Well Hello There!

I've just been cleaning up a storm and the apartment is neat for once so I invite all my friends to come over. That offer expires at about 3 p.m. when the kids get home and it becomes a disaster once more!

I have a lot of stitching to share so I'll jump right in.

First and foremost I finally finished and framed the Lost sampler I designed. It is stitched on Raw linen (for the life of me I cannot remember the count). I used Carrie's Creations threads with one plain DMC mixed in. The hardest part was the Dharma initiative symbol. It was very tricky to get the proportions correct but I am very happy with how it turned out. I also used a blend of two colors for the smoke monster to give it some nice visual texture. The border is a collection of simple backstitched names of characters from the show.


I framed it myself, but you could tell that-right? I actually reframed it after I took these pictures do the noticeable "bump" on the left of the border. For help in framing I absolutely have to give special thanks to Meari, one of the moderators of the i-love-cross-stitch group on yahoo. The framing tutorial on her site is probably the best I have ever seen. The frame itself was custom made by signedandnumbered. Insanely reasonable cost, lovely workmanship.

Well my little baby is now on its way to the U.K. to be part of the Mr. X Stitch display at the Stitch & Craft show in March. While I'm going nuts with the links I highly recommend checking out the Phat Quarter (a flikr group associated with the Mr. X Stitch site). The stuff you find on there will KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF.

Here is a table topper I stitched as a Christmas gift for my mom and step-dad. Dutch Garden Tabletopper from Dutch Treat Designs. It was fun to stitch and turned out lovely. One tip though: Don't enjoy a glass of red wine when working with white cotton thread, especially if you're like me and sometimes lick the thread to help thread the needle. Yeahhh, I had to pull out a little section because I made that mistake.


A second gift I made, this time for my father-in-law, is the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree symbol. Man oh man did this take me a lot longer than I thought it would. Large blocks of one color just kill me.

And finally for today I finished 'The Wrong Side of the Tracks' by Raise the Roof. Well a year ago I finished and I actually have the buttons to put on it but are they on? Haha, nope.

Sweet Little Bella

Maybe since I have an eight year old little girl myself, this story just took the wind out of me. This little sweetheart had a strep infection and ended up having all her limbs amputated. I know we could sit here all day and find a million causes that need our help. But right now, I cannot think of anything else but the strength of this little girl and her family. May we never face these obstacles but if we do may we have the strength to overcome them.

To read more or donate please visit:

bellatucker.org
friendsofbella.org

The Island

I know it's been a very very long time but I'm exhausted from my final push to finish this project but too excited not to share! I still have to go through and change some of the symbols used on the chart and I'm probably going to used overdyed floss but whee! I finished my own cross stitch design. Inspired by the show 'Lost', I call it The Island. I may change some of the backstitch lettering in the border but as it is just for me I'm not going to worry at all about the final project matching up exact with the chart. I have to run as I have a little one who has important Club Penguin business to attend to on the computer ;)

This & That

I am beyond busy today but I wanted to throw some pictures up before I get too far behind. By the way, there was a discussion on the Jane Austen Stitching group about What makes a good Blog. I just wanted to apologize to anyone in advance that my Blog will never be "good". I have never enjoyed journaling, for confirmation you could poll all my school teachers. While I might say I am a fairly good writer, when push comes to shove, I have never had an affinity for writing. In a sense I am just doing this mainly for myself, to keep some sort of record of what I have done but also to share some photos with those that may have some interest in seeing them.

Wow, back on path I need to go. Here is some of the recent things I've worked on: 'Full of Hope' pinkeep (above) from Mary-Kathryn at ehandcrafts.com . For this I finally learned how to do a blind stitch. A pretty basic sewing stitch, I know, but new to me ;)



I recently framed 'Mansfield Park' by The Sampler Girl. I found a wonderful frame for ten dollars but once again I have yet to develop ace framing skills. The bottom is stretching a little to the right and I have since fixed it a bit. I will most likely continue to frame my own pieces, I just cannot justify spending the money to professionally do it. I only need to get better at it but also learn to accept that it is not going to be "perfect".


Finally I have a couple larger projects that I have finished some portion of. On the left is the Papillon 'Castles' SAL. This project will last for two years. I am actually nearing completion on part 2 but no pics yet. On the right is the "border" for 'The Wrong Side of the Tracks' by Raise the Roof. I am using a hand painted Aida fabric from Enchanted Fabrics. This is part 1 of 4.

Cinderella Sampler

Ugh, please forgive my wonky camera. This photo was taken yesterday 3/26/2009!!

