Random Threads and Bookmark

Unfortunately,  the last square I stitched for WOCS, the Needles and Thread piece by LHN, is lost in the USPS ether.  Mailed on July 21 and still hasn't arrived in FL.  I've sent a ton of squares from my house to the same address with no problem.   Guess my number finally came up.  I've had the problem with international mail before, but not inside the U.S.   Anyway, you know the old expression about getting right back on the horse after your fall, so I stitched a replacement square for the "Sew Be It" quilt.  This design is " Random Threads" by Erica Michaels.  I wanted something with few colors, minimal back stitch and just the right size.  I think I found it and I'm just hoping this one finds its way to its new home.

I had a long skinny piece of fabric from my Miek hand-dyed collection that I decided was perfect for a bookmark.  Not sure what to put on that bright yellow, but then I remembered Erynne's "Summer Owls" design.  I selected three of the four owls and just made a column of them.  You gotta love owls in bathing suits, especially the middle one in the polka dot bikini.

The design is a freebie on Erynne's Stitcheree blog and you can download the full pattern here.

My friend Hetti surprised me with some lovely gifts.  The top two photos below show a little mirror pouch she made.  You are viewing the back side of the mirror itself on the left.  Hetti designed a cross stitch pattern for the pouch that kind of mimics the delft tile pattern on the mirror.  Love the little butterfly button too.  Isn't this clever and gorgeous?

She also included some beautiful multi-color threads and the three with the white tags in the photo are hand-dyed by Miek.  The card shown with the floss is one of Hetti's creations.  She makes fabulous cards!

On the bottom right you can see the post card, Dutch-themed wrapping paper, Hetti and Miek's calling cards and a cute little purse-sized memo pad with Delft tile designs on the cover.  The paper inside is graph paper, so handy for a little charting on the go!

Thanks, so much Hetti!  I feel spoiled again!

Pouch, Halloween and Bookmark

My long-time stitching buddy, Hetti, received the little gift I made her to celebrate some good news in her life.  Hetti is one of the first stitchers from whom I received an exchange piece back in 2006.  Check out her blog if you don't know it.  Hetti has free designs and tutorials for all kinds of cute little x-stitch things.  I made her a little scissors case from the Pennsylvania Blossom design by Beth Seal.  This is a freebie for the Prim Stitchers Society members on FB.  The case is lined with a snap closure on the inside top.  Hetti seems to use red, white and blue a lot in her stitching, so I thought the cute polka-dot scissors would be perfect for her.  The case is large enough to hold some extras, so I added a few skeins of HDF silk floss as well.

Amazingly, the case turns out to fit her cell phone perfectly and she is now using it for that purpose as you can see below.  If I had been trying for that, I would never have made a case that fit that well.

Hetti's sister, Miek, likes to dye fabric and threads.  Making the scissors case reminded me of the beautiful hand dyed fabrics I have in my stash that Miek sent me some time ago.  I decided to make a couple of Halloween cards from one of the pieces.  The first is a design from the The Flossbox.  Zombies like to trick or treat too you know!

The second is an old freebie,  "Des Fillles et Halloween", by Nathalie of Jardin Prive.  Originally the design was available on this site, www.desfillesetuneaiguille.com.
I don't think it is there now.  It makes me think of a stylish version of the Shakespeare Weird Sisters.  Love those cinched in waists on the two end ladies.

And, while I was playing with the fabric, I grabbed this beauty and stitched a bookmark for WOCS from a design in "Bookmarks Galore" from Leisure Arts.  It was tricky to find something that would work with all of those colors, but i think this blended in quite well.

Pumpkins for Cathey

Today is the big day to show love and support for our dear blogging buddy Cathey at the Pumpkin Patch.   This is Cathey's blogoversary so first we congratulate her for her many years of successful, entertaining blogging.  And we also want to send all the positive pumpkin energy we can as Cathey goes through difficult times.

When I first learned of this special event, the brainchild of  Sharon/DaffyCat, I immediately starting working on pumpkin stitchy projects.  Some are still in the works, but here are the finishes.  Hope they bring a little surprise cheer.

We start with a cute little girl coming out of a pumpkin to yell, "Surprise"!  This is a quilty mat/coaster from a design by  GreenBeanBaby .

