Christmas stitching

I put the last stitches in this morning, Christmas Eve. By next year it will be pressed and framed, but my goal was accomplished. I made a couple of changes to the borders to make it a cohesive piece. I eliminated the candy cane borders at the top of each row and instead ran it up and down the sides and bottom as an outer border. I also stitched the evergreen boughs only twice between the three rows. I really like how it turned out. Thanks to all the members of Stitching Santa's Village Together for sharing your progress and encouragement.

I also finished knitting a couple of cowels in time for gift giving. This one went to my sweet Mother in Law to match a jacket we got for her.

 

 

 

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Santa's Village Update

I continue to plug along on my Santa's Village project. I love how it is turning out, and I've been able to complete each one before I pick up the next pattern each month at my LNS. Hopefully I will be able to complete the last one with enough time to have it framed for the holiday season.

 

 

 

 

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Stitching on the road

I was traveling for a conference and loved my little bit of quiet time with Netflix and some stitching. I'm working on a couple of Christmas ornaments to commemorate a family visit this summer. They're small projects that require just one color of thread. Perfect for taking a long.

 

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Cross stitching in progress

My year long Santa's Village is coming along. Half way through and I've stayed up-to-date.

 

I've finished a couple of other smaller patterns that I'm stitching up to be a bag to carry my iPad around work. It's obviously still in progress.

 

The first is a Black Bird Designs pattern from their Honeybee Hill booklet.

 

The other side will feature a parrot from the Fall 2008 issue of Sampler & Antique Needlework. Since parrots are native in this area, I've been collecting parrot patterns when I see them.

 

The embroidered flowers and leaves are inspired by the book Jardin Reve, jardin brode by Cecile Franconie. Her blog is absolutely beautiful, and I ordered the book from Amazon Francis. The book is well worth the hefty shipping price.

 

The lace is hand dyed by me, and the leaves and flower petals are from wool that I have been hoarding saving, as are the batiks I scored in a 5" square swap.

 

 

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Santa's Village

In December I joined an online stitching group called Stitching Santa's Village Together. Each month Country Cottage Needleworks is releasing a new pattern (12 in all) for a building in the village. I am stitching them all on one piece and plan to either frame it or make it into some kind of wall hanging.

 

I think it's turning out really cute, and the on-line community is keeping me motivated not to fall behind. I'm adding the candy cane border on the side, which was an idea I read on the blog, and will eliminate a couple of other borders in between the rows to make it more cohesive as one piece. I switched out some of the recommended threads in the borders for overdyed and I love the way it gives depth to the berries, the branches, and the candy cane stripes.

Although it's taking up much more of my crafting time that I had anticipated, I'm really pleased with it, and my family likes seeing the village under construction as well!

 

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Believe

"Believe" has a special meaning for my mother, and so it was a natural to use it as a theme for this year's Christmas stitching.

 

Merry Christmas

 

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What I'm Working on Wednesday

Wow! Green! Even though I was enjoying that yummy blue silk, it's nice to finally hit one of the other two colors.

Waste canvas: not just for sweatshirts and geese

I first learned to cross stitch in junior high school, but got really into it in the early 90s when I was in college. I guess it was a stress-buster during breaks from studying, juggling work, etc.

Remember back in the 80s-90s when many of the cross stitch designs were cute little geese and teddy bears and Christmas nutcrackers? I decided that it would be great to have some sweatshirts or t-shirts with these kinds of designs stitched into them and bought some waste canvas to make it happen.

Fortunately good sense or lack of time prevented it from happening. Meanwhile, I've had this waste canvas in my stash all this time, and I finally pulled it out for my crazy quilt project.

I think you're supposed to baste it onto your fabric, but it was such a little piece that I just used a couple of pins. The stitch count is very high - maybe 14 ct - so I had to search for a motif that was small enough to fit onto a little patch. I settled on some cutie birds from Blackbird Designs.

After stitching, I trimmed the waste canvas close to the stitching. Since the directions had gone missing long ago, I couldn't remember if you were suposed to wet the canvass to loosen the starch/glue that tacks the fibers together, but I didn't want to wet the border, which worked out to be fine. I pulled out the stitches with tweezers.

All done! Oops, except for a missing stitch on the first bird's tail. Well, good thing I was looking at the photos while I'm still in the middle of it all. :)

Letting go...

I hadn't worked on my cross stitch project forever because I had made a huge error. I tried to fix it without tearing the whole section out. I'd adjust the stitches on a side ... try to pick out stitches in the middle of a row... it just wasn't going anywhere.

Finally I stood back and looked at the big picture and thought, "Really? You think you can fix this without cutting it out?" Here, laugh along with me:

What *IS* that animal (?) on the left?

