Round Robin # 4 - Charlene

To illustrate how our Round Robin progressed I thought I would deconstruct this one for you.  Charlene started out with a pretty bird motif hand appliqued in her center panel.  (Don't mind the wrinkles, these projects have been handled a lot!)

I just love the little blue egg in the nest.

Dutchy added the first border of green fabric with hexies in the corners.  She added buttons to the center of each hexie for a little pizzazz.

Next came Carol and she added a border of blue half square triangles which picked up on that blue egg.  Very spring-ie!

You can really see how the wall hanging is starting to grow.  By the time it got to me Tami had added more hand applique.  Two lovely corner groupings of flowers, stems, and leaves on a pretty tea died background.  She used greens, blues, and pinks to pull in all the colors from the previous additions.

You can probably noticed the blue wording stitched on the corners opposite to Tami's handiwork.  When I received the project I just knew I had to do something in the blank corners.  This is where the challenge comes in, adding something that would compliment everyone else's work.  As I studied the project I decided that adding more applique would be too much.  I wanted a place for the eye to rest.  I had been so thrilled with the way the embroidery had come out on the last project (Signature Blocks) I decided to do some more emboridery on this one.  

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the project before I got started so I don't have any "work in progress" to show you.  But I do have a couple of close ups of what I did.  Many thanks to Charlene for sending me pictures of the finished project!

I know that Charlene enjoys Primitive patterns so I searched the internet for some quotes and some lettering that would give me an idea of what a "primitive" alphabet looks like.  I wanted the quote to be about spring to go along with the egg in the nest.  Since we started this project in the dead of a LONG, COLD, New England winter that seemed never ending I thought this quote said it all:

No matter how long the winter,

spring is sure to follow.

I'm not sure if the letters look all that "primitive" but I was very happy with the way they came out.  I chose to do the embroidery in a stem stitch with light blue perle cotton #5.  I found it gives a real clear look to the embroidery.  In second guessing myself I thought I should have used black instead of blue but Charlene has assured me that she likes the blue so it's all good.

Here's Charlene with the finished project including a cranberry half square triangle border from Jane and an outside border of leaves from Deb R.

Another pretty wall hanging ready for spring!