Harry Potter mini piece

I found a french blog that has free patterns of the Harry Potter characters.  The first one I stitched up was Harry, of course, and he'll go in a birthday card for my mom.

Happy Stitching!

A Victorian Xmas update and Feb Stitching from Stash summary

I worked 5 days on page 2 of A Victorian Christmas Eve to finish my 4th week of working on this piece.  (It took about 2 days to finish page 1 in my last update of it.)  I wasn't really motivated to work on this piece in my rotation and wanted to skip to another piece but I really got into it as I was stitching because it went fairly quickly, except for the confetti of the pine tree.  So here's where I am after week 4:

And for my February summary for the Stitching From Stash challenge:
Rollover from January: $9.09
Amount spent in Feb: $23.13 (after spending $9.09 above)
Stash purchased: I used the rollover amount to buy another qsnap, I also bought TW's Camelot Sampler and everything I needed to get it started (fabric, some floss & needles)
Rollover for March: $1.87

Happy Stitching!

Pure Michigan is finished!

I finished the MI piece by MM Waldock Designs (aka Oberlin Samplers).  I'm so glad that the border words I changed worked out as far as spacing.

Close-ups:

Details of the items in each letter:

M - State of MI with Lansing Capitol bldg marked & pictured

I - Big Sable lighthouse

C - MI apples

H - Mackinac Bridge with sailboat and Great Lakes freighter

I - Henry Ford Museum

G - MI cherries

A - Model T, Fort Michilimackinac, and a morel mushroom

N - White Pine tree and skiers on a ski lift

Next up is another week of stitching on Victorian Xmas Eve.  

Camelot Sampler

I've been working on Teresa Wentzler's Camelot Sampler for a week now.  Here's what the finished piece will look like:

 There are 94 colors, most used as blended threads:

 And here's what it looks like after a week.  I opted to stitch parts of the border as I work on the central pieces so I'm not doing the whole border at the end.

 The twisted vine border has over 2 and over 1 parts.  The inner most backstitched line is a wrapped backstitch.  There's also and inner and outer border either side of the twisted vine border using ecru perle cotton in a 4-sided (square) stitch.

Tomorrow I'll go back to working on my Michigan piece for a week.  Happy Stitching!

Victorian Xmas Eve update & a new TW piece

I finally finished page 1 of A Victorian Christmas Eve by Sandy Littlejohns.  Only 5 more pages to go!

Last week, I visited eBay for some unknown reason...maybe a sly itch to add to my stash? I only placed one bid but I won the auction!  At least I only spent $4.99 but the item arrived today in the mail and I know I'm just going to LOVE this piece!  It's Camelot Sampler by Teresa Wentzler.  

My "to stitch" list was already substantial for the year but of COURSE I can squeeze in one more project!  Here's to hoping Camelot Sampler doesn't take me as long to finish as the other big TW piece I've done: The Guardian.  I've included the finished Guardian picture below since I haven't shown him off on the blog yet.  He's still the piece I'm most proud of and he has a place of honor in my daughter's room.

Party Penguin

Here's February's contribution to Christmas ornaments & cards for the year.  This is "Party Penguin" from Issue 93 of Cross Stitch Card Shop (nov/dec '13).  He's so cute and stitched up very quickly!  He'll be going into a Christmas card for a friend who loves penguins.  I just need to add a Christmas message underneath him.

Happy Stitching!

Pure Michigan

I found a neat pattern showcasing Michigan sites and things MI is known for thanks to seeing the designer's Louisiana piece in my local needlework shop.  The designer is Oberlin Samplers aka MM Waldock Designs.  I've been working on the MI pattern for a week now.  I'll be changing some of the border words to make it more meaningful to my hubby and I since we hail from Michigan.

I'm stitching it on 28 ct tea-dyed Monaco from Charles Craft (no fancy fabric due to my Stitching From Stash budget!).  The chart is all hand-written!  From the symbols on the chart, the floss list, and all the backstitching instructions for each letter - it's all done by hand & was photo-copied by the designer.  It certainly makes it interesting to stitch as I have some interpretation to do.  For example, a symbol on the chart may look like a fractional stitch but the designer just wrote it smaller so as not to intrude on the backstitch going OVER the whole cross stitch.  It probably makes more sense when you're looking at the pattern.

The picture on the cover is very small:

And here's where I am after working on it for a week:

Already pictured are the Big Sable lighthouse, MI apples, the Mackinac Bridge with a sailboat and Great Lakes freighter, the Henry Ford Museum, and MI cherries.

Did you know MI has more lighthouses than any other state in the U.S. thanks to the Great Lakes?

Happy Stitching!