Stitching Rotation Explanation

January has been a very good stitching month. I've been rotating my projects with great results. With 15 WIPs going on right now, the rotation is the best way to manage them all. I read someone's comment (not on this blog) that a rotation was too confining. The way I rotate couldn't be farther from that definition! Let me explain how I do it. I stitch on a project for about three days, then choose another one. Stitch on that one for three days, then go on to another. That's it. Not complicated or confining at all! And guess what. If I want to go back to the first project next, then I do that. Oh, and if I want to stitch on something for four days, I can! Wow, I'm such a rebel.

Stitching is supposed to be fun, and a rotation is just a way to get a little stitching in on all of your projects. Make up your own rotation "rules". My "three days" time frame is just my own thing. Yours could be one day or two - or a week.

So what is the result of all of this rotating? Just look!

I worked on "Tulip's Praise" by Gracewood Stitches.

Yes, it's a huge project, but I'm now on the top row of tulips. It's stitched on 18 count evenweave in white or off white. Maybe a finish this year?

"Angel of Divinity Stocking" by Dimensions was up next.

I got a lot done on the back half of the lamb. Lots of light, pale colors in there! This is a kit and is being stitched on 18 count white aida.

I worked quite a bit on "Bluebird's Salute" by Luminous Fiber Arts at my last stitch day. Then I was really motivated to finish it!

So I have a finish! I know how I'm going to FFO it and will be able to show that in my next post. The fabric is 28 count white Jobelan.

I picked up Linen and Threads Mystery Sampler 2017. Yes, I know it's 2020.

I like this project a lot but am going to be so glad to get to the February portion. I'm stitching this on 32 count white Jobelan with my own DMC color combination.

I got a little framing done.

This is "The Light Upon The Lawn" by Blackbird Designs, and I finished stitching it late last year. I put it into this thrift store frame. Wasn't sure I was going to like the light frame color and thought about painting it, but I really like it! It's very nice to get something totally finished and ready to hang.

So January was a good month for stitching. There are a few days left. Let's see how much more progress I can make. How is your January going? Cold? Snowy? Maybe you need a dose of spring. These daffodils bloomed just before it was going to freeze so we cut them and brought them in.

It was a way to bring a little spring into the house when there's still about two more months of winter. These are just early daffodils. They always come up when winter is in full swing.

Thanks for visiting today! Happy stitching!

New Year, Resolutions, And A Winner!

Happy New Year! After the excitement and busyness of the holidays, it's nice to get back into a routine. And first, as promised, I'm going to announce the winner of the assortment of six lace zippers.

The winner is Faith!

Faith, I will leave a comment on my previous post to notify you. Please email me with your mailing address and I'll get these cute zippers sent to you! Congratulations!

Now back to that routine. I haven't made too many crafty resolutions (and no regular resolutions!) this year. I do want to:

• Organize my overdyed floss better.
• Stitch every day.
• Quit looking at my phone during stitching time. I know, I know. That one sounds familiar.
• Go back to my WIP rotation.
• Try try try to stitch from stash.
• Finish something already.

OK, that's a lot of resolutions. But they're all pretty sensible and doable. That phone one though. Ugh. Why is it so important to keep checking my phone? It isn't. Do I need something like this to put my phone in while I stitch?

 

 Ha ha ha! Just a thought.

I have been stitching! I worked on "Bluebird Garden" by Artful Offerings.

Significant progress was made on his tail and into that blue checker-y area.

I also worked on "Life Tree" by Rovaris.

This is one of my favorite projects. I'm stitching it one over one on 25 count Lugana in the color Potato. I lightly tea-dyed it. Very lightly, just to give it an antique look. When this is done, I know exactly how I'm going to finish it, AND exactly where it's going to go.

I also did a little finishing since my last post.

This chart is by Little House Needleworks from the Farmhouse Series. It's "Horsin' Around". I finished the first in this series as a little pillow, but wanted to do something different with this one. I used the exact same materials that I used in the first one and will continue to use the same fabric and trims for all of the charts in this series.

With all of the Christmas decorations gone, the house looks a little..... bare? blank? stark? So I tried to liven things up a bit with some wintery decor.

I have found that the secret to decorating the three-tier tray is to not overthink it. I have a container that has all of the Christmas and winter decorations for the tray. As I put the Christmas things away, I took out the winter pieces. I think I arranged this in about ten minutes. Another tip: elevate small items by hiding small boxes (like the boxes that jewelry comes in) under fabric.

Thank you for visiting today! I hope you like the craftiness that I have to offer. Please consider following my blog if you haven't already. I hope that you have the happiest of new years. Come back and visit again. 

