Reluctant Scholar

Here's my latest comfort doll. She looks a bit sad, but I think she's just tentative on her first day of school. This is a Carol Emmer design from an old issue of Leisure Arts "For the Love of Cross Stitch" magazine. I still like these kinds of designs with a lot of fractionals, back stitching and shading for contours. I used Pat Winter's Inner Child Doll method of sewing on the backing by just wrapping it to the front, folding over and hand-stitching a buttonhole stitch in pearl cotton to close it. No turning inside out and no machine stitching at all. I think I need more practice, but it worked out ok.



My partner, Jane, in the Stitchin' Fingers biscornu exchange sent me a gorgeous biscornu from a Floss Box design. Didn't she do a lovely job?

Season Petites Luggage Tag

Mother's Day is fast approaching so I made this small gift to give to my cousin who always includes me at her holiday dinners. This is from a Brightneedle leaflet, "Season Petites". I used a cafe mocha fabric from Enchanted Fabrics and a Moda fabric lining. It was hard to find one fabric for the stitching that would make all the seasons 'pop'. I changed the lettering colors at least to be darker to show up better.

Trilogy Square Baby Sampler

The little boy babies are just cropping up everywhere it seems. For my co-worker with a newborn second baby, I picked this design by the Trilogy. The model on the leaflet cover was done with Gentle Art and Weeks Dye Works threads. But the chart included DMC colors as well. Using the DMC colors listed would have given this a completely different look, although probably a very nice look. I used all DMC, but I chose my own colors in a lot of cases. For some areas, I could use DMC color variations. In others, I used 2-3 colors that seemed to match the hand-dyeds and just randomly filled in the spaces, changing colors every so often.

This was also the first time I had done significant over-one stitching. The heart house on the left is all in over-one. The fabric is 28-count Monaco in antique white. The Monaco is such a sturdy fabric that it supports the over-one really well. But it was a chore, no doubt.

I met a nice woman in the fabric shop who was selecting threads for a finished quilt top. So I helped her pick out colors and she helped me pick the backing fabric. I wouldn't have thought of using green. I was looking for something in the rust/barn red area, but the green really worked best I think. The ribbon is the wired type.

Alternative Energy

A couple of quick finishes. The first is a card for my cousin the bicycle enthusiast. This design is by Radical Cross Stitch and was originally done as a logo for a Texas bicycle event. The fabric is a hand-dyed aida from Sassy's Fabbys. It's a pretty green, but I don't think it shows so well in the photo. The thread is DMC color variations 4240.



And second, a teenie weenie crocheted kitty. The pattern includes a long tail so you can use him as a bookmark. But I omitted that to use him as an embellishment on some as yet to be decided project. You can find the pattern here along with several others, but beware there is one mistake in this one. The directions omit the 'turn' after you complete the head. If you followed the directions as written, your kitty will have both legs on the same side of the head!



Also, I received a lovely mail-art envelope from my partner, Liz, in the Stitchin' Fingers mail-art exchange. Liz chose an apple theme. I love how she used an apple print for the lining. I'm busy studying this one to see how she did the construction. Liz is a very accomplished needlewoman so I knew she would have some great ideas for this even though this was her first attempt at mail-art. And be sure to check her blog to see all her fine work and especially the incredible dolls she makes!

Cute as a button

Meet Abigail, my latest stitched comfort doll. Abigail totes a comfort doll of her own so she is very aware of the importance of her role. This design comes from a leaflet called 'Cute As A Button'. The designs in the leaflet are based on a series of dolls by Cheri Saffiote and adapted for x-stitch by Annie Morgan. I think I'll do one more of these since I had so much fun stitching this one.


And this teeny little bunny is here to wish everyone a very happy bunny day. He's only about 1.25" long. Directions for crocheting the little guy can be found here.

Quaker Mail Art

My first cross stitch envelope has reached my partner in the exchange on Stitchin' Fingers. Have to confess...I cheated. I mailed it inside of another envelope. Just couldn't bring myself to mail it without any protection at all.

I found it more difficult than I expected. Planning the layout was complicated. I made a mistake in placement and had to improvise at the end for the construction. That's why you see the flap made from the lining fabric. I sewed the side seams by hand since they were kind of bulky. I think I might look for a different construction method if I were to do another one of these.

I used the free Quaker house design from Annie Beez Folk Art on the front and the Nesting Bird design from Aury on the back. The fabric is Vikki Clayton linen and the lining has a design of houses in case you can't see that in the photo.

The Cat Biscornu

My partner, Jane, in the Stitchin' Fingers biscornu exchange just told me she received the one I made for her. I could see by Jane's other blog that she is a cat lover, so I chose a cat-related design. The original design had a bible verse stitched on one side that I changed to be an old rhyme:

I'm only a cat
We'll get along fine
As long as you know
I'm not yours, your're mine.

The design is free on Cross Stitch Pro PDF.

As usual, it is difficult to find the right angle to take photos of a biscornu. Here's what I came up with:

Drop back 5 yards and trapunto...

Using my wayback machine to return to the 70's, I was thinking about a needlepoint pillow I made in those days when needlepoint was all the rage. The pillow sits on a rocking chair to this day, but usually just seems like part of the wood work now. I couldn't remember the name of the technique I used, but after asking around on a couple of boards, I learned this from Jamie:

"The term for raising part of a design by stuffing (or adding cording) is trapunto. The term for attaching a piece to another layer is applique. So this would be either stuffed or trapuntoed applique.

And both of those techniques (among others) are some of those used in the needlework style known as stumpwork. Technically, a stuffed applique on canvas is a padded slip. (As is a slip which is appliqued over one or more layers of felt padding.)"

Two of the strawberries in the photo below were stitched on separate pieces of canvas and then stitched to the main canvas. The main canvas was then slit behind the berries and stuffed so the berries are raised, kind of 3-d like. If you can't see this very well (click on the photo to enlarge), the two raised berries are the 3rd from the bottom and the one directly above that, almost in the center of the piece.

The design was from one the Sunset needlepoint books that I no longer have.




And for cleaning up after French cooking, we have my latest dishcloth. I love these overlapping leaves. The design is called 'Vineyards' by Danielle Côté. Both the French and English versions of the pattern can be found here.

I knew those fish would come in handy...

I fell in love with the "Persuasion" sampler by The Sampler Girl in the Jan, 2009 issue of JCS. I've only recently started to appreciate this style of design, and the sentiment on this one expresses exactly what I have to keep reminding myself in these troubled times.

The stitching is done on Vikki Clayton's hand-dyed linen from a grab-bag of light neutrals...a joy to stitch on. I used only DMC threads and changed a few colors here and there... like multiple blues for the alphabet to give the look of color-variations.

I finished it up into a sling/hipster bag to use when I want to carry a minimum of fairly essential items and stay hands-free. It's lined with the same fabric as the backing with one pocket on the inside. I used Pellon fusible fleece to give it some padding and little heft. My sewing machine is not new to say the least, so I also did a little praying that it would be willing to sew through all those layers. But it performed like trooper. The zipper cooperated this time too. And finally, I've got a home for those fish beads that I bought some time ago with no idea as to how to use them.






And in the spirit of the season, I crocheted a little shamrock thanks to Kathy, who supplied the link to the pattern.

Double your pleasure...

A friend of mine became a first-time grandmother of twin boys recently, and I offered to stitch a baby sampler for them. Just finished it yesterday. This is the 12 Houses Sampler by Drawn Thread stitched on summer khaki 36 ct Edinburgh linen over 2 threads. I substituted DMC colors for some of the hand-dyed threads. And I modified some of the specified colors where I thought it worked better. I added the path, fence, birds and flower at the bottom since I had extra space between the names. The houses use some specialty stitches which were fun to do, but hard on the eyes on this fine-count linen. The babies don't have middle names, only middle initials. The babies were conceived in vitro and the initials stand for the names the doctors gave their blastospheres. The photo is clickable if you want to see more detail.



I also found another fascinating pattern for a dishcloth. This is a round one that did not require double pointed needles. It's knit using short rows to create wedges and requires only one seam at the end to connect the first wedge to the last wedge. The pattern can be found here. This is knit using Rosewood Sugar and Cream cotton yarn.