Birthday Thoughts

My birthday is coming up, and that reminded me of a piece I made several years ago to celebrate my birthday. Here it is.




I love this piece--the colors are just perfect. I am thinking about what to buy with my birthday money. Here's something I'm considering--a Victorian style kit on perforated paper.

We all have our favorite subjects...

...and one of mine is bees. I don't know why I like bees. In fact, I don't like them very much in real life. But I do like them in theory. They are a common subject in cross stitch patterns, especially antique samplers or antique/primitive style samplers because they symbolize productive industry. In any case, I think they are cute.



This one is by one of my mother's favorite companies, the Prairie Schooler. I'm not sure when I did this, but it was worked on Charles Craft raw linen that you can buy from Michaels, so it must be a while ago. I have become more sophisticated (snotty?) about fabric since then. It looks nice, and once framed no one would ever suspect.


This one usually gets a chuckle. One of my early endeavors with overdyed threads. Since then, I have learned that if there are only tiny sections of an overdyed color, it might be better to just get a less expensive thread. Saves a lot of money and isn't that noticeable if you are careful about which colors you're replacing.


A great example of the high quality patterns you can get in the very best magazines. This was from Stitcher's World. It is quite soft and subtle in person.

I have several other patterns featuring bees and many items with tiny gold bee charms incorporated into the patterns. The Sunflower Bee Garden is a pattern featuring bees by Praiseworthy Stitches I have in my stash. It came with bee charms AND a beehive charm. I can't wait to do this one! My mother has done the Yellow House Sampler by the same company and it is hanging in her dining room (she hangs all her samplers in that room). It's absolutely gorgeous.

Stitching Toys

As you can tell from my previous posts, I really love patterns. In fact, I love browsing them, circling items in print catalogs, bookmarking webpages, planning which ones to buy and when, organizing them neatly in alphabetical order by the name of the designer in a hanging file bin, looking through them and thinking about which one I will do next, marking the nicest ones in my magazines with a post-it note, and so on.

But as any cross stitcher can tell you, that's only a small part of the fun. Building up a stash of patterns is human, but building up a stash of fabric, threads, and accessories is divine. I am not quite as enthusiastic about buying fabric as some, but I confess to occasionally buying a piece of linen with an unusual texture or color with no idea what might go on it. So far, I have only bought things that were on sale. *Pats self on back.* In the area of stitching accessories, however, I have no defense. I buy lots of things that I can't manage to justify to my husband or my mother (who is an avid cross stitcher but a discerning consumer).


My husband makes all the money at this point because I'm in school, so I usually clear my purchases with him first. He approved this Mary Engelbreit sewing basket. Probably because I've been drooling over it since Christmas.


Here are some of my favorite goodies. You're either wondering why anyone could need this many scissors or squinting to identify the different styles. Most of the scissors pictured are manufactured by Gingher. From the left: stork scissors with a "ruby" eye and a scissors fob by Lorri Birmingham, lion's tail scissors with a pink and black beaded chain, hardanger scissors with a blue chain, a cheap pair of fish scissors, and some pretty Gingher scissors with a pink floral pattern. Also in the picture in the back is Thread Heaven (a wax-like thread conditioner that makes your stitches lie flat, neat, and lustrous), a teapot shaped Mary Engelbreit pincushion, and a needleroll designed by Shepherd's Bush. In the front: a heart shaped needle threader by Clover, a counting pin with a golden bee bead, a square needle magnet, and a needle case from Elizabeth's Vintage Notions.



I was recently reminded on the RCTN group of this piece. It's by Indigo Rose, and it's called From Mother to Daughter. The multi-colored scrolling band that's sort of in the middle is made up entirely of queen stitches. My mother made this for me even though she doesn't usually do this sort of thing. At the bottom are her initials, and 2K stands for 2000. If it wasn't already behind glass, I would take better pictures of the details.

The Marriage of Minds

Phew! Almost finished with "The Marriage of Minds" by the Drawn Thread. I have not done the leaves on the tree at the top because I ran out of the thread I needed. It's on back order. Here are pictures!



