Happy 2012, a finish and winter blooms

I want to wish everyone a grand and wonderful 2012.

I have not posted in a long time. I have however finished one very special cross stitch project. I can now show it here since I was finally able to gift it to my Sweetie's mom.

I finished "Celtic Noel" designed by Lavander and Lace. I'm not sure of the kind of linenbut it was a 40 count. I stitched it 2 over 2, except the face and hands which I stitched 1 over 1.

I started the cross stitch in July 2011 and finished it the last week of September 2011.

I added the border and bias buinding and maded it into a quilted wall hanging.

I truely enjoyed the stitching of this!


I was pleased and excited to find my Christmas Cactus in bloom this year. Only a few blooms but more than it has ever had before. I love how they look. in bloom!! I hope they will bloom again for me.

I always loved my grand mother's Christmas Cactus. Every year it would be filled with blooms.

Having mine bloom brought back memories of family gatherings at my grandparents home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. The whole family would gather there (well, at least as many as possible). Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, all crammed into my grand parents home. We had anywhere between 20 and 30 people there.

We always had good times when the family got together. I miss those gatherings! At times i really regret the miles that seperate me from the closeness of my family, mostly at the holidays.

Hardanger Happiness

I have been playing around with Hardanger. Mostly it is because I have a bunch of fabric laying around that I am trying to use up; It is also because I have been wanting to learn to do it for a long time. This piece is my own design using up bits and pieces of purl cotton and a piece of fabric of unknown origin.

I appologize for the fuzziness of the pictures, I am not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination.



complete piece


 

Heart Motif at ends



Detail of edging



Detail of Center Motif

 

Center Motif



I enjoyed this project for several reasons:

1. I am learning a new needleworking skill set.
2. The rythum and flow of the stitching is very calming and let my mind relax.
3. The feel of the fabric and the way it contrasts with the feel of the purl is a subtle variation.
4. It develops rather quickly (I finished this piece in less than 3 hours over two days).
5. I like the fall color scheme.

Overall, I think that I will continue to explore this new (to me) form. I have several ideas that I would like to explore. First I want to learn the other (there are only a few that I have seen) stitches. I have gotten much better at the center picots, but there are other variations that I still need to learn.

I hope that everyone enjoys their time with Family during the Thanksgiving holiday (at least it is here in the USA). Don't eat to very much, savor every bite and every moment.

Tina

A slightly late finish

I had actually finished this project about 2 weeks ago, but once again life got a bit hectic. Between Medical and Dental appointments I have been running around with the kids, All that time spent sitting in waiting rooms, now that theya re old enough to go in by themselves, gave me a lot of time to "play" with my "string".

I hope that every one enjoys looking at this little wall/door hanging as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Lenny the Lion

Manfred the Mummy

Count Carl

Gerry the ghost

Frightful Frankie

Wendy the Wistful Witch

Finished Hanging

Each of the characters was designed by me. If anyone would like the patterns for them please feel free to drop me an e-mail 

Thanks for stopping by, and have a Great Week!

Tina

A Halloween Finish

I have been doing very little stitching lately. The work we have been doing on the house has taken up so much of my time; I have been doing very little of anything.

One of the things that I did make time to work on is a cute fall table runner that I designed and stitched up one weekend.  I like the colors and the way that they felt stitched up. I will probably do a few more of these type of projects. I really enjoyed the whole process.

Here are a few pics:

This runner was just something I dreamed up. I hope that you like it.

The fabric is felt and the threads are DMC. I am not sure of the colors as I have been trying to use up the loose floss that I am finding as I continue to sort through the things in my craft room. I blanket stitched the leaves and pumpkin sections down and then did the detail stitches using backstitch.



Thanks for checking it out

Tina

Pics long over due

I have to appologize to the two lovely ladies that were my partners in the pin pillow exchange that was sponsered by Becky over at BeckyBee's Stitching Hive.

I recieved a lovely sampler pin pillow from Sara over at Sara's Simple Stitching. here are my pics:

front

back

I am not sure what count the cloth is or what kind of thread was used. I love that the stitches are so even and neat. I wish I had the patience to work with backgrounds this small.

As for the pin pillow that I made, I mailed it out just before the Easter weekend. Ellen over at Fannie's Place recieved it and asked me to post some pics since she is not able to at this time. So here we go:

I have only taken a picture of the frount since the back is the pink satin that you can see peaking out from the spaces of the Hardanger.  I came up with the design after reading some books to learn how to do this type of stitching. For this being only my third time doing Hardanger work I feel that it came out very nicely. 

Designer: Tina

Fabric: 22 count white Hardanger

Thread: #5 and #8 DMC Perl Cotton: White

Stitched By: Tina

As for what else I have been working on, Well, Not much. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic. My DS partisipated in the State Compition with the Winter Percussion Ensamble. The School took second place. His younger Sis and I went and watched the compition. I must say, Bleachers are still the most uncomfortable thing to sit on. My poor backside ached for several days afterwards. (Is that TMI?)

