oh darling dear

um -- adorable?
this happened by accident. i was studying my favorite book (are you tired of hearing about that book already? does it seem like i am CONSTANTLY studying those pages? it is true. i look at it A LOT.) looking for new motifs. there are a lot of deer in those PA dutch samplers and i was trying to find one that was clear enough that i could work a pattern. there are lots of variations and most of them are kinda wonky, or really hard to see. and then i found this deer. oh, dear, i fell in love. i scratched the little x's onto my graph paper and came up with the pattern, but i had NO idea just how cute it was going to be until i had put it into actual stitches.
i wasnt going for cute! i was going for regal. i'm developing a few more patterns to round out my royal PA dutch series -- the ones with the creatures/animals facing one another with a crown above them. (why am i doing this, you ask? oh, two reasons: one, to prepare for this weekend's craft fair for the kutztown historical society, and, two, i'm putting together a little somethin' somethin' for a certain shoppe in a certain city in CA...) anyways -- these deer didnt look regal to me; they looked cute! so, i put the heart above them. that was the first different-colored-heart that i used in the cross-stitched pieces, the puppies actually came after this. it isn't that far of a stray from my series, though -- hearts are also a really common motif in the PA german samplers.
okay -- so then i had another idea:


(love!)
what's going on here? kj is gettin' wild with the cross-stitch pieces! dual colors, cutesy heart themes, scenery rather than just motifs?!?!?! there is always room for growth, my friends.
and then i did this one:


next up -- the deers do reign.