August Stitch Camp Project

I’ve been totally enjoying my Cross Stitch Camp projects this summer – a project for each month of June, July and August all with a different theme.   August’s theme is to try something you haven’t done/used before.  Could be a different kind of floss, or fabric, or chart from a designer you haven’t stitched before.  Lots of possibilities.    I have been wanting to start this one for a while but didn’t have a good color of wool felt in the stash.  I have some small pieces ordered – because I seriously only need small pieces.

Nightingale’s Garden combines cross stitch and wool applique – so a new to me combination.   I have done a lot of applique with my quilts in the past but don’t know that I’ve ever done any wool applique.  I just picked some floss colors from my stash and the fabric I got last August (had to look it up to see if my guess where I got it was correct) and it is from To Dye For Fabrics.  It has a number, no a color name, because it was a OOAK and not part of her regular color line.  It’s 14 count because the chart is charted for 35 ct. linen and the templates for the house are drawn in a size to accommodate that so I didn’t want to have to mess too much with changing the house pattern piece size so I’ll be stitching it with two threads.   So I can get this all in a bag ready to start tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take it along to work to start on my lunch hour.  The wool felt pieces I ordered are a bit delayed but I won’t need them until last and I picked a couple different colors to see what would work best.

Last Photo – Ready Set Snow – Fully Finished

yes – I fully finished Ready Set Snow just a short time ago but first things first.

Flash Chart Adopters for yesterday’s charts are as follows:    Ready, Set Snow is Tracey G and Miss Bingley’s Library is Lisa S.  I have emailed both you ladies privately to get your addresses.  Congratulations.  I always get emails asking why someone’s comment may not show up in the comment section for the Flash Chart Adoptions.  At the bottom of the FCA rules I explain that.

Okay – back to my finished piece.

I decided I wanted to do cording and not add chenille to Ready, Set, Snow so rewatched a Flosstube tutorial  (Helen D since I knew where to easily find her tutorial;  Vonna Pfeifer also has an excellent one which Helen mentions as well) since I hadn’t used the Kreinik cording maker since I ordered it and it had been a while since I had watched those tutorials. I even figured out how to use three colors in my cording and wanted it thicker so mine has twice as many strands as called for in the tutorial.   So here’s how the cording looked when it was done.   I pulled three floss colors that matched the fabric on the block.

I used four strands of blue and two stands each of the red and green.  And here it is glued in place.  Not perfect but I’m pleased with my first attempt at cording.

So – since it’s July 31, my “Christmas in July” stitching will officially end and I’ll get to work on some other projects.  But here’s all the projects I worked on for Christmas in July:

Festooned – 7-23-22

Star Shaped Snowman 7-26-22

Santa’s Ride – 7-9-22

Let It Snow – Hands on Designs

I may be a bit farther along on New Years’ Sampler than this photo.  That stitch, and the coverlet stitch (with the three trees and stars that I started in July) I will continue to work on in the not-too-distant future.  All the other ones the stitching was started in July and finished in July.   Whew!

Now to pull the fabric I want to use for my August Stitch Camp project which should be a very quick project.

Ready,Set Snow Finished

My fabric covered block idea worked – wrapped it like a package (with a layer of batting on the front side) and then covered the back where all the fabric edges were attached with felt to make it look neat and tidy.  Stitch is attached to foam board with one layer of batting on the top as well.  I still need to get some trim or make some cording to go around the edges so will post a better photo once I totally finish it off.  Leaning towards some aqua chenille for trim but I have to order some.  I think I’ve got some little snowflake charms to maybe add to it as well.

We haven’t had a Flash Chart Adoption in a while so the two charts are up for adoption.  You know what to do if you are interested in them (and if you don’t know, read the FCA rules found on a tab at the top of the bar so you don’t disqualify yourself.   Good luck.  I’m off to go wind some DMC and get it on floss drops.

UPDATED 7-31-22 AT 12:39pm — FCA closed.  Congratulations to Lisa who will be adopting Miss Bingley’s Library and Tracey who is adopting Ready Set Snow.

Ready, Set Snow

I was cleaning/putting away the charts and fabric and had intended to clean up the floss from finished projects but I got sidetracked (I’ll work on that a bit tonight after dinner).  But I decided I really wanted to work on fully finishing Ready, Set Snow tonight and that meant I needed to figure out if I had enough room to stitch the three snowflakes in the sky or not.  I did, I stitched them, and now except for adding nose and button the stitching is finished.  I brough in and down a few stitches above the snowman so it would all fit as I wanted (or so I think anyway) on my finishing piece.   The nose is supposed to be felt so I’ll see how I do cutting it or if I go back and just add in a stitched nose.

But I want to see if I can cover the wooden block I have with fabric – in my mind it all makes sense we shall see how it actually works out – so I pulled out a stack of wintery/christmas fabrics from the quilting stash and found a couple to audition.   Will have to see how they look behind my stitch once I get it mounted on foam core or chip board.

