Thursday, December 25, 2014

Newest set of potholders.

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. Speaking of...I started working on a new pattern for my quilted potholders, called the "Wandering Star" pattern. My mom likes Fall/Autumn colors, so I figured I would raid my stock to see what I could come up with.


Monday, December 22, 2014

IHSW - Otherwise known as, "There and Back Again..."

I signed up for my first International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. It seemed like fun, at first, but soon turned to frustration once I realized that thanks to my not-so-sharp eyes missing two squares/stitches in the filigree at the top of the pattern, the rest of the pattern had become offset, which means only one thing.

I had to rip out/cut out a week's worth of work.

Now, I'm not the fastest cross-stitcher in the world, and am even slower since I'm doing the pattern on stiff Aida cloth on a pillowcase (it's a long-overdue gift for my hubby) so it really won't look like I've gotten anything done in comparison with my last progress posting.

But I was able to almost get caught up, and even got the badger in while I was at it. I think I've learned my lesson - work left to right, and don't try to get the filigree at the top done until it's even with the rest of the pattern.

Here's the picture of how it looks now...

Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Harry Potter Pillow Project continues...

Finally got some more done on my pillow project! It's starting to look like an actual pattern now, thank goodness. I finally got a chance to practice French knots for the first time in forever, too...

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Look - it's a banner!

I've gotten quite a bit more progress done on my Harry Potter pillow this weekend. The Gryffindor banner is getting recognizable now - just need to get the black letters, eye and nose in, and the red and yellow checker pattern.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Stockings!

My niece has gotten involved in 4H recently...which involves lots of community service, apparently. One of their recent projects is to put together a lot of stockings using donated cloth and stuff. And guess who got tapped to help out!

I can't help it when they ask so nicely...

So here's the end of my most recent project.

For starters, they were all pre-cut into the stocking shape by the 4H leader, so that saved a lot of time/effort. I forgot to take a picture, but my first step was to fold the top of each half of the stockings and sewed a thin hem.

Next, I pulled out the *dun-dun-dunnnnnn*... Bias tape machine! That thing is awesome, I swear.

After cutting some 2" strips of red cloth, I fed it to the bias tape machine, folded the resulting tape in half, and then stitched the longer length into one long bias tape.

Finally, I cut the tape into 4" strips - that should be plenty of tape to form the hanging loop.




 Next - piecing them together. After pairing them together, inside out, I folded over the bias tape so that it formed roughly a 2" loop. I lined it up with the outer seam in between the layers of the stocking, at the rear upper corner. With the sewing machine, I sewed the halves together with roughly a 1/2" to 1" seam depending on the size of the cloth pieces and how the sewing machine was cooperating.





As you can see, here's the finished result.  As with a lot of my recent stuff (I'm still in the learning process after all), they're a little rough, but I think they'll do!













There was a rather...interesting variety of cloth patterns, but hey - I doubt they were going to turn down donations. Hopefully they do the trick and bring some smiles to their recipients!

My first Stitch-A-Long!

So...I'm going to try my first ever Stitch-A-Long - thankfully, there's no time limit...

HAP = Huge A** Project, and that'll be the subject of the SAL. Minimum dimensions required are 300W for the smallest dimension, per the organizer: http://crossedstitches.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-year-sal.html

I have a brand new pattern I hope to try out, so I'll post that once I get a chance to get pictures and all that fun stuff organized!

  • Ride the Wind (HAED, by Michele Sayetta, Artwork by Jody Begsma): 350W by 469H for a total of 164150 stitches. In the words of the mighty George Takei...Oh, My!