Pics of my projects I have been working on as of 8/18/09

Mirabilia Mermaid of Atlantis done on PTPlus Monster Mash
Mirabilia Enchanted Mermaid done on PTPlus Mercedes
Mirabilia Bluebeard's Princess done on PTPlus Swamp
Isabelle Vautier Grand Marquoir
Blackbird Designs Autumn Bouquet
Pelin Tezer Alla Turca

Totally Useless SAL

Here is my Totally Useless SAL

Pics of my visit to Picture This Plus in Abilene,Kansas

My visit to Picture This Plus in Abilene, Kansas

Judy Starkey, Debbie Wolf, Sue Wild, Patty Hurwitz (who is the designer of Moonflower Designs, please check out her designs!) , Julie Alderson, and myself all met up at Picture This Plus in Abilene, Kansas. All of us ohhed and ahhed the models on the walls, there was plenty of oh that is beautiful to I would have never dreamed of doing it on that material but it is very pretty!
I found a pattern that I just simply fell in love with as soon as I saw it. It is "La Clef" or "The Key" by Nimue designs. Here is the link to a photo of it http://www.abcstitch.com/optioncart/image.php?id=679892&ret=http://www.abcstitch.com/designers_php/designers.php?page=1&category=Nimue&all=yes?page=1&category=Nimue&all=yes
Then we gravitated over to ..................................................the table holding the overdyed fabric!
Marilyn is such a gracious lady, she explained where to find the aida fabric, the linen fabric and then it came to my favorite fabric, the evenweave. Talk about indecision!!!!!!!!
I felt like a kid in a candy store....................which one do I pick??????????????
I really like the Aurora fabric but with being bombarded with all the beautiful fabric I could not think of one pattern at home that I could do it on this Aurora fabric. I am wanting to do the Needleprint Mary Wigham sampler, and I thought Earthen would do great on it, but they did not have a big enough piece to do her on and I did not want to order it, I wanted fabric to take home with me!
Marilyn asked us for an opinion, boy was she brave LOL! She wanted to know which of the four different color fabric we thought would look best on Lizzie Kate Christmas by the Letter. There were 4 of us at that time and each of us picked a different color, I liked the Carnival fabric, I can't remember the names of the other three, but one was yellow, one was a lite blue with looks like clouds, the other one was another blue. She left it there for when others came they could choose their favorite and the last I heard , yellow got the most votes.
I was also trying to think of the new Mirabilia Mediterranean mermaid that is coming out. I have almost 5 of the mermaids done by Mirabilia and I have used every fabric that PTPlus has that looks like the ocean, or water. I looked on the internet and it calls for Star Sapphire and I think Lagoon or Fathom would look good on it, but in the end I think I am going to wait and do a floss toss on it.
After looking at the models, the fabric, we decided to have a show and tell. Judy's husband works for the police dept and she had specially designed a sampler that would represent his chosen profession and it was beautiful. She also had finished a pattern that was handed out at the last Heart's Desire retreat last April, she did it in three different purples I believe they were the Vicki Clayton silks. Sue Wild went next and she had taken all the Prairie Schooler Santas that come out once a year I think I saw a 1984 Santa on the afghan that she has cross stitched the designs on, it was so beautiful! It was a brillant way to use all those patterns. I have mine in a bag waiting for me to do something with them. For her mother's birthday she had done 4 designs of Little house needleworks patterns and made them into a box with her mother's initials on the top and buttons on the bottom of the box which made a nice touch to the box. Very creative Sue!
Julie brought the same pattern that Judy did from the retreat but she did it in a political flair for a friend of hers. It was the same pattern but they both looked different. I brought my Mermaid of the Deep Blue Sea, Queen Mermaid, Mermaid of Atlantis and Enchanted Mermaid, everyone liked all of them.
Marilyn gave us a tour of what goes in to making those beautiful overdyed fabrics. It is a interesting process what she has to do. She also showed us where the larger pieces of fabric is held and I picked out a 1/2 yd of Voodoo. I plan to do Mirabilia Lady of the Mist on it.
We broke for lunch, we decided since it had been raining outside, we would go upstairs to the deli and order something for lunch. I ordered the Roast Beef sandwich and it was delicious!
After lunch, we went back to the fabrics and helped each other choose fabric, we looked at the patterns again, looked at the enormous selection of overdyed floss, from Vicki Clayton silks to Weeks Dye Works, Sampler Threads, Needleworx.
I left at 1:30 for my dear brother was so nice to drive me up to Abilene in the pouring rain, and I thought 3 1/2 hrs of killing time so I can have a good time In the next post, will be some pics of my visit to Picture This Plus.

