My Friend Janet

I love that phrase from Monty Python, "and now for something entirely different".  That's what I did yesterday, something entirely different.  My friend Janet is offering a SAL on her blog (janetbrandt.com) of one of her drawings.  What fun!  Janet is the most creative person I know.  You should see her workroom, it is a dream come true.  I would love to spend the day with her and just make stuff.  This is the next best thing.  I downloaded the design then got out my handy-dandy freezer paper and some muslin.  I ironed the freezer paper onto the muslin and cut it to 8 1/2 inches by 11inches to fit in my printer.  Then I printed it out.  Wow, it turned out beautifully.

Then I tried it in a smaller size.

Cool.

I put it in a hoop.  On her blog Janet started with the biggest bird.  So I grab some floss that was close by and decided to give it a try.  I'm much better at cross stitch than embroidery.  But this has a folk art feel to it and whatever I do is just fine.

I thought I would try stitching a stem or two, in stem stitch of course.  Then I got brave and started a heart.  It didn't turn out quite like I imagined but it is okay.

 Then I wanted to try satin stitch.  I thought I would try it the wrong way and see what happened.  Yep, it looked sloppy.  So then I thought I would try it the right way with split stitch around the edge first and satin stitch with one thread over that.  Much better.  Then I went back and couched some thread on the first one and it looked a lot better.  I'm kind of goofing around.

I still didn't finish the flap on the Quaker Bag but I had fun.  Check out Janet's blog and give it a try.
A