Something Pretty : :

Being creative and making art fills me with peace and hope, and certainly so much comfort and love. After the kids are off to school, that is how I move forward, every single day. It's a blessing I will never take for granted, and the same goes for this amazing community that brings us altogether. Peace, hope and love on any day are beautiful feelings, I think we can all agree on that. So today I'm excited to share my finished Garden Dreamer embroidered pillow. It's one of the prettiest things I've ever made and has me so eager for this collection, which I hear should be arriving any day!



This project began with a blank canvas piece of AGF's new Soft Sand Linen. I enlarged and printed out both the peony sketches and the bumble bee that became two of my new Garden Dreamer prints, Sprinkled Peonies and Bumble Beez. Using a combination of applique and machine & hand embroidery I created a little piece of Garden Dreamer fabric.



For the peonies I mostly used the sweetly colored Solid Smooth Denim in Nectarine Sunrise, using both the right and wrong side of the fabric. The slight color variation from front to back is just enough contrast to recreate the look and faint coloration of my Sprinkled Peonies in Fresh. For the stitching I used a combination of Aurifil threads and a couple of different stitches. I love the texture and style of this raw edge applique, it's so, so pretty!





I first stitched out my bee with just my Janome sewing machine and Aurifil 50wt, using the straight stitch to draw it out and the satin stitch set at different widths to fill my bumble bee in with color. Once finished it looked a little too flat so I added a layer of hand stitching with a heavier embroidery floss and it made all the difference! I can't wait to use my Bumble Beez and Bumble Buzz prints for more hand embroidery projects!



The pillow top was finished with a narrow border of Solid Smooth denim and patchwork, and for the backing and binding I used more of AGF's heavier weight denims.





I recently started using the logo part of selvage from my fabrics as tags, something I've never added to the things I make. Silly, I know! But I thought I'd share a little peek of how that looks.



Wishing all of you wonderful, creative people love, hope and peace today and always! ♡ Maureen