Holiday stitching

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  Over the holiday, I finished a couple ornaments.  Both are freebies.  The crow & black cat (from Plum Pudding)  I changed a bit by adding the pumpkin with flowers and the top label, Autumn.  The hot legs are from My Nifty Needle (the link is no longer active for this one) and is called 'If the shoe fits'.   I'm thinking I may add some beads or something around the witchy legs to dress it up a bit.

My Little Tree is almost done!  Just one more part to stitch.  Since this is a weekend stitchy project, it will have to wait until then.

For the next couple days, I plan to stitch on Rose Wreath Santa by Libby Sturdy.  I'm not really happy with his bargello coat per the stitch instructions.  I did it in the dark and medium pinks and actully finished the bottom of the coat before tearing it all out.  Two reasons I didn't like it:

  1) The bargello let too much white show through, making the coat look too flimsy and cold.  Now it's okay for Santa to wear a pink coat (he is, after all, very comfortable with his masculinity), but it must be a warm coat.

  2) The bargello pattern was too busy for my taste. 

I also tried a diagonally striped coat using long stitches.  The coat looked warmer but it was still too busy.  Rats!

Rip-rip-rip. 

And last, but not least, I tried a simple scotch stitch with dark and medium pink threads blended together.  I like it!  This coat looks cozy and warm -- it'll keep Santa toasty on those cold winter days.

See the Star is almost finished - yippee!  Two more sections to go and it'll be done.  I love this piece.  The colors are so warm and autumn-ish.  This is the piece that introduced me to the Sticklounge yahoo group.  I saw it on someone's blog, fell in love with it, then hunted it down so I could stitch it.

Happy December 1st!  It's snowing here!


Call me crazy  ....  but count me in.  Check out the  2011 Stitching Challenge - I can think of 10 things I've never got around to stitching ....  5 more should be easy enough to find.  Wish me luck!

Getting ready for Christmas

My Baumchen piece from the Sticklounge is coming along.  I changed out the white in the corners for the overdyed floss and stitched over the white flowers with satin stitches.  I'm holding off on the lower left corner until I get the tree trunk in -- this way I won't make a mistake lining everything up ..... hopefully.  I really like this piece -- the pattern is so pretty.

Well, I finally realized Thanksgiving is approaching -- which means Christmas will be here soon.  Yikes!  I need to get some holiday stitching done!  I have finished 3 ornaments and still need to do at least 2 more.  Don't you love the reindeer -- he's been eating way too much sugar.  I used polyester thread for his eyes -- so they have that glazed, shiny look of a sugar high.  He's going to a nephew.  The reindeer is from the 2010 Christmas ornament edition of Just Cross Stitch and the snow men are from the German magazine Hardanger.  I love them both and want to stitch one each for myself also.

Each year I stitch a Santa for my collection.  Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to stitch my Santa for 2010 yet.  Soooo, the marathon stitch is on!  This year's Santa is Rose Wreath Santa by Libby Sturdy.  I bought him last year at the EGA Nationals in Pittsburgh, PA.  He has eyes, a nose and some skin as of yesterday .....

Here's hoping I can get him finished before Christmas.

I hope everyone has a peaceful Thanksgiving.  In my family, we have a lot to be thankful for this year.  My stepmother was in a bad car accident and has recovered beautifully!  Take care and enjoy!

Quickie stitchie update

Golden Cat has part of his torso ....

Toccata has some beads and the beginning of my initials ...

And I just realized Christmas will be here in no time ..... so I need to get my nephews' ornaments stitched.  I picked something different.  It's a little hardanger snowman from the German magazine "Hardanger".  It's so cute .... though it's hard to tell it's a snowman yet.

Have a super weekend!

Sad news for the sampler world

If you love old samplers, please read the following articles:

Stolen sampler and other sad news
Antiques and Hearts article

White flower fix



Revised flower with satin stitches



Original cross stitch flower



I stitched over the far left flower with 2 strands of floss.  I picked the flower that was the hardest to see and I'm happy with the results -- 1 down, 8 to go . . . .

Slowy Stitching

I don't have much stitching to show for the last couple weeks.  The dogs and I have been busy with classes and an agility trial this past Sunday.  Willow and I had a totally awesome jumpers run.  After 7 years, I think she and I are finally becoming a team.  Beagles are such independent creatures.  It seems to take them longer to get the concept of  "team".  My first beagle, Daisy, didn't get it until she was 10, so I'm thrilled that Willow is a quick learner.

Ok, on to stitching ......

My Little Tree is up to date.  I need to do something about the white flowers -- they don't show up well on this fabric.  I'm thinking I will add satin stitches over the white cross stitches of the flowers to see if that will make the white pop out more.  And on the white in the borders, maybe pink (or the red from the overdyed thread??) french knots.

The Golden Cat is starting to actually look like a kitty.  This thread is such fun to stitch.  I love watching the way the colors unfold.  It may be one of my all time favorites.  Unfortunately, the picture isn't accurate.  I haven't given him eyes yet.  I want them to stand out and plan on using a solid green for them -- perhaps something with a little glitter to it.

And last but not least, I spent time on Toccata while watching John Wayne movies and doing the laundry on Saturday.   It was a fun time!

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!

Stitchin' with the frogs

Unfortunately, there isn't much stitching to show for the past couple weeks.  Besides having a major allergy attack, the dogs and I have been busy going to classes during the week and shows on the weekends.  Plus, I've taken a couple one day stitching classes (the bunny garden and stumpwork class).  And finally, it seems that every stitch I put in, must be done twice -- it's the attack of the frogs!

