Beaded Poppy

I picked up the kit for this beaded poppy brooch from  The Bead Merchant at the Knitting and Stitching Show in October last year, thinking I would be able to finish it before Remembrance Day. I started the first petal a couple of days later and pretty soon realised it would more likely be ready for Remembrance Day this year. This one has gone to my Mum. I have enough beads left  to make another one but I suspect I won't ever get round to it.

Heartsease and Eglantine Pinwheel

I started this pinwheel at a workshop with Susan O'Connor in London in February 2011. The design is from Susan's book, Flowers for Elizabeth, which is primarily a pattern for a wool embroidered blanket. Included are scaled down designs, which can be stitched with 1 strand of Au Ver a Soie, which is how this design is done. It was a sweet design to stitch and I am tempted to try some of the other designs in the book. The book is published by Country Bumpkin, so naturally it is beautiful to look at with very clear instructions.

Calm Flow - finished

And now a picture of Calm Flow, which I made up in Februrary. It needed to come off the frame because I was starting Hanazume, my Phase 1 Japanese Embroidery piece at the beginning of March. The fabric it was stitched on had a distinct tendency to fray so I was glad I had experience from making up the Eyeglass Case. It was a nice feeling to get it out of the way - I'm a Completer/Finisher when time permits!

Eyeglass case - finished

The eyeglass case was actually made up at the end of last year. In the end, I found some burgundy cotton velvet which was a reasonable colour match.  I was keen to get it done because I was close to finishing Calm Flow and I didn't want to have a queue of pieces waiting to be made up - I have enough UFOs/WIPs. To persuade myself to get on with it, I decided to do just one construction step each evening and after a week it was done. I was dreading cutting around the beadwork, especially the notches around the corners but by thinking "Tonight I'm just going to do xxx and no more", I got over the fear.