Wait, sorry, back to what's important: I have completed Cinderella Sampler!!!!!!!! I feel an almost sinful pride in this, it really is quite gorgeous. Most of that goes to the designer, Kim from Willow Hill Samplings, of course. But this was my first big project and I feel some sense of accomplishment as well.

Some details: It is stitched on 40(!) ct. Sandstone Linen with threads from The Gentle Art and Crescent Colors. Like many creatures, I have a bit of a "thing" for shiny objects so silly me went ahead and used some Pearl Blending Filament in some parts. When I started I felt it was a little bit of hubris for me to tackle such a project. I was only a few months into my new hobby and here I was doing my first project on linen, and a high count at that. So why not make it a little bit more difficult and work with the blending filament? I am not prone to cursing in normal conversation but I think a few choice words slipped out while working with the kreinik.

Overall, this took me nearly five months to stitch. Eh, in reality maybe two and a half. Not too long after I started, I put it on hold for a SAL, a couple of exhanges and Christmas stuff. It is not a whole lot of stitching, most of the thread colors I have nearly half the skein left. The work in this one was the counting and double counting and the triple counting and then the ripping out of stitches because mistakes were still made.

However, the most wonderful part of this whole project remains the wonderful soul on the i-love-cross-stitch group who RAK'ed (RAK=Random Act of Kindness) me the fabric and the threads. I will remain eternally grateful. I plan to do a pay-it-forward specifically related to this design in the near future but I do not now if I'll ever be able to completely pass on the joy I received from that gift.

Below are a couple close-ups featuring the sparkly thread!

It's been a long time...

I have finished a number of things recently but I have been lazy about taking the pictures...finally got around to it! First up is "Percy Pig", a Mill Hill kit designed by Jim Shore. I did this for my mom, who loves all things Piggy. It does not show up in the picture but the piece is heavily beaded. It was a lot of fun and pretty easy to do. Until I got to the beading I could take it along and work on it on the bus or at Tae Kwon Do. The problems began once the stitching and beading was complete. First, I had booched the centering so I ended up having to trim it (it should have fit perfect in the frame also made by Mill Hill). Then I decided to
kind of "mat" it on a small piece of Weeks Dye Wool that I had. Hey, did you know that you shouldn't use glue on perforated paper? Yeah? Well I was completely dopey and did and well, it wasn't good. LUCKILY, the lovely Debra Hall had sent me a little bucket of buttons in the Christmas exchange so I used a couple heart buttons to cover up the worst spots.

I also framed the Mets piece finally but will probably have to re-do it. I am not 100% pleased with the frame. We shall see.



Next up is Medieval Angel Stocking #1 by Mary Beale. When I ordered the chart I already knew I would not make it into a stocking. I just thought it was too pretty to store away most of the year. The Lugana fabric is a one-of-a-kind from Enchanted Fabrics and I did away with the background color that had been charted to highlight the fabric a bit. I also had to extend the castle walls on the right side down a bit so it was less of an obvious boot shape. And finally to give a little more balance I decided to add some text to the left hand side. I chose the word, Caritas, Latin for Charity. Here is a picture from Mary Beale's web site of the original design:


And last but certainly not least, I finished Mansfield Park by The Sampler Girl. It has actually been quite some time since I finished it but then I stored it away for safe-keeping and kept forgetting to take pics! I am really glad I went with the blue fabric, which is brighter than the gray-ish it appears in the pictures. It is such a lovely lovely design...I cannot wait until I frame this and put it up. I may first attempt to make a wall hanging with it. I have bought a couple pretty fabrics that complement it and I am really looking for an excuse to get a sewing machine!

A Finish!

Just a quick post to show off my first "real" finish. It is by Notforgotten Farm. I am pretty sure I used 32 ct. opalescent raw Linen and it is all standard DMC floss. It was lovely to work on but I had to switch around some of the colors that were charted because they faded in to the linen I chose. It has a unique color palette, heavy on the orange and copper tones. Finished size was about 9 inches square and I actually made a pillow! I bought a little sewing machine but ended up not using it because I could not figure out how to thread it and gave up and did it by hand. Someday I will have to get someone to teach me to thread my darn machine. Also how to so the little bit of the pillow you leave open to stuff it. I ended up doing kind of a primitive whipstitch along the bottom because I could not figure out how to do it.

This was my piece for the 12 days of Christmas exchange and I sent it off to my recipient, Emily in NC. She really likes it, I'm so glad. Not everybody likes "primitive" designs. I don't know why, I think they're lovely ( and easy for a novice like myself to stitch). Different Strokes, I guess.

Happy Holidays to All!