Spring Altoid Tin

Hoping for a spring warm-up this week.  We got a taste of it yesterday, but pretty brisk again today.  I've been doing a bit of stitching in spring colors to give Mother Nature the hint.  This Altoid tin and stitchy items inside will be a little thank you gift for a friend.  She doesn't stitch, but appreciates all the smalls she sees me make.

The tin top design is from the current issue of JCS.  The magazine is featuring a series of hornbooks and this one is from Dames of the Needle.  I stitched it over-one on 32 count lugana.  The photos look like the fabric is white, but it's actually a more ivory color.

 

It's always harder to figure out what to put inside than it is to decorate the tin.  But here's my current plan for contents.  This could change if I get other ideas, but I'm tired of thinking about it so this will probably be it.

The egg pin cushion is by Aliolka. She showed it in multiple color schemes and she has a second version with a daisy I think.  Click here for the free pattern.  I just sewed up a backing following the outline of the stitching, stuffed it and added beads on the edge.   It is stitched over-two on 32 count lugana.

The keychain fob is a tiny granny square done in variegated crochet cotton.  I got the idea from this pattern for granny square earrings.  There are many variations on granny square earring patterns but this was the tiniest version and simple to attach to the keyring.  Tiny is important when working on Altoid tin contents.

 

The little bunny on the lid is a popular free crochet bunny pattern.  Works up in no time.   One could make dozens of these in a wink if there was any reason to.   Here's a link to the tute if you want to whip up a few of these for the coming season.

And once again, a toothy take-off on a famous painting in the guise of a dentist reminder card.  If you think I go to the dentist a lot, you are right.  Miserable mouth syndrome.

This one may be harder to recognize.  Think men in bowler hats floating in air,  Golconde by Magritte. Ignore my sneaker.  It was windy out on the balcony and I was trying to keep the card from blowing away.

I've Got the Horse Right Here.....

Just in time for GW's birthday, I finished this  Paul Revere piece.  I was singing the whole time I was stitching..

I've got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, and here's a guy that says that if the weathers' clear, can do...can do...this guy says the horse can do. If he says the horse can do...can do...can do.

For those that don't recognize the lyric, it's from the most wonderful show, Guys and Dolls. 
You can watch the opening number to the show to see it performed if you care to on this You Tube Video.

The design is from the July/August 2012 issue of JCS.  I remember thinking it was interesting when I first saw it, but I recently saw a finish of this on Hildi's Good Life.
It made made me want to stitch it immediately.

Mine is stitched on 28 ct Cashel linen in Summer Khaki I think.  I love the little petit point/over-one stitching for Paul.  The grass is in long-leg cross stitch and gives a nice textured effect.  Just a fun little design.

I finished it up as a pouch to hold my small quilting ruler for want of knowing what else to do with it.  My cutting, sewing and centering are shown up for all their wonkiness here, but the ruler fits quite nicely inside.    

 

Slouchy Beehive Hat

I've been mulling over slouchy hat patterns for a long time.  It's so hard to predict what will fit, feel right and look ok.   I finally settled on the Slouchy Beehive Hat pattern I discovered on Ravelry.   Just had to wait for a break in the weather so I could get some yarn.  At long last,  I finally made a hat that basically fits.  It's a touch big, but it's supposed to be.  And I hate the vise-like grip my previous hats held on my head so I don't mind a loose fit. Started on Super-Bowl Sunday following a quick afternoon excursion to the new Joann's.  Finished on Wednesday evening.  And not much time spent on Tuesday evening at all.  I needed chunky/bulky yarn and there wasn't a big selection, but this Wool-ease chunky in Willow turned out to be a good choice.

Not much sun, so the photos aren't so great.  And I'm pretty weak in the selfie skills.  But I think you'll get the idea.  I have to go out in the cold tomorrow morning, so I'll debut it then.

 

A tribute to "Blurred Lines".  I'm not much for showing my face on the interwebs.