In addition to running halfway across the state to watch the performances, closer to home I have been busy with gardening and such. As of yet I have not planted anything, still haven't reached the Last Expected Frost Date for Central New York. I have been slowly working my across my .95 acre to pick up all of the fallen branches and to clean up some of the deadfall trees (they will help heat my home well next winter) so that in a week or so I will be able to runn the lawn tractor over it with fresh new blades in the mower and not have to worry to much about the new blades being destroyed.

The days have been sunny and warm for the most part. the one day that we had rain here I did spend some time at my sewing machine. This is what I worked on:

 

My Snow Friends wall hanging is slowly taking shape. I am using blocks from the "Dear Hannah" program from Electronic Quilts. I am making the pieced blocks 3" x 3" and will be putting another strip of fabric between the blocks before I sew them together. I chose to paper piece the blocks because they are TINY, TINY  pieces and I wanted tehm to be very accurate. So far I think that I have accomplished this. (the thing that they are pinned to is a slab of foam insulation taht we had leftover from the upstairs bathroom remodel. I plan to cover it with some white felt soon and it will be my permanent design wall.) 

Finally back

This last month has been very hard on me. It has been sbnowing almost every day since Christmas. When the weather is like this I end up feeling very blue. I have been hunkered down in my recliner and and have spent a lot of time working on my band sampler that Sharon B, over at pintangle, inspired me to begin. It has been a very enjoyable diversion from the weather.

I ahve also finished all of the embroidery on my snow friends blocks for my wall hangings. You can see the original post here. These are something that I have been working on for most of the month of January.

Here are the five red that will complete the red work wall  hanging.                                                                                                                                                             

  

Here are the 6 that will go into the blue work wall hanging.

I have picked out several fabrics to frame each and then to join them together into a nice wall hanging. I still need to block them. I am going to frame them out and make some smaller pieced blocks to square everything up.

I would love to know what you think of them.

peace, Tina

First block stitched

I finally got my DS to get the scanner hooked up correctly so that I could scan my finished blocks. This is the first one that I have finished for the redwork wallhanging.

I really like how this block came out. All total I only spent about 4 hours doing this stitching. It amazes me how calming doing the outline stitch can be.

I am now working on the same block only this new one is in blue. There will be more pics as I continue to work on the blocks

Peace, Tina

My First Biscornu

Well, I finally finished my first Biscornu. it is many small squares that I filled with DMC varagatied purple floss (number unknown) Blackwork patterns.

Each one is an experiment going from very little fill to dense fill.  Each of the squares is 14x14 squares on 14 count Adaia (did I spell that right?) so each is one inch square. The finished size is aproximately 5x5 inches and 1 1/2 inches high.

The buttons are a small green topped with an even smaller light purple.

chicken scratch 2

I decided to up load a few more of the scans of my chicken scratch. I like these two much better. I worked them using a blue color from my floss box that was in a tangle. The light double cross stitch is the base for the weaving in this photo. All the floss is three strands. The abstract stitching was done following the lines or crossing the blocks of the squares.

I have been enjoying this form. I can see that there are many other ways that this form of stitching could be used. One of the things that I would like to explore further is to use these stitches on an evenweave cloth.

I can remember seeing and doing this stitching when I was a youngster. I am not sure of the name of the company that the kits I worked was, but I know that they did in-home parties to demonstrate different stitching forms. My mother still has many of those pieces of work.

Again here are some more stitches. I think that they are based on several different photos that I saw while browsing the web. I have seen so many interpertations of this form over the last few weeks.

I enjoyed re-learning these stitchs, it took me back to my childhood and made me feel so youthful. Working the stitches brought back good memories. My favorite one is of working a lovely yellow gignham pillow with a rooster pattern. It was one half of a set...the other was a chicken.

This memory makes me smile because I was stitching it as we rode around on my parents pontoon boat. The sun and sweet air come rushing back as I sit here and think about it. It makes me nostalgic for my parents home.

some of my work

I am going to attempt to add photos to this page. I am still working out how to do all of this. Please be patient with me.

To the right is my first attempt at Chicken Scratch. I picked the wrong color (to light a blue) for it to show up very well, but I figured that even my oops' are a learning experience. Most of these are just areas that I stitched to see if I liked the pattern.

The photo (below left is the next area on my Gingham. I switched colors (DMC floss, not sure of the color as it was in my floss drawer as a tangled mess. 2 strands) and am much happier with the looks of it. I am still not completely satisfied with the way that the floss is laying in my woven areas,

I have been enjoying the time I have spent stitching my chicken scratch. I hope that if anyone likes it they will drop me a post. Also and suggestions as to how to improve the way that the floss is laying would be greatly appreciated.

Hope that everyone "in your neck of the woods" is healthy and happy. (I apologize now to my English Professor. I still use way to many euphemisms.)