A Little Embroidery ♡

Hello lovely lovelies, lovely friends♡ I hope your week was a pleasant one.  Down here spring is awakening. The daffodils are still putting on quite the show and the bluebells are beginning to pop up and sprinkle dabs of blue here and there. Soon the bluebells will be everywhere. The blossom trees are beginning to bud and unfurl and the pretty pink magnolias are swelling and bursting from the confines of the scale-like buds. When the magnolia is in full bloom 'tis a sight to behold.

Pete's knee is progressing well and now that he's up and around more there's less need for me to be nurse, chef and chief bottle washer. He's at the stage though, where he's chomping at the bit to work in the garden but alas he will have to wait a little while longer. Pete is  that guy who gets bouts of cabin fever if he's idle for too long inside  There's book readin' and snoozin' of course, but he much prefers to be outside tending his garden.

This week I've been enjoying a little embroidery. I actually imagined a pretty way back in summer when the dahlias were the belles of the garden. I put the fabric in the embroidery hoop and then set it aside, promptly forgetting about it.

Now that warmer days are not too far away I thought I would pick up this pretty again and incorporate it into a blouse.  I'm using a linen floral fabric for the bodice and a sweet check for the sleeves and for the gathered piece circling the bottom.

The linen fabric is pretty.  It is a remnant that I purchased at a market years ago.  I just had to have it. I was taken with the painterly smudges of watercolour flowers and leaves in  pastel shades. The name 'Wisteria' is on the selvedge. I love that.  I remember at the time thinking that the fabric could be incorporated into something for the home. But that was then. Now, while Lady Spring is sprinkling the garden with pretty in pink, blossoms and fragrant magnolias, I've a thought of how lovely the fabric would look if I was to embellish with a little embroidery on some of the flowers and leaves. Nothing complex just chain stitch perhaps, maybe feather stitch, back stitch, lazy daisy stitch, french knots; any stitch I dream up along the way. I bought a little crazy quilt book by Judith Baker Montana  years and years ago called Elegant Stitches where within the covers are oodles of embroidery stitches and a plethora of stitch combinations. It's a fabulous book with myriad of ideas re all things crazy quilting, embroidery and embellishments. 

So, with the book close by as inspiration and embroidery threads in variegated pinks, mauves and purples together with an assortment of greens, the embroidery has begun. There's chain stitch skipping merrily along the rim of the petals and french knots happily gathered together in clusters. I envisage the gorgeous print to be the star with simple embroidery highlighting the flowers and leaves, adding a little more interest.

Today, I'll enjoy a little more embroidery because after all it is Sunday. I'll embroider some more of the leaves, me thinks. A little hand sewing is always relaxing, meditative........therapeutic, is it not??  Thank the Good Lord for slow handwork is what I say. =) May you, too, joy in some slow stitching, or something pleasant to veer your mind from all the craziness. Sending you sprinkles of love wrapped in sweet-scented magnolia petals; and many a hug♡ Take care, lovely lovelies, lovely friends♡♡ 

Until the next time......