All Things Christmas

So Christmas 2019 has come and gone, but I still consider this little space between Christmas and New Years the Christmas season. When you think about it, things aren't back to normal yet. There's still a holiday feel, at least to me. I kept up my stitching during the month of December, only stitching on Christmas-themed projects! I didn't even plan this. It just fell into place.

After I put away "Believe" by Dimensions for the time being, I had a new start! This is "Grandpa's Pick-up" by Little House Needleworks.

Yes, I was really motivated and got a lot done! I'm stitching this on a 30 count linen, but I'm not sure what the color is. I had signed up to get these charts as they were released and I opted for the linen to be included.

More Christmas stitching followed!

This is "Holiday Cheer" by Sugar Stitches. This is also a series called the 2019 Christmas Club and it can be found HERE on Etsy. Two of them have been released as of this post and they're both very sweet. I'm stitching it on the called-for 32 count Gingerbread fabric from Picture This Plus, which I found at 123Stitch. I'm using the Lugana instead of linen. I also am trying something new in the form of a little stretcher frame that I had in my stash. It's simply a wooden frame that you tack your fabric to. So far so good!

I made a couple of cute little zip bags to use as gift card holders for my nieces.

These are made with lace zippers which are decorative as well as functional. The tutorial for these bags can be found at Jean Truelove's YouTube channel HERE. I had a little trouble with these thick seams. It seems that both of my sewing machines are wimps when it comes to sewing through a lot of layers of fabric. They did turn out pretty nice though. If you like the look of these lace zippers, please keep reading. There's going to be a giveaway!

Our neighborhood had its annual Night Of Lights, in which we put luminary bags out at the curbs and decorate our homes. Then we invite everyone to drive through and donate to the charities which were chosen for the year.

Our 1967 Ford truck (complete with Christmas tree) continues to be a hit during this event. This photo was taken right when cars started to come through. The sheriff's department estimates that 5,000 cars drove into our subdivision on this one night! We collected an amazing amount of money and 100% of it went to the recipients.

My Christmas cactus has been a mystery to me since I got it two years ago. However, this year it showed me that it is indeed a Christmas cactus!

I think I was in a baking kind of mood this holiday season. I baked four different kinds of cookies I was sure the guests at our Christmas celebration at my sister's house would enjoy.

Holiday Spritz, Fruitcake Cookies, Chocolate Krinkles, and Coconut Cranberry Cookies filled the bill.

I'm going to do a giveaway for six of the lace zippers! I will choose six different colors of these 12 inch zippers. If you'd like to be entered in the giveaway, please let me know in your comments. Also, please make sure that there is a way that I can contact you if you win. I will choose ONE winner on Friday, January 10th at 12:00 noon EST and then announce the winner here in a blog post. I will ship anywhere.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas. Now we're heading to a New Year and I hope that yours is a good one. Keep enjoying the season and get some stitching and crafting in!

December Stitching Etc.

Starting right after Thanksgiving, all I want to stitch is Christmas! I'm a stitcher who doesn't mind stitching Christmas in June and Halloween in March. Makes no difference to me at all. I'm also a slow stitcher so I know that if I want to get something done in time for a certain holiday or a gift, I have to start early. But this month I am so in the December/Christmas mode! So let's take a little look at what I've done.

I started with UB Design "Beerenherz im Winter", which I have been told is "Berry Heart".

This is the central part of the design. I haven't started stitching the actual heart of berries yet, but I will once I finish that tree on the right. I love the snow effect on those trees. Stitched with DMC on Jobelan in the color Sandcastle.

The "Angel Of Divinity Stocking" by Dimensions is a project that had the sad designation of UFO for a while. Then I was encouraged to pick it up again.

I'm now working on the little lamb at the bottom left. It's quite the challenge with its pale colors. But I am so glad that I resumed working on this piece. I'm going to finish it. It's a kit and is stitched on white 18 count Aida.

Next up is Dimensions "Believe", also a kit.

It's about 3/4 complete! I love this project. I switched out the fabric for some 28 count Jobelan. I think the color is Lambswool which is very close to the Aida that came in the kit.

This month I also worked at the sewing machine a bit. I made a Christmas-theme project bag using the instructions provided by The Twisted Stitcher. The tutorial can be found here. This super easy project bag is my favorite out of all of them.

I've tried several different closures for this type of bag starting with the velcro that Vonna uses in her tutorial. Then I tried a magnetic snap, also with good results. For this one, I did a little double button and a piece of twine that wraps around the buttons.

Here's my annual ornament for my son and daughter-in-law.

I used part of the design from "Frosty Weather" by Blackberry Lane Designs. I needed something I could fit into this little pocket watch (by Tim Holtz) frame. One over one on 32 count fabric proved to be a challenge, but I did it! I added some micro-beads to add to the snowy effect, which are tiny beads with no holes. These were barely bigger than grains of sand.

