Moulin Rouge at Dusk & a T-shirt

After I stitched that Moulin Rouge Dancer, I couldn't stop looking at a design of the Moulin Rouge at midnight in the same booklet. I wanted to stitch it, but the design was done on white with the the entire navy blue sky background stitched in. That sure didn't sound like fun. I thought about using a dark blue fabric, but that didn't sound like much fun either. So Lauren at Sassy's Fabbys came to the rescue and made a medium blue color for me, a bit darker than her standard Ebb Tide color. That way I could do a Moulin Rouge at dusk instead. As usual, the camera just wouldn't do justice to the great colors that really pop on this 18 ct Aida fabric.



One of my Jazzercise instructors just became a first time grandmother. Some of us agreed to decorate a t-shirt or onesie in some way and the collection will be presented to her as a class gift. I thought I had kind of mastered the technique of stitching on a t-shirt, but this little thing was so incredibly stretchy! From a distance it's pretty cute and the baby will outgrow it in a few months. And it will be given with a whole set of interesting shirts, so I'm not worried that it isn't perfect. The design is a Stickeule freebie you can fine here.

March Birthday Village

I'm still here, but life seems to have interfered with my crafting so not much to show. I did manage to complete the March installment on the San-man Birthday Village SAL. Looks like the little girl in the pink house has come out to play on the swing. I completely re-designed her. I just wasn't happy with the way the original came out, and even with my "no frogging" policy, I felt compelled to re-do her. Proportions are a little weird on this design, but I do like her better now.




And for SherryA, who asked for the link to the double flower dishcloth pattern from this old post, here it is.. Click Here

Quilt Square for Lisa

One of the members at 123 Stitch has organized a project to make a memorial quilt for the family of Lisa Roswell, the owner of the Primitive Needle, who passed away recently, a victim of the Ohio floods. Volunteers were asked to stitch a square with a Halloween theme. I started with this freebie. Lots of nice patterns on this blog, by the way. I saved that spider and web for last, and it was just too much for me to get that back-stitching done correctly. I gave up and frogged some. Then I looked for little motifs to substitute for that portion of the design. The black bird comes from a Drawn Thread piece. The cauldron is thanks to Helga Mandl. The moon, key and star are all from works by Lisa. Only used two colors - DMC 3799 and 920. It was a little small and needed something to tie it together so I stitched a border. This is done on off-white Monaco.

Moulin Rouge Dancer

My latest finish is a Love Quilts square for a quilt with a music and dance theme. I fell in love with this graphic style dancer from the X-Plore Moulin Rouge leaflet. The designer is Stephanie Hedgepath and it's published by Jeannette Crews. I see that it is a download on Patterns Online too. This was just so much fun to stitch. Pretty colors used in such an interesting way. No fractionals, and almost no backstitching. And check out that super-model type expression on her face. I'm amazed there is any facial expression since the stitching is so simple, but that mouth is really pouty! She's just such a Parisian. The fabric is actually white but it may look blue in the photo. Hope she doesn't seem too risque for the quilt. I often seem to pick designs that are a bit edgy for these things.

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?

Valentine Stitchery and a Red Hat

Seems like everything old is new again. I've seen so many people doing what they call 'stitchery' lately. It's what I used to just call embroidery. I learned to do it in the third grade when my teacher, the marvelous Mrs. M., gave a tea towel to each student with a stamped design of fruit or flowers. Each one was different. She taught us all to embroider the design, and I don't ever remember a word that would imply this was only an activity for girls. In fact the best work was done by some of the boys in the class. My towel was stamped with cherries. This turned out to be one of the more difficult ones because the round cherries required very tiny stitches, and I never really understood that at the time. So my work was not all that great, but my Mom used that dish towel for years until it was too worn to be of any further use.

