Flag City, Air Guitar and Mermaid Keychain

With Memorial Day upon us in the U.S., it was a fitting time to do a little patriotic piece.  Although this is not really a style I would normally be attracted to, I was drawn to it since it is a SAL piece in the "All About Smalls" Facebook group.  The design is an older freebie from La-D-Dah called "Flag City".  Group members are modifying it to suit their needs and some of the creative ideas for it among the stitchers are just amazing.  The original design has the words "Flag City" at the top, but stitchers are often substituting their own city or state.  I wanted something more generic so I changed the title to "Old Glory".  I omitted the date as well and charted a funky bird under the flag.  It's stitched on Dove Gray Monaco over-one, with my own selection of DMC floss colors.  I got a little bored with the border so I simplified that as well.  Finished it up as a cute little pinkeep with the last of my red and blue beads.  And I love the result.

Next I moved  out of the prim area and into something a bit more modern day.  One of my good friends just turned 60 and his wife is giving him a birthday party next weekend.  She only does this at each decade change.  I used one of the motifs from Lynn Nicoletti's "Air Guitar" design to create a birthday card for the occasion.   No matter how old you get, you can still play a mean air guitar!   The card is also over-one on Monaco.  The original design was meant to use glow-in-the-dark floss for all the green outlines that you see on my work.  So it would look really cool with the guitar only showing in the dark.  But I think I it's a pretty nice card without doing that,  although I don't know if my friend will appreciate embroidery!  I did the electric blue foot rest in x-stitch over-2 to avoid solid color fill-in boredom.  Then I jazzed it up with few sequins.  The wording is my addition also.

 

 

 In my last post, I showed an Altoid tin decorated with a mermaid theme, but I had not selected any contents.  I thought about it and decided to make a keyring fob from the  "Guardians of the Sea" freebie by the Little Sittcher (click here for the chart).  And yes, another over-one design on Monaco.  Sensing a pattern here.  I love the look of these tiny mermaids.

 

And now I leave you with this quarter's dental office reminder art,  the very famous Van Gogh, "Toothy Night".

For those in the U.S., have  good holiday!

Mermaid Altoid Tin, Bridal Shower Card & Garden Square

Not sure if I've become slightly addicted to covering Altoid tins with cross stitch.  But I've just done yet another one.  This will be a little summer gift for a friend.  The design is the Snowflower Diaries Little Mermaid, done in DMC on 36 count HDF light blue linen.  I made a few mods to get it to fit in the space, but it seemed bare in spots so I added the sequins.  They are just glued on so I don't know how well they will hold up. But no big deal.

The crocheted goldfish on the inside lid is one I did a few years ago in variegated blues.   It is one of the motifs from Chinami Horiba.  Many of her patterns are now on Ravelry.  This time, the gold variegated thread I found at my local variety store seemed just perfect.  I think I didn't dry the tin well when I first rinsed it out and there were some rust spots on the inside.  That's why I added the inside sequins and covered the sides completely.

Looks cuter in real life as always.  Now I have to come up with interesting summer-themed contents.  Lip balm is always good, but I'm hoping I can think of something else.  Any ideas out there?

 I attended a bridal shower yesterday for one of my cousins who is getting married this summer.  The shower was at the townhouse of a friend of the bride's mother.  It was an elegant four story townhouse with an elevator!  Good thing because the stairs between floors were super-steep and waxed hardwood.    It was a beautiful Spring Day and a lovely afternoon.  I stitched up the JBW Umbrella for the gift card using DMC color variations on Lugana.  It went pretty much un-noticed among all the loot she got.  The highlight was a book, "Danny's Favorites",  created by the groom's mother.  It included all the recipes his mother makes for him that he loves, with photos of Danny accompanying each recipe, often eating the result.  What a treasure.  I think she used a recipe book template on Shutterfly.

Finally, when I saw the freebie Earth Day sampler, "The Earth Laughs in Flowers",  from Beth Twist of Heartstring Samplery, I fell in love with it.  Part of my new prim appreciation I guess.  World Of Charity Stitching is doing a quilt with the theme, "In a Garden", and I knew this would a perfect addition.  Stitched on Lugana, it was just the right size.   I don't think I've ever complete a design so quickly!