Super Hannah & Gingerbread Swirl Card

When I saw Brooke Nolan's free pattern for "Super Emma" on the DMC blog, I knew I wanted to stitch it.  Her designs always appeal to me.  But I had no idea of what I would do with the finish.   Recently, however, one of my Jazzer-buddies, Hannah,  expressed an interest in learning x-stitch, so I helped her get started and she just took the reins immediately.  She is multi-talented, very crafty and web-savvy so between You Tube videos and Pinterest, she's well on her way to discovering all the fun we stitchers enjoy.

Hannah actually resembles Super Emma with that gorgeous mane of black hair and looped earrings so that gave me an idea.  I stitched up "Super Hannah" and made her into a pinkeep with a pocket on the back for a scissors or crochet hook.  I added a few little button embellishments  for symmetry.  She's stitched on  Edinburgh Summer Khaki linen.  I gave the piece to Hannah last night so I can show it today.

Hannah is a body piercing specialist and you can see her photo on her company website, Cherryworks Piercing, to compare the real Hannah to the stitched Hannah.

If you would like to stitch this piece, click here for the free pattern.

Looks like San-Man will be around a bit longer in 2015 and we are all grateful for that. Sandy just released a series of small swirly gingerbread designs at the request of one of the members of her board.  I love gingerbread houses and this was so tiny and cute,  I immediately stitched it and made it into a card.  The other designs are just as cute, but I'll save them for another time.

Pouch, Halloween and Bookmark

My long-time stitching buddy, Hetti, received the little gift I made her to celebrate some good news in her life.  Hetti is one of the first stitchers from whom I received an exchange piece back in 2006.  Check out her blog if you don't know it.  Hetti has free designs and tutorials for all kinds of cute little x-stitch things.  I made her a little scissors case from the Pennsylvania Blossom design by Beth Seal.  This is a freebie for the Prim Stitchers Society members on FB.  The case is lined with a snap closure on the inside top.  Hetti seems to use red, white and blue a lot in her stitching, so I thought the cute polka-dot scissors would be perfect for her.  The case is large enough to hold some extras, so I added a few skeins of HDF silk floss as well.

Amazingly, the case turns out to fit her cell phone perfectly and she is now using it for that purpose as you can see below.  If I had been trying for that, I would never have made a case that fit that well.

Hetti's sister, Miek, likes to dye fabric and threads.  Making the scissors case reminded me of the beautiful hand dyed fabrics I have in my stash that Miek sent me some time ago.  I decided to make a couple of Halloween cards from one of the pieces.  The first is a design from the The Flossbox.  Zombies like to trick or treat too you know!

The second is an old freebie,  "Des Fillles et Halloween", by Nathalie of Jardin Prive.  Originally the design was available on this site, www.desfillesetuneaiguille.com.
I don't think it is there now.  It makes me think of a stylish version of the Shakespeare Weird Sisters.  Love those cinched in waists on the two end ladies.

And, while I was playing with the fabric, I grabbed this beauty and stitched a bookmark for WOCS from a design in "Bookmarks Galore" from Leisure Arts.  It was tricky to find something that would work with all of those colors, but i think this blended in quite well.

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.