A Wooly Noel Finish

Ok, not exactly a Wooly Noel, but rather Wooly and Noel are both finished. A visit to a friends Friday evening gave me an excuse to get back to the BC Wooly project that was designated as a take along only. By the end of the evening, the third and final little sheep was done and that left only a couple of little flowers and greenery. So I broke my own rule and finished this one up at home Saturday morning. It doesn't exactly fit the Christmas in July theme I had going this month but I couldn't resist.

My Christmas in July is still going strong, and thanks to a weekend SAL group, I was told about on facebook, my NOEL project was a goal for this last weekend. We all share pictures of our target projects on Friday and then on Monday we share an updated pic of the same project. So NOEL was finished up this morning. The thread used was a DMC variegated #115. The kit came with beads but I was 1 short. UGH! But before a screaming hissy fit (the usual response for me;-), I checked my stash, behold I had a whole package of just the same gold beads, and the finish was achieved.

Next up is the M-Design's Checkered Christmas, started just this last Christmas. This one uses DMC on gingham fabric and I have to give M-Designs lots of credit for their wonderful chart. They use a small dot symbol to help you see the squares in the gingham fabric on the chart. The fabric's checks come 12 threads per block so a normal 10 count chart could really be confusing in comparison. I have struggled in the past with other designers charts done for use with gingham.

I am awaiting the cooler weather promised for Thursday. I love reading some of the blogs where it is cold right now or rainy. That's as close as I can get. Happy Stitching, CJ ok;-)

First Christmas in July finish

Well I did it! A WIP finished, thanks to Christmas in July, I have my Victorian Santa finished. Now it just needs a fluffy stuffed, corded trimmed, tassel bottomed, top looped finish, which will come later. This picture just has the buttons laying on it, they can't go on until the finishing steps. Since this Santa is much bigger (7" x4") than the average ornament, I started to think of what I could do with it when finished, and suddenly I realized it would look great hanging in the center of a Christmas wreath this year. Ok, so now I need a wreath of some kind, so that's on a future to do list. It never ends.

What's next is the NOEL design I have in the WIP pile. It is on a specialty fabric with gold trimmed blocks and adorned with gold beads. I'm ashamed to say that this was a kit from a stitching weekend back around 2002 or so. This picture is the current status.

FYI - I have added a link to a Fabric/Stitch calculator on the right side of my blog, just under my profile. This is something Yarn Tree makes available to anyone. Just drop in your fabric count and design stitch counts, over 1 or 2 info and it calcs the fabric size needed. So easy, I love it.

Now one more rant. This one is about deceptive advertising. I picked up this box of crackers because it seemed the carbs were fairly low for the number of crackers in a serving, something I am always looking for. Then I got it home and opened it. My picture here shows the actual cracker laying on top the the cracker pictured on the box. The crackers are each about the size of a quarter and no where near the size pictured. There is fine print under the picture on the box that says it is bigger than actual size to show texture. That's what we all look for in a cracker, texture. LOL

Well buyer beware, right.

Happy stitching, CJ ok;-)

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up

I hope everyone had a great weekend in celebration of our countries Independence Day.

Things here were a little wild, most of our area fireworks were God given in the form of a very intense thunderstorm with a huge lighting show, just as most people were starting to gather for firework displays. Luckily I was standing watching from my window at home as the rain pelted down almost horizontally, because of the high winds. Thankfully no tornado threat with this storm and it passed over within an hour but that was just long enough for most of the big firework demonstrations in the area to be postponed until later in the week. We did need the rain badly and the storm finally cooled our temperatures so it was really a blessing.

Now to stitching. I did meet my goal of having my little patriotic design stitched by the fourth, in fact it was done Friday the 3rd. I would have posted it earlier but I just couldn't seem to get a picture that didn't make my fabric look green. My camera and the light worked out a little better this morning.

Deer in the Woods

by Something In Common

stitched on 32ct Belfast linen coffee dyed by me

a few thread substitutions were made.

