An Appropriate Sampler

 

I've been pretty busy this past month trying to do some finishing...my mother wants to set up a table at a local craft show to sell some of her plant cuttings in little tea cups she has collected, and she mentioned that I could sell some of my finished needlework.  So I've put more pieces into jewelry boxes from thrift store trips, and finished a few other small things.  Pricing them is difficult - I want to be fair to myself, but I also know that "profit" on handcrafts is next to impossible.  And I don't want to bring all the stuff back home!  I don't need 14 little jewelry boxes...  The sale is next weekend.  Crossing my fingers that I sell even a few things.

The finish above is a piece from Lauren Sauer, of Forget-Me-Nots In Stitches.  It is titled "Antique Alphabet in the Time of Covid," and was a round robin piece from last year's virtual Celebration of Needlework.  I stitched it with Carrie's Creations' Aubergine variegated floss, and made a few changes to personalize it (namely, I flip-flipped the V and W, and changed the dimensions of a few letters...also made the motif after the Z more balanced).  I framed it myself in a frame I found at an antique shop.  I made a few small repairs to the frame, and sprayed it with a coat of polyurethane - but I left the "distressed" look, chipped paint and all.  I have no idea if the frame is really that old or rare, but I thought it suited the sampler.

Teeny Tiny Quilt-Thing

 

My contribution to the Fully Finished SAL this month...

So I've been doing a lot of sewing/quilting lately (I actually finished another quilt top for another niece - no pics yet!), and I got an idea for my little flag finish.

I cut 1-inch strips of white, red, star stripes, and the navy with scattered stars fabric, and sewed them all together.  I basically got lucky with the alignment, because I didn't measure very carefully before starting!  I used larger patches of the navy for the corners (obviously).  Then I laced it to matboard and fit it into this little shadowbox frame that I picked up at Wal-Mart...it originally had a clip attached to the back and was designed to hold a photo/thing that was approximately 3" x 5".  I've removed the clip so the stitched piece could sit all the way into the back.  It isn't perfect...my piecing is a little wobbly in spots...but I think it is adorable.  I'll just call it "primitive."  LOL

I also enjoy the fact that it is sitting next to "Equal Rites," one of my favorite Discworld titles.  So appropriate!

Maybe It Will Be A Year of Smalls?

Apparently small projects are my groove this year.  In addition to the little pot topper from my last post and the first tooth fairy pillow from my New Year's update, I've finished another tooth fairy pillow (for potential craft fair inventory), a Blue Ribbon Designs ornament I started last year and abandoned, and then this little piece that was in the back of my desk drawer.

The little ship-in-a-bottle design was a kit from Hobby Lobby, purchased before I realized that I had issues with the company's position on....lots of things.  (I no longer shop at Hobby Lobby.)  And the kit wasn't great, either - it came with a teeny square of cheap aida which I quickly replaced with a scrap of unknown count/color linen from my stash.  The flosses were not DMC, or any other quality brand I've worked with, and I ran out of 2 colors (one was white, which was easy enough to replace, and the other was the dark brown used for backstitching).  So basically, I finished it because I am stubborn, and couldn't just throw it away.

The little box is one of those cheap basswood/plywood items from the "unfinished wood" section in any chain craft store.  I think I grabbed this one at A.C. Moore last year before they went out of business.  It is designed with a slot for 3"x5" photo, so I laced my finished stitching and attached it to the photo backing board.  Then I made a padded liner for the bottom inside of the box, and made a matching fabric-covered piece of matboard (actually comic book board - my husband gave me a whole bulk package of them that he didn't need!) to cover the back of the lid.  Then I made some twisted twine cord, attached a compass rose charm, and voila, fini!

Now I don't know what to DO with it....probably more craft show inventory...

Put a Lid in It

A few months ago I found a cute little pot at the thrift store - evidently it held a candle in its previous life (the bottom of it has an imprint of "Lang Candles, Ltd").  And I'm a sucker for cute little things...

The flower is from "Kindness Matters," a pattern by Teresa Miller in the Summer 2020 issue of Punch Needle & Primitive Stitcher.  I changed the bottom leaves a little bit, and used GAST Cranberry for the red.  I stitched it 1-over-2 on a scrap of 40-ct. linen, and made the lid from basswood circles.  The top is a 2.5 inch circle, and there is a smaller one attached to the underside so it won't slide off the jar too easily.  I made the trim with perle cotton, and hid the joined ends of the cording with the wee button.  It was a fun little project!  And now I have a new item to hunt for in thrift shops...

