A Stitch in Time: Lilacs on gauze

Yesterday, I mentioned that I'll be starting a silk gauze piece on Monday. This will not be my first gauze project from a chart by Gitta's.

A few years ago, my job required that I make a trip to Toronto (Mississauga, actually) once a month or so. This is a fairly easy car trip of about 3 hours from my home. On only one trip did I have time to visit a few needlework shops in the area, and one of those I visited was Gitta's. I fell in love with several of their floral pieces, and though the shop models were on canvas, I thought they would be stunning on gauze. Naturally, I picked up a few charts!

I have so far only stitched one of these charts, with Eterna silks (as I explained yesterday). I couldn't be more pleased with the finished piece, Lilacs. It's difficult to tell by the picture, but the stitching measures only about 2" wide and 4" tall. I chose this as the first of the charts to stitch because in my area, lilacs bloom for my birthday, and our city has an annual Lilac Festival with hundreds of the bushes in bloom at a local park. The sight of these always makes me smile!

Apparently I'm not the only person who likes the finished piece! I'm proud to say that this piece won People's Choice both at the last judged show held by my EGA chapter and at the showcase at Hershey CATS in 2002.