WEEKEND: Stitching Catchup #5

Well last weeks impromptu blogging break wasn’t planned. A mess of illnesses, moving house paperwork and visa paperwork all seemed to land at once, so I didn’t even have time to pick up a needle nor blog about it. In honestly, when things get too much, I loose my crafting mojo a little, which is odd when sewing is certainly for me at least, a stress reliever.

Anyways, last weekend I managed to get back into my crafting routine although it’s been the same old two projects has stitching catchup #4 – the cute little birdie thank you card and the ever growing granny blanket.

I pretty much messed this card up from the off, I somehow started the stitches in the wrong place and being too small to use a decent size hoop my stitches are far from neat. Still, it’s cute all the same. Only needs an hour or so finishing off some extra flowers and back stitching then it’s time to turn it into a card.

We hint an estate sale on Saturday that had a load of odd balls of wool in pretty colours that I managed to grab a ball full of, some of which will no doubt find their way into the blanket. I think I’m on about the 36th round, and well it’s getting a little warm to be sitting under it while crocheting, but battle on I must!

Hopefully between hours spent packing our apartment up this week, i’ll find some time to do some more crafting, and hopefully some more blogging, fingers crossed at least!

STITCHING: Birdie

Small gestures go a long way, and what’s even better than saying thank you I thought then stitching a thank you card. I wasn’t intending to stitch this piece straight away, only deciding on the colours and the fabric, but it was too cute to leave hanging around. Like I mentioned earlier this week, the design comes from a 2013 edition of Cross Stitch Collection magazine designed from a range of various thank you card designs all fun with that patchwork kinda feel to them.

It’s cute, it’s bright and it’s cheerful, what more could you want?! Plus with all the fun of packing up our apartment for moving (fingers crossed) it’s a perfect project for being able to pick up for 5 or so minutes and work on a little patch here and there.

In fact it’s so cute, I’m thinking about stitching it again for myself as an addition to my hoop wall, just excluding the thank you part.

WEEKEND: Stitching Catchup #4

Another week rolls by and we’re into June already! Between hitting some yard sales and flea markets and rehoming some great vinyl records i’ve been busy with some cross stitching and crocheting.

The Cricket Collection, Weather Wise piece is coming on nicely now, although admittedly I’ve only really added some more of the green to the grass at the bottom of the design.

It’s somewhat been neglected after starting this birdie Thank You Card design I’m working on from a January 2013 edition of the Cross Stitch Collection magazine. Originally I’d only intended to figure out the threads and find some material and keep it for a later date but the cute birdie and the colours were too tempting. For some strange reason though i find smaller designs so much more fiddly to complete and never as neat, perhaps because I have a harder time holding the piece while stitching. Still it’s cute all the same!

As for the crochet afghan I mentioned last weeks stitching catchup, well that’s been growing like there’s no tomorrow. After trying to work through my stash of yarn and not having too many spare pennies for a block colour to use as a border, I thought I’d get around that need (for now) and create an afghan out of a huge oversized granny square, which is actually turning out rather well. There’s no real rhyme or reason to the colours used nor their order. 24 rounds down, there’s certainly a long way to go yet!

FINISHED: Flowers

Yey the embroidered doily (first seen here) is finally all complete and even ironed (even though there is a stubborn line across the bottom that won’t for whatever reason iron out). So before it gets all packed away with us hopefully buying a house, I thought I’d grab some pictures while it spends a couple of days upon our old record cabinet.

Working on it of and on for the last couple of weeks between cross stitching and admittedly it got me back into going some more crocheting after doing the edging, another craft I’ve somewhat cast aside lately. Coming into this project I had a lot of reservations about embroidery, never finding my work neat enough, or not ever fully learning many of the basic stitches but it’s piped my interest enough to want to do some more. I know somewhere I have a couple more vintage linens with embroidery designs upon them, I might just have to dig those out and give them a try!

Happy stitching!

WEEKEND: Stitching Catchup #3

The long Memorial weekend gave me a bit of an excuse to catch up, finish off some of my stitching projects. That and with trying to buy a house, my stitching seems to increase as a I get more stressed with the process – but that’s an entire story in itself. Stitching revolved around two of my projects and sorting out some threads for countless other projects in my stitching to do list. As ever, I may have a sewing box of hundreds of threads (all picked up in bulk at estate sales on the cheap, yey!) but never the threads projects ask for! Isn’t that always the case?

First I started and completed a crocheted edging for the flower embroidery piece, another excuse to use some of the thrifted crochet thread I had lying around. It’s a super simple double thread, couple of single stitches to make the scalloped edge – it’s so close to being completed!

Next up has been starting my first folksy Americana cross stitch project. The piece is Weather Wise from The Prairie Schooler and is the first project of this style. Even with a limited number of colours I love how bold the piece feels which has piped my interest in more folk/primitive pieces which I’ve never considered stitching until moving to the US and I’d certainly love to learn more about the history behind this style. I seemed to be whizzing through projects lately, so this one is slowing me down a little, in a good way!

That and picking up my crochet hook again in the attempt of doing some more of my crocheted afghan. It was originally intended to be all stitched in the flower design but after completing some standard and timeless granny squares it’s somehow going to be a mix of the two, I just need work out just how.

