sorts of neat new things to list and hope to have everything ready for listing later this week.

See you on Monday!

TAST - More On The Herringbone Stitch

Thank you to everyone who commented on their color likes and dislikes! While stitching yesterday I thought about why I never cared for the color yellow. To me, it's one of those "in your face" colors! It occured to me that orange and red are "in your face" colors too.

I looked around my house and realized that I usually go for the cool colors. I thought about the clothes in my closet and again, mostly soft pastel colors like pink, blue and green.

I guess the cool colors are soothing on my nerves. I only use warm colors as accents.

I'm not one to make New Year's Resolutions but I'm thinking this might be a good year to work more with the colors that I don't like and see where that road takes me. Orange would be a good challenge wouldn't it?

Ok, so on to my stitching:



It doesn't look like I accomplished much on this yesterday but really, I did! If you look at the vine to the left, I added some flowers to that.

The real treat is at the top! If you look closely, I have a metallic gold ribbon there. The ribbon is 1/2 inch wide. It came on a gift that I received for Christmas! Yes, I save everything that can be used with my stitching!

Ok, I was feeling sorry for the poor little Herringbone stitch! I knew I wanted to embroider over that ribbon and decided it was a good time to give the Herringbone a second chance! I lined up some 8.5 count waste canvas over the ribbon, pinned it on and did the Herringbone with 1 strand of Watercolors from The Caron Collection. After that, I used DMC #8 Perle cotton in white and did some of my favorite fan stitches! Click on the image to see a larger version over at my Flickr site.

I must say, this is quite lovely! I started beading it and will add more beads when I sit down later today.

If anyone would like to try this variation, here is the pattern:



Click on the image to go to my Flickr site where you can download the larger version. And on 8.5 count waste canvas, it is 1/2 inch wide. My software won't calculate for fractions of an inch.

I was asked it if was ok to use my charted patterns for personal stitching use. Oh yes, please do! That's why I'm offering them here. I want other stitchers to be able to use them on their crazyquilts and other projects. Enjoy and have fun with them!

The Color Yellow

Still feeling a bit under the weather here but have taken advantage of it and spent alot of time stitching:



I decided to keep all embroidery and embellishments to yellow and white (and of course green). I went through my bits of junk and do-dads and found a yellow rosebud pin. It works perfect with this piece so that will be the focal point on this purse.

I do have 1 minor problem with working in mostly yellow, I don't have alot in the way of yellow beads and embellishments. Thinking about it, I never cared much for yellow except when it comes to Black-eyed Susan flowers. That's the only yellow thing that I can think of that I like. So now I'm wondering, why is it that I never cared much for yellow? I did buy a yellow dress last Summer that I just love but it's the only yellow thing in my closet. And in thinking about my fabric stash, I don't have much in the way of yellow in there either.

Who would think that one's stitching and stash habits could become a vehicle to a path of self-discovery? Maybe I'm getting too deep here but I'm wondering, does anyone else have a color that they don't care for? I must say, I do like the way this looks. I'm off to stitch and contemplate why I never cared for yellow!

More tomorrow...

Take A Stitch Tuesday - Herringbone

As I mentioned yesterday, the Herringbone Stitch is not by any means one of my favorite stitches.
While trying to turn it into something that I find visually attractive, I realized what it is about this stitch that I don't like. To me, it looks like a bunch of giant cross stitches!

Many of you have probably discovered, that as far as my designing career goes, I've been moving in new directions. This not to say that I won't continue to design charted patterns, it's just not what I do on a full-time basis anymore.

Counted cross stitch is quite limited and designing it is limiting as well. I've found that I need to move beyond the grid.

On a personal level, perhaps I've found that I don't need to live by so many rules anymore. I've gone from the confinement and rules of working in "squares" to the freedom of absolutely no rules whatsoever in the form of crazyquilting. One extreme to the other yes, but they say, when a person gets into their 40's, they become their true selves. Well, I'm 45 now and I can see where my attitude has changed alot in the last few years. I've reached a point in my life where I just don't care what anyone else thinks about how I dress, what music I listen to and so on. And those are just examples.

Isn't it funny what came into the light from a simple stitch?

So, on to what I did with this stitch:



Yes, I pretty much beat up this poor little Herringbone stitch and over powered it with fan stitches. The fan stitch is one of my favorites!

One nice thing about the Herringbone stitch is that it can easily be combined with other stitches.

Quite honestly, I still don't care for this stitch. At least now I know why!

After stitching this example, I sat down and charted out what I stitched in case anyone here would like to use this version. I will continue to do that with my variations throughout the TAST Challenge. Just click on the image above to go to my Flickr site where you can download the large version of the pattern. My suggestion for this one would be to use 10 count Waste Canvas.

You can find this, all past seam treatments and future stitch variations in my Flickr album set titled, Charted Crazy Quilt Seam Treatments.