Details 23 and 24

I've been away for a few days but I'm still trying to keep up with Sharon's 100 Details for 100 Days. This pic shows a combination of Day 23 which were french knots and Day 24 which was a wisteria using the cast-on stitch. I did not have space for both treatments so I combined them, added a few pearls, and I'm pleased with the effect.

I like how the pearls "hide" under the cast-on stitch. This was my first time using the cast-on stitch and I've fallen in love. My first ones were kind of rocky but I caught on after awhile, figuring out how many wraps would work given my thread weight, etc.

I wanted more leaves on my treatment and I had no wisteria leaves in my memory bank. So I went to Flickr and found these as my inspiration.

As for why I've been away, I have two major reasons. First, I had Japanese embroidery class over the weekend. Here's a wip pic of my current Phase VIII embroidery called Queen of Flowers. I usually refer to it as "The Peony".


Second reason for being away, my girlfriends and I are planning a 40th birthday party for one of my favorite people. So I've been playing on Photoshop to make the "artwork" for her invitation.



We're planning to polka dot her lawn and play games on all the dots (connect the dots, musical dots, giant twister, etc.) This idea was also courtesy of this Flickr photo.