Here's a picture of the pattern book so you can see what the model on the cover looks like.




This is the project I just started. It's by the same designer, and it's a bit smaller. My mother bought me the pattern and the cloth (gorgeous natural Glenshee) a few years ago for my birthday and I am just now getting around to it. Like most of Cynthia Zittel's patterns, the model is done in Needlepoint, Inc. silks. She provides substitutions for DMC embroidery floss as well. I love to use silks but I don't have enough money to use them all the time. I have bought some of her patterns with the silk floss included, which is great because you get just enough to do the pattern rather than buying a whole skein. This time, I went with the DMC. Unfortunately, the substitutions for the variegated floss were ghastly when I compared them with the beautiful cover model. As I often do, I made up my own. DMC has a new line of variegated cotton floss that is quite pretty and I was able to find nice alternatives.



This is what I've done so far. I only started yesterday! This is the pool in the middle of the garden done with the variegated DMC cotton floss. Around the edge are cobblestones stitched in a reversed cushion pattern. I think it looks very inviting. If you tilt you head left (I forgot to rotate the picture!) you will see the waves going back and forth. Hopefully, this pattern will only take me a couple of months.



I am thinking of beginning this pattern also. It's by From Nancy's Needle and it is supposed to look like an Amish Trip Around the World quilt. Cross-stitchers are well-known for having a rotation so we never get bored (I suppose this is true of other crafts persons as well). Sometimes this has the unfortunate result of a UFO (un-finished object). In the past, as soon as I begin a new project the older one goes by the wayside. I think the accepted strategy is to set up some kind of schedule. This project on the weekends, that one on weeknights. This one at home, that one to take out. This one for a week, then that one for a week. I will have to think it through.


I want to start this other pattern because it is canvas work instead of cross stitch, and that would be an interesting new challenge. It's pretty basic canvas work as far as I can tell. I have done the same kinds of stitches as specialty stitches in cross stitch projects. I will have to order canvas and tack it down to stretcher bars. That will be a strange new feeling after getting used to my fabulous PVC Q-Snap frame.

By the way, I am feeling quite proud of myself. I went to Brick City Cross Stitch when I visited my mother in Ocala yesterday and all I bought was a pretty needle minder. Needle minders are just two magnets. You put the pretty part on the top of your fabric and the plain magnet on the backside, and then you can rest your needle there. This one is purple with white dragon flies.

Here is a link to another pretty magnet set from the same company, and when you scroll down you can see some of the other choices.

Branching Out

Every year, I plan to learn new crafts. Despite my best intentions, I wind up spending the whole year cross stitching. I just placed an order with Nordic Needle for some Hardanger patterns, and I hope I will complete some projects before the end of the year. Below is an example of a cross stitch project I did a few years ago that incorporates some basic Hardanger. It looks daunting, but once I finished preparing the fabric by carefully counting, basting, and clipping away some of the threads to make a grid, the process of wrapping the bars and forming the dove's eyes to make the pattern went very quickly.




Here is an image of the whole piece.



I have also done a bit of drawn thread work. Here's a nice close-up of a Gail Bussi pattern. You can see pretty clearly where I cut out the horizontal threads, wove the tails back in at the edges to secure them, and then used perle cotton thread to twist the vertical threads around each other. When I have it framed, I will put a dark pink mat board behind it to show it off a little better than my blue blanket does.


Of course, I realize that to most crafters going from cross stitch to Hardanger hardly qualifies as "branching out." I am much more ambitious than that. Here is a partial list of some crafts I would really like to do.

• Learn more about knitting and make an afghan.
  
• Learn to crochet so that I can make lacy things, although I might start with an afghan.
• Make a Hardanger dresser set with doilies.
• Learn silk ribbon embroidery and decorate a sachet.
• Make my own candles.
• Learn origami.
• Learn calligraphy and write out a sentiment to frame and display.
• Hand sew a quilt (very ambitious, I know).
• Learn needlepoint and make a floral pillow.
• Learn crewel and embroider a Jacobean style pastoral scene.
  
