First stitches after 15 years...

 I couldn't get out my head the beautiful work of my grandma Luisa, so I've decided to return to embroidery after 15 years* (I was 8 when I was taught how to, actually this is the same hoop I used back then)

At first my idea was to make an embroidered frame (to put Luisa's picture in it) with some pleats and peach roses (my mom's favorite), sadly I couldn't find the right dark colors to go with DMC 967, I didn't know it was such a tricky color, Anchor's are too dark but I think I'll figure something out.

 For this rose I watched Wendi's long & short video tutorial (among many many others, it's awesome how she explains everything) and also I had the help of Sarah's stem tutorial, she also has a great site, I didn't even know there were so many different stitches for a stitch family.
 The rose embroidery is based on a drawing I made years ago, I think I was 13, (hey it's here) I tried to make some shadows and light with different colors, I'm not quite happy with the whole rose but I do like the first petal I made, it's the bottom left one, I really like how the colors worked there and all the stitches are very close to each other. I also played a little with stem stich, half of the rose was made using stem stitch as an outline after filling and the other half, the other way around.

I already joined two stitch along projects so I'll see what happens.
First one is Feeling Stitchy's August Stitch-Along. I don't think I'll get this done on time but I think it's a great idea, I chose a sleeping mask I've made back in February and never blogged about, (woops) it has only 3 colors, white, dark teal and turquoise.
Second one is welovefrenchknots Sewing Room Sampler, actually I'm somehow 30% done, it's a very amusing project, I've learned a lot so far... but I gotta say, I hate french knots :p ... I think it's all matter of practice though.



*15 years... sounds like a lot to me but I'll be 23 in exactly 2 weeks, I'm still young but time is ticking for all the stuff I want to get done before 25: au pair experience, trips, my translator degree *sigh