Cream Tea Cozy

The good thing about moving is you have to get stuff out and then put it away again so you see some things that may have been tucked away for a later date! Well my cream tea cozy is one of them so when I saw it I got it out of the bag looked it over and started working on it! Most of the work you see is from wonderful ladies in a RR working on it! I have a few ideas to add to their work to finish it off perfectly! I'm adding vintage mother of pearl buttons to the lace in the upper left and a mother of pearl flower button to the lace flower in the center. I'm going to add sweetheart roses here and there too. I'll take another photo when I get more progress done...I still haven't sewn down the buttons! HAHA but I figured you all would like to know I'm back to being able to work on projects again and would like to see what I grabbed to work on!
Also what got me to want to work on this one right now is that my sister will be visiting me soon and wants to have a tea party and I thought it would be nice to be able to use this cozy for that!

Dreams of Spring Block: The Purse

Here it is! The completed purse from the Dreams of Spring block!
As I was sewing it up my needle hit a pin and broke and......dun dun dun...I didn't have any spare machine needles left and no store nearby to get one! But good thing it was the day we go into town for UTURN (youth group, we are youth leaders) because afterwards we swung by WalMart and grabbed some machine needles! Yay!!!

For the bottom I wanted it to match the feel of the block and I was going to choose between the vintage lace and the beads and then I thought...why not have both? It looked perfect so I used both! I like the effect.

I used a simple rose cotton print for the lining you can just see a touch of it in this photo. I used some vintage lace for the tie closure.

I also used some sturdy vintage lace for the handles!

Here is the back, I just used a dark green brocade. It's a tad crooked at the top (proof I don't sew well LOL) but that's okay the purse is usable and still pretty from the front where it matters!

Dreams of Spring: My Block Complete

I've finally finished up the finishing touches to complete my Dreams of Spring block! Here is what it looked like when it got home. Now I'm ready to sew it into a purse!

I coffee dyed this butterfly to rest upon the beautiful flower Clairee added. I also put a few pearls on the butterfly.

I added a vintage heart to Simona's lovely SRE rose motif. Also I added 3 purple pressed glass flower beads along the lace with gold seed bead centers and antique gold metal leaves.

I added 3 green and gold diamond jewelery spacers above Lyn's gorgeous rose lady.

I also added bits of vintage lace that I cut apart and rearranged and hand sewed down. On top of the vintage lace I sewed gold "flower" bead caps with pink crystal beads as well as some large green seed beads. Lastly I added a vintage broken jewelery rose to the center.

Here I added some vintage lace to the edge of the seam of the cream Dupioni fabric and on top of that I added 3 amber pressed glass flowers with cream seed beads in the centers and a pressed glass leaf bead.

To the heart I added some tiny purple pressed glass flowers with some gold seed beads in the centers. Below the heart I hand sewed on a bit of tatting that my friend TattingChic had sent me and in the center I added a mother of pearl heart that my friend Christina sent me from Hawaii.

In the lower right near Cobi's stunning bullion roses I added a Tatted Dragonfly that Charlene had given me way back before I even learned how to tat! I saved this special little dragonfly for just the "right" project and this was it! And I want to say that it is needle tatted!!! This I have to say is the most fine example of needle tatting I've seen and I cannot tell by looking at it that it was needle tatted rather than shuttle tatted. Charlene has a gift for creating needle tatting as fine as shuttle tatting.
I also added some fire polished pressed glass flowers with gold seed bead centers all around the dragonfly and I put in a little metal gold bee.
I hope you enjoyed the tour! Now I need to sew it up into a purse!

Dreams of Spring RR: My block home!!!

Well my Dreams of Spring block is finally home!!! This is the before photo of the block I pieced and the embroidery I had already added! And now for the block after the RR! I only have a few finishing touches that I will be adding before it is totally complete!

When I saw the block upon it's return I just knew it was going to be a purse! So after I add a few finishing touches I'll be sewing it into a purse!
You can click on any of the photos to see them larger.
Click Here to see all the work I did on the other ladies blocks in the RR!

And now for a closer look at some of the details!

Cream on Cream RR: Tea Cozy Home!

Here is my Tea Cozy block safely home from the Cream on Cream RR! Here is a photo of the block before it was sent out! Click Here to see all the work I've done in the RR! You can click on the photos to get a closer look at them.
I'm now going to put some finishing touches on the block and sew it into a Tea Cozy!!!

Dreams of Spring RR: Cobi's Block

Well I've finished my additions to Cobi's Dreams of Spring Block! I added a few more vines to the wall using another color of 2mm silk ribbon in the ribbon stitch.

Here is an overall look at the block, please note that my work is ONLY the silk ribbon vines on the walls, the rest of the work was done by other ladies in the Round Robin. Wendy offered to work on the block as well and so I asked Cobi's permission and she agreed that it would be wonderful to have Wendy's work on her block as well! So now it will be in the hands of Wendy, who says she wants to add to the pond!

