Valentine Canvases and Charts

In honor of Valentine's Day (which my co-workers refer to as Singles Awareness Day) Needle Works of Austin has posted four pages full of painted canvases with hearts somewhere in the design. These range from the silly (The Valentine Moose) to the Victorian (Melissa Shirley's postcards of Valentine children) to the patriotic (DeElda's flag heart) to the realistic (Sandra Gilmore's Valentine tea table with roses and chocolates seen through the front window of a house). There are also a great many graphic hearts with all kinds of designs inside them, so take a quick look and admire all the NP valentines available for us stitchers.
http://www.theneedleworks.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_119

Several designers who have blogs are featuring Valentine designs for our viewing pleasure.

Laura Perin has designed all sorts of heart patterns, from Hardanger to the lovely Hearts Afire heart sampler to a free chart for your stitching pleasure. Visit her blog and work backwards down the page to see them all.
http://two-handedstitcher.blogspot.com/

Anne Stradal has two little heart-themed eggs she is stitching right now and a very beautiful hearts pillow on her blog. Eventually I bet the eggs will be on her website in the Eggs for All Seasons section.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/

Finally, Summer Louise has posted a wonderful Valentine piece she just finished for a customer. It expresses perfectly my feeling towards Blog's readers.
http://www.summerlouise.com/2009/02/love-stand-up.html

Will you be my valentine?

By the way, the illustration above is Melissa Shirley's Knave of Hearts canvas.
http://www.needleorts.com/detail.cfm?ID=745


Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

We Have a Finished Fish #2

Yesterday I posted a scan of the Baroque Fish as I thought I was finished with her. But looking at the photo yesterday, I realized our mermaid fish needs a few finishing touches. Study the photo from yesterday, then compare it to today's and you'll see I added a mouth (lazy daisy stitch in one ply of the green Splendor silk right on top of the rose tent stitches that made up her mouth in yesterday's photo), I adjusted the bottom ribbon at her waist so it slanted / like the two parts of the bow above it, and I added silver Millhill beads along the vertical stripes on her bodice.

I like the improvements. Do you?

When you think you've finished a project, it helps to look at it with a critical eye to find missed stitches and see if there are any problems (like the ribbon slanting the wrong way) or areas you can improve (adding beads to Baroque Fish's bodice and giving her an accent on her pouty mouth). I've always found scans or color copies to be an excellent way to look at your pieces with new eyes. I didn't notice these things when I was checking her for missed stitches yesterday but they jumped out at my in the photograph I posted to Blog.

Hope you like the improvements!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow