Hey look - I stitched something! And blogged about it!

I've taken a break from the cottage in the post below since I was getting bored with all of the browns, so I pulled this little castle from 501 Cross Stitch Designs by Sam Hawkins and stitched it up on some spangly Silkweaver fabric. I haven't decided what I'll do for the final finishing, so it's going to the "to be rinsed" pile and eventually the "to be framed/finished" basket until I think of something cute to do with it.

In the meantime, I've started the Blue Ribbon Designs Christmas ornament in the July/August issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. It's been a miserably hot summer here in Texas already (actually, it started in early June, which is technically still spring - 106F... really???) so dreams of Christmas is just the relief I need. Actually, I'm most looking forward to the *next* JCS issue, which will be their annual Halloween issue. Just a quick look through the blog will show that I have a big thing for Halloween and Autumn designs! And speaking of, I've already pre-ordered the Just Cross Stitch Halloween Collection book that is coming in September.

A few weeks ago I finally broke down and bought a new floor stand to use for my larger projects. I have one that clamps at the top, but unfortunately the two big designs that I've put on the Q-snaps are just too heavy for it, so I had to get one that clamped on both sides. And after first getting the wrong item (which was resolved quickly and at no extra charge to me), I now have a Stitch Master stand for my big projects. It holds the Q-snaps pretty well, but I might need to play around with it some to get a bit more of a secure fit. I haven't actually started stitching with it yet, but I think it will work well for large designs.

That's it for this update... hopefully there won't be another three-month gap before I blog here again!

Swiss Cottage progress report

Here's the first picture of an old kit that I'm finally stitching. I picked up four Cross My Heart cottage kits AGES ago and I'm just now starting to stitch them (well, this one at least). I switched the fabric out with a hand-dyed Silkweaver fabric that is very subtle and is a light blue/gray color (I had to use the flash on the camera so it's a little washed out).

I really like the Cross My Heart designs, but I really hate hand-lettered charts! There are some nice details around the windows, but the chart is really hard to read because of the partial stitches and backstitching lines. I'm stitching the whole stitches right now and then I'm going to blow up the chart around the harder to read areas and see if it gets any easier to see.

Some finishing from last weekend

I got a bee in my bonnet last weekend and finally did some finishing of projects that the stitching was completed on ages ago (in some cases, over five years ago!)

First up are two Christmas ornaments from previous Just Cross Stitch ornament issues, both with some awkward shapes. I didn't want to just do a regular square or round ornament, so these were experiments with some different shapes.



Doing the corners at the bottom was very tricky on this one! It's hard to tell from the picture, but the felt backing is dark green.



Annoyingly, this one ended up crooked on its backing, but I'm still fairly happy with it overall.

Next is the Hedwig Four-Patch freebie that came out with the release of the last Harry Potter book. So, of course, I took a photo of it on my Harry Potter shelf!



This one is finished as a stuffed ornament. I think this was the first time I have done a stuffed finish with a ribbon hanger, which was a little tricky, but it came out well.

The next is a framed finish of The Mary Rose, stitched from a kit that I picked up when I visited the museum in 2000.



The photo for this one was taken on one of the many shelves of Tudor history books in my apartment.

And finally, I pulled an old needlepoint kit out of the frame it was in and finished it into a small pillow. I still want to add a trim around it, but I don't have one on hand that I like so I'll have to that some other day.



I was looking for some decent light to take a picture in, and of course the second I set it on the floor one of the cats decided she had to investigate.

Catherine of Aragon is finished!

It took about three years of off-and-on stitching, but I made the final push and finished the patterned underskirt last night.



I have a couple of medium-sized projects that I've started, and I'm thinking that my next big project (once I get some more large q-snaps) will be a cute whimsical fairy cottage kit that I bought a month or two ago. I'm substituting a sparkly Silkweaver fabric for what came with the kit. I also have a bookmark kit that I started... too many projects going, as usual! I have also been playing around with some finishing of older small projects, including taking an old needlepoint that used to be in a frame and making a little pillow out of it. I really need to get some of these old projects finished up into ornaments, flat folds or framed, etc. and get them out of my "to be finished" basket!

Updated to add: I think part of the reason I was able to *finally* finish this project was that I have *finally* managed to put together a good stitching spot after buying a folding table. I initially bought it to make a sewing table (I bought an extender for my machine since I don't have one of those in-set sewing cabinets) but I also discovered that it works well with my needlework tabletop/lap frame. I had been trying to set up the frame on my computer desk, but it was a little too tall, the light wasn't as good and got in the way of me using the computer. :) So, I now set up my new table to the side and can spin between the computer (often with a podcast or Hulu running) and my stitching. I also stitch in bed sometimes, but now that I have two cats instead of just one, that has proven to be a little more difficult!

