Award Winner...

This is Kay Craven, one of my students who has taken classes from me for years. She belongs to a women's group in Santa Rosa County, Florida and has won another ribbon! This time she took "Best in Show" for Burst of Stars - this was the Mystery class I taught last year. The photo is scanned from the newspaper but I've also posted a photo of her stitched piece below. I'm so proud of Kay and her work - she's a wonderful stitcher!

Burst of Stars in the "Greens" colorway - this is the piece Kay stitched & had framed.

The way I design a Mystery piece is to start with a shape, draw some lines, choose threads, and start stitching - there's actually a little more to it but these are the basics. I did just this when I designed my first Mystery (later called Symmetry) and discovered that a little pre-planning of the number of threads in each shape would go a long way in warding off a TON of compensation! Once I have it designed and stitched (or at least started), I divide the piece into nine or ten sections and teach or send out the instructions once per month - it's fun for my students to start something and not know what it will eventually look like. I always try to throw some twists & turns & unexpected things into the mix along the way.

This photo shows the threads I used for my original colorway (there are 8 or 9 included in the pattern that diffrerent students stitched - I'll post photos of those another day).

And, here's the piece I stitched...which came to be called "Burst of Stars" - naming the Mystery pieces is always a challenge! Symmetry was the first, Galaxy the second  (it's the piece in my header at the top of this blog), and Burst of Stars is the third. I'm in the early stages of starting my next Mystery and hope to start teaching it in the fall. It's always a big project.

Maybe you'll want to join us in the next Mystery!

Until next time,

Kathy