Another book I must have

I have a great weakness for embroidery books. And I love natural looking techniques. So I was thrilled when a while back somebody mentioned Jane Hall (sorry I can't remember who) and I recently bought her book - which is a dream. I've told my husband the best thing he can give me for Christmas is permission to purchase lots and lots of silk and organza and silk dyes.

Today, I was looking for a seahorse Assisi pattern, which I found, but then I followed a photo to an Argentinian embroidery blog, and as I'm looking through I see the cover of a book that I know I must get by Gary Hall - here is his art gallery http://www.garyclarkedesigns.com/artgallery.html

This is why I don't web surf very often - too much of interest! Now I must get of the computer and go make brownies and cookies for a pot luck at work tomorrow.

Everything except blogging

While you might think I've been quite for the last month, I really haven't been. I have been doing everything on my computer except blogging. I've been leaving comments on the blogs I enjoy reading and viewing. I've sent out another chapter newsletter, which includes a book review I've written. I've written a history and instructions and done stitch diagrams for the Assisi class I'm teaching tomorrow night (I'm going to have to think of a better way to do stitch diagrams in Photoshop). I've done several web pages and abstracts for work. And I've actually been doing some stitching.

Here are the Assisi horses from my last post fitted to the top of an Altoids box. I braided some leather from an old briefcase to act as a frame.

I used some store bought scrapbooking stickers to decorate the box inside and on the bottom. And then I made a biscornu paddock for a little horse charm. The perforated paper mini photo album is not quite finished but when I took the tin in to a chapter meeting, on of the members suggested horse hair for stitching when I finally had the photos ready and knew the size of the album.
The Band Robin I am in seems to be gaining steam again. I have received two in the mail, both of which started in Australia. This is the first I have worked on. The pattern is from a Hungarian pattern book and I used Color Play by Joen Wolfrom to help me with the colour scheme. The owner of this sampler (Christine) likes oranges and I agreed that the sampler needed some other colour.
Finally, this is for an ornament exchange. I may not be able to give it away, I'll have to think a bit and see if I can finish something else. We picked names and the slip of paper also had a few things the person liked. My recipient likes thistles, so this was what I made. I based the design on a scissor fob cross-stitch pattern. I find turkey work lots of fun although it is hard to keep the thistles looking neat. I used detached buttonhole for the flower bases just because I don't want to get out of practice in case I get the chance to go up to Plimoth Plantation again to work on the jacket!