It was a stitching weekend!

 I got lots of stitching time in over the weekend - hurray!  My Sticklounge SAL's are up to date:

I restarted When Stars Collide on black congress cloth.  It seems easier on my eyes than the original (black 28 evenweave) -- I hope I can get caught up with this SAL.

 My original attempt.   It's beautiful but too tough on my eyes.

I also started a new pattern, Golden Cat by Patricia Emlet of Cross Stitch Art .  I bought this a few years ago and am finally getting to it.  My original plan was to put the golden kitty on 28 ct Victorian Christmas evenweave over 2.  But after using the dark Threadworx  #1070  on Something Wicked, I thought it might look nice on the red fabric.  And though you can't tell from the picture, it really does.  Plus, I'm stitching over 1 (I love my magnifying glass!)  So instead of a golden kitty, mine will be a black kitty, in honor of my black cat, Matthew, who died several years ago.

And last but not least, I finished the Halloween ornaments for my nephews.  Both are from Just Cross Stitch, the Halloween editions -- the skull is from 2010 and Frankie is from 2009.

Happy Halloween!

Finished ......

.... except for the date.  I need to find out if the house is to be completed this year or next. 

Have a good weekend!

Two do-overs

I picked up Toccata 3 a couple weekends ago and decided I did NOT LIKE it.  Furthermore, by the time I went to bed, I decided I was NOT going to finish the d**n thing.  If I wasn't having fun stitching it, I was DONE with it.  (In fact, I so disliked the original version that the next day I ripped it apart, washed and ironed the fabric, and set the linen aside for another project.)  After a night's rest, I thought I would just start it over again with stuff from my stash.   After all, it's a lovely pattern and I really wanted to stitch it.  However, I have now fallen so far behind, I will never catch up with the other ladies from my EGA group.  Sooo, I decided to change the pattern a little by just making a sampler of squares and border lines from the original pattern.

Here's my original start.  It's on linen (which shredded the thread for the pulled areas).  The big square in the middle houses an alphabet which is surrounded by the different  blocks and borders.

Here's my do-over.  It's on grey evenweave with an overdyed Needle Necessities thread for the non-pulled sections and a polyester Sulky thread for the pulled areas.  Already I like it better.  The plan is to stitch the blocks and rows from Toccata 3.  Nothing fancy -- just make everything fit.

The above pic is what I did last week.  It looks nicer than the picture and I'm much happier with it.


Another problem piece is When Stars Collide. 

I decided to do it on black evenweave using sparkly threads and beads.  It looks lovely -- I love it but ...... and it's a big BUT ..... it is killing my eyes.  Whatever posessed me to stitch on black material again?  After stitching The Castle by Teresa Wentzler on black aida about 20 years ago, I vowed to never ever ever stitch on black again.  But after seeing so many beautiful things stitched on black, I thought I would give it a go.  Bad idea!

So the plan is to abandon my original plan and restitch When Stars Collide on black canvas and instead of backstitching each star, I plan to lay the sparkly threads.  Hopefully, the larger holes and changing the stitch-type will make it easier on my eyes.  Since I haven't started this yet, I don't know if this will work or not .... will keep you posted.


I also spent part of the weekend stitching  part 2 of the lovely little SAL 'Baumchen' from the Stick Lounge group ...... no problems here :) .....

and the sampler I'm making for a Habitat for Humanity soon-to-be new homeowner.

The letters are from an old pattern (below) in Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazine (I think that's the name) and the border is Wessex Embroidery.  So except for the letters, it's kind of an original design.

Good Stitching!

Framed!

 Back from the framer :)

Here's the little quaker pillow.  I changed it by adding my dad and stepmom's initials.  It's to be an anniversary present.

Good stitching!