Hoop Art!

 I have a few hoop finishes to show off. 

Over the summer I picked up the book Boho Embroidery by Nicole Vogelsinger. Her style is lots of fun; she layers bright, quirky, colorful fabrics on top of each other, then embellishes them with embroidery and beads. I was excited to try the technique:

I cut out a cat face from some Tula Pink fabric and appliqued it onto a Kaffe Fassett background. Then came the fun part -- embroidering lazy daisy petals and adding beads at the flower centers. For the frame around the cat I used fringe beads, little tear drops that naturally fall into an alternating pattern when strung together. 

I'll be doing more of this; I have all sorts of ideas for the novelty prints in my stash.

For Christmas my husband gave me a Winter wreath kit from Nicky Franklin:

The vintage linen the kit came with was a dream to stitch, so soft. There was an awful lot of satin stitching, but otherwise this kit was a fun one.

This pattern, Fall Leaf by Cutesy Crafts, was supposed to be finished in November, but I ran out of the silk I was using when stitching the outline. I debated switching to a different color because I was dying to see the completed stitching, but I'm really glad I waited to get more. One variegated color was exactly the look I was going for.

When finishing the back, I tried the string art technique for the first time. It uses a whole lot of thread, but looks neat:

Finally, I did the little freebie kit that came with an issue of Love Embroidery magazine:

The bird was supposed to be stitched with long-and-short stitch in browns and reds, but I hate long-and-short even more than I hate satin stitching, so I made my bird a little more abstract.

Whew!