I am going to the Land of Temptation tomorrow June 20th

On June 20th, 2009, a group of ladies from the Picture This Plus Yahoo Group is going to meet up at the Picture This Plus shop at 212 N. Broadway St, Abilene, Kansas. I am one of those ladies!!!!! I have bought fabric through my LNS Heart's Desire since Picture This Plus started business in Junction City, Kansas. Now they are in Abilene, Kansas and guess what? They are closer to me now!!!!!!!!!!
I stopped there in March when they were still in the process of moving their business to Abilene. They graciously let me go downstairs to look through their beautiful overdyed fabric. I bought Barnwood and Lupine. I am hoping eventually, I will get a piece of every color they produce!
I recently ordered the new Mirabilia Mediterranean Mermaid. So I will be thinking of which overdyed fabric would look good for that pattern. I have finished three of the Mirabilia mermaids so far and two more, the Enchanted Mermaid and the Mermaid of Atlantis is just about done I can see the end of the tunnel for them. I
I wonder which colors of fabric will I come home with? We are supposed to stitch, talk, show and tell, and of course, pick out fabric that we have patterns just waiting for fabric so we can do them up! I am taking my digital camera and I will post pics of Picture This Plus Saturday get together.

updated pics that I have been working on 3/24/09

This is L&L Celtic Autumn. I am doing her on PTPlus Fathom I believe. I don't have the tag on it anymore,but I know it is PTPlus. I have changed the color of her hair for I think it goes better with the color of the fabric.

To the right is Mirabilia's Fairy Moon. I am doing the wings in two shades of overdyed floss. The material for it I bought years ago and I don't remember who is the maker but it is a plum colored evenweave fabric.

To the upper right is L&L Angel of the Morning. I am doing it on PTPlus Fossil. I love using the Needle Paints that is called for in this pattern

This is L&L Fairy Grandmother. I used grey overdyed floss for the hair. I am doing the wing section using flower thread. I think it gives it a better look for the wing part. Done on PTPlus French Lilac.

This is Mirabilia's Mermaid of Atlantis. I am only going to do the mermaid part of the pattern. I have changed the color of her hair, I have used overdyed floss in her hair also, the red are beads. Done on PTPlus Monster Mash.

This is L&L Dance of the Roses I do not particularly like yellow so I decided to change the colors in all of the design! Starting with the skirt part, I love the color 902 so I pulled all the colors in the 902 family and corresponded them with the colors called for in the skirt. The roses in the skirt are all different colors instead of all pink. Done on PTPlus Carnival.

Changing colors from what the pattern calls for

When I first started Mirabilia's Mermaids of the Deep Blue Sea, I didn't like how the colors of the mermaids were about the same as Mirabilia's Emerald Mermaid that I had already had finished. Plus, I thought as people are different from each other in looks, so the mermaids should be different. The first step to changing the colors is, pull the colors that the pattern calls for one of the mermaids. I did one mermaid at a time. After you pull the colors of the mermaid, what I do if I don't have a particular color group in mind, is to go to the floss card of DMC which shows all the color families that DMC offers. I picked the color family of 550 for one of the mermaids. Then pull the thread that is just in the body of the mermaid, not the fin colors, and line them up from light to dark. With the color family you choose, line them up light to dark. There were 5 colors in the first mermaid in mine, so I had to come up with 5 colors in another family. If there isn't enough colors in the color family you choose, as I needed one more color to do my change, what I did was look through the DMC floss card and find a color that is close to the color family that you chose and see if it would work. I found 153 would work with the 550 color family. Plus, you have to keep in mind, does this new color that you want to use, work with the colors in the fins of the mermaid? Mine did, so I have the 5 colors that I want to use instead of what the pattern calls for, so I mark the new color on the symbol chart of the pattern and I also write on the pattern where there is space not used by the pattern and write out the symbol and the new color that I chose.

Now for the second mermaid, I use a color wheel for the chosing of the second color. To me, both mermaids had to look good together. I could not use two colors that did not gel together. Like one mermaid is red and the other is blue, to me, that would not do. Take the color wheel and find the color of the 550 DMC color and look at it's compliment. I chose 158 -160 colors. Again, you pull out the colors that the pattern calls for in the body of the mermaid and line them up light to dark. You pull out the color family that you choose and line them up light to dark. If you don't have enough as I did again, I chose 792 to go with the 158, 156,159,161 colors that I chose for the second mermaid. The new colors will need to also go with the colors of the fins in the mermaids.

I chose to use the colors called for to do the fins. You can change those colors also if you would want. But in my opinion, I thought they should stay as they were I did change a color in the one mermaid bottom fin that I have finished. It called for a light, light blue and I thought it looked out of place, so I went to my trusty DMC floss card and found another color that would go good with the colors of the bottom part of the fin.

Another point, don't limit yourself in using what the pattern calls for in fabric. Just because it states it was done on a certain count, certain color of material, doesn't mean it is set in stone that, it is what you must use. I use alot of overdyed fabric for my projects. I think it gives your pattern a boost. The MODBS was done on PTPlus Fathom, to me it looked like the ocean depths. I am going to do Crystal Symphony on PTPlus Glory fabric and do the gown in greys. I am doing the L&L Fairy Grandmother on PTPlus French Lilac. I am going to do Fairy Moon on Sugar Maple's Burnt Papyrus. I have had several people say they like my choice of fabric that they would have never thought of doing that particular project on that color of fabric.

Be daring! Make your project one of a kind, put alittle of "you" in every project that you do.