I have managed to complete part 4 of Odds & Ends  -- with deviations from the original.  I finally decided to just let the 'errors' stand as they are and work around them.  After all, this piece is called 'odds & ends'.

 I finally managed to finish the second part of When Stars Collide, again after froggies came a courting.

And from frogs I went to a bunny.  With this free form embroidery piece there are no mistakes -- whatever I put down stays down.  Hopefully, this will change my luck and chase all those froggies away.  It's starting to look more like a bunny.  Just in case, I labeled the nose and tail to give you an idea of it's bunny shape. 

The final piece is a stumpwork class I took on Saturday from Marsha Papay Gomola to honor Ohio Day (I think that's what they called it -- I'm not a resident of Ohio, so I'm not sure).  The finished scissor fob has the state insect (ladybug), flower (carnation), and tree (buckeye) on it.  The bee, caterpillar and spider are just extras but are also plentiful in Ohio.

The photo on the right is what I finished in class.  Please notice the lady bug size in relation to the buckeye and carnation.  LOL -- that's one big bug!  It must have eaten it's Wheaties every day.

Each seminar attendee received a needle roll with a cardinal (the state bird) as a table favor. These where made by members of the Youngstown chapter of EGA.  A lovely lunch was served with desert being a yummy white cake with a strawberry filling -- no idea  if this is the state cake ;)  It was a very enjoyable day and I thank the Youngstown chapter for hosting this seminar.

I enjoy stumpwork but don't feel confident enough of my skills to do it without taking a class.  One of these days I'll have the skills to try it on my own and then I can stitch the patterns from my stash.  Who else buys patterns without knowing how to do them?

Have a good stitching day!



When stars collide on something wicked

Not much stitching to show for the weekend because the dogs and I were at an agility trial.  I did manage to get a little done Friday evening and last night.

I stitched some on When Stars Collide but didn't get much done.  Unfortunately, I'm falling behind on this StickLounge SAL.  I'm still working on part 2 while the group is on part 4.  I figured this would happen, especially since my weekends are very busy this month and I have classes several evenings during the week.  The picture doesn't do this piece justice.  The sparkly-ness of it doesn't show up very well.

I'm also working on Something Wicked -- I want to finish it before Halloween.  Again, the picture doesn't show how nice the boot  is coming out.  The thread, from a distance, looks black, but it isn't.  It's overdyed (ThreadWorx) with dark green, purple, and brown (or maybe it's maroon).  And instead of making each cross completely, I have stitched a half cross and then am going back over it with the rest of the cross.  I like to do this because it softens and blends the color changes, making them more subtle.  I especially like doing this with leaves -- it makes them look more natural.

Take care and have fun stitching!

A Christmas finish and a Halloween WIP

Happy Days!  I have my first Christmas present finished!  I'm sooo on top of it this year ......  not.

Anyway, here it is, Home with Jane Austen by The Sampler Girl:

I used Valdani threads for this pattern, my first experience with this brand.  I like them.  The threads laid (correct word here?) nice for me and didn't tangle much.  The only problem I had was that the linen fabric was a little hard on the threads -- the ends would soften up and fray more than other brands.  This won't keep me from using Valdani, just using shorter lengths of thread and/or clipping the tails more often. 



I pulled out La-D-Da's Something Wicked and started back on it.  I lost the original Needle Necessities thread I was using for the boot -- sigh -- how that happened, I have no idea.  Anyway, I bought the corresponding ThreadWorx thread to try to save myself some frogging.  The thread is beautiful but, of course, not an exact match.  However, since I had only put half the cross down before losing the thread, I thought it would be okay.  And I think I'm right -- yay!  Can you tell where the NN ends and the TW begins (look at only the completed cross stitches)? 

hehe -- good luck with that comparison -- I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  The pic's not that great.

I probably won't get much stitching done this weekend -- the dogs and I are headed to a Teacup agility trial.  Should be fun!  I hope everyone has a nice stitchy weekend!

Jane Austen and my Bunny Garden

I'm buzzing along on the Jane Austen piece from the Sampler Girl.   It's different from the original in many ways but it still looks nice, I think.  Only the strawberry line on the bottom needs finished.  Hopefully, I can get it done tomorrow.

Last Saturday I attended a class with my EGA group.  We are making a little embroidery Bunny Garden.  You may not be able to see but the shape being filled in with flowers is a bunny.  The outline thread is very light and doesn't show up well in the photo.  I have the nose (blanket stitch flowers), part of the head, chest, front legs and tummy areas stitched.  It's going to be very cute when the whole garden is in bloom.

A finish plus others ...

Finished!  Yippee!

I changed the pattern slightly, instead of words in the top right section, I put a butterfly.

Works in progress:

I really like this pattern -- even though it has scads of  stitching "errors" on it (someday, I really must learn how to count).  It's in 2 parts because I didn't take it out of the rollers to photograph it.

See the Star is coming right along .... it's almost finished!  I love this pattern and am happy with the colors I picked.  However, if I were to do it over, I would chose a lighter color for the outside flowers.  The reason has nothing to do with the way it looks and every reason to do with dog hair.  I'm going crazy trying to pick out the light dog hair from the dark DMC 3371.

And here we have a new start from the Stick Lounge.  It's called When Stars Collide by Tam's Creations.  The fabric is 28 ct black lugana and the threads are very sparkly Kreinik braid and Sulky.  And to add a little more sparkle, clear beads are included. 

Hmmmm, call me crazy.  Wasn't I just complaining about white dog hair in brown thread?  Now I'm stitching on black fabric???