Good morning, and a happy Saturday all around!

For your weekend browsing, here are a few snips of needlework related goings-on, online. So, grab a cuppa, and let’s have a browse, shall we?

Fun Embroidery Kits!

If you’re looking for a cross between crewel work flavor and primitive but bright, fun embroidery kits, you’ll enjoy Jennifer Alba’s new website, JHA Designs. Jennifer’s approach is a combination of fun and funky, traditional and contemporary, primitive but classic – it’s kind of hard to explain. You’ll just have to visit her website to see what I mean.

Jennifer offers a few embroidery kits right now in a variety of pricing options, suitable for beginners and beyond. And I’m sure her inventory will be growing.

It’s always great to see embroiderers take the plunge and face the exciting, but sometimes scary, prospect of setting up shop, so I’m glad to see Jennifer online, and I wish her the best of luck.

Delicious Embroidery!

Back in September, I reviewed Lesley Turpin-Delport and Nikki Delport-Wepener’s newest book, Delicious Embroidery. I’m happy to see it’s now available in the US at The French Needle. So if it’s been on your wish list for a while, but you’ve shied away from overseas shipping, you’ll find it there, waiting for you.

Secret Gardens Popping Up Everywhere!

If you have not seen it yet, you must – absolutely Must – check out Karen’s quilted version of the Secret Garden Hummingbirds. It’s all in white – and it is a stunner.

Over on Flickr, you can find the Secret Garden Embroidery group, where folks are posting photos of their progress and finishes, for those working on the hummingbirds and other designs from the book. It’s fun to see other stitchers’ interpretations and progress.

A Very Big List of Textile Collections!

Now, if you really want to spend some time browsing online, you really must check out Yvette Stanton’s Big List of Online Textile Collections. It’s quite a list! You’ll enjoy meandering through the many online textile collections, from those at well-known museums like the Met and the V&A, to lesser known gems.

Embroidered Tapestry Underway!

Remember earlier this week when we chatted about embroidered stories and tapestry projects, specifically the Prestonpans Tapestry? Well, I’ve got quite a list of tapestry projects developing, most of which are already completed.

But if you want to see a tapestry project in progress, and if you’re on Facebook, stop in and follow The Gordon Highlanders Great War Tapestry. The tapestry is currently under construction, for lack of a better way to put it.

It’s fascinating to see the original cartoons and the progress of the stitching as they post pictures to their page. So jump over there and follow the project and encourage them in their work.

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere!

Oh gosh, I know here in the Northern Hemisphere, some people are very happy about the prospect of spring… (I’m talking to you all in the Northeast!)

Celebrating flowers, Ann Bernard has a new instructional e-book available on how to hand stitch recognizable summer flowers. In the book, she offers photos of the real flowers for comparison, with stitching instructions and drawn diagrams. It’s a nice affordable e-book that will give you plenty of ideas for adding that perfect touch of floral to your embroidered scenes.

On the Home Front!

Speaking of embroidered flowers, I’m still plugging away with my Stitch Sampler Alphabet, which I last mentioned here. I’ve embroidered three new letter models this week, which caused a little setback in the technical work on the book.

All the stitch instructions are finished. There are 30 stitches and stitch combinations, that are worked into 65 total combinations actually used in the alphabet. There are over 255 instructional photos for stitches alone – not to mention close up photos for each of the 26 letters, stitch layout guides, materials lists, and tips and pointers throughout. It’s…massive!

Unfortunately, I have to take a break this week from working on that, as the Tax Man Loometh. And he’s not going to be happy if I don’t have my paperwork together.

I’m still shooting for an Easter-ish release – or somewhere thereabouts. April is certainly the month. The exact date? Well, I’ll keep you posted!

And now, I must replenish my tea cup and work out a clever way to justify procrastinating on housework yet again…

Enjoy your weekend!