And updated again: I meant to mention that I have the other 5 of Henry's wives in the queue to do one of these days, but I'm going to work on a few other projects before I start on Anne Boleyn

A finish!

I finished the stitching on this AGES ago, but put off the final finishing for a while since it seemed a bit involved (which it was). It was in a kit that I got in this grab bag (errrr, box) back in 2008. The kit originally came with white fabric, but I substituted in a scrap of light green so the white beads of the snowman would stand out better.

I haven't had a lot of time for stitching lately, but I've been trying to do the "15 minutes a day" approach that I've seen on a few other blogs. Even if I only get 15 minutes in, it's 15 minutes that I can slow down and concentrate only on fabric and thread. :)

Christmas kitty #1

I stayed up probably too late finishing the back stitching on the first of the Christmas kitty ornaments I picked up in a kit late last year (I'm such a sucker for a sale and cute kitties).



This is the first time in a while that I've worked on something in 14ct (plastic canvas in this case)! I picked up a small scanner to have at home with some of the bonus money I got at Christmas, so this is a scan of the piece, rather than a photo. I'll probably start scanning more of the small projects in directly since finding good light for photos in my apartment is difficult sometimes.

I've started working on a little blackwork bookmark this afternoon - pics when I have enough progress that it actually looks like something. :)

Happy New Year!

I was shocked to see how long it had been since my last post when I went to write this post today! Of course that also means that I haven't been doing a lot of stitching lately, but hopefully I'll be able to get some more in for this new year.

Looking back on 2010, I did meet at least one goal and finished Halloween Fairy, although I still have one large project left that I need to finish (Catherine of Aragon) which will have to be a goal of 2011. I also want to start to make a dent in some of the old kits I still have around.

In lieu of recent stitching, here are two older projects that I was recently able to finally get some photos of. The first is, I think, the first "over one" on a small count (28 ct in this case) project that I did. It was originally a gift for my grandmother and now is at my dad's. The pattern was from a British magazine from the 1990s, but I don't know which one.



And the second is the largest needlepoint project I've ever done. It was from a kit and I probably stitched it at some point from the late 1990s to early 2000s.



I'm almost done with the first of six kitty cat Christmas ornaments that I picked up last year and I think I'll set it aside after I finish the one I'm working on. I just hope they don't turn in to another set of "15 year ornaments" like the batch I finally finished a few years ago!

A little blog housekeeping

I spent way too much time yesterday going through all of the old posts and adding labels for the posts that didn't have them and trying to add links to the companies and designers of things that I've worked on. I'm not really sure that I *needed* to do it, but since I had labels and links for some posts and not for others, the OCD side of me wanted them all to have labels and links.

Now, to actually do some stitching!

Two more small finishes

Here are a couple of small finishes from the past couple of weeks. The first is the one that you saw an "in progress" photo of in the previous post and the other is the autumn square from a Prairie Schooler design from the February 2008 issue of The Gift of Stitching. (You can see the full design here.)





I've started one more little Halloween design from the Just Cross Stitch October issue, then I'm going to start on some Christmas stuff.

Last weekend's stitching

I didn't get as much stitching done this past weekend as I had hoped too, but I did manage to finish one of my small projects, "By the Full Moon" by Tracy Horner of Ink Circles from the September/October 2010 issue of Just Cross Stitch. I stitched it on some hand-dyed Silkweaver fabric.



I also started another design from the same issue - "Perched on a Pumpkin" from Blue Ribbon Designs, also on some Silkweaver fabric.

Halloween Fairy Finished!

I can't believe how long I dragged out the completion of this design. I've decided that I really dislike doing lots of long stitches (the metallics of the webs and vines) and I think that's why it took me so long when I was so close to finishing. Now I need to wash and frame it, which will no doubt take another two years.

Yesterday I discovered something I don't think I had previously realized - going to a craft store without knowing exactly what you need is just as bad as going to the grocery store hungry. I ended up with several things that I probably didn't need, but I'm a sucker for kitty cat Christmas ornaments (especially when they are 50% off). And organizer tools (especially when they are 30% off). And several other things what were various percentages off. :)

I'm going to finish a couple of small things and then get started on my next big design - Sleepy Hollow by Glendon Place. As has happened a couple of times, I had a hand-dyed fabric that I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for, and then found the perfect design (the fabric is "Raging Storm" by Silkweaver)!