Anyway, I cut it out, which took all of about 15 minutes, and started that part over and now I am jamming along again.

Coverlet Birds, as The Scarlett House intended.

One more new start

I've started a new cross stitch pattern this week - another one from my friend that I received for Christmas. We have flocks of red headed parrots in my neighborhood that make a huge ruckus squaking each dawn and dusk as they feed. So I am a huge fan of parrot patterns.

A new year of crafting

I've kind of been all over the place-crafting wise. I've finished a quilt top designed by Bonnie Hunter:

I also completed cross stitching a pattern that my best friend gave me for Christmas (one of three from my wish list - yea!)

Do you see the mistake in the pattern? I didn't realize it was missing an "F" in the first row until I got to the F. By then it was too late because if you pull out that silk thread it leaves so many tiny bits in it that you can never get them out. And if I inserted it, it was going to throw off the line up of it all. So I just forged ahead and will count it as handmade quirk. :)

Belated Christmas Posting

I finished this ornament before the holidays, but didn't get a chance to post it. I really loved how it turned out. I found the pattern free online somewhere. My daughter started it sometime earlier this year and I finished stitching it up and finished it with some felted wool and chenille trim.

Ta Da moment

Right before the holidays I finished "Give Me A Home" by The Sunflower Seed. 

It's stitched on my hand dyed cotton  using either the specified GAST or DMC threads. If there was just a spot or so of color, I used the DMC.

Our photographer at work turned me onto a new framer in town, so I'm going to give it a whirl and frame my 'Kansas' and my 'Texas' samplers.

My first ornaments

I've been getting a lot of craft time in during the mornings when my son and I hang out and watch the news for about 30 minutes. I actually got to cross stitch something Christmasy during the season and I got them finished up this weekend.

I love these two decorations. I made them all with leftover stuff I had hanging around.

The little pillow is from Blackbird Designs Joyeux Noel book. I backed it with a recycled sweater I felted and filled it with crushed walnut shells. The tiny squirrel is from the 2011 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament magazine. It's also backed with felted recycled wool, but it's a flat ornament.

What I'm working on Wednesday

I had the chance to visit a fabric/craft store when I went out of town over the weekend and I picked up some new yarn. I was able to whip out this scarf for myself using this pattern. I think it turned out really great, especially for how easy it is. I'm thinking about making a wider shawl out of it using some lighter weight yarn.

I'm also still plugging along on my Kansas cross stitch. I've got a lot of backstitch ahead of me on the cabin.

What I'm Working on Wednesday

The ripple blanket continues to grow in spite of my haphazard approach. I began with the plan to crochet it with interlocking color strips as Attic24 did. However, my tiny little stash of 9 or so balls of yarn was not going to go far. Especially when a couple of them are really too dull for the mix. I get about 3 stripes from each ball, and the interlocking stripes call for 4 rows for each repeat. FAIL.

So now I'm back to approaching this as I did my other crochet blanket and almost every quilt I've made. Hmmm... almost out of this color, let me go get another smidge of it. Oh look, I'm out again.... let's see if I can get something that kinda matches..... and on and on. It's admittedly a pain, but keeps up the suspense I guess.

I've also made quite a bit of progress on my Kansas sampler. I've found if I devote too much time to either project, my wrist will really start to ache. But if I alternate cross stitching and crochet, I seem to be fine. So I cross stitch in the morning as my son and I have our 20 minutes of watching-the-morning-news time, and then I crochet in the evenings in front of the TV when my brain is tired and I don't have enough concentration to follow a cross stitch pattern.

I'm linking to the Wednesday link party at:

What I'm Working On Wednesday

I bought this pattern a while ago because it's designed right in the town I grew up in, Topeka, Kansas, It reminds me of the Little House on the Prarie books I would read over and over and over.

Nuts About You

Patrick and I celebrated our second anniversary earlier this month. He loves things that are "nutty" and make him laugh, so when I saw this on Etsy, I knew I had to suprise him with it!

I stitched it on my hand dyed cotton, and cotton happens to be the traditional second anniversary gift. Happy coincidence! Er, I mean, Happy Anniversary Honey!

Parrot Finish

I finished my green parrot cross stitch into a little pillow. This was the first time I had made cording. I thought that if it were a little smaller, it might look better with the scale of the photo, but then I would have killed myself trying to sew it in, so I decided this was not bad for a first attempt.

The backing is the same fabric as the cording. It's a pretty blue and green paisley.

Ta-Da!

Me (forcing my husband to acknowledge my crafts): Do you want to admire my parrot?
P: Hey honey! That looks great. ... I like how you died the fabric like that and it looks like you were riding in the stagecoach and the axle broke and you spilled your tea on it.