Altoid tin dragon

My brother's birthday is coming and I always include a little stitchy gift as part of his present. He said he thought I had made just about everything there was to make for him. But he hadn't seen the covered Altoid tins. So I stitched up this one with a little dragon freebie that you can get here to use as a flash drive caddy. I used DMC color variations 4030 on tea-dyed Monaco over-one. I forgot to put batting between the stitching and the lid, but since my brother has nothing to compare this to, I think it will be fine. Plus I'll add the drive and a gift card to his favorite restaurant so it should make for a nice birthday package.

Unfortunately, the Altoid tins are just a touch too small to hold a gift card, credit card or business card, so the gift card will have to remain outside of the tin. It's a shame since the tin could really have more uses if it was just a tad larger.

From washcloth to potholder

I was about to toss some old frayed terry washcloths, when I stopped myself, remembering that I had read they make good insulators for potholders. I really wasn't in the mood for sewing, but I did want to see if that would work out. So I dug up this little cross stitch design that I had stitched long ago. Reminds me of the Campbell Kids from the soup can days. It came from an old Cross Stitch and Country Crafts or Cross Quick magazine from the 80's or 90's I think. I whipped it together so quickly that it looks like I must have been high on something and had my eyes closed, but I just consider it 'proof of concept'. This can work just fine and if I had only taken more time with it, I'd be very happy with the result. I'll file this technique away for future reference.

Hearts don't grow on trees!

As a wise person once said, "Hearts don't grow on trees. You only get one, so be careful what you do with it". But it would be nice if they were replaceable. This heart tree Valentine's card represents that sentiment. The design is a freebie from Passione Ricamo, one of her beautiful heart designs. I used a cookie cutter to draw the heart shape on card stock and just a plain old scissors to cut the opening. Added a couple of little crocheted hearts and voila! The fabric was a piece of 36 count hand-dyed linen from Sassy's fabbies that I got in a grab bag of ornament cuts a number of years ago. The top of the card is not really skewed.. that's just my camera playing it's usual jokes on me.



I received one final holiday exchange gift, a card from Gina. Beautiful design and I love the sparkly fabric.

Hearts and flowers humbug...

A new year and time for a new 3-d shape. This is my first cross-stitched humbug. I wanted to see how the designs are laid out so I would understand how to select patterns on my own later. This one wraps perfectly and even has a cute little heart that meets at the underside seam. It's very easy to stitch up using the biscornu whip stitch method over a back-stitched border line. Especially easy on linen since that fabby is so flexible. In keeping with green efforts, it's stuffed with re-purposed thread-clippings (i.e. orts).

Here's the pattern, a freebie from Hearty-Craft. I think her stitching and finishing are much better than mine, but I'm pretty happy with the result.