Needle Delights Originals

I promised myself I'd never start a blog post with "I can't believe how long it's been since I posted" so I'm not! Instead I'll tell you I've been a lot of places the last two months, done a lot of stitching, been really ill physically, and have done a lot of planning and sketching of designs! And of course, I have photos to share... In May I went to two family graduations with a week's vacation in the middle at my parents house in North Carolina. Of course, we spent a day shopping in Atlanta at the quilt shops. Another day, we drove over to Franklin, NC (more quilt shops!) and I got to meet one of my mom's stitching friends and her sister. She pleasantly surprised me by bringing this to show me! I didn't even know my mom's friends sister was coming, let alone that she had stitched some of my designs! How fun for me!   Dugan stitched one of my Color Delights in her own colors (this is the Sunshine design) and then finishe...

The 3rd Double Delights is Nolive - Navy & Olive. I was happy to see someone correctly guessed! I'm using somewhat quirky names for this series of designs and it's fun  coming up with them. I really like these colors together - in fact, my office at home is done in these colors and the walls are close to the color of the tent stitch background. And, here's the next Color Delights  - it's Lavender. I used the Iced Lavender Watercolour as the inspiration and added a Neon Rays, Belle Soie, and metallic. I lke the way it came out but haven't been happy with any of the photographs. It looks more delicate in person.  

I've been working hard so I took some time to play today and here is the result. I've been wanting to combine some of the Color Delights with Rainbow in the center and blending into the squares around it. Here's the result... This is a combo of nine Color Delights designs (I counted and I have 31 in the collection now!). Rainbow is in the center and going around clockwise, starting with the top left, is Sunshine, Tangerine, Magenta, Bubblegum, Purple, Indigo, Aqua, and Chartreuse. Stitched this way, the overall design would be 12x12. After this exercise, I realize I need to add some blue designs to the collection! That said, Lavender is the next release and here's a photo (the pattern is at the printer and will be here soon!) I'm exhibiting in the online show - it starts tomorrow. I'm releasing Lavender and the next Double Delights. It's called Nolive - can you guess what two colors it combines?

I got this great photo from Melinda at The Stitching Post in Baltimore - she stitched Appalachia in a different colorway and I love it! I can't wait to visit her store when I'm in Baltimore again - I didn't have a chance to go last summer when I was there but will be sure to visit in the fall. Here's Month 1-4 of my current Mystery Project - this is the first 4 months. Thanks to Barbi for sending it to me - I love seeing it worked in the different colors.    Below are my colors... 

  Here's the progress so far on "Delightful Combinations". The photo is a little blurry - I'll do better on the next one! I'm hoping to finish these two blocks this weekend and choose the colors for the third block. I'm looking forward to watching the Masters - lots of quilting and stitching time! If you want to stitch along, click Delightful Combinations for the border chart and layout. Click Double Delights to see the original Double Delights as singles!.

Where does the time go?? When I closed my shop, I thought I'd have time on my hands - it's not so! I have plenty to keep me busy and still wish there were more hours in the day. I think I enjoy too many things! I sent two new patterns to my distributors and the shops on my Automatic today. First up is the 2nd in the Double Delights patterns. This one is called Wine & Pine.  And here it is in the alternate colorway listed on the pattern. I'm using threads from the Magenta & Sunshine Color Delights patterns. You'll see there's a border started on the left side of the photo and pencil lines to the right. This is the start of a large project combining 12 of the Double Delights patterns. A free chart for this border will soon be available on my website (it's on the way to the Auto shops!). The cool thing about this border outline pattern is all the "Delights" patterns, Color or Double, fit in the blocks. There's plenty of room here for creati...

Don't scroll down unless you want to see a photo of my current Mystery project in process. These are the first three month's patterns. I'm just about done stitching the whole design so I have to cut and paste to edit the photo to not show it all. I have it all charted but have been writing the instructions a month at a time. I wrote the April instructions this weekend though so I am finally ahead of the game on something - this doesn't happen often enough for me! If you want to stitch along on the Mystery, you can still sign up -see all the colorways here. And here's another colorway from one of the people stitching along. It's upside down but didn't look right when I rotated it because of the angle it was taken from! I love seeing how designs look in different colors - even though I know it to be so true, it always amazes me how different it can look.