Two AAQI Quilts

It's been so long since I posted that I almost forgot how to do it. Seems like my blog sometimes ruled my life. It's not that I haven't been crafting, I just haven't worried about finishing and blogging on such a regular basis. It's less stressful. I've completed two more mini-quilts for AAQI. I never seem to find a day when the sun is shining and it's not too windy to take photos outside, so these photos aren't all that great. Plus it's hard to get those quilts to lay nicely and not look totally wonky. Anyway, both designers were very quick to answer my e-mails and allow me to use their designs in this manner. The first is "The Quilter" by The Floss Box. Emily's designs are just too cute. I stumbled on this appropriate finishing fabric too and couldn't resist buying it even though I'm really trying to use up the fabric I have. This is stitched on 36 ct linen from Vikki Clayton. I think I only changed one color from the designer's suggestions. I made the little girl's dress a slightly darker shade of pink. It didn't show up well when I was stitching it in the original lighter pink, but that may have just been a fluke of the lighting in the room at the time.

Next, I stitched the "Take Time To Collect" design from the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of JCS. This is by Jeannette Douglas. It had lots of different embroidery stitches. I decided to use a sample of Vikki Clayton's 28 ct linen for this. It's very stiff. She calls it "canvas light" since it's so close to needlepoint canvas. I wasn't sure I would like working with it, but it's great for these different stitches. It has enough body to support them. Since this was a sample, Vikki hadn't paid much attention to shrinkage when she dyed it. Turns out that it shrunk in one direction more than the other. The design is 68 stitches on a side, but as you can see, it's certainly not square. I didn't realize this til near the end, but I did think those spools at the top seemed oddly tall. Luckily it made no difference in this case. I would have been disappointed if I had been planning to use this for a pre-purchased square box or frame. I did this one all in DMC and changed all the colors so it doesn't look too much like the one in the magazine. I added a button and charm instead of the personalization shown in the original.