Here’s the stitch with my initial potential fabrics.  If I decide I don’t like any of those, I always have plenty to choose from. 🙂

Stitching progress last night

Whew! I made it all the way across that bottom border so I can cut off all the excess length of fabric to the left side of my stitching.  It’s a big piece of fabric already to wrangle so don’t need any unneeded extra.  I want to work on getting the red and green border lines done up the left side to the top corner. Then I will have the bottom and side border sections to count from to start some of the inner fun motifs.  I was thinking of stitching the whole border first but that’s likely not going to happen.

I also have just a bit of stitching left on Ready, Set, Snow which was part of my Christmas in July Stitching, and I will finish this before the end of July.

I just need to finish the red background for that third snowflake, he needs his felt nose, and there’s three snowflakes above his head but I need to do some measuring to see if I will add those or not.  I think this will fit on a wood block or another finishing piece I have but the snowflakes may make it too tall.  Will have to figure that out.

Plus this weekend I need to pull my project supplies to get them ready for Monday – the start of August Summer Stitch Camp – final summer camp month.   I may rethink my project because not all the supplies have arrived – I need some wool felt for a bit of it and that order is delayed but it may arrive before the end of August and it’s the last thing I need to add to my stitching so it may all work out.  And if it doesn’t get done before the end of the month then I’m just out of the running for the prizes so not a big deal since I do want to stitch the project I picked regardless of camp.  There – I think I just talked myself into not changing my project but need to pull floss, fabric and find where I stuck that chart.

And thank you for all the birthday wishes!  

A Birthday Start

I decided I did indeed want to start a birthday start and what better than one that I had ordered all the floss for when I ordered the chart so I didn’t have to pull floss (which is not my favorite part of starting a new project).   So In HIS Image which I had been wanting to start it was!   I found what I think will be a good fabric color – tho nothing like the called for – and got a bit of a start on it this morning and then on my lunch since it was a work from home day.  This is going to be big sampler  compared to most of my projects so I was lucky to find a piece of fabric I wanted to use large enough in my stash.  The stitched area will be 19-3/4″ x 15-3/8″.    The fabric I chose is called Summer Storm by To Dye for Fabrics  – such a pretty mottled light blue (which I originally thought would be pretty for a  “wintery” stitch but I snagged it for this).

 

See those little berries or buds — they are two-toned.  The single top stitch and the row of three stitches below it are stitched in a slightly darker shade than the rest of the bud.   After stitching those five I’ve decided that’s just crazy pants. LOL   It’s not going to show up as two different colors from any distance so I’m just going to stitch them all one color on all the bajillion  (okay slight exaggeration there are only 50 of them total) I have left to stitch.   I started in the lower right corner and want to get the border in at least all the way to the left corner so I can cut off the excess length of fabric I have which is a bit unwieldy at the moment.

Another stitch finished – another started

Star shaped snowman was a very quick stitch (or maybe if you have a tree fall in a storm outside your home that keeps you wired and wide awake all night you stitch faster) 🙂  My plan for this is to use one of the other large wooden snowman ornaments – I have a couple different styles.  One has a large circular area in the center so I’m thinking I may want to mount this to backer board and make it star shaped, then use fabric to cover another board in a circular design slightly smaller than the center of the wooden area so the star shape will have a fabric circle behind it.  But for now it will get set aside.

I still had more of that piece of fabric that I’ve stitched the star and Festooned on, so I pulled out another chart that I had kitted up with the flosses from Hands on Designs.  The star button came with the chart as well as the felt that you cut the snowman nose out of.

As you can see I changed p the colors on the words.  I love that tealy color – GA Peacock – so want to use more of that in this little stitch so am changing the placement of some of the colors around.  I may leave the red out entirely and use the peacock where that is used.  I started this one last night.  I want to get the stitching done before my Christmas in July stitching finishes.

Of course my dilemma is, with my birthday later this week – do I start a new project for my birthday or not.   I haven’t made a decision on that yet.

A stormy night

We had one thunderstorm move thru about 8 pm and other than some impressive thunder and lightning, we got a short gentle rain.  That however changed about 2:30 AM when the second wave came thru with predicted wind gusts of 60-70 mph.    Before it started thundering and lightening I heard a loud awful splintering sound and knew it had to be one of the trees on the hill outside my apartment , jumped up grabbed my shoes and moved into the kitchen area (farthest away from the front of the apartment in cased it was a tree that was going to come down on the building).  I waited for the thud but there wasn’t one.  Put on some jeans and went to look outside.  Pitch dark and where was no tree outside my door or on the apartment building so that was a relief but needless to say every after the storm finished about 3:30 AM, I was wide awake for a good long time (lots of cross stitching was accomplished). This one had lots of thunder, lots of lightening but when I had opened the door it did not see really windy  but must have been a gust because this morning when I looked out I saw this.

