Crazy About Wool Blog Hop, free tutorial & having a free giveaway too.......sign up

Hi everyone, I need to say that I miss you . I have been very busy and have some things to share. 

I am opening up my Studio/Shop for a Holiday Open House on Saturday Nov 30th from 9:00 to 4:00. 

I will post more about that this weekend and I will be attending Market-fest in York Village  Maine on Oct 18 and 19th. I also have more classes that I will be teaching at Yankee Cross Stitch and Camp Wool. 

But for now this is what I have been doing. 

I have 2 designs finished. A local watercolor artist Kathy Carter painted 2 doors for me.  I had them printed onto fabric, which I then embellished. I will be giving classes on these in my studio for embroidery.

 I also dabbled myself in some painting and painted a fall water scene. 

And Then I embellished it with flowers and grasses.

Actually this scene is an after thought because I made a tree first and it needed a fall background. My tree is 3 dimensional and here it is. 

AND HERE IT IS ALL TOGETHER!!

I am so excited about it. I will teach this piece at Yankee Cross Stitch, at my studio, and our local EGA chapter called "SOME"   . If you live in the Miane area you should join our chapter. Always having fun and getting together.

I am also teaching the wool feather trees again and this year I have made a miniature tree skirt to go along with them. Last year it was the clip on birds.

Here is a picture of tree skirt. I will release the pattern next week.

There seems to be a bit of wool stumpwork with those sheep :) 

There are nine little sister sheep and 3 poinsettias

AND NOW TO THE POMEGRANATE TUTORIAL

I made these 4 little fruit from some wool that was over-dyed. I cut out a six inch circle for each one. I did this by tracing a saucer(a plate for your tea cup) onto the wool with a marker. 

This is the 6 inch circle. Then go in about 1 inch and mark another circle this will be your gathering line.  

Before I made the running stitch for the gather I cut little triangles out to make the top of the fruit. 

Make your gathering stitch with a brown 6 strand embroidery floss or a pearl cotton. After you make this stitch, pull the thread and fill the fruit with fiberfill  (stuff as firmly as you can) pull the opening closed very tightly and then keep wrapping the extra floss around the top making a thick top like the real fruit. Secure your thread with a knot and tuck the thread into the top of the fruit so it will not show. 

see the thick brown section of floss

I made 4 of these fruit. On one of then I added a section of beads on the outside to look like the fruit ripped open and the seeds poured out. I added these beads on before I made the gathering stitch.
To finish it off I went out side and gathered up a branch from the yard. Mounted it onto a board that I had already covered with black wool. I then cut out some small green wool leaves.  To make these take a piece of wool 1 inch x 2 inches. Then cut around the edges to form a long leaf.  I made 10 of these.
I hot glued the branch to the board. Placed the pomegranates where I thought they would look good. Hot glued them down  I then added the leaves with hot glue around the tops of the fruit and a couple of leaves down the bottom onto a branch.

I would like to thank all of you for visiting my blog and Denise from Pieced Brain for making this fun "Blog Hop" . Please check back for more fun stitching and if you leave me a message I will add your name to a giveaway that I will have for the "Nine Woolly Sisters" tree-skirt PATTERN. 

I will have this drawing on Saturday evening and post the winner on Sunday 

Have a good day, and don't forget to check out the other blogs in the BLOG HOP that are listed at the top of the sidebar 

donna