With that finished, I did some stitching on a piece I designed, all I can share is a little sneak peek for now. I needed to try out the colors and like them together so far. It's stitched on 22ct hardanger fabric, using Gentle Art threads.

I also got started on my plan for Christmas in July by working on Victorian Santa. Here are pictures of where I had picked it up from some time last year and where I am now. It is a very different design in that I will be stitching only with two colors, for Santa's hat and his beard and the buttons will be all the detail. It was easy to do while watching Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories, a cute PG movie with Courtney Cox and Keri Russell.

I really didn't stitch much today but should have time to get back to my Christmas projects tomorrow.

Note to those of you who commented on my question a few posts back about Google's following feature and specifically blocking. Your comments helped me and I actually unblocked two of the three followers that concerned me. For those that didn't know how to block it is just a feature Google offers. On your dashboard just click on the number of followers beside your blog and it lists them all and allows you to block or unblock. It doesn't change the fact that we have publicly viewed blogs it only stops that person from being notified each time you post to your blog. So thanks for your responses.

Also many thanks for all the sweet comments about my granddaughter.

Happy Stitching, CJ ok;-)

A Little Diversity and Darling Granddaughter

This week I just had to start on a super simple afghan for my DGD. I purchased this wonderful cotton yarn from a LYS and found the pattern here . It's just going to be a big granny square, I have already crocheted all of the first skein and will have to go back a get a couple more skeins to finish this. I wanted something very airy, just enough to keep the AC chill off the little one when napping this summer. FYI, she is 3 months old tomorrow and just starting to smile, but I couldn't capture that smile in a pic yet, so here is the best I could get. Yes that is red hair.













I also worked on Deer in the Woods, using the first of the linen I coffee dyed. Not too much left to stitch, so I should have it done for the 4th.
And I didn't just stop the dying with one piece. I tried it again with a coffee and tea mixture, which came out darker than this first piece (on the right below). Then I took half of that piece and soaked it for an hour in tea only. This new piece can out much darker with a great orange tint (on the left below). It will be perfect for the LHN Iced Tea project I wanted to stitch but didn't have the fabric for. BUT - the Iced Tea may have to wait for a bit longer, as Anna was talking about Christmas in July stitching and I thought I may join her in a month of stitching just Christmas (hope she doesn't mind the company).

I have a great Blackbird design, "And to All a Good Night" LF #11 that I have wanted to start for a while, I have the fabric and all the substituted threads (the fabric I am using is a Mariner's Blue so color changes were needed). Besides that, I have 2 sets of ornaments for my kids, a beaded NOEL design that would be quick to finish up, a Victorian Santa with this awesome button for it's face and an M-Designs checkered Christmas, all in progress. If that is not enough I could always get started on a stocking for the new DGD, I know I want to do a Birds of a Feather stocking design but I haven't collected the materials yet (may have to dye more fabric). I definitely have a months worth of stitching and then some. Note, Christmas in July stitching may have to start after the holiday weekend but I am definitely doing this.

There will still be plenty of summer stitching time left in August.

Happy Stitching, CJok;-)

P.S. My BC Wooly Sheep are still in progress, I've been saving the stitching of this to do when I am out and about, because I really don't have another big count project to replace it right now.

My first try at Hand-Dyed

Well I spend last night researching hand-dying techniques. I read several posts from various stitchers and then came across this from Vonna at The Twisted Stitcher about Basting and Baking your linen. This seemed doable for me no dyes involved, just coffee (and/or tea) which I had here in the house.

So this morning bright and early I brewed my coffee (I have a french press) and after my one cup I thought why not give it a try. Rather than waste good coffee I just added more hot water to the grounds in the press, after some brew time I strained this through a coffee filter to be sure I wouldn't have a lot of grounds in the coffee. Poured it all over a small 10 x 10 piece of antique white Belfast I had and let it set. Note: I only had Earl Grey tea in the house and opted not to combine the tea and coffee as Vonna had. I stirred it about a few times and when I liked the color I pulled it out and placed it on the foil covered baking pan as Vonna had instructed. Baked until it was just about dry, it only took a few minutes (see Vonna's instructions).