Today I see many cute whimsical designs that are just so appealing, often incorporated in patchwork quilts. In anticipation of trying this again, I bought a piece of muslin and a washable transfer embroidery pen. I was kind of nervous about my ability to transfer a design properly, but it worked out great. The muslin is almost see-through in the right light so tracing is pretty easy. And the pen markings come out easily with water if there are any mistakes. I found this snowman design here on Elin's blog. It's the perfect size for a trial and great for Valentine's Day or even the December holidays. I chose to use a stem stitch over the outline stitch or back stitch, but I'm not really sure why. The results aren't perfect (just like the tea towel!), but I think this little door hanger is pretty cute. I sent it to a stitcher who I think is in need of a bit of cheering up.




The last time I was at the craft store I saw this really pretty-colored yarn that reminded me of DMC 115, the old variegated red. It was Caron's Simply Soft Paints yarn, and I bought a skein to see how I would like knitting with acrylic these days since I hadn't done that for a long time. I made this hat after seeing it done in such pretty yarn on Karen's blog. It's the free pattern on Ravelry called "Magenta Cabled Hat". I had never knitted a hat in the round, but with my new found ability to use DPNS, I thought I'd give it a try. I changed the teeny 2 stitch cable to a mock cable (knit the second stitch and leave on the needle, knit the first and drop both stitches). And I added the extra knit rows that Karen did as well. I'm actually quite happy with the result. Don't know how it will hold up over time, but it feels soft and warm when I wear it. The first photo is not great, but does show the color well. Its in darker reds, not like the subsequent pictures.

Valentine Birdie

I can't let Valentine's Day go by without making at least one Valentine's card. For this one, I used the Valentine Bird design from Heart In Hand Needleart. I picked all my own colors and added that funky little striped heart.. free form heart stitching. The brown is a little lighter chocolate than the photo would have you think. I like the sparkly stickers too, although you can't see the glitter in the photo. I'm not always happy with my cards, but this is one of my favorites.



With that half skein of Patons Classic Wool blue denim yarn left-over from the last pair of gloves I made, I figured I'd try out a different pattern. These are made from the Honeycomb Wristwarmer pattern. I love them! They are a bit longer than the Fetching pattern and very warm. The thumb gusset fits just right! They worked up really fast too. The honeycomb pattern is an alternating knit one, slip one stitch so you really reduce the number of stitches from stockinette, say, by 25% if you consider the slipped stitch as 1/2 a stitch. Plus the body of the glove is all stockinette so no referring to a pattern constantly and no pesky cables! The thumb didn't require any extras stitches to be picked up and knit so no big holes to worry about either.



The color is more true to life in these photos:

Autumn Button Baby Sampler

Another new baby boy arrived in November for my friend who had her first one a couple of years ago. I decided to make a companion baby sampler to go with the one I stitched for the first baby. You can see the first one on this post. Both designs are from the Homespun Elegance Button Sampler series. For the latest little bundle of joy, I stitched the Autumn Baby Sampler. I did this mostly in the suggested DMC alternatives. Several of those used the blended needle technique to give a tweeding effect. For the pumpkins, I used DMC color variations. The fabric was a piece of Rue Green 36ct Edinburgh linen that had been waiting in my stash for a good use. I added a little wooden leaf button at the bottom since I omitted the squirrel buttons in the corners as shown on the original pattern.


The trickiest part was the squirrel tail and acorn top. They are done in French knots just packed in to give that textured effect. This would have been a disaster if all the French knots had to be the same size, but not a problem for this kind of thing.


One of my non-stitching friends happened to look at my blog one day and grew very fond of my Fetching fingerless gloves. I told her the knitting fairy might help her out. The knitting fairy doesn't usually like to knit the same thing twice, so these gloves were done in Patons Classic Wool, New Denim. These knitted up smaller than the ones I made for myself. It's a good thing because my friend's hands are about half the size of mine.


I've decided to participate in a year-long SAL on the San-Man Board called "The Birthday Village". Each month will bring a different building in the village. Someone on that board started the SAL on linen banding and when I saw a piece that would work and was on sale at 123 Stitch, I couldn't resist. The piece is Mill Hill 27ct Simplicity Banding in Natural. It's 3.5" wide and almost all of that area is stitchable since this banding has only a very narrow selvedge. Here's the January house all stitched up and waiting for it's next door neighbor to arrive in February if the schedule is upheld.