Tortoise and the Hare AAQI Quilt

I had my eye on the "Tortoise and the Hare" designs by The Prairie Schooler for a while.  The leaflet had two designs in the same theme, but each was quite different in nature.  I decided to use the smaller one for an AAQI quilt.  I have a perfect spot on the wall for the larger one so I'll do that for myself. 

I love this fable, but I do sympathize with the hare.  "Seize the day", "Strike while the iron is hot", "He who hesitates is lost" ... those are all the inspiring adages we hear all the time.  "Slow and steady wins the race"  seams so boring and not in the spirit of "No guts, no glory".  The bunny messed up, as risk-takers sometimes do, but I suspect there will be a re-match with lessons learned at some point.

Anyway, the small design was charted with the words "Rabbit Hare Tortoise Slow".  Needed more I thought.  So I stitched the two opposing adages, "Time waits for no one" and "Haste Makes Waste" instead.  Of all the adages I thought of, these fit the best in the space I had   The two runners can argue about this over a beer during a teachable moment.

The fabric is 32-count peach butter linen from Vikki Clayton.  She doesn't offer that shade anymore and I really like it.

 

 I experimented with a new way to do a quilt label. I had been doing x-stitch labels, but I was tired of stitching my name and city over and over.  So this time I decided to just write the wording on with a marker.  I used Word to print the text so I could more or less get the spacing right.  I found two little clip art images for a tortoise and a hare and included those in the printout.  I then pressed some freezer paper to a piece of muslin to stabilize it.  Using an ultra-fine point Sharpie, I kind of traced the wording onto the label.  Really I just used the letters as a guideline.  Then with a washable transfer pen, I traced the tortoise and hare and drew a free-from border followed by a little back stitching with 1 strand of DMC.  I folded under the edges and stitched the label down on the quilt back.  Lots of possibilities here.  Sometimes I'm more into label-making than quilt-making.

Nook Tablet Cover - Little Women

I finally broke down and bought a Nook tablet. I had been so indecisive, poring over reviews and specs on all these little devices. The deciding factor was the gift card I had at Barnes and Noble left over from my last birthday. The tablet is a completely fun little thing. I love having access to the internet without having to fire up the laptop. It's a great accompaniment to my TV watching and stitching from an arm chair. I haven't actually read a book on it yet, but that will come.

The tablet gave me a perfect stitcher-tunity to make a little cover for it. Recently while browsing for the new Little Women tribute cross stitch design by the Primitive Hare, I came upon a captivating drawing by the illustration artist Richard Hogg. His drawing of Little Women is unrelated to the Louisa May Alcott version. His drawing is a set of fashion illustrations done in a stick figure style. It's amazing to me how he gets the point across and so many types of women in so few strokes of the pen.

 I couldn't resist turning this into a little stitchery piece to use on the Nook cover. There are so many blue and brown themed designs around lately, blueberry chocolate as it seems to be called, that I picked that color scheme too. I loved stitching this. I noticed all the details I missed by just looking at the original admiringly.

 I saw this tutorial on Pinterest and a finish for the Kindle on the Sampler Girl's Blog and it looked pretty basic so I used that one. It came out a bit snug -- the batting really contributed to the bulk. If I make another I'll increase the size. But for now, it works to protect my new baby.

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.

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day... It's a good excuse to eat some pie! Bet you didn't know this fun fact about it. Personally, I always like to stitch up a little something to commemorate. This little fridgie started with a motif from an old Cross Country Stitching magazine. My collection of that magazine had about four pie designs to pick from after only a cursory search. Glad those weren't the magazines I threw out in my recent purge!



A little fun with the Picasa editor:



Enjoy your day and go find an appropriate dessert!

Strawberry Snow

Sometimes I make something so sweet that it feels like my teeth are going to melt. "Strawberry Snow" is a San-Man Originals chart that I won in a contest on the SMO message board. I always feel like I have an obligation to stitch a chart that I won, and I only enter contests where I really want to stitch the chart so it usually works out fine. This was such a cute theme, perfect for the transition from winter to spring. I've turned it into a quilt that I hope to send to AAQI if I can get Sandy's approval. I had fun adding beads to snowflakes, rick-rack to the seam and the cute little bow around the snowman's neck. The fabric is 28 ct Cashel linen in light mocha, and the threads are mostly DMC with the exception of WDW Strawberry Fields for the berries. It annoys me that the camera seems to pick up all the wonky parts that aren't so noticeable in real life. I think this is the first time that my mitered corners all came out like they were supposed to though.

Baby Sampler & Holiday Ornament

Those Jazzercise instructors of mine keep popping out babies, and they always seem to be boys. As a stitcher, I always hope for girls because there are so many cute designs that really are only appropriate for a girl baby. I have to look harder to find boy designs. Kind of a sexist attitude, but I feel it's safer to have that attitude when you are giving a gift. The design I picked is the "Too Tiny Alphabet" by Drawn Thread, stiched on 28ct Light Mocha Cashel. I like the striped mattress ticking type of border. It gave it a kind of airy feeling. I've had that little bear button in my stash for ages, and I thought it looked kind of cute on this as well.



