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I have designed and stitched several miniature pieces and enjoy the challenge of fitting a complete picture within the constraints of 24 stitches by 24 stitches. I happened to be thinking of miniature designs as I drove past the trees on my way home one evening. Within a few minutes, I had decided to design a new miniature featuring Bradford Pear trees bisecting a field of grass. When considering which season to feature, the obvious answer appeared: create a set of four miniatures featuring each of the seasons. By the time I arrived home, I had incorporated the four different times of day into my design.

Now it was just a matter of selecting the right colors, the right threads and the right stitches. I chose light gray Congress cloth because it is a neutral color and the right thread count. I love the overdyed threads, especially the silks, and chose a variety of Needle Necessities cotton floss, Caron Collection Waterlilies, Silk ’n Colors and two specialty threads, Caron Collection Snow and Kreinik high luster silver blending filament. I wasn’t completely happy with my “Autumn Sunset”, though, until I added random stitches of bright DMC cotton floss.

The stitching pattern is almost identical in all four pieces—the sky is continental stitch, the trees are leaf stitch with a single straight stitch for the trunk, and the ground covers the same area in each piece. In addition to changing the colors of the sky, trees and ground, I varied the stitch used for the ground cover to convey the type of grass seen in each season. In spring, the short grass is a fresh new green; in summer, the grass is darker and longer; in autumn, the grass is dying and has been cut back for the year; in winter (I claim artist’s license to change reality here—we rarely see snow like this in South Carolina!), the ground is covered with thick, sparkling snow.

Each of the four vignettes is an octagon exactly 1 inch by 1 inch, and each is matted in a color chosen to complement and highlight the predominant colors of the scene. With frames, each piece is 3-1/4 inches by 3-1/4 inches. They may be displayed as a group on a table, in a shadowbox, or hung on a wall, and can be arranged horizontally or vertically in a square or diamond shape. Dollhouse lovers, imagine one of these hanging over a fireplace or on a master bedroom wall. Jill Fuller of Picture This, Columbia, South Carolina, framed these.