In the stitching mood !!!

Two weeks ago I finished my "Palm Tree" Sampler design.  As I looked through all our hand-dyed silk threads in the shop,  I was really taken with "Savannah" by the Caron Collection.  However, we only had it in in the Watercolor fibre, and as all  my Tree Samplers have been stitched using 2 strands of a hand-dyed silk in the continental stitch on 32ct silk gauze I wanted this colour in Waterlilies.  So I had to patiently (not) wait for the silk thread.  It finally arrived in the shop on Friday, and over the weekend I have been unstoppable.  This is about two evenings worth of stitching but it took me almost three days, as much was ripped out & restitched.  If I had had another piece of silk gauze at home I would have been done by now.  Stitching anew would have been so much faster than ripping half of it out and restitching.  The stitches on 32ct count over 1 are so small that I needed to proceed slowly with caution, so not to cut the gauze.  But I'm so pleased with the results, and once the background is added it will look great, just like the rest.

 These are the Oak Tree, Maple Tree, Cocoa Tree, and Eastern Hemlock

While I was waiting for the silk to arrive I continued stitching on the background for my "Stitch for a Cure" needlepoint cushion.  But this will now be on hold until I finish the Palm Tree sampler.

Stitching background can be just as theraputic as counting from a chart.  While filling in the background I was mulling over ideas and fine tuning the design for another SAL project for my blog, and in the shop I  spent much of my free time playing with fabric and thread colours (one of my passions).  The SAL will be another 15 sided biscornu.  I'm very excited, in my mind it's awesome.  I'll start stitching once the Palm Tree sampler is finished.

Stay tuned for photos of this new SAL's fabric and fibre selections in my next post.