Janu-whut?

Well, it may be a few days late, but since I've lost all sense of time this "year," anyway...  It must be time for the annual recap.

After moving to a new home/town in January, it took me a while to get back to my stitching.  My first finish was in February - a wee tooth fairy pillow for my niece.

And then March happened.  I was working from home, and my daughter was doing virtual school from home, and then in April we started a kitchen remodel (the house desperately needed it, and I'm still glad we went ahead with it - since we were lucky enough to still have jobs and steady income).  The year didn't get any less crazy as the months went by - my employer offered a retirement incentive that took away about a third of the library staff, and then we had to try to figure out how to reopen the college library with rotating flexible schedules to accommodate all the unexpected changes in the staff's outside-of-work lives, as well as track all the students/patrons entering and exiting our building, while remaining open a (IMHO) ridiculous number of hours.  And oh yeah, there were no summer camps for my daughter, my husband was briefly furloughed, and...and...and....

Anyway.  I managed to finish 20 stitchy things, mostly smallish in nature.  I also worked on a few of my larger projects - I foresee a finish or 2 this year.  And what I'm really proud of - of those 20 finishes, 17 are completely finished!  Not relegated to The Box!  Having a room to stitch  and craft in (that isn't the basement) has been a game-changer, I think.

I also got back to quilting and sewing.  The same niece who received the tooth fairy pillow will also be getting this quilt soon.  (I got it back from my longarm quilter just before Christmas, have finished the binding, and am now just giving the USPS some time to catch up a bit before shipping it out.)

I also put together this one for my daughter, using "quilt squares" purchased from a school art fundraiser - the squares are NOT quilting material, and were terrible to work with.  My longarm lady couldn't even quilt through the fabric - it is more like a shower curtain than cotton.  But my daughter loves it, and that is what matters.

She picked the colors herself, and what you can't really tell from the picture is that it has a bit of a diagonal rainbow effect - it starts with red, then yellow, then green, then purple, and then repeats out to the other corner ending in red again, with a blue border.
And finally...a coworker challenged me to make an Ugly Quilt.  We used the Ultimate Beginner Quilt pattern that she found online, and pawed through our fabric stash to find the most bizarre combinations we could....ta-da!

I learned a LOT about making triangles and matching seams...however, some of my seam allowances are sooooo teeny, I'm afraid this beast won't hang together very well!  It hasn't been quilted yet, and I'm not sure if it ever will be.  Although my quilt lady thinks it is hilarious.  I must admit, it does seem to sum up 2020 in quilt form - a patchwork of strange held together by a few threads in a couple places.  LOL

I wish you all happy stitching in the year ahead!  I'll try to do better at popping in/commenting on other blogs...I do love to see and read what everyone is up to.  I also have an Instagram account, and am a member of a couple Facebook groups...but the narrative style of a blog is still quite satisfying.  And to bookend this annual recap, I'll share my first finish of 2021.  With a bit of background: my mother wants to try having a table at a small local craft show this coming fall - it benefits my old high school, and she has a bunch of thrifted teacups she been nursing baby jade plants in.  She suggested some of my needlework might sell as well, so I've started collecting ornaments and other smalls, along with some of those finished re-purposed jewelry boxes.  And she thinks my tooth fairy pillows could be popular...and they are quick stitches that I'm good at finishing...so I whipped this together last night.

Happy 2021!

Return of the Pudgies

This is the first Shepherd's Bush design of any significant size that I've ever finished...and as much as I love it, I'm not sure if I'll be starting another one any time in the near future.  :/  This is "A Devon Hedge," with some modifications - like I left off the text that says "a devon hedge," as well as the top "abc" lettering band, and I duplicated the top floral band in reverse on the bottom.  I mostly loved the verse about the children of the heath, and the little pudgy people!  But all those fiddly vines...and the bands of 2 different shades of off-white on off-white fabric...did NOT love that.  The frame is just one I picked up at a thrift shop some time ago, and I took the glass out.

The Littlest Mermaid

 Another "small"!  This is "The Littlest Mermaid" by White Lyon Needleart Designs, a kit from the virtual round robins at Celebration of Needlework 2020.  A quick little stitch, and the finishing wasn't too challenging - I'd never made a humbug before, but it came together pretty easily (I did use my machine instead of hand-stitching it together). 

