Let’s Hear It For The Ladies

Way back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a wonderful cross stitch designer named Terrence Nolan – he published under the Dimple Designs/Pangaea label.  Terrence designed and stitched a wonderful array of ladybugs, butterflies and beetles, birds, mermaids, and Russian Imperial eggs.  Unfortunately for the stitching world, Terrence walked away from designing sometime in the later 2000s – the latest design I have seen was from 2006.  His insect and egg patterns are now out of print and hard to find, which means they go for big bucks on ebay!  Such a shame that he could not benefit from his continuing popularity.

My January 1st start was Let’s Hear It For The Ladies, which was a collaboration between Terrence and Claudia of Dutch Treat.  She produced the Anne cloth table topper, and the border design, and Terrence provided the ladybug charts.   Look how nicely it turned out!

I made a number of changes, including stitching the lady bugs with 2 strands of floss and filling in the quarter stitches – all for better coverage.  I left out the gold motifs that Claudia had included in the central and corner squares for a simpler look, and changed the gold in the outer borders to the red perle for a bit more color.  I subbed the Watercolour fiber color to one I had on hand, and used only 2 skeins (the pattern called for 3). 

I am looking forward to my next Dimples project – just need to make up my mind!