Hearts and Flowers

You'll notice that while everyone started a new project on new years I didn't. That's because I cheated. I started my new year project a week early. The day after I finished Hana in fact :)

When I went to seminar last year I bought a full kit from Katheryn Drummond called Hearts and Flowers. This design was taught in 2015 at the EAC seminar in Calgary. Watching the posts on Facebook, I was green with envy that I wasn't able to attend. I've been itching to start it since coming home with the kit and I finally allowed myself to take it out last week.

Hearts and Flowers - blue version

I prepped the fabric on the night of the December 25, started stitching and haven't stopped since.

Hearts and Flowers is a sewing set stitched in the punto antico technique. Katheryn chooses the lovelies colors for her designs. The original is pink but it also comes in violet and all white. I decided to change from purple and go with blue and haven't regretted my decision.

In the set, there is a scissor fob, needle case and pin cushion. As you can see below I've already embroidered all the four-sided stitches, satin stitches and whipped stitches.

Scissor Fob

Needle case

Pincushion - front, back and sides

The next step for me was to stitch all the bullions.

However as much as I've learned to like them I got tired of doing so many by the time I got to the pincushion. I'm actually further along than that when I stopped.

All the white squares are covered with 8 bullions each

I decided I would switch between doing the cutwork area and the remaining bullions for a change of pace. Below you can see the various steps involved. Add to that more bullions on each corner of the cutwork area, and repeat that two more times.

I'm very near the end and the rest is pretty much the same across all the faces, so I'm not sure if I will write another post on this project until I'm ready to cut out all the pieces.

On a side note I want to mention this product I bought through an instagrammer a few months back. I only just got the chance to use it for the first time last week.

They're stitch clips, or at least that's the name I found for a similar product. For about 18$ Canadian I got 12 clips total and they are available in many different colors. Each set of 6 comes with a charm. I'm quite partial to the purple, it makes a nice ring every time I move the frame around. They are very easy to use and stretch the fabric very nicely on the sides. I want to try them on a set of scroll frames one day.

Normally a set of stitch clips only comes with 4 clips and cost over 24$ US, so I'm quite happy with this product. If anyone else is interested the instagrammer is Bokowayanatiajka.