it's april 2022, and this is the newest stitch club pattern, guest house. i am so excited to stitch this one up!

when i designed this piece, i pictured the house as a simple sketchy outline, surrounded by colorfully filled flowers and foliage.

as i often do, i'm starting simple. for the house, i'm using a split stitch [2 strands] for the main lines, and back stitch [2 strands] for the windows and doors and chimneys.

next, i used straight stitches [2 strands] for the walkway and for the additional details on the shutters.

there are a lot of different flowers in this design, and i'm planning to use a few different approaches for stitching them.

for the purple and blue flowers, i'm keeping it simple. (are you noticing a theme in my work style? simple is good!)
star stitch [2 strands] for the purple flowers and for the blue ones.
i also added some colonial knot [2 strands] clusters to the center of each blue flower.

these big yellow flowers are getting some extra details:
after outlining the yellow petals in back stitch, i added a single straight stitch to the center of each petal, topped with a single colonial knot, in blue.
the blue center is satin stitched, and then surrounded by a ring of colonial knots, for a little more texture. [2 strands for all of this]

at first, i thought i might satin stitch these petals, but since they are so close together, i didn't want the petals to turn into one large undefined yellow circular shape... and i'm planning to use satin stitch in some other areas, and i want to have some variation among all the different flowers.

here, my needles are threaded with the red floss [2 strands] and i've satin stitched the petals on the red flowers. i'm also adding a tiny red star stitch to the center of each purple flower. the red is really giving this piece a nice color pop!

i'm working on the green grass and vines next. simple straight stitches [4 strands] for the blades of grass. for the vines [2 strands], i'm using back stitch for the stems and lazy daisy for the leaves.

woven wheel (also called woven spider web) stitch is great for making bold circular shapes, flowers and rosettes. i used 3 strands of floss for this pink flower, and i added some colonial knots [2 strands] to the centers.

the yellow centers of the red flowers are done with satin stitch [2 strands] 

i worked on the big purple flowers last, using satin [2 strands] for the petals and colonial knots [2 strands] for the centers.

and here it is all finished! the perfect addition to my home sweet home collection. 💙🏠