Finally, I wanted to show you my stitched ornament display.

We have a rather skinny Christmas tree and lots of ornaments that I like to put on it. So any stitched ornaments (which tend to be larger) have to be displayed elsewhere. I took this wooden tray, added some wide ribbon, my ornaments, and some small Christmas floral items. My husband said "You put the ornaments in the trough!" Yes, it is kind of like a trough.

I hope you are enjoying the Christmas season if you celebrate. It's been going well here. My life has changed a bit since I've been here last, but I can say it is for the better. I hope to keep my blog up to date in conjunction with my YouTube channel. If you don't already know, I do Flosstube videos and my channel is CraftyCat Stitcher. So whether you visit me there or here on my blog, I hope you find something that you enjoy in what I present.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I will be back soon.

We Have A Winner!

The winner of the chart, "A Bluebird's Salute" is:

Vickie (From the blog "A Stitcher's Story")

Congratulations to Vickie! I'll be emailing you for your address and sending your chart soon!

Thank you to everyone who commented and entered this giveaway! I'll be doing more giveaways in the future. Stay tuned!

Cross Stitch Surprise And A New Designer

I'm glad that my last post helped solve the mystery of the little holes in shirts! I thought you all would think I had lost my mind with that different kind of post, but I'm happy that it proved helpful. Now let's get back to stitching.

I want to show you a sweet little project that I've been working on.

Cute, isn't he? This is my newest start, a pattern called "A Bluebird's Salute" by Luminous Fiber Arts. I'm stitching it on 32 count off white Jobelan. I'm mainly using the called-for colors with a couple of substitutions. That's my effort to stitch from stash.

The designer is Misty Pursel who I became acquainted with through our Flosstube channels. Misty is an avid multi-crafter, talented in cross stitch, knitting, crochet, quilting, and weaving. Last year, she delved into the design world and now her charts are available at her Etsy shop, Luminous Fiber Arts, as well as other sources.

Now you can see how adorably my bluebird is coming along. Misty's other charts currently include two more in the bluebird series, along with some holiday-themed designs. Other designers' charts, hand-dyed fabric, floss assortments, and needle minders are also available at her Etsy shop.

There are a lot of stitchers who prefer reading blogs over watching Flosstube, and I'm thankful for every one of my subscribers. However, if you'd like to check out Misty's Flosstube channel, go HERE. And you can locate my channel at CraftyCat Stitcher.

Now for the surprise! I'm going to do a giveaway for this chart, "A Bluebird's Salute". Here's all you have to do:

- Be a subscriber of my blog. 
- Be 18 years old or older.
- Make a comment ON THIS POST.

That's it. Easy, right? Also, make sure that there's a way that I can contact you. I will pull a name from the comments on Monday, July 8th and I'll post the name of the winner on that day.

Before I go, here's a picture of a sweet cookie jar that I have.

I see a little resemblance, don't you?

Holey-Moley! This Really IS A Thing!

This may be the most unusual blog post I've ever written, but I'll keep it relatively short. I've been noticing little holes in the front of my shirts near the waist. This has been going on for quite a while, and I could never figure out why this was happening. I got pretty good at mending these holes and can say that I had better luck on dark color shirts or shirts with a busy print. The mended spot on light color shirts pretty much scream "look at me!".

One day a couple of weeks ago, I was being particularly domestic. I put dinner in the crock pot, baked a loaf of chocolate banana bread, and did a good clean up in the kitchen. When I finally took a break, I looked down and saw a bunch of these little holes in my t-shirt. They weren't there earlier!

What?!! I guess this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I Googled "why are there tiny holes in my shirt?" and couldn't believe how many articles came up! Here's one of them. Other people actually had this same issue. They questioned whether their wash machine was the culprit, or maybe it was sneaky moths. One mom thought that it was from her toddler's shoes when she carried him. How about seat belts? I always thought it had something to do with leaning up against the counter top in the kitchen and have felt the underside edge of it to see if there was anything sharp there. Nope.

Here's the issue. When you're a particular height and your waistband hits the counter edge, your shirt rubs against the button your pants resulting in a hole. This mainly happens in lightweight knits. As it turns out, I am that very particular height for this to happen. The article I linked above has hints on how to prevent this from occurring. There are even little covers for your jeans button. My solution: I tuck my shirt into my jeans in the front when I'm working in the kitchen. Some might say that this is trendy; on me it looks ridiculous. But I don't care if it will save my shirts.

I hope you liked this little public service message. I know it was kind of strange but I felt I needed to get the word out. Oh and that chocolate banana bread was delicious. I really wish I had taken a photo of it, but here's the next best thing: The Recipe! 

Enjoy! I'll get back to our regular programming soon. Thanks for visiting!