Dreams of Spring RR: Cobi's Block

Here is more progress on Cobi's Dreams of Spring block. I added in more vines with the same 2mm ribbon all over the wall. I ran out of the ribbon so if I add more vines they will be different, I'm not sure if I'm going to use 4mm or another color of 2mm.

Dreams of Spring RR: Cobi's Block

Well I started adding some vines to Cobi's Dreams of Spring block, all I did was add small 2mm silk ribbon leaves in ribbon stitch wandering about. When I think of crumbling walls and secret gardens I think of vines rambling so that's what I'm planning on doing is adding in more vines over the wall.

This is just a little further out look at the vine I added in reference to the previous work done by other ladies in the RR.

Mail Call!!!

I received this beautiful heart in the mail from Jill!!! Isn't it sweet!!! She remembered that I love red roses and so made a little climbing rose landscape with some pretty little flowers at the base! I don't have a project in mind yet but I do have an idea for how to applique it when I do find the right project. I'm going to put roses and vining leaves all around it to frame the lovely landscape Jill made! Thank you Jill!!!

This is the last block in the Dreams of Spring RR that I'm in, it is Cobi's block. It was hard to photograph because of the large size of the block, also Cobi mentioned that because of the size she doesn't expect it to come home finished. I'm going to have to stare at it a few days and maybe look through a few landscape embroidery books because I have absolutely NO ideas so far! LOL Good thing I have a month to work on it!

Cream on Cream RR: Jill's block

Well I tore out those awful orange looking Melanie Roses and instead added a climbing rose vine with butterflies and bees to complete Jill's block!

The climbing rose is a large feather stitch with lazy daisy leaves added and Melanie roses with fly stitch. Then the 2 butterflies are lazy daisy, ribbon stitch, straight stitch and fly stitches. I also added 3 gold bees to balance out and bring the gold around the block more. The block is now ready to make it's way home to Jill!

Cream on Cream RR: Jill's block

I got Jill's block in the mail today as well! Now I'm just waiting to get inspired, as soon as I get a "vision" for this block I'll start working on it. Jill requested that I add Melanie Roses to her block so I'm-a-thinkin'! Better not think to hard or I'll hurt my brain eh? LOL I guess I'm in a "funny" mood! LOL You could probably blame that on TattingChic who's just started a blog, ya'll should hop on over if you don't already know her! She's got some very entertaining posts!

Dreams of Spring RR: Simona's Block

I've gotten Simona's Dreams of Spring Block in the mail! Isn't it beautiful?!?! I love the work that was done by the other 2 ladies so lovely and dainty and blended together well. I wanted to challenge myself to blend my work with theirs too...and after hours and hours of non-stop stitching...I've finished my part! And boy am I tired! I know I shouldn't do that but I just couldn't stop, block was speaking to me!!! How could I resist? LOL

Here it is after my work has been added! I put some grass under the lovely arch, and I really tried hard to keep with the feel of the block and use thread and SRE mostly with just a touch of beaded sparkle.

On this spot those 3 seams screamed bouquet so I added fly stitch vines to them as a foundation, then added sweetheart roses and knot flowers and some ribbon stitch vines, then I added some feather stitch with light blue knots to echo the middle motif.
Above the bouquet I added lazy daisy flowers along the seam with size 15 seed beads and then added a zig-zag chain stitch to echo the other seam treatment using that stitch and then added more lazy daisy flowers with beads to the top.

On this seam I added a foundation of open cretan stitch and added lazy daisies to the sides of the prongs and then a french knot flower with a bead for the center. After that I added some blue straight stitch to the seam for the final touch.
Now the block is ready to be sent to the last lady in the RR to work on!

Dreams of Spring RR: Lyn's Block

I finally finished my work on Lyn's Dreams of Spring block, now it's off to the next lady to work on! I didn't end up using the beads as rain, because as I started stitching them on I wasn't happy with how it looked. They were too big even though they were size 15. So instead I added another layer of running stitches between each previous row in a blue metallic thread. I love the result much better! You can't really see the nice sparkle in the photo as in person.
I also finished up the tatted clouds, I tried to get each one to be different since no two clouds are ever the same! And boy am I glad to be done with the clouds! As much as I love to tat doing picots at every stitch gets tiring since you have to think about it more...not to mention that I had to do math to know the numbers of stitches to change each pattern to do that.

Dreams of Spring RR: Lyn's Block

I added more work on Lyn's Dreams of Spring Block! What I did was add some sheer pleated lace that I thought looked perfect to the top. Then I added "rain" by using a very fine AB thread in running stitch to which I'll be adding 2 shades of size 15 blue seed beads. I also added feather stitch to the 2 side seams in 2 shades sewing thread for a fine feel and clear size 15 seed beads. I also sewed down the 2 tatted clouds I had finished, I still need to tat up some more clouds.

I'm really enjoying working on this block. It's fun getting to work on such a small block and doing stuff really fine and tiny.