Sweet Heart Finish

At the end of a fairly quiet Valentine Day, I went to my stitching chair for a bit of television and stitching. As I thought, this design worked up very quickly.

Strawberries and Cream by Serendipity Designs

This design is designated for beginners to hardanger and I think the design itself is perfect for those making their first attempt at hardanger. I do have reservations about recommending it wholeheartedly however, as I think the instructions and the chart would be a bit frustrating for a true novice. There are three separate charts for the different design elements with good instructions on the stitching path for the kloster blocks. It needs one more chart of the whole design which would make placement of the vine under the heart more understandable. Also the charts vary from one square equals two threads to one square equals one thread. While the instruction page explains the differences, the charted design page is less clear. The information is all there in the kit, it's just not set out in a step-by-step manner that a beginner needs.

For most of us who are familiar with reading charted designs, this kit is very good for beginning hardanger. If you are a novice stitcher, I hope you have a more experienced friend to call on when you get confused. I've taught community ed. classes in hardanger and cross stitching and I know there are some beginners who would be very frustrated with a kit such as this one.

Lovely design, though, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up this week.

Here are the new charts I bought last week at Needful Needlecrafts

Cirque des Cercles by Ink Circles
Spring Fling by Keslyn

The little valentine basket from my previous post was from stamp club Friday night. It was a really quick, cute little basket to make from two circles put together to form a heart. We also made these pretty cards.

In the Praying for You card we used a stipple brush and three stamp pads of closely related colors to create the background.

With the little bird card we used a product called glaze enamel which works like embossing with your heat gun, it's just thicker and really shiny. After a few coats of enamel, we quickly cooled the paper down on ice, then cracked the enamel to give a broken glass effect. Really fun!

Today my boys are home from school, so I took the opportunity to sleep in this morning until 8:30! Later today I need to take ds Kevin out to buy a suit as he's going to the Winter Formal this Saturday. Michaels may be a stop so I can pick up some of their sale items and some DMC to make a kumihimo trim for Strawberries and Cream. Late this afternoon the little American Girl history group Kirsten goes to is having a taco dinner and movie premiere of the movie the girls made during their study of Josephina and her culture and time period. Then I'll be going over to dd Mystie's house for a homeschooling mom social.

Caution - busy day ahead!