So many ideas!

STITCHING: Old Projects

So the reason why I started this blog was to branch out, explore and record my stitching adventures. While my cross stitching has, and still will be on my main blog, I suffer from a constant post back log and the stitching posts were always sadly, falling by the wayside.

To catch everyone up I thought I’d share some of my cross stitching projects from the last couple of years.

2014 The Angel of the North – my first self designed piece.

2014 Mackinac Point Lighthouse (Michigan) – Presque Isle kit.

2013 Forty Mile Point (just outside of Rogers City, Michigan) another Presque Isle kit – I have a big love for lighthouses and stitching them if you haven’t guessed!

2014 Star Trek – The New Generation cross stitch worked from Black Lupin’s design.

2013 Christmas card design adapted from Christmas Village Sampler – sadly forget the designer (oops – I think it was a Prairie Schooler design).

2013 The flower bouquet I believe was from a Leisure Art pattern (vintage) and stitched in one thread. The seaside was a 1979 unopened kit and my first stitched on linen.

2012 – 2013 One of my favorite projects – gotta love the sheep in this design – sadly still waiting to be framed.

2012 Dragonfly (pattern from Cross Stitcher magazine) stitched completely in metallic copper thread which was a challenge in itself and not one I would probably repeat.

Most of my pieces end up on my embroider hoop wall which I love any old excuse to add too and it’s always a work in progress. I move pieces around, re-hammer nails but I’m always adding to it.

FINISHED: Record Player

Vinyl records are a big part of my life, with my husband we’ve collected over 900 in the last couple of years through often visiting estate sales. With my venture into stitching more personal designs for myself, why not stitch something that represented our love for all things record and vinyl related?!

So this design was born one based off of our 1970’s Sony record player that we purchased for an inexpensive $3 at an estate sale (it was somewhat broken at the time but we managed to fix it). I did jazz up the colour of our machine from a standard old brown to a more pretty blue but most of the fixtures, buttons and dials are in their correct positions.

With the body stitched in cross stitch, backstitching details the dials to the lid. I wanted a freehand illustrative feel to the piece, hence the little lines coming off here and there that I’ve seen in many a pattern in Cross Stitcher magazine over the years. Lets just say trying to stitch a somewhat circular/oval shape design to represent a record was more than tricky – at several points I was more than willing to give up. It’s not perfect but I’m pleased with it. Finally it’s all finished off in a 6″ embroidery hoop and added to the embroidery hoop wall collection.

WEEKEND: Stitching Catchup #2

Another week has rolled around again, unfortunately not much stitching occurred over the weekend. With family up from Pittsburgh more time was spent catching up, exploring Detroit and eating lots of yummy food. Nevertheless I did give myself Thursday afternoon to catch up with some sewing – in particular the embroidered doily.

After playing around with the stem stitch I decided to restitch the greens in the flowers using this stitch also including the main pink flower stitched in variegated pink thread. It seems to suit the design of the piece a lot better and is now the predominant stitch in the piece. Then being picky stitcher I am, decided I disliked my choice of pastel colour threads and opted for some much brighter shades.

Just a couple more stitches to do then it comes to playing around crocheting a boarder!

BLACKWORK: Michigan Map

This weeks been kinda crazy what with work, house viewings and now the in laws visiting so stitching has taken a bit of a back seat (boo), so I thought i’d share something I finished a couple of weeks ago.

Blackwork has intrigued me since I saw some kits at a sewing show back when I was about 14, I’ve always admired how fascinating the designs can be just with one colour and altering the direction of the lines. In fact blackwork was the first form of needlepoint that I was confident enough in to design my own projects. Since pinning away designs and inspiration i’ve been itching to design my own piece, this time working with the idea of a map and the use of negative space.

Moving from the UK to the US, Michigan is my new home, one I love so what would be better than celebrating this state in a blackwork piece.

So the design features both the Upper and Lower Peninsula’s plus the islands between although they get a little lost in the design – one taken from countless sources on the internet, I sadly forget where. All stitched in one thread of dark purple, the outline of Michigan is finished off in two strands just to make it stand out a little more. It’s all finished off and framed in a 5″ embroidery hoop to add to my ever growing hoop wall.

Have a lovely weekend!

FINISHED: VW Bugs

So after a weekend finally stitching in the last couple of cars, which actually turned into four extra cars, the VW Bug design I was working on at the weekend is finally completed and up hanging on my embroidery hoop wall. Like I mentioned previously, the thought behind stitching this piece was from playing the punch buggy game with the OH on all our drives be it to the post office or a road trip. More often and not, I loose.

The design is adapted from the Jeanette Crews Designs 40 Classic Cars – One Nighters which featured a great little 1960s VW Bug. I stitched the design in one block colours, mainly for them to stand out and because, well the cars aren’t that big to get too fancy with shading. In fact all the colours used reflect the bugs we see around here a lot on the roads around us – although personally, I’m not too sure about driving a brown copper car! Some quick backstitching and I love how it all comes together, all framed in a 6″ wooden embroidery hoop.

All done!