Happy Easter, everyone!

I wanted to show you a nice display of my embroidered eggs this morning, but in fact, I didn’t finish them after all. Life is sometimes like that!

Instead, I’ll share with you (again) this beautiful example of Pysanky (Ukrainian dyed Easter eggs), with an embroidered Ukrainian cloth in cross stitch, along with a pattern for my version of the cloth.

At the beginning of March, I shared with you a very heartwarming, kind gift from a reader, Cindy Russell, who compiled my Marian Medallion Project into book form and sent me two printed copies of the book.

Your feedback from that article was much appreciated, and it prompted us (both Cindy and I) to look into printing options for the book. Alas, the expense of print-on-demand for a book this size is rather high, making it an unlikely investment.

So instead, I decided to make the book available as an e-book – that is, as a downloadable PDF that will work on computers and devices that have the ability to open PDFs.

I’m really excited about being able to make it available to you!

There are many special features to the e-book that make it worthwhile to own. How ’bout some highlights?

Yesterday, we continued in our study of this goldwork piece by examining up-close the very dimensional Agnus Dei (lamb) that adorns the embroidered vestment that we’re taking apart.

At the end of yesterday’s article, we ended up with the Agnus Dei removed from the ground fabric, and today, we’re going to “unlayer” the lamb on this piece.

By doing this, we’ll see how the foundations of a dimensional piece of embroidery are built up and eventually embroidered. Mostly, we’ll learn through photos – there’s not a lot of explanation required here (though that doesn’t usually keep me from talking, does it?!).

Given the symbolism of this piece and what I’m doing with it, I figured this would make an appropriate Good Friday topic!

Everything we’ve examined so far in this Deconstructing Goldwork series has built up, in a way, to the final central element on the vestment, which is the Agnus Dei symbol.

So far in the series, we’ve looked at how this bunch of goldwork grapes was constructed, we examined the goldwork lily and the goldwork rose and took those apart to see their foundations and discover the methods with which they were made, we looked at simple goldwork leaves, and at shafts of goldwork wheat.

But all those little pieces – as interesting as they are – are not quite as complex as the focal point on the vestment, which is this symbol, the Agnus Dei:

Easter being right around the corner, and days flying by as they always do, I’ve fallen behind a bit on my egg embroidery!

Do you ever have those grand visions of preparing hand-made gifts for a whole list of people, only to find that you have run out of time? Well, that’s the case here.

I wanted to finish five more eggs before Easter, but I have judiciously narrowed that down to two possible finishes. The others will have to wait!

With Easter right around the corner, I think it’s a great day for a give-away! And this one reminds me particularly of Spring…

While I was visiting the Deep South a couple weekends ago, a little package arrived from South Africa with a couple of Trish Burr’s “supplement” embroidery-related books in it, and today, I’m giving away the pair!

I call them supplementary books, because they are really meant to accompany other books or designs by Trish. Take a look, and you’ll see what I mean.

Little Things … I’ve been working on Little Things for about 9 months!

What are Little Things? Well, they’re little embroidered things – in fact, they are part of a project book titled Lavender Honey & Other Little Things: A Little Primer on Embroidering & Finishing that will be available here on Needle ‘n Thread in the near future.