March's Gifted Gorgeousness

I'm  a day late for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL  mainly because my weekend was so busy doing non-stitching stuff.  But better late than never ....

To begin, I put the pretty pansy in it's frame and gave it to my friend (that took care of my Saturday).
 

I also started a DMC kit I received in an online exchange.  This is what it will look like

 

 

and this is where I stopped

Now it isn't going to look exactly like the finished picture because I substituted the mint green aida fabric with 35 ct white linen.  Even though I don't usually stitch on Aida, I wanted to use what came with the kit because it was such a pretty color.  Unfortunately, there was a nasty crease right smack dab in the middle of the Aida and no matter what I tried, it proved to be permanent.   Because I changed the fabric, I had to change the yellow thread to a slightly stronger shade for it to show up.  There is virtually no fear of running out of thread since I'm using 1 strand instead of the called for 2 (unless something horrible happens).  I'm not sure I like the light green of the butterfly because it matches the blue square so closely.  I may rip it all out and pick another darker green and restitch it.  I really like the soft pastels of this project ... perfect for Spring.

Switching seasons now to Autumn, I have Nevermore almost finished for the upcoming birthday gift.  It would be almost completely finished if I hadn't stitched the moonface about 5 threads to the left.  Of course I didn't notice until it was finished and I tried to add the 'hair' to it.  Rip, rip, rip :(



That's it for the Gift Gorgeousness update but there's more to report.  This time we switch to Christmas and my Santa for this year.  I decided to start on him early because I'm stitching him on black fabric (my least favorite to stitch on).  I was afraid if I didn't start early, I wouldn't get him done in time.  This is another kit with Aida.  Again I switched out the Aida for linen but this time I dyed my own black fabric.  I picked linen because I reasoned it has larger 'holes' and might be easier to stitch.  I used black Rit dye with salt, heat, crumpled and stirred the linen and let it set for over 4 hours.  I thought I would get a nice solid black piece of linen.  What I got wasn't solid, but mostly black with a dark purple cast in bright light.  Hmmm.  After letting it set for a couple days I decided I liked it and wouldn't try to get the solid black coverage. 

 

Here's what Santa will look like

 

 

 

And here's where he is so far

 

You can't really see the purple cast to the fabric in this picture ... well, maybe (?) a bit near the lighter areas.  Anyway, the really, really great part about this is that I'm having absolutely no problems stitching on this black fabric.  Woohoo!  In fact, I didn't want to put him down for another project.  Perhaps I'll stitch on black fabric more often now.

Happy St. Paddy's day everyone!