Susie's Block

Hello everyone. I have recieved the next block in my SGRR. This is Susie's block.



I am having a wonderful time stitching on it so far. The picture below shows the section I am working on. I am stitching for both me and DeeDee, who is having some minor back problems. She started by stitching the lilac flowers. Aren't they pretty. Just look at all those french knots. I guess I missed a good shot, but the dark green thread is a hand woven textured thread. I'm not sure what it is exactly. I couched it down with gold thread.

The picture below shows the first thing I stitched on this block. It is a light green stem/vine in chain stitch. I just love chain stitch. It can be used for so many different things.

Below is a close-up of the leaves. The leaves were cut out of a soft light green leather. They are stitched on with a line og gold backstitch down the center of the leaf.

As for Susie's block, that is all I have to show for now. I do plan on adding many flowers next. Also I am toying with the idea of a stumpwork butterfly. We shall see.

Moving on you will notice I have been toying around with jewelry work. This all started with spiders. One day a couple weeks ago I ran across a tutorial for beaded spiders on Shawkl. They werte quite beautiful and festive for the Halloween season. I decided to try one. In fact I made about 6 or 7. Pictures will come in a later post. They came out very nice. I ended up selling most of them. Two were birthday gifts. This gave me an idea to try to make a small profit off of them. I went to Michael's and was bargain hunting, because beads are expensive. I ended up buying a small kit that turned out to be a steal. Anyway within the kit there were findings to make jewelry so over the past weekend I decided to play around with it. Here are the results.

I love these earrings. They remind me of fall.

These earrings really sparkle and they match the necklace.

Below is a close up on the bead detailing.

So not bad for a beginner I would say. I will also be trying to sell these items. For now I am just selling to friends and family, but I have been looking into opening an Etsy account. Once I have a good stock of items I may do it. If anybody has any feedback as to their success with selling on Etsy I would love to hear it.

A final word on Tambour Embroidery. I have been simply fascinated, bodering on obssessed with this technique for well over a year. Finally for my birthday my hubby let me buy the hook and miscellanious tools. Finding info on this technique is rather difficult. There are very few classes on the subject also. However I have found a DVD made by Bob Haven an instructer on the subject. That is currently the first thing I am saving up for. I can't wait to share my explorations on this subject. Until then I will be anxiously awaiting my Joann's order! Stitch and be merry!