While I was waiting to receive some fabric I ordered, I was going through old magazines, cutting out pages I wanted to keep and throwing out the rest. I really needed to make space. I came across this little ornament from the Jul/Aug JCS 2011 issue. I never noticed this the first time around. It's so kooky and adorable, I just had to stitch it. Perfect little piece that filled out the rest of the time til my other fabric arrived. This is called "Holiday Hootie" by Fresh Threads Studio, stitched on a scrap of 36ct Rue Green Edinburgh linen, with some red rick-rack for the edging.




And finally, the winner of the "Queen of Hearts" chart, selected by the time-honored "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" method, is Margaret! As soon as I get a snail mail address, I'll send it right out.

Queen of Hearts

Not too much crafting happening lately. I started this piece sometime in December and began to think I'd never finish it. I'm generally a one-piece-at-a-time stitcher so that was rather unusual for me. But it's all done now. The design is "Queen of Hearts" by Prairie Moon. I may have selected a fabric that's just a bit too dark, Zweigart 36 count Dirty Linen, but I like it anyway. I used a mish-mash of various pink flosses that I had in my stash. I think that queen is so cool, especially the teeny feet! I've turned it into another mini-quilt for AAQI.



I made a teeny cross-stitch label for the back. Next time I try that, I'll make it a bit bigger.



And in honor of Valentine's Day, I'd like to give away the chart to someone who would like to stitch it. Just note in a comment that you are interested, and I'll do a drawing if there is more than one person who would like to have it.

Valentine Stitching

I love Valentine's Day and I always like to do some 'heart' stitching for the season. My first item is a card I made after being sick for a week and not doing much of anything. I had some computer problems and now that I'm back up, I can't seem to find the freebie that I used to stitch this design. It was the final thing I printed on my old computer from a collection of tree designs in monochrome with no specified colors. Maybe someone else will recognize it. I used a variety of pinks in no particular order on a scrap of hand-dyed Aida from Sassy's. The sequins are all different colors, but I think they don't show up too well on the photo. I felt like a kid in grade school arts and crafts making this up on Sunday morning.



My friend Jane did a double enabling trick on me for the next pieces. First, she introduced me to Raspberry Rabbits and the free heart of the month stitchery patterns that were offered on this site in 2011. I had been asking fellow blogging embroiderers how they transfer designs to fabric, and Jane told me about an inexpensive mini-light table, only 6" x 9", mostly designed for card-makers to use for embossing. I found one on overstock.com and took a chance that it would work out. Turns out to be perfect for smaller designs. I used each of my four favorite hearts as the centerpiece on a quilted coaster. Each of them has been received by a fellow stitcher at this point. It was good practice for me to make them.

One for Nia:


One for Annette:



One for Wendy:


One for Michelle:



I also sent Michelle a little manicure scissors to use for frogging a few stitches. The curved tips are perfect for this. I made a little pouch to hold it with a pretty crocheted motif as embellishment.




Finally, I was so charmed by the little triangular thread-catchers I had seen on so many blogs that I just had to try making one. Myra made tons of them as gifts so I figured maybe they were a quick project if she had time to make so many. I found the tute here. Easy to make, but hard to make perfect. I had to sew the sides by hand since my machine balked at going through 8 layers of fabric! Maybe there is a trick to this that I missed. Anyway, it's kind of cute sitting on the arm of my stitching chair and it continues my Valentine's theme.

Workbasket Tin & Gift Card Holder

The New Year is a nice time to send a surprise gift to someone. The holidays are over and everyone can use a little winter cheer-up. In that spirit, I made a decorated Altoid tin for Carol. The design is "Blue Flower" by the Workbasket stitched on white Monaco. I know Carol is a fan of blue. I googled around til I found Carol's middle initial so I could add all three initials to the top. And I tucked one of those cute little titanium scissors inside. They are sharp, nice large holes in the handle and very portable. This is the first time I tried using wrapping paper to line the inside top of the tin. Worked well. You have to be careful not to line the top with anything too thick or the box won't close right. It's happened to me before so I'm hyper-aware of the problem now when I make these.





As an extra surprise I included an Amazon gift card since I knew Carol has a Kindle. But it's all about the presentation so I crocheted this little gift card case to house it. Handy credit card holder too for later. The case is a modification of this pattern.



No photo, but some Godiva dark chocolate covered almonds made their way into the package as well.

Carol has let me know she received the package, and I think she enjoyed the surprise.

Completed Birthday Village

Not a lot to show today. I've been stitching and crafting, but mostly for gifts that haven't been sent out. Plus I've been experimenting with different ideas I see on the web just for fun that don't necessarily turn into finished items.

But at long last the San Man Birthday Village is all done. As I suspected, the December installment was Christmas-themed so I knew I would be changing it. Too bad since as charted it had a very cute Santa and reindeer flying over the roof. My modifications are ok, but not nearly as cute. In this village, you really have to dress in layers since the seasons seem to change as you walk along the street. Anyway, here is snowy December sans Santa and Christmas decorations. I changed the house to blue from red, removed a wreath from the front door, removed decorations from the tree, added a bird and re-positioned the snowflakes! Whose design is this anyway?



And the whole village laid out in a row that you can view if you have a magnifying glass I guess. It's clickable so you can see it a little bit larger. Also, you can use the Birthday Village SAL tag to find the previous posts with the close ups of each month if you are interested.