The DayZ Dozen Blog Hop started yesterday over at Lazy Girl Designs. Yesterday’s pattern was “Ring Around the Flowers Quilt,” by Holly Holderman, the creator of the fabric design, and owner of LakeHouse Dry Goods. Part of her motivation in creating the fabric was the desire to incorporate circles in her quilts. Circles are tough! But not when they are part of the fabric design. Another aspect of her quilt pattern that I like is the way the flower colors coordinate. She pieces 2 different-colored flowers for each flower motif in the pattern, and the 2-color pairs look great together. Do I really need to say how much I like the Bright Colors? And the black to set them off? I love Holly’s color sense.

Circles can be tricky in needlework, too, at least in cross stitch and other counted thread techniques. We generally work with squares. However, there are spider webs and shisha circles. I can sort of get a round shape from eyelets–or maybe it’s the round center hole that gives a sense of roundness. What else is round? Buttons. Circles are nice. I’ll have to think about using them more in designs.

See? Looking at other techniques spawns embroidery ideas.

When I look at today’s pattern, “DayZ Star” by Tracey Brookshier, I think kaleidoscope. I like kaleidoscopic images. Huh. I wonder if there are any kaleidoscopic embroidery designs. I just did a quick Google search and there are designs that call themselves “kaleidoscope,” but the ones I’ve clicked on don’t look especially kaleidoscopic. I’m not sure why. But this interests me–I’d like to find out why they don’t look kaleidoscopic to me, and see if I can create something that does.

Isn’t this fun?!