 

Next is a cell phone case to be given in honor of Cathey to WOCS for distribution to a woman in a domestic violence shelter.  The design is the Autumn Mini-Sampler by Waxing Moon.  The x-stitch fabric is a scrap from an 18-count evenweave fabric in my stash that I really can't identify.  Plenty of pumpkin love on this one.

 

 

 

A slice of the October Doorways design by Vermillion Stitchery made a perfect bookmark  to welcome Halloween and show off some cute pumpkins.  This is on 36 ct Edinburgh linen with a black gros-grain ribbon fused to the back.

 

And finally, a finish for a design I stitched last year.  This piece is "Autumn Buddies" by Oakhaven Designs stitched on 36 ct HDF linen.  Perfect size for an Altoid top and perfect expression of pumpkin love for my "Autumn Buddy" Cathy.

 

 

Cathey, hope your day is filled with wonderful surprises!  You have tons of friends pulling for you.

Good Luck Lady Lexi

Well, it's been about five weeks since I sent what was to be a surprise gift to Michelle.  Don't know where the package is, but it hasn't reached it's expected destination.  Michelle and I decided I could blog about it in hopes that just after I do this, the package will arrive as sometimes these things do.

Originally I had planned to do a Valentine's gift, but I fell behind on that score.  But then Michelle opened an Etsy Shop, Lady Lexi Designs, so I thought a little good luck gift was in order to wish her well on this venture.

I decided to stitch this pretty pink flower from the Workbasket.  You can find the pattern here.  It seemed perfect for an Altoid tin top and I love the design.  I had planned to put Michelle's initials on it, but then the shop name seemed like an even better idea.  Actually, the shop is named after Michelle's dog, so may this is a tribute to her dog as well!  It's stitched over-one on off-white Monaco.

To go inside, I crocheted a cute little pincushion sunburst granny square with #10 crochet cotton.  I made two sunburst granny squares and joined them together through the back loop.  There are two squares of blue felt underneath and some fiberfill inside.    If you are a crocheter and want to make your own,  you can find the instructions for the square here.

And hoping to provide a guardian angel, I included an adorable angel bead fob from Melanie's Moonraker Lampwerks.  I hope the angel doesn't let us down!

I also included a pretty bookmark made from a design by Pelin Tezer.  I don't see it online any longer.  This was done on 14-count Aida, a piece that Michelle sent to me as a gift previously!  It's very soft Aida and nice to work with.

If we all keep our fingers crossed, maybe this package will find it's way to Michelle!

Me and Mr. Jones plus an Angel Bookmark

The fabulous interwebs have once again presented me with an experience I could never have imagined in earlier times.  A delightful guy, Mr. Jones, contacted me via e-mail recently after seeing some of the Altoid tins with cross-stitched tops that I have shown on my blog.   Mr Jones is a guitar player. It seems that guitar players often use Altoid tins to store their guitar picks and other small items.  Mr. Jones asked if he could pay me to make one for him.  He wanted to install it on his pedal board.  I had no idea what a pedal board was, and for those of you in the dark like me, it is the board on which a guitar player mounts the pedals that control various audio effects.  Hope I said that right.

Of course I saw a fabulous stitcher-tunity!  I told him I would be happy to do this at no charge, just asked him to PIF.  He had an idea in his head for what he wanted that included his name and date on the top.  He knew the color scheme he was looking for and he sent a photo of some kind of logo in the 'vintage' style he had in mind.  I had no idea how to really do what he wanted, but I just started making designs for him to choose from.  We settled on an Art Deco alphabet and an interlocking knot border.  Came out looking kind of like a movie marquee from the old days to me. 

Mr Jones also asked if I could add a pink ribbon as a tribute to a breast cancer survivor who is close to him.  We decided to put that on the inside of the box. 

The stitching is on 28 count dove gray Monaco, 1 over 1 with DMC floss.

The box is completed and Mr. Jones has received it.  He seems pretty happy with the result.  It was a pleasure doing 'business' with him.

The sticker looks multi-colored, but that just a reflection.  It's black and silver in person. 

 

The ribbon is stitched 1 over 1 on 32 count jobelan.

