Cloud Nine, Angels Wings and a Gingerbread House

I love the winter holidays and am inspired to create Brazilian dimensional embroidery designs now and then. I'm sharing some of my Millefiori designs with you here. They are all posted on my www.Millefiori-BE.com website if you'd like to read more and/or order a copy.

This is one of my Millefiori holiday Brazilian dimensional embroidery designs.

It is #998 "Cloud Nine", another name for flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), one of the most beautiful native American flowering trees - the state tree of Missouri and Virginia and the state flower of North Carolina and Virginia.
      The border is stitched with my original Interlocking Stem Stitch (if you stitched "Ruth's Gazebo" you may have tried it already), and the flowers with their distinctive dogwood petals are notched with an interesting technique. I never shy away from beads and other sparklies, and you can see that I used matte size 8/o seeds for the little berries.

This design is #838 "Angels Wings" -- stitched with Glory in mostly satin and straight stitch (which is just 'single satin stitch').

The wings are colorful caladiums, and the instructions have several versions of 'angel hair styles' to chose from. These both make lovely ornaments or gifts for friends. I used braid around the frame edge to dress this design up a bit.

Here's the idea for framing these little ornaments:

Then I had an idea to stitch a gingerbread house in all dimensional embroidery. That was fun!  It's a small design and makes a lovely winter tablescape with ornaments and a little candy dish nearby. 
     This is Millefiori design #962 "Gingerbread House".

Charms and beads are fun to substitute. The Gingerbread House is framed with holiday greenery and decorated with only the most delicious candies of the season. As you stitch, you can dream on cotton candy clouds, munch on a minty candy roof or doorknob; you can garden with gumdrops and lollipops or treat yourself to a candy-pink cupcake in a chocolate bullion wrapper, or you can wander a candy almond path in search of old-fashioned Christmas ribbon candy.
(I think I gained 5 pounds just stitching this design).
 

              A marshmallow snowman with cinnamon-stick arms and chocolate chip eyes adds to the sweetness of this BE design. Stitches include criss-cross satin stitch, Brazilian outline stitch, raised buttonhole stitch, knotted buttonhole stitch, Star-Fill, the Barbed Bullion, and a Millefiori stitch named “Stretch.” It’s a real temptation to embellish this design with beads and other sparklies, but no beads are needed – the beautiful rayon floss does the job all by itself!

 

Another holiday design that I stitched long ago is Millefiori design #868 "Winterlight".

This small design was made for a greeting card.

 

By the way, I've found flowers in one of my books, "An Artist's Garden" that can easily be used to make small ornament-style designs, or gifts for friends or family.

 

Everything is posted at my website (www.Millefiori-BE.com) or you can send me a message (on this blog and also at the website) if you have questions. 

 

Thread your needles, and enjoy the holidays!!

Rosalie