Christmas Stitching

At long last I have a finish to show - it's a pinkeep I made as a Christmas gift for a friend who doesn't read my blog. This friend is an Anglophile and she has a particular thing for British mailboxes. There is even an organization for people who have this interest. So when I saw this chart in a book of projects by Janet Granger, I knew I had to stitch it for her. I boxed it up (no pun intended) and will send it out to her tomorrow.

Country Wall Postbox
Janet Granger
28 count Summer Khaki
DMC

This little guy and his friend were a quick, fun stitch. It is a freebie from Oakhaven Designs found here. And this last picture is why I haven't been posting - Jenny Bean's Christmas Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler. It's a larger project than I have done before and is slow going. I'm not very happy with the linen I'm using - it is a very loose weave and when I make stitches you can see the holes in the fabric. But I'm plugging away - maybe it will be done by Christmas 2011!

Better Late Than Never!

Halloween 2010 came and went without it being ready, but I finally finished Sew Spooky today (and at least I didn't lose it again)! I had the best time stitching this design, and I really miss it now that it's done. I made a few minor changes - I left off the end of the ghost's "tail" so it would look like the ghost was coming out of the letter "L", and I didn't stitch the witch's hair because DS liked her better without it (we decided she was hiding her hair under her hat). The spiderweb in the upper lefthand corner is hard to see - I used Kreinik #4 braid but I probably should have used two strands instead of one. You really have to click the picture for it to show up. The backing fabric spiderwebs are silver glittery stuff - DS picked it out - isn't it perfect?

Sew Spooky
iStitch by Carol R.

28 count Taupe linen
CC, WDW and DMC

I'm still waiting for some special-ordered linen to start the project I wanted to do next, so I just began Jenny Bean's Christmas Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler. It's the largest design I will have attempted so far, and I have a feeling it will take me a long time to stitch. I'll post progress pictures, since if I wait for the finish you probably won't hear from me until Easter!

My first corded ornament

Thanks to Vonna's expert instructions (see her comment on my last post) I am now the proud possessor of a corded ornament made by my own hands. It's not perfect - close up you can see the join, but it's a lot better than I expected. It was even easy to glue the cording along the edges of the ornament - I thought I'd have to clamp it down or something, but it stuck on the first try. I love pinkeeps but I'm glad to add something new to my repertoire of finishes. I'm still working on my Sew Spooky pillow - in my continuing saga of mishaps, I misplaced the backing fabric I bought for it, and just uncovered it in a pile (my ornament is still among the missing). Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon.
I have a thing for owls, and I found the most adorable freebie here. This designer has lots of free designs, and more are available at her Yahoo group. It's such fun to find new things to stitch!

A Spooky Scare

I have finished Sew Spooky and took it to Joann's to find a backing fabric for the pillow I'm planning to make with it. After I dragged my son away from all the Halloween paraphernalia he helped me pick out the perfect material. We were going to see Legend of the Guardians after our shopping jaunt, and the line to pay was so long I hid my planned purchase under some spider web packets, and went off to the movies, planning to return. On the way back to Joann's I realized that Sew Spooky was not in the car! I remembered putting it in the shopping cart but not taking it out. With my heart in my throat we rushed into the store and approached customer service to see if someone had found it. I am happy to report that some kind soul turned it in, and it is now safely back in my possession. Moral of the story - do not put plastic bags with important projects in a shopping cart and expect them to magically follow you out of the store.

I'm really happy with the way Sew Spooky turned out and I hope to have a picture of the finished pillow soon. I'm off to work on it - now, where did I put it?

Oh Stitching, Where Are You Stitching?

I'm in the midst of a mystery. I stitched an ornament, and I've lost it. I've looked everywhere and it's nowhere to be found. It's just a little unfinished ornament from the 2004 JCS Ornament issue, and I have no clue what I did with it. If I keep this up I'll have to attach little homing devices to my stitching, so I can keep track of it!

French Country Star
JBW Designs
2010 JCS Ornament Issue
Belgian 32 count linen/Crescent Colours Apple Fritter

Meanwhile, after the lost ornament I stitched this one from the current JCS Ornament issue. I love JBW's designs with the little motifs, and it was a quick and fun stitch. A word of warning - if you are going to stitch it, there is an error in the chart - the top right point of the star is one row off in two of the motifs. At least I think it's an error - the odd thing is that the model picture is stitched as it's charted, but it doesn't make sense since everything else is symmetrical.

So now I need to finish this, and that brings me to my Achilles heel - cording. I have never been able to figure out how to put cording around anything without it unraveling at the ends or the join showing. What is the secret to doing this? If you have any tips for me I would deeply appreciate them. Not knowing how to do this is really playing havoc with finishing what I've made, and I would love to be able to get past this.

Okay, back to looking for my little lost ornament...

Rub a Dub Dub

Wash Day
Carriage House Samplings
WDW 30 count parchment
DMC

I just finished working on this piece, my first CHS design. I saw it on someone's blog and fell in love with it, and was lucky to find it in the designer's Etsy shop. It was a quick and fun stitch. I'm now in between projects - I had to special order some linen from Picture This Plus for the dandelion project I plan to do, so in the meantime I've been looking through JCS ornament magazines for something to fill in the time. I have issues from 2006 on (plus 2004, which I bought on eBay so I could stitch the LHN Woodland Snowfall ornament), and in looking back through them, I noticed that it is only recently that they started giving DMC conversions for most of the charts. I love overdyed threads and prefer to stitch with them when possible, but it's nice to have the DMC information when you don't have the needed floss and don't have an LNS close by to pop into. I found an ornament to stitch from a couple of years ago - just an easy one - and while it uses threads I mostly don't have, I think I can do a conversion of my own with my little stash of overdyes. So that's what I'm off to do.

A Marvelous Night for a Moondance

By the Full Moon
Tracy Horner/Ink Circles
JCS September/October 2010

28 count Sand (I think) linen

CC Gingersnap and Fallen Leaves/WDW Raven

This is my first real Halloween project and it was such fun to stitch! But boy did I count carefully over and over so I'd make sure the trees and cats were symmetrical.

This fabric is cut on the bias so the pumpkins would be horizontal instead of diagonal. So don't look too close at the grain!

I loved this curvy trim. It was my first time making a bow like this. I really wanted two loops on each side but the trim was too thick for that.

Vonna's Harvest Fairy took pity on me and made a brief stop at my house. I think she was a little tired after all her hard work at Vonna's, so she didn't stay long, but she did fix up this little table for me.

In other stitching news, I've been working on LHN's Singing the Blues. I'm not that happy with it - the variagation in the blue silk floss isn't very pronounced like the stitched model is - I probably should have stopped and bought a new skein. My LNS is out of the Tulip silk I need to finish the piece, so it's kind of on hiatus. I hope it doesn't become a UFO. I always like stitching with silk, though, so hopefully I'll finish it up.

Lastly, here's Do It Well framed. My husband seemed pleased and he did acknowledge that the sentiment fits him to a T!