"Idle Gibberish" you say?

"Fiddle faddle!" sez I.
     I just entertained my hubby with news about my blog, and he asked what I blog about.
     I said, "Well ... Brazilian embroidery ... and sometimes pictures of my flowers ...and sometimes pictures of our cats."

"Oh," says he. "Idle Gibberish..."

He is one very lucky person that I didn't happen to have my embroidery needle in my hand. But I'm not complaining. He spent the weekend putting up shelves in our laundry room. And they look VERY nice.

And just so I won't waste this interesting space, here is a picture of a Brazilian dimensional embroidery flower I designed.

I named it "Tahitian Glory Vine" and it's from my book "Tropical Flower Garden".
    What was fun - and you can try any variation - is that the petal center veins are cast-on stitches.
    Next, I worked around, needle up on one side of the petal, through the cast-on loop, down and out on the other side of the petal. I alternated petals so I wouldn't come up in the same place that I went down with the needle, but I tried to have approximately the same number of stitches across each petal. Sometimes I went through each cast-on loop two times.
     
     By the way, when I cast-on I make the loops to the thickness of my fingernail, plus the needle -- just a little looser than cast-on stitches are usually done. I do this because I think the floss looks prettier if you can actually see the loop. (It's bullions that you would work down to a nice tight stitch.) It's one of the reasons I can add things to my cast-on stitches and loops.
     When I was finished I plopped a bead at the flower center, mostly because I am partial to beads. This is a nice sturdy flower to stitch on wearable items, too.
     If you look at those tendrils, I call them "Travelin' Tendrils" and they are really just waaaaay off-set lazy daisy stitches. If you want me to tell you exactly how I make them, leave a comment and I'll write more.  (I still have to write about the Ridged Blanket Stitch...)   ...and I haven't forgotten the little Hummy Art Quilt either.

Hmmm. Idle Gibberish, he says. Well, it will be leftovers for dinner tomorrow night, for sure!
    --or I might re-think that. He actually cleaned up EVERYTHING in the laundry area and even put all of his tools away, and even vacuumed up the drill crumbs and he DOES fix the computer when I gum it up.  Okay, then, I will fix him something good for dinner tomorrow.