Birthday, Valentine, July Quilt Square

I guess we are all kind of mad at the ground hog this year, but  I stitched him up anyway from the Prairie Schooler "Winter Wind" leaflet #133.   Thought he would make a good companion birthday card to the February design I stitched for my brother and showed in the previous post.  Not particularly birthday-themed, but it says "Happy Birthday" inside, and the little guy was too cute not to forgive him for his prediction.  Writing this as I sit on the rain/ice line for this evening's predicted storm. 

Valentine's day is sure coming around quickly this year.  I stitched up this little "Snow Fun" piece from The Floss Box for the occasion.  Probably not meant to be a Valentine design, but that little heart in the hand of the snowman did the trick for me.

 

Both pieces were stitched on 18 ct hand-dyed Aida from Sassy's Fabbys.  I seem to have a ton of this and it's great for little cards.

Also finished a quilt square for a WOCS quilt, "Months of the Year".  This quilt filled up quickly with stitcher sign-ups, and July was one of the few months left.  Anyone remember this Country House SAL from 2007,  by Maryse?  The charts have mostly been sitting in a freebie folder on my computer waiting for the right occasion.  Doesn't that chaise lounge look inviting right about now?  Only trick part was figuring out how to do a lower case "y" that didn't go below the line.  Since this was a French pattern, and the original text was "Juillet", there was no need to leave space.  I think mine works ok.   This is stitched on 25-ct bone Lugana over two... a totally relaxing stitch.  And it just now occurs to me that I haven't stiched my name and state on this piece.  Blogging is so helpful for jogging the memory!

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.

Last of 2013 Stitching

Last minute gifts and cloudy days didn't make for great photos.  But I think the gifts were appreciated by the recipients.  Using my new found mounted felt ornament skills, I stitched up Snowy Pines by Little House Needleworks.  I like that this can still be displayed during the winter months since its theme is not holiday specifically. I've wanted to stitch this for a long time, mostly because of that cute bear and his French knot nose!  The fabric is 36 ct Summer Khaki Edinburgh linen.

 

The UK Cross Stitcher magazine had a set of designs for cute robins that just stole my heart.  I thought I was tired of that sketchy back stitch style of design, but this was just too adorable to pass up.  This one made a great last minute card and I'm sure I'll stitch the others at some point as well.  This is stitched on a scrap of Vikki HDF linen.

 

And finally, this is a New Year's thank you gift for a friend.  The design is Day 8 of The Little Stitcher's 12 Days of Christmas for 2013.  That little girl, all dressed up, holding a muff in one hand and the final arm of the snowman in the other, is just the sweetest thing.  And these primitive designs are so quick to stitch up.  Again, this is stitched on Summer Khaki Edinburgh linen. 

I used this to make a 'winter survival kit' with hand salve, lip butter, a nail clipper, and the all-important Starbucks gift card.

 

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and a wonderful 2014 ahead!

Winter Ornament

Haven't done a lot of stitching lately.  I guess there hasn't been enough of interest for me on TV and my stitching is always done while watching.  Or maybe I just need one of those periodic breaks from crafting and have preferred reading in my free time.  Anyway, I did stitch this pretty winter tree, "Arbre d'Hiver", from Jardin Privé, one the four seasonal tree freebies you can get here.  It's stitched on 32 count bone evenweave with DMC threads.  I don't think I even changed one color.  Just back-stitched the snowman since he seemed to be lost in the background without it.  

Vonna has been showing so many mounted felt ornaments lately that I thought I'd give that method a try.  I took her tutorial as a starting point.  She does everything so precisely, and I never do that, but  I more or less followed her lead.  I discussed some details with her about gluing and materials.  I thought the craft glue might bleed through the felt, but it didn't, so that part worked well.  I just used synthetic felt, but it was thicker than most of what I see these days.  I think it might have come from a fabric store rather than a big box craft store.  I now wish I had a zig-zag rotary blade for the edges.  The pinking shears work ok, but much more difficult to get a nice edge.  The stitching is stretched over comic book cardboard with a layer of batting to give a little depth.  I'm reasonably happy with this and I think it will make a nice little gift.  And it's suitable for display all winter since there is no particular holiday flavor to it.

 

I also make a couple of self-closing gift enclosure cards.  And they stand up for display as well.  The first is one of Daffy Cat's freebies from 2008, Jingle Bell Reindeer.  No beads, just French knots for the 'necklace'.

