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Serena Shores gave me the opportunity to work with a more nautical, coastal theme and I thought it would also be nice for summery stitching on smaller needlework projects. In my mind, I envision a modern beach house with beautiful views of the water and a collage of stitchery up on the wall from vacation relaxation. These were originally shared at h+h in Chicago last May and I'm getting them put up for summer now!  Shoreline Sampler has a lot of motifs all in one. Shells, compass points, sandpipers, seagull, starfish, anchor, rope and shells are snippets of summer snapshots. I love that the samplers can be stitched as a single large image or broken out into little projects.  I did my first samplers with Fall Frolic and Winterly and also made little mini pillows or dough bowl fillers. Susan Strumpf helped me out with finishing ideas and utilized my Serena Shores fabric for pillow backs and accents along with twine and roping and tiny shells.  Instead of a dough bowl, I think these look charming in a more open-weave basket with a more rustic feel.   I love how Susan used the tine shells to accent the pillow with coral!  Anchored Life is another cross stitch that shows the anchor with compass points. It fits beautifully in a hoop and also finishes well in a square shape framed or in a pillow. The pillow here uses Serena Shores paisley fabric and Susan used 20 count linen, over 2, from Zweigart in Off White with 3 strands of floss for that larger scale of stitch. I love the texture this creates and the 20 count cork linen is such a pleasure to stitch on.   The blue mini pillow below is one of the motifs from the corners, stitched on 20 blue linen from Week's Dye Works with 3 strands over 2 threads.  Modern Beach House 1 and 2 are a set that look nice together or could be a minimalist expression on their own. With each I have used a more graphic element of linked rings that suggest life preservers or chunky chain links. I've mounted these on sticky board and floated them on fabrics from Serena Shores in the same linked ring motif. I like the extra fabric space to offset these in their frames with more color to the bottom.  I'm using Monaco 28 count evenweave on a lot of these with Cosmo flosses. I always cross reference to DMC on the backs of my patterns. I like Cosmo floss a lot since I feel it has a nice feel, tangles less and has some really rich colors, all within a reasonable price point. Cosmo is from Lecien in Japan and they also make a lovely Tsu Mu Gi 40 wt. cotton thread that I like to use with my sewing machines. The Monaco material I have stitched on feels a little stiff to stitch on at the beginning but softens up and I like how even the weave is and feel I can get even tension when stitching on it.  The last summery beach cross stitch I designed is Beach Day with Emerson. I love this quote and wanted to use it as a framework around my mix of shells. Don't you enjoy collecting an assortment of these beauties as you walk along the sand? A pop of color in the coral offsets the soft type and warm shells.   Let your local needlework shop know if you want them to carry these charts or you can get them through robinpickensinc.com. Take a break this summer, relax, and visit the beach daily in a little summery stitch! 
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It is summer time and it is getting hot! I realized I needed to add a little "cool" into my world by getting out my Serena Shores quilts! This collection of fabrics has coastal vibes of big blooming Agapanthus (also called Peter Pans) in cream and blues are accompanied by shells, wispy seaweed and sketchy linked rings. I showed this line at h+h last May of 2024 and it shipped to shops that fall. I don't think I showed it on the blog at the time so I thought it was a good time to bring back the watery coastal pics to share.   The line has precuts of 10" layer cake squares, 5" charm pack squares, mini charms and jelly roll 2 1/2" strips.     I designed quilts and coordinating cross stitch for this line. The next blog post will show the cross stitch (and a little experiment in punch needle!). As for quilts, I showed 3 patterns in Serena Shores.  My new quilt pattern with this group was Surf Wave. I love the simplicity in this but still so much motion with the waves. This quilt uses a layer cake for the larger 64" x 66" quilt or charm pack for the smaller 32" x 33" wall size quilt. This is an easy, fun quilt to make and could be a great gift for someone who likes to surf, swim, boat or water ski.  The background on the larger quilt is Thatched Coastal Blue 48626-209 and I love this new shade! Brighter than Navy but still dark enough with just a little warmth. The smaller quilt has Linked Rings in Cloud 48775-11. Pantograph used on large quilt is Oil Spill from Longarm League. These quilts make me feel like taking a breath and slowing down to enjoy a beachy day.  I also remade Tokyo Terrace (and made some needed corrections and updates in the pattern) in Serena Shores with the same Coastal Blue background for the large. Tokyo Terrace is a good pattern to use to show off large scale prints and in this instance I wanted to hightlight the flowers in two colorways as well as the sketchy shells. I liked the balance of the green for a more lively color accent and the wispy seaweed in cloud to show off the delicate leaves.  The drawings of all the shells are really a favorite of mine in this group and I enjoy them on the cream background as well. The print with coral and shells is a nice backing print for a quilt.  A pantograph I have used before on Tokyo Terrace is Modern Curves by Anita Shakleford. I've used it on the blue Coastal large quilt and Wishbone from Longarm League on the small one.  Another thing to point out about Serena Shores is the addition of some new Thatched colors! Along with that Coastal Blue 209, there is also Breeze 210, Lime 214, Frost 211, Aqua 212, Surf 213, and Lagoon 199.  The last quilt I showed in Serena Shores was Backslash.  This is a fun quilt to make and I enjoy the angles and how they lead your eye around the quilt. The pattern has several sizes including Lap, Twin and Queen. Both of these are lap sized at 64 1/2" square. The one on the wall is using Thatched Lagoon for the background. The pattern calls for 11 fabrics for the blocks so you can pull a nice range of coordinating prints in either 1/3 yard, 1/2 yard or 3/4 yard pieces (depending on size lap, twin or queen).  Susan Vaughn of the Felted Pear helped me out with some longarming on these (I try to do my own longarming but I was swamped at the time). The pantograph on the Lagoon version is Alga from Karlee Porter. The white one uses Mini City of Fountains pantograph from Julie Hirt of 627handworks.  Thanks for taking a look at Serena Shores and I hope you have some to play with. The beach and coast are calling!   |
About ROBINDesigner of colorful florals and Thatched basics for Moda Fabrics . Modern to transitional quilt designer, cross stitch designer, sewist, crafter. I am proud to be a designer for Moda Fabrics!
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