CQ Birthday Heart: January

Lately I've wondered if I started my Freebies blog just so I could change the header every month and use the Crazy of the Month. I just realized that for needlepoint purposes, January is almost here - and I have no CQ heart to celebrate.

During the last few days, I have started "seeing" the images in my head, so gave in to it today and made the sketches. I had already looked at images and symbolism for garnets on the internet, and have felt that only the antique jewelry would do for this. (I had a college roommate who collected antique garnet lavoliers - beautiful things!) Anyway, this one took some serious doodling on scrap canvas to get the effect I wanted. The beads were already in my stash - the Sundance size 14, color #315. For the first time in quite a while, I was unable to see a curved seam on this crazy quilt.

The next step was to go ahead and draw the heart onto canvas, and place the "necklace" - stitch by stitch. Being an impatient person, I had to stitch the gold (Kreinik metallic braid V002) and a few "jewels." The beads were such a perfect color I didn't dig any further into my stash for the garnets! So far, these are the colors that seem right for the project - but, as always, I'm sure the thing will have a mind of its own, and will dictate what goes where as the work progresses.

Carnations are the flowers, and I have chosen probably to use the traditional shades of pink and white - and will do them with silk ribbon, of course. Seam treatments will be stitched on top of the work when it's finished.