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!

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!

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 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???