Stitching Friends Forever

May flowers
week three

Something old

It's time for showing our old ornaments with some small additions to doll them up a bit.   It's hard when they are already made because we can't add fabric and stitched in trims to them. But we will using small things like trims stitched to the outside seams, bows, charms, buttons etc. 

There is a monthly freebie at the end of the post for you too.

RJ -
I chose Garden Pleasures by Little House Needleworks for our week three showing.   It was a bigger stitch and I wanted it to be an ornament so I did it on 25 ct. Lugana over one. I have two tabletop trees at Christmas and one is French themed so I changed the words Garden Pleasures to The French Garden.

Before:
It is a really sweet stitch but done with a plain finish.

Changed Garden Pleasures to Le Jardin Francais

After: 
This is a petite stitch so I thought it needed a girly finish.  My first thought was rusching but how do you do it?    I searched blogs and you tube and making the ribbon ruffle did not seem too hard but no one actually said how they attached the ruffled ribbon.   So I was on a trial run.

After I finally got it on (don't ask how!), I also added a bow at the top and a set of garden tools in the girl's hand.   Hope you like her new look.

It's raining...it's pouring!  The ornament is sitting in a garden conservatory hoping for sun.

Lighting is not too good on this gloomy day but you can see her little garden tools and the French words a little better 

Love the back fabric.   It is embroidered with flowers.  I bought it at the Fabric Guru online.

Garden Pleasures
by Little House Needleworks
25 ct. country mocha Lugana
called for threads
garden tool

                                                                                     🔻

Mary -

Before: Here is my birdhouse ornament before the update.  Love this stitch but it needed something more.

After:

My updated oldie is LHN's "Birdhouse Alphabet".   I wanted this to be ornament size so I stitched it on 28 count over one.  It was a fairly easy transition for me as the smallest count I had previously stitched on was 18 ct. Aida.  I used the called for thread, Crescent Colors Belle Soire Beanstalk silk thread.

I have trouble making bows so the Bow Easy which can be found here makes tying little bows easy.  It's a little piece of plastic for $11 but I found it worth every cent.  If you have trouble making little bows you might want to give it a try.  There are many helpful videos on you tube if you have trouble understanding the written directions as I did.

Added buttons and a bow

Closeup of the buttons

Birdhouse Alphabet
by Little House Needleworks
28 ct. Lugana
Belle Soire Beanstalk silk thread

Freebie for May

You can find the free chart from Glory Bee here

We hope you have a great week and get in a lot of stitching.  Hope you will come back next week to see our new May garden stitches.
                                                                    Mary and RJ


                                    Friends are the flowers in the garden of life
                                                                  unknown