Small finish from last weekend

Last weekend I got the bug to start doing some final finishing on some of the smaller designs I've stitched, which mostly meant that I ended up looking through all the craft store sales fliers and then wandering the aisles looking for inspiration. The ornament below is the only one that I ended up finishing over the weekend, and it didn't come out as good as some other ornaments that I did a couple of years ago. I think part of the problem was the oval shape and that I didn't clip the bunched-up fabric enough so the two halves didn't stick together very well (thankfully I had really thick cording to fill the gap). I was proud of myself for finding something to make the oval shape though - I was originally looking for an oval stencil in the art supplies, but didn't have any luck (they just had circles and they were really expensive). So I wandered over to the wood crafts and found an oval cut-out (for painting and putting on furniture, picture frames, etc.) that was just the right size and only 29 cents. Score!



The design is from the Just Cross Stitch ornaments issue from a few years back. I've called it "Who Tree" because it makes me think of the trees in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". :)

I did more on the remaining metallics on Halloween Fairy (which I will hopefully finish this weekend) and I started on a small ornament from this year's JCS Halloween issue. I like to have a small design that I can stitch on while I'm sitting in bed watching TV later in the evening and don't want to mess with a big design (even though I have a great lap frame). More pics this weekend!

Halloween Fairy is almost done!

I took this photo earlier in the day yesterday while the light was still good (Tropical Storm Hermine was approaching with lots of clouds), so I've actually gotten even closer to finishing than when I took this photo. Apologies for the weird shadow on the left side.

Three years and a Halloween Fairy update

Yes, this is my three year blogiversary! And I've only been working on Halloween Fairy for two of those three years. ;)



As you can see, she's finally starting to get legs and I'm almost finished with her skirt (I think it was all that dark brown stitching that was killing my desire to pick this one up and finish it, but I'm almost done with that now!). Soon I'll be able to get to the pumpkins and the remaining metallics and beads. I really wanted to start on another project, but I realized I needed the long Q-snap bars from this one, so I'm using that as incentive to get her finished before *this* Halloween.

Fall trees finished!

I finished Fall Trees last night!



I'm going to do a little work on the remaining parts of Catherine of Aragon's skirt and then some more on Halloween Fairy. Of course, this plan will probably fly out the window when the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue gets here. Can you tell I have a BIG weakness for Halloween and Fall designs?

Fall trees update

I thought I might get around to finishing this over the weekend but I didn't quite manage it. Almost there though!

New stitching - Fall trees

Yes, I've been doing a little more stitching! Woo-hoo! This design is "Fall Line Up" from The Cross Stitcher magazine October 2009 issue. I chose a sparkly hand-dyed 32-ct fabric for it (although the sparkles and color don't show up very good in the photo - I'll get a better one in natural light when I finish it).

Some stitching!! *faint*

And if it looks familiar (say... like something in this previous post) there is a good reason for that! A friend went to the UK recently and brought me a Tudor rose bookmark kit that I had already done before. I was planning to stitch them together and make it two-sided until I discovered that one was 14-ct and the other was 15-ct. Oh well, I guess I have two now!

Now I think I'll try to finish a few of the autumn and Halloween projects I started last year (and the year before that - yes, I still haven't finished Halloween Fairy!). Thinking of the fall is about the only thing that gets me through Texas summers.

Since I still don't have stitching to share with everyone

I thought I would pass along this awesome article...

From the Wall Street Journal:

Idle Pastime: In Off Hours, Truckers Pick Up Stitching

With Less to Haul, Drivers Try New Hobbies; Quilting in the Cab

By JENNIFER LEVITZ

WALCOTT, Iowa—Semi driver Dave White happily sequestered himself in his rig at a truck stop on a rural stretch of Interstate 80, waiting to pick up his next haul: 45,000 pounds of Spam. He used to loathe the downtime in his job.

Then, he bought a sewing machine.

Since last year, when the economy left drivers with fewer hauls, Mr. White, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound ex-Air Force mechanic with a bushy mustache, has hunkered down inside his truck in his many off hours, making quilts from patterns with names like "Meet Me In Paris." When he's not sewing, he's daydreaming about it, he said as he ran a square of yellow cotton with little violets through his machine. "Oh, there's many a time you're just going down the road at O-dark-thirty in the morning and you just start thinking about a particular pattern."

Full article

(and maybe some needlework soon... I've really been itching to do some stitching!)

Happy New Year!

I did manage to get some stitching done in 2009, but not as much as I would have liked. I haven't even done as much over my winter break as I had planned, although I did get around to rinsing a bunch of hand-dyed fabrics and washing some small projects so I can do the final finishing. I mostly finished stitching one small ornament from a kit I got in a grab bag a while back, but I'll post a photo when it is totally complete.

Goals for 2010? To finally finish Halloween Fairy and Catherine of Aragon! I am still hoping to make a dent in some of the old kits still sitting in my organizer bin but a lot of those are pretty big projects. Maybe I'll try to get the smaller ones done first so I'll feel like I've accomplished something. :)