roses redux

A few years ago, i was on a kick where I was really into stitching roses. (See this post here and this post here.)

Well, I'm back on that kick.
I don't know where it came from, or how it started, but my goodness, I'm feeling it. The last time I was stitching these, I was doing mostly light and bright pinks. This time around, I'm really into purples with my bright pinks. It could have started with the Calico Flower pattern that I first stitched up on (sadly discontinued) purple aida cloth:



(I wish I had more of this color aida cloth, and could offer it as the color for the Calico Flowers kit!)

And then I did that rose piece (bottom of this post here), and I loved it so much that I did it again, but bigger. Darnit, just realized that I don't have a photograph of that one... I'll have to post/write about that later.. But that's maybe where I got into the bright pinks, and then the purples were still in my head. One day I was at the fabric shop and I came home with a bundle of flosses in these colors:



And I was thinking that I would create a new kit/pattern using them. Instead, however, I started stitching roses. First I did some tea towels, as I had done before. Then, however, I started stitching on linen, with the intention to frame the little embroidered pieces in hoops. I'm glad that I did, because I'm really pleased with these pieces:



I really enjoyed styling these photos with so many of the little flowers that we have growing all over the yard. Our yard has been amazing these past few weeks for little wildflowers and weeds and long-ago cultivated bulb flowers. Last month, our back lawn was blanketed in siberian squill and now it is covered in beautiful violets. I can't imagine that that my current landlords planted these things - I like to think that these flowers (along with the daffodils and forsythia) are still here from the days in the 60's when this big old farmhouse was a nun's convent.
Hmmm... maybe it's all of these flowers in tones of pinks and purples that have me on this kick.. Wherever it came from, I'm thankful.



Since I'm feeling like this is a bit of a spring theme that I have going on, I went carved some block prints last night to decorate my mailing envelopes and bags (for upcoming craft fairs - Art Star Philly and Renegade Brooklyn).



I really like sending out my envelopes with a bit of decoration, you know? I wish I documented (more for myself) the various envelopes I've done... there were these and these and these but then there have been a lot since then. It's so much more interesting to me than sending out plain-old boring envelopes. In fact, I even avoid doing the automated mailing labels, which Etsy has made so easy that I don't even have to enter the addresses, it pulls everything from the order -- because I prefer to hand-write the addresses on my packages. Call me old-fashioned. Or a lover of details.

I'll be posting more rose-related projects soon, as soon as I have the tea towels photographed.... The embroidered pieces are in my Etsy shop, and they're one of a kind, so if you want one, snap it up!