• Learn more about soap making and develop a customized recipie.
• Sew curtains, pehaps with lacy crochet edging.
• Decoupage frames and other keepsakes.
• Stitch a set of ornaments for our Christmas tree.
• Complete a Victorian style piece of beaded embroidery.
  
• Cross stitch projects for the major holidays to display.
• Cross stitch on perforated paper in the Victorian style (a traditional sentiment such as "Home Sweet Home").
• Design my own cross stitch patterns.
• Start a scrap book to record my craft projects.

At one point, my best friend Chelsea and I pledged to learn to do one new useful thing a month. We picked up some great new skills, but lost steam rather quickly. It's definitely time to try it again. At this point, I have so many cross stitch pieces and patterns that I am running out of justifications to buy new ones!

An Introduction to One of My Addictions

Probably my most obsessive and expensive hobby is counted cross stitch. Most people don't know how expensive it is, but once you start buying really high quality materials at a specialty shop is does get quite ridiculous. Most of my work isn't done on the very nicest linens with the finest silk fibers. Even so, it is typical to spend $50 or more on a piece, once you consider the cost of the pattern, the material, all the fibers, needles, beads, and other accessories you need. Few of my pieces are framed. If you want a piece of needlework framed in a way that will make it last (and after investing so much time and money already, why wouldn't you want it to last?), it is extremely costly, even without a lot of bells and whistles. The image above is not the first thing I ever stitched, but it was my first project executed neatly and on linen. As you can see, it was done in 1998. I had just turned fourteen. I added my name by writing out my signature on a piece of graph paper and then tidying it up. This was the first time I altered a pattern, and I think I have personalized everything I've done since then.


Many of the pieces I do are primitive in style, like this one. The patterns are designed to look antique. I often choose to complete a piece to mark a special event. This one commemorates January 2005, when I met and fell in love with my husband. I knew he was the one, so I started it right away. My mother bought me the pattern because she was amused by the sentiment.

Here is another example of the primitive style. This pattern would be called a sampler, because it offers a sample of the techniques and motifs the girl stitching it knew. Young women would make these as practice and in preparation for the sewing they would do as wives, and also for decoration. They could later refer back to the piece. Often the samplers include interesting verses, mostly moralistic in tone, like this one. I made this when it became clear I would be engaged soon. The stitches in this primitive style are simple, and show off the materials used (in this example, hand dyed threads that vary in color along the strands).


This piece also includes specialty threads. It's also a sampler, but more accurately a band sampler. It showcases special stitches in long horizontal bands instead of monograms and motifs. There are at least fifteen kinds of stitches in this sampler. I'm sure you can tell, but I made this sampler at the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000 to celebrate that milestone. La Broderie designed this pattern, and it is one of my favorites because I love to learn complicated new stitches.


This pattern is also from La Broderie, and I made it when I graduated from high school. Again, it is a small piece but it has many complex stitches, different textures and color changes.

This piece is by my favorite designer, Cynthia Zittel of The Drawn Thread. Her patterns are pages and pages of instructions and diagrams for complicated stitches. Most of the time, there are bands or patchwork-like motifs. I added the verse by Vergil (which means "Love conquers all"). This piece was worked using silks on French Lace linen.

This is what I'm working on right now. In fact, I have been working on it a long, long, long time. It's my wedding sampler. It used to be very common for women to make samplers to celebrate their marriages and establish a set of letters and motifs and stitches to use in their new households. This particular one is also by The Drawn Thread and features Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. I am almost finished with the bottom half. I am enjoying this piece because it is filled with symbols of marriage and fidelity and contains specialty threads and stitches (although I decided not to buy silk threads--too expensive).

If you want to learn this hobby, I urge you to look up a local needlework shop (what we addicts call "our LNS"). I am a devoted follower of the LNS in my hometown (Ocala, FL). This is their website: Brick City Cross Stitch. If you enjoy browsing around on the net, this is the place to go: Nordic Needle. You wouldn't believe how great their customer service is, and they have EVERYTHING.