 

And now for the real fun photo!   This is Mr. Jones' pedal board, complete with the mounted tin.  He used velcro for mounting, a pretty cool idea!

Just got word that another little gift was received from me by  Annette.  I started experimenting with different ways to make fabric bookmarks and this little country angel just made me think of Annette immediately.  She always makes such cute things for her kids.  The little stitchery is based on a digi stamp by Robyn's Fetish.  It's just kind of a funky, country thing.  I've seen similar things on the web and just wanted to try this out.  It's much faster than doing a cross-stitch bookmark and opens up all kinds of possibilities to me.  I'm always looking for ways to use stitchery designs too.

Pink and Purple Bookmarks

I'm in between bigger projects and thought it was time to use up some of that incredible fabric stash I've acquired over time.  There's a lot of multi-colored hand-dyed Aida that I don't use much these days, so I thought it was time to start finding projects for it.   Once Aida is hand-dyed, it has a wonderful soft feel, but still with a lot of body.  It's like the comfort food of stitching for me to work on it.

I decided to make a couple of bookmark gifts from older freebies.  I picked out this 18 ct mint fabric from the long-defunct Enchanted Fabrics.  Then I just reached into the floss for pretty colors.  The photos make the fabric look more blue, but it's really a beautiful variegated mint color.  I'm using it for the By the Bay Needleart Mystery SAL also.

First is this lovely bird design from a freebie on the Stitches Crumble blog:

Next is this older design from Papillon Creations called Bookmark 1 on the freebie page.  Thanks, Heather, for finding it for me.  It only has three colors and I see that a lot of stitchers have chosen their own combinations.  I just wanted something pretty with a lot of contrast against the background fabric:

Luggage Tag and Final Bookmark

I recently completed a fun exchange on EMS. I like their exchanges because they don't require sending a lot of extra goodies so it doesn't take so much effort to participate. I get to concentrate on the part I like best.. the stitching. The only requirement for this exchange was to make something using over-one stitching. I decided to stitch this old freebie, "Brite Birds" from Barrick Samplers. I had seen Barbara's rendition of this a while ago so it had been on my mind for some time. It's on off-white Monaco. It turned out to be the perfect size for a luggage tag and could even work as a scissors case. This went to Liz in the Netherlands.




On the receiving side, I am the lucky new owner of a very sweet, delicate scissors fob from a different Liz, the one in Tennessee. I've never made one in this diamond-shaped technique. Now I'll have to give that a try.



And one final bookmark got finished for the Literacy Challenge. This is a recent freebie called "Bird and Blooms" from Kincavel Krosses. This one is stitched on Aida.. no problem with floppiness!

Carrot Bookmark

My next bookmark for the Stitchers for Literacy Challenge is complete. I knew when I saw the 2010 Carrot by Cross-eyed Cricket that I would eventually make it into a bookmark. I stitched it on some white linen from Vikki Clayton that she offered at an irresistibly low price some time ago. It's 36 count and nice to stitch on. I should have used some stiff interfacing though. The grosgrain ribbon I used on the back still leaves it a bit floppy. But a floppy bookmark can still mark a page. It would have been cute to finish this up in a carrot shape, but I didn't think I really could pull that off successfully. So when those two little bunnies caught sight of the white space at the bottom of the rectangular bookmark, they just jumped right on! I added the border too to give a nice finished edge. I think I'll stitch one more design for this project while I wait for an online order to arrive with a new pattern to stitch for Love Quilts.

Alice In Wonderland Bookmark

Time for the Stitchers for Literacy Challenge again. When I saw this free design made especially for the challenge, my needle almost jumped into the fabric by itself. This design is by Ship's Manor - Erik D Shipley. It's a freebie at the Stitchers' Village. Isn't this the most clever tribute to Alice? Look at all those sweet motifs - the rabbit and his watch, the Eat Me cookie, the Drink Me bottle, the Mad Hatter's hat, the chess piece, the talking flowers and the little red hearts. Plus it makes me think of the hookah smoking caterpillar in the Disney version saying 'Who are you' to Alice. I didn't even mind doing the border, something I usually am not so crazy about. This is done over-two on Vikki Clayton's 36 count linen. Comes out to be about 7", long enough that I didn't feel the need to allow any ribbon overhang.

