Flowers; Works of Art

Hand embroidered flowers are so beautiful! Of course, nothing compares to the exquisite magnificence of living flowers, however, even a handmade representation makes my heart sing. 

(Notes: book author is マカベアリス  Alice Makabe a designer/artist from Japan. You may find her here: @alice_makabe)

New and Vintage Embroidery Transfer / Patterns Haul

Things didn't turn out as I was expecting these past few days... kids appointments were put on hold do to myself having to do an unexpected medical visit. A couple test pending. With all that anxiety, besides prayers, I did some retail therapy. One of my purchases was from Wings of the Morning on Etsy. Nothing better than super cute vintage embroidery transfers that evoke nostalgia and sweet memories of long ago. I had great customer service from Amy! Perhaps you may want to go check her shop out, there are still a few treasures to be found!

She even included this lovely gift! I tell you, around here it is so hard to find vintage embroidery transfers. So I'm grateful to have these on my stash now! My mom was the one who introduced me to embroidery (as I posted on a previous blog entry), vintage transfers remind me of her. Hand embroidery is therapeutic in so many ways for me!

So I will go thru the box little by little to distract myself while awaiting my upcoming tests, and of course take care of my kids appointments. Maybe I can find a few vintage designs I could share here. 

Kathy Schmitz released this pattern today! It is a PDF available in her Etsy shop, and her website. It'll be used for a stitch-along starting March 16th, not sure if I'm going to be able to wait to start mine, LOL. I'll be transferring it soon and have it ready... will try to wait.

Also added this book to my stash, a new book from Annela Hoey. Solely iron on transfers from designs on her previous books and a few new ones as well, there are a couple of design elements that are repeated a few times (for example a design of a small pair of embroidery scissors, the same pair of scissors appears in 3 designs). Not a biggie.
This cute birdie was a pattern Aneela use to sell in her shop (not sure now). I always liked it and wanted to stitch it, but I do not use PayPal... 3 times my info was compromised, very bitter experiences. Since canceling my account I've never gone back, not even use the feature of not needing an account to buy. Thereby, so glad to have found that this cutie was part of the patterns in this book purchased from Amazon. Didn't waste time and stitched it right away! Will post a close up later detailing the stitches used.

Here is a 'just for fun shot', organizing work-in-progress projects and getting ready to start new ones... like the cutie birdie that is now all done ;-). I'll expound a bit more on this on a future post.
So, tell me... do you sometimes do retail therapy? ;-)
Have a nice weekend! Until next time!

Setting Up a Crafting Space

Since we moved, I haven't been able or motivated to set up my new craft space. I've been missing my old space and how enjoyable the natural sunlight of that room used to be.

I'm adding a few pictures of my old craft space here. We had a very large home, beautiful custom home.... but it was challenging for me to keep up with (even with the help of my husband)... living with chronic illnesses makes things a bit challenging. We refocus and decided to downsize a bit.

 My new craft space will be craft room/guest room, so I'm lost as to how I'm going to set it up. The old one used to be in the kids playroom. So I had it set up to simply look like a craft space.

 New projects, books, work in progress projects, supplies, etc., used to sleep right on top of my desk. Waiting for me whenever I had free time to keep working on them, without having to dig them out.... or even worst, being forgotten. (By the way, I'm having to use see thru project bags lately to help me remember what things are in progress or new starts.) 

 Sometimes it was tidy just like the picture below, but that wasn't the norm. Every little crafty mess, was a happy mess ;-).

 Do you have to share your crafting space? If so, how do you make it work? I'm hoping to start setting up that craft/guest room this winter, if not sooner. Perhaps a sofa bed? Make it look like a lounging space? Really don't know.

We even thought of getting a bit of help from an interior designer, just to point us in the right direction and help us make the room multifunctional for a craft/guest room that looks put together and harmonizes with the rest of the house. If it can't be done in a satisfactory way, I may have to arrange a corner of the master bedroom for my hand embroidery, EPP, and cross stitch. In a way I'm already doing that, but may have to set it up in a more aesthetically functional way. 
Anyhow, today was a bit cloudy so didn't take pictures of some finished embroideries I wanted to blog about. Hopefully tomorrow we have some nice sunlight to take a few shots and post them here soon! Be well! Until next time!