I'm amazed.  I can't wait to see what you do with beadwork! 

Someone already said this but the first thing I thought of was for a wind chime.

I think this is really cool.  I'd love to see a tute as well.

Thanks! I used blended threads to get the color transition to work out so nice.  For example, the first band is 2 strands of red thread, then the second band is one strand of orange and one strand of red, the third band is 2 strands of orange, etc.   

The jester band, which I added as an afterthought (and turned out to be my favorite) was done in one strand of purple and one strand of red.

Nope no frame yet. I have a limited crafting budget and framing is a bit on the pricy side.  So it is added to the stack of "to be framed needlework."  It will get done eventually though!

I bought this book called the New Carolingian Modelbook many moons ago.  I was sitting around lamenting that I had the book forever and have only stitched one thing from it.  I was fawning over the book and said to myself, Why don't you just make yourself a sampler?  So that is what I did.  (With the exception of 2 designs I found for free on the internet.)  Here are my results:


My question is, I have several inches on the bottom should I put another band or write something(the book has a few alphabets in it, but they are for a fill in stitch, not a Spanish stitch like the rest of the piece), or just leave it as is? My husband thought I should put a border around the whole thing, but since the whole thing is basically borders I didn't like that idea.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with it when I'm finished, I just stitched it up for the sake of stitching.

Any advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated.  I've been staring at this thing for 2 weeks and am stumped.

There is a reason they call it heaven.  I don't use metallic thread without it anymore, esp DMC metallics.  It even makes stitching with that thread like sunshine and lollypops.

Have you checked Hoffmann?
http://www.hoffmandis.com/keysearch.cfm
just type in harvest or fall or autumn.

It was kind of hard to tell what type of designs you were looking at from the link you provided.  are you looking for complicated designs? country/folk art? ones with people?  You might want to check out some cross stitch magazines at a book store like barnes and noble/borders in the next few months.  A lot of the autumn issues of those magazines have seasonally appropriate designs.

don't rule out kits completely, keep an eye out for kits you like the designs of and someone might be selling the chart on ebay!

covet covet covet!

I wish my sewing skills were up to par to make something this awesome.

Hey!  Maybe you got it from my wists! The original is an embroidery by Andrea Zuill, called "Angry Red Bird."

I like your version.  He looks like he is up to something!