That’s taken from my patio – you can just see the edge of the sided building so luckily was beyond that.  The whole vine covered section on the left  – the vines are growing on the chain link fence to it came down over that.  Luckily no damage to anything.

So I made some good progress filling in the snowman on this ornament while to wide awake to sleep.  I may need a nap today.  Went out for breakfast with a friend and there were quite a few branches along the way that had come down and one tree we saw that had snapped off at ground level and luckily just missed the house it was by.

I’m stitching on the same gray/blue fabric I did Festooned on (looks a bit more blue in this photo) and changed the scarf colors to shades of blue (rather than brownish called for)

Festooned stitched and beaded

I finished stitching the tree and went in search of beads.  All the beads I used for fingering weight yarn were too big but there was a bunch of tiny gold beads – I think they were like spacer beads from a bracelet I had broken.  Then the search was on for a needle with an eye small enough to go thru them but I found those.  So it’s beaded, cut some foam board, put a piece of batting on top, gathered the edges of the stitched piece and I have it just temporarily gathered in place.   I need to take out my basting stitch and move it out a bit – too tight to the edge of the piece and I need to shift it a bit to center it.

But here is how it looks

The bottom of these photos look sort of hazy – it’s super humid outside and my camera lens was starting to steam up when I went outside to get a photo.  That was about 10 mintue ago and now it is black as night with thunder and lightening moving thru.   Hopefully the storms move thru quickly.

Here’s what it will look on the 15″ wide wooden ornament.  The stitched circle is about 4.5″ wide.

And one thing this project has taught me – I hate adding beads! LOL  Such putzy work.   I actually had thought about adding french knots but then when I found the beads decided to use them.   You will most likely NOT be seeing any other beaded projects in my future – unless it’s just one or two beads.  Just not something I find fun to do.

I’ll wait to fully finish this one.  I need to decide on some trim to go around it and I think I may paint the snowflake white (and have no white paint).  But at least I know ithe stitched piece will fit.

It is gently raining now and starting to brighten up to sort of normal daylight for this time in the evening so hoping the storm is moving on.  We could use a bit of rain tho.  Need to find some dinner and then start on the next snowflake center.

Continuing Christmas In July Stitching

I’m still stitching along on Coverlet Christmas.  Here’s the progress so far.

Another tree nearly finished, a bit more border done, and more stars and doodads have been added.  This is just a very easy and relaxing stitch.

I put the finishing touches on Plum Pudding – added the whiskers to the mice and the branches to the holly so now this one is in the “waiting to be finished” pile.  I will finish it into a little pillow and also try out my cording tool to make some cording for it.  I also remembered the little cookie cutter charms  I had gotten to add to just such a project so stuck those in project bag so I don’t forget to add some.

So last night I pulled out a few more small projects I want to stitch for Christmas in July.  One is this adorable little chart called Festooned.   The snowman looks like he’s dancing as he puts the star on the tree.  I probably could have started and finished it in one night but I was working on something else for a while but this is a really simple stitch.

I just started on the tree.  Need to go pull a floss for his carrot note and whatever color I want to make his scarf.  Oh and I think I will make the star gold metallic so need to find that.   I just started on the tree and it’s supposed to have multicolored beads on it.  I have beads left over from knitting projects but I don’t know that they are the right size or good colors so will have to wait and see.  I don’t plan to add the border.  I’m hoping that I can work this into a circular finish and mount it in the center of one of those large wooden snowflake ornaments I have.   I love the color of the fabric – PTP in Mirage – a pretty grayish blue color.

And I also pulled out this chart – Star Shaped Snowman by Teresa Kogut.  This one I want to stitch and add to the center of a wooden snowflake too.  I haven’t pulled the flosses for this yet but will likely be brightening up the colors used a bit.

So laundry started,  stuck my head out the door (humidity still gross but at least we didn’t get the storms predicted last night), grocery order placed for delivery early this afternoon, and my plan is to rearrange some more cabinets but I may go have another cup of coffee first, pull the floss for the star ornament so I can get it all put away again, and stitch a branch or two on the christmas tree before.

I had to laugh when I opened up the next cabinet I want to clean. I had already taken some of the things out of it to move to other cabinets but was checking to see what was left.  Things I don’t use often end up in that cabinet above the stove.  Cereal, taco shells, oatmeal.   There were several baggies with taco shells in them that were left over.  I eat tacos about once a year – there is no telling how old those things were but definitely more than a year or two.  Into the trash along with the partial box of lasagna noodles.  I can’t think of the last time I made homemade lasagna.  I don’t make it unless I’m having company (and clearly that has not happened in the last three years) and even before that who knows how long.  And I don’t make it just for me – because I don’t like eating leftovers for days on end and have a very   good pizza place that makes fantastic lasagna so I can order it for delivery to satisfy the craving and only eat it for one night.  Anyway those lasagna noodles will not be surviving the cabinet reorganizing.  Yes cabinet reorganizing/purging was definitely needed around here! 🙂