Travels and Updates!

It has been a crazy month in the Through the Needle's Eye world. Thanks to many of you, our Woolen Oak mystery block was a great success! The time leading up to our reveal and the reveal week were incredibly busy, but certainly well worth it. Now that things are slowing down a bit, we thought we would share a little travel inspiration as well as some sneak peeks of what what we have coming up for you on the blog and on our website.

From palaces to nature,
this trip was not lacking in inspiration.

Since Europe has started to open up for travel, my husband and I (Kara) have tried to make the most of it. We have a large European map on our wall with pins for all the places we have visited and we realized that we had not been to many eastern European countries while we have been over here. I planned a rather elaborate road trip that would have us go to three countries for the first time, along with a few stops in Germany and Austria. As always when I travel, I am often looking for inspiration for our stitching designs.  

Our trip began in Germany and then continued in a very large loop through the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and then ending on a small, glacial lake in Austria. Please enjoy just some of the things I found inspiring on this road trip.

A beautiful, historical timeline made completely of Meissen porcelain tiles.

Stunning appliqué on the inside of a Turkish tent.

Appliqué close-up

These amazing, porcelain flowers decorated a 6 foot vase!

These lilies were on the grounds of Ksiaz Castle in Poland. 
I had never seen this color before.

Can you see a quilting pattern in this ceiling?

The bouquets in this wallpaper would be lovely done in appliqué.

Inspiration can be found in simple things—like a pillow at your hotel!

Ceiling decorations that could be translated into quilt borders.

This makes me want to stitch some bluebells and ferns.

Some mountain heather would be fun to stitch as well.

If I made a landscape quilt of this picture, it would be called "Sunrise on Gosausee" 

Now that I am back from the road and Teri has very ably managed all the details of our Woolen Oak block, it is time to get back to work on some of our upcoming projects that we will be sharing with you in the very near future.  Soon we will be showing you what we will be doing for next year's Academy of Appliqué, and then we will be introducing some brand new patterns!

A little embroidery from just one of the four projects that will be available
at the 2021 Academy of Appliqué, in Williamsburg, Virginia

While we won't be teaching our Baltimore Fraktur at Baltimore on the Prairie this year
because of COVID, we will be introducing the pattern on our website in the coming months.

This, along with four other patterns, will be coming to the website soon!

These little guys will be part of a project that we can't wait to show you!!!

Travel plans this year for many have had to be cancelled or postponed. I feel very fortunate that my husband and I have been able to see some of the beauty that Europe has to offer, and I hope that you have enjoyed some of our travels as well—my designing mind was whirling with ideas and inspirations for future projects. 

We also hope that your interest has been piqued with some sneak peeks of what we have in store for you and that you will check back next week to see our Academy reveal. Again, it's not too late to join the Woolen Oak Mystery Stitch-A-Long. You can head to the Woolen Oak Facebook page to join and you can find our Harvest Basket block, seen below, on our website. There are still 2 more blocks that will be revealed so their is definitely time to join in the fun!

https://www.needleseyestories.com/shop

Stay safe and keep stitching!