I found a piece of cotton fabric ribbon in my stash. It's been treated with something that makes it stiff and prevents it from raveling. I just cut it to the length of the bookmark and used Stitch Witchery, the iron on fusible web, to attach it to the back. Very simple finish. Not sure where I got that ribbon, but it works great for this purpose.



And February brings new neighbors in a pink house to the San-Man Birthday Village SAL. What kind of people paint their house pink?

Harry Potter Altoid Tin

Teenage boys are never easy to stitch for, but I had an idea for a Harry Potter lover who read all of the books faithfully as soon as they came on the market. Hope he hasn't outgrown the franchise!

I started this Altoid tin top by stitching a cute little Harry Potter cartoon-like design. My first plan was to stitch it over-two on 36 ct linen. But it came out exactly the size of the top and looked way too big for the space. So I went back and re-stitched it over-one on tea-dyed Monaco and liked it much better.




For the inside, I stuck with the over-one approach and stitched the Hogwart's Crest. The crocheted owl is a motif from the Crochet A Little blog and makes a great Hedwig. I added the ribbons since I plan to enclose a little Hewlitt-Packard (initials HP, just perfect, huh?) flash drive and it will get tucked under the ribbons.



For good measure, I crocheted a teeny little golden snitch that can fit in the box as well. The pattern is done in knitting worsted. I used #10 thread instead.



I couldn't let the bigger version of Harry go to waste, so I made him up into a companion bookmark.



All of these patterns were freebies and there is a link to each one in this post. I'm so grateful to all those designers who are so generous with their talents.

Birds Bookmark

I finished the companion piece to my Squirrel Bookmark. This is from the same Donna Kooler book. I think I actually like this design better. It was fun to stitch and a bit of back-stitching made the birds pop better.

Someone asked how I do these. I fold the short ends to the back and use Stitch Witchery to fuse them to the back of the stitching. Then I do the same for the sides, but turn down each of the 4 corners diagonally first (just as if you were wrapping a package). The sides are wide enough to cover the back and meet in the middle. Then I use Stitch Witchery to fuse the ribbon to the back. Quick and simple. No raw edges or stitched back is showing.

Both bookmarks are now at the Stitching Post, the closest LNS to me that is participating in the Stitching for Literacy campaign.

Squirrel Bookmark

Feeling kind of uninspired after finishing up an exchange piece that I'll show later, I started browsing through Donna Kooler's "Great Cross-Stitch Gifts" book. Not all of the charts in the book have a photo of a finished model and my eye never seems to linger on the ones that don't. This time I discovered a couple of bookmark designs that I never noticed before. I stitched up one for the Literacy Project and I think I'll do the other one as well. That squirrel looks like a cross between a squirrel, a kangaroo, and with those weird horn-like ears, maybe a reindeer, but we'll attribute that to artistic license.

Wizard Redux

About two years ago, I stitched a bookmark for the 12 year old son of some friends of mine. He is a voracious reader and an avid Harry Potter freak. I thought I had found a reasonable design for him when I discovered a pattern for a Wizard in the Mark That Spot collection by Cross My Heart. But I never expected how much he would grow to love that thing. After all, who would think a 12 year old boy would really want an embroidered bookmark anyway? He always has a book with him and always used the bookmark. All his friends were envious, wanting to know where they could get one, so I guess that added to the fun.

The family went on vacation this summer, and sadly, he lost his beloved bookmark. He wrote me a lovely e-mail asking if I would make him another one. His parents had offered to pay me for it.

Frankly, I detest stitching the same design more than once. And this one was so detailed, with confetti stitching, fractionals and backstitching, that I was almost sorry I had saved the chart.

But what stitcher could resist when someone actually loved her work that much? I did offer to stitch a different design this time, but he insisted that he wanted the same one.

So finally, it's ready. Ta-da! If he loses it again, I'll offer to teach him how to cross stitch and let him make his own!



Tuesday was my birthday so I guess it was my lucky day as well. I won the cutest chart on Aury's blog. I know I said I was done with Halloween stitching, but I just might have to stitch this one too.