The second is from the 2013 JCS ornament issue, "Peace Bird", by Rosewood Manor.

 

Here's a photo of how it works to stand it up.  The bottom folds up and I'll use a sticky seal to close.

Wrist warmers & fingerless gloves

Finally the frogs took a holiday and I managed to finish the wrist warmers I had been knitting, knitting and re-knitting.  They certainly are not without errors, but at least they are finished.  I think they are good enough to give as a gift.   I'm hoping the recipient will appreciate the effort anyway.  These are the Phytolith Fingerless Mitts, a free ravelry pattern.  The yarn is Knit Picks Swish worsted in Indigo.   No thumb or thumbhole.  Easy to slide back up your wrist if you want to get them out of the way.  Easy to knit if you don't go all Walter Mitty and make tons of mistakes!

Fearing that I wouldn't want to give them as a gift, I knitted a pair of old, reliable Fetching Fingerless Gloves as a backup.  I think I can knit those in my sleep now.  I've made this pair in the same Paton's Classic Wool as I did a couple of years ago.  Now I can give these to someone else and I've knocked out another hand made gift.

 

I also finished up a card from one of the motifs in the Prairie Schooler Button-up Snow series.  I think this little guy making a snow angel is my favorite one of those.

 

 And I leave you with the latest appointment reminder card I received from my dentist.  Apparently they no longer use the term 'recall cards' for the negative connotation that word has acquired over the years.  

 

Chanukah Pinkeep and French Cellphone Case

Most of my crafting time since my last post has been spent in frogging everything I attempt.  Very frustrating.   So I have some knitting in the works that should have been finished long ago, but not when I can't make any valid forward progress!

I really never stitch for the Jewish Holidays.  Frankly, what small ornament patterns exist for this are so uninteresting that I'm never tempted and I don't do larger pieces much anyway.  But when I saw this Shepherd's Bush Chanukah piece, I was intrigued and thought I'd stitch it up.  Who would have expected a Chanukah design on that site!  I was still mad at myself for not being able to crochet my favorite trim in black for the Mary Gary Halloween ornament. So I gave it one more try for this one.  This thread seemed to have a little more heft so it went much more smoothly this time.

The design is a bit busy, but I thought the idea of doing a Chanukah-related word for each letter of December was pretty clever.  The 'B'  for bulbs was a bit of a stretch, but I couldn't think of anything better so I went with it.  I know Chanukah starts unusually early in November this year, but with eight days, it will slide into December as usual.  I substituted little buttons for the dreidel button they had at the top.

Taking a break from that knitting, I decided to stitch a little French design that caught my eye.  This is a free sample from a magazine and I believe the designer is Perrette Samouïloff.  You can get the freebie here.  She's such a perfect little French girl with her kitty.  It's stitched on what I thought was 32 count lambswool Jobelan, but it came out larger than expected so maybe it was 28 count.  Whatever.. goes with all the other mistakes I've been making.  I turned it into a cell phone case for WOCS.  These are photos before I added a button on the back.

 

 

Turkey and Eagle

Not too much stitching in the last few weeks.  Seem to have spent way too much time fighting off one kind of minor health problem after another.   I was scheduled for jury duty too, but luckily my number was high enough that they didn't need me on the actual day so I was excused.

One piece of good news during my downtime.... a big, beautiful, new Joann's fabric and crafts store opened in a mall nearby!  Usually, I just hear about these things closing.  What a pleasant surprise!

When I finally felt a bit better, I just wanted to stitch something cute.  So out came "Bok Bok", a freebie from Plum Street Samplers that came out in 2009.  You can still get the pattern here.  He's such a an elegant little turkey, stitched on a piece of lavender hand-dyed Aida.  I turned him into a coaster/mat to use for the season.  I'm afraid the guy got all dressed-up without knowing his Thanksgiving fate!

I also managed to finish a square for a WOCS quilt.  They are doing a couple of quilts for wounded warriers and vets.  I thought this sweet piece, "Pride and Glory", from Threadworks Primitive would work well for the theme.  The rules required white, 14 count fabric, and I had one lone piece of Aida in my stash that filled the bill.