Bees and Funky Birds

I finished the Botanical Bee from Hands On Design! What a cheerful project, but there is a lot of stitching in it!

I have it prepped for finishing. I am deciding on these 2 fabrics to back it as a circle ornament. I am leaning to the blue stripes as more elegant but I’m shopping around for opinions.

Here is progress on my funky birdys, left the Ink Circles “Fowl Mood” and right, the Button Box from Moments of Glad Grace by Blackbird Designs.

I’ve added another to the mix, Jeannette Douglas’ bird from her Garden Box set. This project is going fast!I have all the threads now so it should move along even better.

Here is progress on Dorcas:

I have filled in the grapes and leaves (except a bit in the last leaf on the right). I am deciding on the color for the tendrils around the grapes…I’ve tried rust tendrils on the left and olive tendrils on the right, but don’t really like either of them. I am going to try a medium green, but honestly may just go with the rust which seems like the original color Dorcas chose based on my limited research. I’m going to start the next band and come back to the tendrils when I have a better sense of the next set of colors. I am picking colors band by band from a bag of about 35 colors, most all of them inspired by the Darlene O’Steen version. I will offer to the curious that The Attic has a “Bright, 17th Century Palette Inspired by Historically Available Naturally Dyed Silks” keyed to the Scarlet Letter’s color symbols if you want a brighter palette without the hassle of matching colors. Give a call or email to the shop if you are interested in more information about this. I have had quite a few people contact me through the blog wanting to know about colors and that’s the only reason for this bit of promotion of my workplace.

Now…I am deciding, should I pull out another WIP to take the place of the Bee? Should I start something new? Finish up that Garden Box? I think a WIP, plus focusing on what I’ve already got going is the best choice. I’ve got plenty of smaller WIPs and it would be good to have something else nearing completion actually get done since I am doing well with stitching progress these days.