Spring & Easter Stitching Exchange

Yesterday I participated in my second cross stitching exchange at my LNS (Stitcher's Place).  This one was an Easter & Spring exchange.  There were 4 of us that exchanged at the store.  Here is a photo of the four beautiful exchange pieces.

Heather gave Leigh the Just Nan Spring Frills humbug, Leigh gave Heather the 2 Lizzie Kate pictures, Wilma gave me the Jeanette Douglas flower (modified) and I gave Wilma the 3D Easter basket.  

I want to thank Wilma for the beautiful 3D flower and for hosting the exchange.  It was a lot of fun creating something unique, the exchanges give me a chance to challenge myself.  The next exchange will be a Halloween theme.  It should be interesting, I've never stitched anything for Halloween before.  I will start planning soon, I like being prepared.

Here are a few close ups of the basket I created.  I took the flowers from one of my books, the 2 rabbits with the heart from another book and finally the egg shape from a third book.  I did my own design on the egg.  There are purple beads for the centre of the pink border flowers.  The bottom is stitched with the same 28ct coffee evenweave as the rest of the basket.

I lined the bottom and inside with purple fabric to match the purple on the bow and on the egg.  I added green buttons to the end of the handle for decoration, and a cable tie inside the handle to make it stand up.