Final Sleigh Ride of 2015

Not much to show today, but I did decide to do one final small gift for a friend who really appreciates these little stitched goodies.  This flat fold pattern is "Sleigh Ride",  a Winter Snapperland design from Bent Creek.  I love that little guy all bundled up and riding in his one-horse sleigh.  It always amazes me how much personality can be displayed in so few stitches.  The fabric is 32 count bone jobelan.   Maybe a slight color change somewhere, but basically I used the recommended colors.  Skipped the snap and substituted a gold bead to suggest Jingle Bells.  And I added a couple of star-shaped buttons.  The cording is purchased.  The backing fabric was a stray fat quarter I bought in the fabric shop some time ago on a whim.  It's only in the photos that the cord looks so misplaced on the top back.  I didn't notice that at all on the finished piece.  Of course, it's there, but not so prominent.  Just ignore it please.

Halloween Mermaid plus Ghoulies & Ghosties

Seems weird to me to be stitching Halloween designs in July, but the stitcher wants what the stitcher wants.   I saw this cute witchy mermaid stitched up on the Midnight Stitching blog.  There was no reference to its origin and I thought the blog owner had designed it.  I wrote to her and she quickly returned my e-mail to let me know this is part of the "Stranded Jacks" patterns by Plum Street Samplers.  I love the titles on Plum Street designs.. so inventive.  I couldn't wait to stitch it up.  The top photo is oddly blurry.  I guess my hand was shaky.. witches can be quite scary, at times.

I went for a stand-up finish.  It's only 3" on a side when completed so I can stand her right by my computer and glance at her from time to time.   The fabric is 18 ct hand-dyed aida from my long ago acquired Enchanted Fabric stash.   I made a braid out of three of the colors in the design.  Braided just like a hair braid with 2 full 6-strands lengths of each color.  That's much easier for me than doing twisted cord.   I usually sew on trim, but this time I glued it.  The little green ribbon hides the spot where the cord ends come together.  I definitely need to find a better way to handle that part.

Next I stumbled upon Lizzie Kate's "Ghosties & Ghoulies"  design. So cute and I wish the photo did justice to the card finish.  Again, the fabric is 18 ct hand-dyed Aida in a nice brown color and the mat card stock is true black like the ribbon trim.  The outer card is a cream color.  I picked that ribbon up in a clearance basket at A.C. Moore the last time I was there.  I knew it would work for a Halloween card of some sort.  This is the first time I tried wrapping the ribbon around the mat so the raw edges are hidden.  It was a bit bulky, but this ribbon was kind of stiff, so maybe a regular ribbon would have worked better.  At any rate, I like the effect.  I added one teeny star sequin on the left. Somehow that spot looked bare.

And now I'll get on my broom and fly back to July.

Turkey Easel Stand-up and Carrot Pillowcase

I was looking for a simple, therapeutic design to stitch, and I really didn't care what I would be using it for.  I found the perfect design with this little turkey from the San-Man Originals Gift of Giving series from a few years ago.  Since it appears that the San-Man group will be shutting down at year end, this seemed like a nice piece for celebrating the Thanksgiving season as well as celebrating the many long years of San-Man fun.

I decided to use it as a learning piece as well.  I had never made a stand-up, flat-fold style finish so this was a good opportunity for a trial.  Vonna and Meari  each have a popular tutorial, but I have always found both of those tutes to be intimidating.  They are very complete, but both seemed like so many steps and so many possibilities for messing things up.   After extensive Googling, I managed to find a much simpler version that I thought I could handle.  Not sure if the results are as nice as I would get if I mastered the Vonna or Meari version, but the results were plenty good for my taste.

The tutorial appears to based on directions that come with those Secret Needle Night kits from the Silver Needle.  The tute is no longer available online as of 3-10-15.  I made it even simpler by using a glue stick for most of it.  I did sew the stitched front board to the fabric-covered back board as well as sewing on the twisted cord.  The easel is made with only one piece of board, not two, but it was sturdy enough.  I only added batting to the front piece.  And of course, I added a fork bow.   The fabric is a piece of 32-count HDF linen, another relic of the past.

I had a package of two white pillowcases from Aunt Martha's sitting around begging me to stitch on them.  I found this cute doodle at Bird in the Hand Primitives  to use for the first one.  The photo with the whole pillow case didn't turn out so good, but here is the stitching.  The design is about 4"h x 6" w, centered just above the hem.  These pillowcases are really long, so plenty of room for stitching.  I'm still trying to pick a design for the second one.

Finally, I made this condolence card with a sweet freebie from Manka Minta.  I don't think it is online any longer.  The card was for our dear friend Carol.

February notables

February is known for many things, but in my family, the most important is my brother's birthday.  This year I decided to stitch the February design for him from the Prairie Schooler 160 leaflet that features six February motifs.  There were two Valentine's motifs so in a moment of great ambition, I decided to substitute a stitched portrait of my brother instead. I would have loved to do it in the style of Washington and Lincoln that were two of the motifs,  but I know my limitations.

The final result doesn't really look that much like my brother, but I've stared at it so long, that the image I stitched has now replaced my brother's real face in my mind.  I had to stitch in my nickname for him so that he would know it was supposed to be him.  He will protest, but I imagine George and Abe wouldn't be completely satisfied with their images either.

I had planned to do my first flat fold as a finish, but I was scared I'd mess it up.  Better wait to practice that later.  So it's more like a 6" pinkeep.  Found a cute stand at A.C. Moore so it's easily displayed.  This is done on 32 count Lugana with a purchased braid trim.

And now for the process.  I settled on trying a simple back stitch style profile.  My backup plan was just to stitch his initials, but I really wanted this to work.  I planned to start with a profile head shot of my brother as a guide.  Unfortunately that didn't exist.  But no worries.. my brother is often mistaken for Larry David and a Google image search turned up tons of possible model photos.  I picked out one that most resembled my brother and was ready to start.  This is the starting photo:

I used MS-Paint to re-size and highlight the outline of the parts I wanted to stitch:

Next, I found several sites that would 'cartoonize'  a photo online.  All free and none required installing any software.  They all use slightly different algorithms to create the cartoon, so I tried several and picked the one I thought would work best.  Silly me has now forgotten which site I used, but I think it was http://kusocartoon.com.

My brother doesn't look exactly like Larry David and I needed to fit this image into the existing motif space, so back to MS-Paint for a little morphing:

Next, I printed it out and traced the outline on tracing paper.  I then laid the tracing paper on graph paper printed with a grid size of 16 squares per inch and Voilà!  I was ready to go.  Alas, that nose and jawline eluded me. At least it's done and well before his birthday.