“Climbing Clematis” New Pattern!

This is definitely one of those designs that the picture just doesn’t do it justice. 
This looks pretty on a table, but honestly, it’s gorgeous hanging on a wall. The big splashy lifelike flowers really stand out against the trellis.  I think the living room wall is where my “Climbing Clematis” is going to go.
The finished size of this is 10” x 26”. 
The pattern is now available to purchase.
The special “brand new pattern” price is $8.50 which includes shipping.  This price will be good until Wednesday evening at which time the price will go to the regular selling price of $9.50. (US & Canada. Int’l customers will just pay a little more for postage)
Just click on the Paypal button over on the left by the picture to purchase the mailed pattern.  If you wish to pay by check, just email me cathspennies@gmail.com and I’ll give you my mailing address.

I’m going to try something new by offering this pattern as an instant downloadable E-Pattern.  If you’re interested in purchasing this in a E-Pattern instead of the mailed pattern, just click HERE go over to the Pattern Cupboard website to find the purchase info.  The downloaded E-Pattern is $5.00.
Wool Kits are available for this too.
The kit price is $40.00 plus $2.00 shipping.
That price includes:
*the pattern
*the tweedy black background wool (this is exceptionally nice thick, soft wool)
*the hand-dyed purple, green and yellow wools
*the white wool that is used for the trellis/lattice. (it will be cut into strips for you)
All the wool is new off-the-bolt 100% wools which have been washed and felted for you.
If you’d like to purchase the kit, email me cathspennies@gmail.com
Any questions?  Just email me!
Thank you ladies!
Happy Day!

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Climbing Clematis Let’s make it!

I love Clematis flowers….

For the longest time I wasn’t able to grow it.  We had a golden retriever named Trixie who found it to be a tasty snack.  I probably tried at least a dozen times to buy it and plant it only to have Trixie eat it.  I gave up … until she died.  Now I can grow Clematis, but I can’t help but think about her fond craving for it every time I look at it growing outside.

My hubby made me a pretty trellis so that it climb up the brick at the side of our house.  See how I get my inspirations?

Since I wasn’t sure that I could pull off the perfect image of this that was in my head ….

I picked some of the real flowers, along with the leaves and laid them out on the lattice background.  I liked how it looked so …

Onward we go.  I’ll show you how to make this!

Now please remember, I’m doing this tutorial so that you can see it’s pretty easy to stitch and you’ll want to purchase the pattern to make it for yourself.  I really hope that ya’ll know that you will have to buy the pattern to make it and not try to make it without the purchased pattern .. that would be a form of stealing and it would make me sad….

Ok, here goes!  …..Starting with the background wool, I quickly basted right up the center of the wool to make it easier to center the lattice strips.

This basting stitch will be removed once the lattice is stitched on.

 

I lined up my first set of lattice strips, measuring according to the pattern directions to get them centered correctly.

To make it easier to keep the strips at an equal distance apart, I cut squares of paper to set inbetween the strips.   I pinned the strips in place. I lined up the center points of the lattice with the center basting stitch on the background wool. 

Pinning just a few rows at a time, I blanket stitched all sides. 

Pinning and stitching a few rows makes it easier to keep the strips spaced correctly.  You can see that the strips are woven in a out like a basket-weave.

This does take some time, but if you use lots of pins, it’s really not difficult.  The spacing doesnt even have to be perfect because the flowers and leaves will cover up any flaws. 

After all the lattice is stitched, I  flipped it over and cut off the white lattice tails to make them even with the black background wool.

Ok, the lattice is finished!  You can see from this picture that they’re not perfectly angled lattice, but as long as that it’s centered on the background wool, any other imperfections won’t be noticeable.

The flowers are super easy to stitch.  I pinned the first one on and just did a backstitch up each one of the flower petals.

I pulled the thread tight before knoting it in the back so that the petal is just a bit puckered.  If you don’t want the petals to pucker, then be sure to loosely stitch that backstitch.

For the clematis flower center, I whipstitched it in place and then …

 

filled the area with french knots ….

See how the flower center looks on the real flower?  I tried to duplicate that …

To do that, with knotted thread, I took a stitch from the top.

The knot with the little tail is pulled down and now …

I’ll just take another tiny stitch, knot it at the top and …. then I trim the tail threads.

I repeated this all around the outside edge.  Make as few or as many as you wish but I found that making lots of the loose tails looked a bit too messy.  I’m quite happy with the look of them just around the outside edge.

  The leaves are simply backstitched up the centers. 

It’s just about done!  I just need to attach the backing.

For the backing, I used black cotton linen-like fabric.  I cut the rectangle 1” larger than the the wool background and ironed a 1/2” around the edge.  After pinning the backing on, I blanket stitched around the edges … using black thread in the black areas and white thread on the white lattice areas. 

I know that takes extra time to switch over the threads …  if you don’t want to go to that extra effort, it could be done in all white threads or all black threads.

Either way … it will turn out absolutely gorgeous!

The pattern should be ready to sell this Monday, June 20th.  I’ll have wool kits available and if things go well, I hope to have a downloadable E-Pattern for this too!

 

Happy Day everyone!

Save Time! --->Make Pattern Templates

Gosh, I haven’t  posted for a few weeks … it feels good to be back!

Summertime is always busy for me with outdoor things but I’m still stitching in between cutting grass and weeding the vegetable garden.

Today, I want to talk about templates and how I use them.

My last pattern, “Apple Blossoms” has a lot of little leaves in the design.  

I know how much time it takes to trace out all those leaves onto freezer paper, so to save customers the time, I drew out each one of the 50 some leaves onto a sheet of paper.  Then, all you have to do is put that leaf pattern sheet into your copier and copy it onto an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet of freezer paper.  So much time is saved.

But, what if you don’t have a copier?  That’s when we need to use templates to help.

Here’s a littel sneak peak at my newest design …

That’s actually a real Clematis flower on there.  Before I started stitching this, I picked a few of the flowers and laid them out just to get a better idea of placement.  but anyway…

This new design will have a lot of leaves on it so I’ll show you how I made my leaf template.

I drew one leaf onto freezer paper and rough cut around it. 

I used a glue stick on the back of the freezer paper leaf…

Then I glued it onto some plastic.  Here, I’m using a sheet of plastic x-ray film but any type of flat plastic will work.  I used to use the plastic Cool-Whip lids.  Cardboard or cardstock would work too but it’s difficult to cut the shape exactly and it doesn’t hold up to a lot of use.

Now just cut around the drawn leaf line and there’s your leaf template!  The freezer paper will stay on the plastic if it’s been glued well.  Take a few seconds to label  it so that you’ll know that it’s the leaf for the Clematis and not the leaf for say,the Apple Blossoms.

 

The plastic template makes it so easy to trace around, giving you the perfect shape each time.

 

Watch for my new “Climbing Clematis” tablerunner design …coming soon!