The results were just what I wanted, maybe slightly lighter because I was a little timid about how long to let it soak. There are only a few of the darker shaded areas probably because my piece of linen was so small and not bunched up a lot. But I am thrilled with the results and will definitely try this again. In fact I have about a fat 1/4 left of the 32ct Antique white Belfast and I plan to dye it all using a few different coffee and tea combinations. My pic shows the pattern I will use it for and the fabric before and after. Thank you Vonna, I now have hand dyed linen at no extra cost, and I even recycled my coffee to do it.

Try it you'll like it, CJ ok;-)

One Finish, One WIP and one Question

First for the fun part a finish, 7 or 8 years in the making. From something I thought I had tossed out, to a finish. This was a grab bag pattern received at a Fall Fling way back when. I loved stitching the smyrna crosses that make up the dotted lines in this pattern.

Indian Summer

by Earth Threads

stitched with Caron Wildflowers Fiesta

I've also stitched some on the BC Wooly kit that decided to start last week as my tag along project. Missed stitching with my friends at the cafe this last week, but I did visit another friend to stitch on Friday evening. So most of this stitching was really done at home because I just couldn't resist working on this.

What's next. I am really feeling the need to stitch on something patriotic, this is after viewing all of your wonderful finishes. I haven't posted anything new in a week but I have been reading all of your blogs regularly and it seems everyone is stitching a little red, white and blue right now. So this is what I found in my stash to stitch.

It calls for a 32ct Antique tan linen, which I don't have in my stash. But I do have a 32ct Antique White Belfast which made me think. I may try dying or staining the linen myself. It will be a first for me, and require a little research, but I know several of you have already tried it with great results.

Now for the QUESTION. Do you let just anyone become a follower of your blog?

As you know, if you have been reading my blog for a bit, I have just recently figured out how to follow other blogs and in return several of you have started following my blog. Each time I receive a new follower to my blog, I check to see who it is, I love that those stitchers whom I admire and watch are also following my posts. I go to their profile and then to look at their blog (I can't always put the user name to the blog face, so this helps).

A couple of times there was no profile to see (not sure how this is possible) and several times no blog had been established by that person (or they had a gross blog not related to stitching, yuck). So for me I have felt a need to block some of these followers. If someone doesn't at least have a basic profile showing they share my same interests why would I want them following all my regular stitching comments.

These are just my thoughts on the subject, but I am really curious what others think about it. Is there really any danger in letting just anyone follow your blog? Does it just seem creepy to have people watching your posts that don't share your same love of cross stitch or crafts? I would love to hear your thoughts. There may be a common procedure with all of this that I just haven't learned yet.

Back to stitching now. Thanks, CJ ok;-)

Need to Share a Repair

Thanks to great advice from my fellow bloggers, Anna and Ann, I have worked to repair my Hospitality Knocker finish that I ruined while ironing. Here is what I did, first an ice bath, which very successfully set the rest of the dark colors without any additional bleeding onto the fabric. Anna recommended doing this for several days to soak out the stains. Being the impatient person that I am I jumped quickly to Ann's advice of using a Tide pen and rinsing repeatedly with cold water. Although the Tide step took several attempts it did significantly reduce or eventually eliminate the stains on the linen. Up close it may also have beached out the natural linen color some. But I have pictured the before, during and after shots for you to decide.

I also grabbed an updated shot of Indian Summer from Earth Threads. This is fun to work on, all stitched with Caron Wildflowers Fiesta colored thread. The hardest part is trying not to stress about how the colors fall within the design. I am such a control freak I sometimes try to manipulate the results, but I am trying to just let it fall where it may. My other WIP is Wooly which I have started stitching but only about 12 stitches before getting interrupted, so no update on that.

I received another project at Monday's EGA meeting, a heart design from Victoria Sampler done in Red White and Blues, with Bargello stitches and a red ribbon rose. Not sure if this will even be attempted this year although it was very cute. I hope to get started on the mystery sampler we are also doing together before next months meeting. I will share that then.

Well I am off to stitch for a bit, CJ ok;-)