How Does your Garden Grow?

With the lovely spring weather that we should be having, I am reminded of this piece that I finished stitching quite some time ago, and finally finished as a bell pull a few months ago.  I never showed you the final picture, so here it is!

This is a free design from Papillon Creations.  It was released as a mystery stitch-a-long, one part each month for 12 months.  We were just told to pick 4 colors for the flowers and two shades of green for the leaves and vines, and one color of beads......it wasn't easy!  There were three different version of the charts also, a two or three color cross stitch version, a six color cross stitch version, and a six color specialty stitch version.  I chose the most challenging, the specialty stitch version.  I chose to stitch it on stitch banding, with Glorianna silks. 

It was truly a joy to stitch, but sat unfinished for a long time because I need the scroll bars for a class project.  Once that project was done, I put this one back on and finished the stitching in no time!   The final finishing was another story.

 

It took me awhile to figure out how to finish off the back for the bell pull, but once I found the right product at a quilt shop, it was finished in no time.  It looks much more sparkly in person with the gold beads......