Julie Mar wildflowers

I played hookey today so that I could watch the women's semifinals of the French Open Tennis.  It was wonderful groaning about Maria Sharapova's double-faults and subsequent loss while I stitched on my seashell tote.  But I must confess that I did little stitching while Francesca Schiavone was playing  in the second match.  I love to watch her!  She is so wonderfully feisty and stereotypically Italian (one of my favorite countries to visit).  Her joie-de-vivre (I think!) is so infectious!  I can't wait until Saturday to watch her play and, I hope, win.  Her little hops and skips of joy are marvelous to behold.  May she have more of them!!

However, my playing hookey today almost guarantees that I won't finish stitching my "5 stylish ladies" by Saturday night.  Although, as another side note, instead of spending the afternoon at the shop being diligent, I stayed home and wrote the stitch guide for the ladies.  Thank goodness I printed a copy of my instructions, because the program refused to save my information.  GRRRR!  Many unmentionable words. 

All is not lost, I am a fast typist and now that I have composed the stitch guide I will enter it on the "shop" computer which I know will save it and it will be preserved for posterity.  Hooray!

Blah, blah, blah.  So what about the blog?  This weekend's entry will be:  a gorgeous sweet pea design from Julie Mar Designs.  I stitched this canvas several years ago using DMC perle cotton for the design and Paternayan yarn for the background.

It's a wonderful pillow insert by Julie Mar Designs and was fun to stitch.  After I had stitched it, I found a wonderful plaid taffeta fabric that looked great with it, but couldn't find a gymp that looked good.  The next month I happened to be in Manhattan with my husband's goddaughter  and as we were wandering toward Chinatown we passed a shop (tiny, tiny, as only in large cities there can be) that was selling trims.  I went in and found the perfect yellow gymp for the trim on this pillow:

The tassel trim I found locally at a Calico Corners.  I've been to New York 3 times in my life and the last time I found this gymp.  Go figure. 

Another variation on this canvas is a larger one that Julie did

I love to look at my finished model.  It is so fresh and crisp looking.  Hope you enjoy it also.  (And please watch Saturday morning and root for the Italian marvel, Francesca Sciavone, in the French Open!)