Blackbird Peace

I've been working on a design that is driving me crazy with confetti stitching, so I took a break to make a little holiday card. This is the Blackbird Designs ornament from the 2009 JCS Ornament issue, the first I've stitched from this issue. The design is in the same style as the Blackbird ornie from the Halloween issue, and I really liked the concept. I replaced the date with a little birdie since I never know when I might use the card. Otherwise, I used the DMC colors provided as the alternative to the hand-dyed fibers. The fabric is tea-dyed Monaco.

The crocheted snowflakes come from this pattern for earrings.

The bunny's job was to hold the card down while I took the photo.



And now it's back to final third of the squint-inducing design!

Even more Halloween tags

I think this will be the last of the trick or treat bag tags for the third graders. I still might stitch another Halloween design or two, but this will close out the set to send off. I did have a lot of fun with this and now I have to replenish my floss supply with all those fall colors.



Clockwise from the top left:

"Happy Jack" from Knotted Tree Needlearts, JCS Oct, 2009 issue, stitched on antique white Monaco


"Boo House" by Helga Mandl stitched on 32 count parchment Jobelan


"Autumn Stars" by Blackbird Designs, JCS Oct, 2009 issue, stitched on antique white Monaco. A few modifications to suit my tastes.


"Halloween House" (sans house!) by Drawn Thread stitched on 35 count linen from Vikki Clayton

Snow Bunnies

My partner, Janeth in Missouri, has received the winter ornament I made for her in the 123 Stitch exchange, so I can present the photo of it here. This design by Little House Needleworks is from the JCS 2007 ornament issue. It had been on my to-do list for some time, and since Janeth likes to decorate for winter and not for just the holiday season, it seemed very appropriate. I even sprung for the 36-ct Rue Green Edinburgh linen. No other color in my stash seemed right.

The crocheted snowflakes were my own design. I used modified versions of simple flower and star designs to get something resembling the snow motifs in the tree foliage.

More Halloween tags..

I've been making trick or treat bag tags out of all my saved small Halloween designs. I'm planning to give them to a friend to use as prizes for the kids in her third grade class. Here's the latest collection:



Clockwise from top left we have:
- Just Nan's Fraidy Frog, JCS Oct, 2009
- Cat's Whiskers' Halloween Kitty
- Barbara Ana's Boo
- Bent Creek's Blackbird house

I'll make a few more until I OD on Halloween and then send them on their way. It's fun to do the little designs, and I love all the opportunities for designer creativity with so many Halloween symbols available.

Batty and the Spider

Here is my version of 'Batty' by MonsterBubbles from the 2008 JCS Halloween issue. I loved the way they did the finishing in the magazine with lots of pins around the edge strung with different beads. But that was just too much for me. They used a dark tobacco colored fabric that I loved, but I used a piece of Cafe Mocha from enchanted fabrics that I had in my stash with some Moda fabric trim.

The hanger is crocheted from these directions for a leaf chain. That orange crochet cotton was tough to find. Even on-line a lot of stores were out of stock. A lot of Halloween crocheting going on I guess.



I crocheted the spider from a design at Kreinik. My version is a modification of theirs. I skipped the web and mine is much smaller. Their directions for the head are what I used for the body.



This was fun to play with. I'm on a Halloween roll now.

Satire for some, brilliant idea for others

"Richard's Poor Almanack" by Richard Thompson is a satirical cartoon series published in the Washington Post. It often deals with political issues, sometimes very local issues. Last Saturday, the cartoon was a spoof of Country Fair Prizewinners. Take a look at the one on the bottom left, "Worst New Home Handicraft - Tweets rendered as samplers". Sounds like a great idea to me!

Halloween tag & birthday card

Last year's JCS Halloween issue had two cute pumpkin designs, each about the same size and using similar colors. Seemed perfect for a two-sided tag/fob. I used Monaco fabric and sewed up the two sides with no padding or interfacing. That fabric had plenty of body without anything extra. And the crop-a-dile worked great for attaching the eyelet with the with back washer.

First side is a design by the Sweetheart Tree:


Second side is by Jeannette Douglas:


And for a special young lady who is turning 15 shortly, I stitched up this cute high heel shoe from Joannne Sanderson for a birthday card design. And always on the look-out for a place to add a bit of crochet, I topped it off with a little quickie flower. The fabby is little piece of hand-dyed from Miek. Just ignore the part where I didn't notice that the hearts on the background paper are all upside down til it was a bit too late to do anything about it. Sigh....

Holiday previews...

In these very hot days of summer, it can be hard to think about stitching for fall holidays. But I didn't have anything else on my 'urgent' to-do list. I've been scouring the web for little Halloween crochet motifs. Tons of them exist, but crochet instructions can be difficult to interpret, even from professional publishers, much less from amateurs who generously share their work. But I still love this little bat that I used last year and decided to use again. I thought he made a nice accompaniment to the Night Owl design from the Sept/Oct, 2008 issue of JCS. This was also my first stitching on 32 count Lugana. I liked the fabric, but not as much as I liked stitching on Jobelan.



I experimented a little on this card just to try something different. The design is from the July/Aug, 2008 issue of JCS. I changed the word from "Joy" to "Peace", but otherwise it's stitched as charted. The fabric is 36 ct linen from Vikki Clayton.

It pays to exercise!

My Jazzercise team of two, the 'Jazzerinas', attended 60 classes between us since June 1. As part of the summer promotion, that entitled each of us to receive this beautiful tote bag and cosmetics case. It's like getting paid to exercise (almost). Isn't it cute?



The little jazzhead magnets are my personal exercise gurus. Modeled after the designs at All That Glitters.



And maybe the exercise acts as brain food too. Today I completed my first Saturday Washington Post 'hard' Sudoko puzzle. I'd only managed to solve the 'easy' and 'medium' ones from earlier in the week up til now.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Mine is off to a great start!

Sampler Finish

Finished stitching my sampler and sewing it up into a little pocket to hold small stitchy things. My local variety store had several nice fabrics that would work for the lining. It's a shame the lining doesn't show more.

I didn't do as much frogging on the second half, and I did remember to invert the pattern. Here's the second half by itself:


I really enjoyed doing so many different embroidery stitches. The little chain stitch button loop could have been more neatly done, but it works. Here are 3 views of the finished product. I might add a snap to each pocket to keep it closed, but it works pretty well as is: