Deborah-Anne, Thank you for your kind words.  I am fascinated by your embroidered ornament.  Is it called Temari?  I am new to the world of embroidery and my eyes are drinking it all in.  It is just euphoric.

Dear Deborah-Anne,

Thank you for your nice comments on the completion of my TAST-2012 sampler! It has been a busy few weeks for me with lots of teaching and a knitting and stitching show. This week will see a lot of catching up and some creation of new ideas for future courses and workshops.

Have a nice day, Jessica

Deborah-Anne, thank you so much for taking time to look at my Japanese Phase IX piece and making your kind comment to congratulate me. I appreciate that very much. I never thought I could do Japanese Embroidery. Like you, I had taught myself many forms of embroidery and handwork, but knew I could not teach myself JE.  But I met a teacher who lives very near me, and my studies began. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn.

I wish you much luck in all your embroidery endeavors.

-Terry

Thank you very much!

Thank you so much for your lovely words on my pebble. I hope I'm able to explain, for English is not my mother tongue. So hopefully you will understand me:

You have to fix buttons , rings or things like this between two layers of fabric. Before you do so you can draw a shape (similar to a pebble) on the upper fabric and make big stitches around to pull together later on: Then give this in a hoop. Then I stitch down around the shapes of the items between. The higher the items are the more folds you will have. But this is no problem. You can stitch them down, cover them with stitches. Then you have to cut 2 cartoons in the shape you have drawn before and a piece of fabric in the same shape but bigger.Make stitches around, fill some paddings between cartoon and fabric, do the same with the stitched fabric. Then sew  both pieces together.

It is great fun to make those pebbles. You also can find a link on the emboidery group "Who dares to jump....). I hope i could help you a little bit. If you have troubles to understand me, please, contact me. I really like to help. Happy Stitching Claudia

Thank you for your nice comment on the TAST running stitch.  Kokopelli is a  hunchbacked Flute Player who is a mythical Hopi symbol of fertility, replenishment, music, dance, and mischief.  He is seen on a lot of things in the southwestern parts of the U.S.A.

Hi Deborah-Anne, in answer to your questions.......The beaded mandala is worked on ordinary felt, with a cardboard insert to keep its shape and then pulled in with thread.......And the stumpwork is not a kit, it is done from the jane nicholas stumpwork book, hope this helps

hugs

chris richards

xx