I changed her eyes to blue, and added the bead in her left hand.  Even the littlest mermaid needs some bling!!

Smalls Everywhere

 Work on all my larger projects seems to have stalled, but I keep going to the pattern stash for Little Things.  And I did the finishing, too!

First up is a freebie from...I think it was Armada Designs, a long time ago?  It is a reference to a character from "Game of Thrones," and it just made me giggle.  I honestly don't think I'd ever hang it on my Christmas tree, but it was just a fun little stitch.

And then, when I was looking through my quilting/finishing fabric stash for something, I found two little houses I stitched a couple years ago - I think they were part of one of the "Year of Smalls" SALs.  And there was a piece of quilting cotton that had a similar design, so I sewed them together.  I found this little shadowbox at a thrift store (I think it had some quote about pets in the middle) and added the pine branch pipe cleaners to fill the space around the stitched piece.  I couldn't make the stitched piece any larger - the brown fabric was cheap, stiff stuff from a magazine kit, and the blue was reeeally soft evenweave that kept fraying.  There was a LOT of glue involved in getting this all together!

I keep thinking that it needs just a little bit "more" - maybe a little bow or 2?  I'll have to think about it for a while.

School, as it is...

 Today was my daughter's first day of school (5th grade).  Her school is going back in person, and she's wearing a mask and social distancing....  :/  It is all totally necessary and we are staying positive, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.  I keep telling myself, we're in rural upstate NYS, our positivity rates are low and community transmission seems limited...but still.

But I stuck to tradition and took a vacation day for myself today.  I stitched up a little witch over the weekend ("Salem" by M Designs from an older JCS Halloween issue), and made her into a jar wrapper.  I love the fabric!  The outside is a creepy apothecary print I found at JoAnn Fabric, and the inside is a lime green solid with sparkles.

All the Little Things

 Every year, I plan to go to Celebration of Needlework in Nashua, NH.  Well, obviously that didn't happen this year...but there was the option to "attend" some of the classes virtually.  Since I wasn't spending money on travel or a hotel room, I decided to splurge a bit and do two of the round robin sessions - where designers bring a small kit and provide stitching/finishing instructions.  You never know which designers will be in which class session, so I took both just so I wouldn't miss anything!  I don't usually like EVERY kit I get, but the anticipation is still fun and I eventually get around to stitching a few of them

One of the kits I got this year was from Sharon Verbos of The Purple Thread - a sweet little pincushion that fits in a teeny metal wheelbarrow.  There was a challenge on the Celebration FB group to see round robin finishes, so I decided I needed to get moving!  And since it was a kit, I had everything I needed...

It just seemed right to use another one of my husband's grandmother's bird beads on this one.  :)  It was designed with three little wooden beads in that spot, but I like my change!  I also attached the pink buttons with the darker pink thread (the chart used the lighter one).  And I filled it with crushed walnut shells to give it some bulk but not a lot of puff.

After finishing that, I was looking through my stash of "things that could eventually be used to feature finished stitching," and came across a teeny teacup and saucer.  I think I found these at a thrift store years ago, and was smitten with the idea of making a teacup pincushion.  Well, since I was also trying to thin my book/pattern collection, I found the perfect pattern in a book I was contemplating passing along, stitched this little rose over-one on 25-ct., and voila!

I used the directions from Nordic Needle's "Save the Stitches" blog, in this post about pincushions.  It was a little fiddly, but not too hard.  (I may have over-stuffed a bit, as the stitched poof kept trying to pop out of the cup.  

I feel so productive.

Don't Lose Your Head

 I finished "Spooky Hill" and turned it into a wall hanging using a $5 wooden plaque from Michael's, $4 worth of wooden leaves from JoAnn Fabrics, and some other bits from my stash (the little pumpkins were from a fall floral sprig - they were just styrofoam, so easily split in half with an Exacto knife).  I love how this one turned out!

Mermaid treasure box

 The very first music/jewelry box I deconstructed and added needlework to was this one - where I used a small Ink Circles design.  I really loved that box, because the glass lid was held in not by cheap little metal clips (like most of the ones I've found since), but by a wood "frame" of sorts.  So when I found another on eBay, selling for .99 since the music box was broken, I snapped it up!  Even with $8 in shipping costs, it wasn't a bad deal.  And then I stitched up this little mermaid design from The Primitive Hare, and voila!

Everything came from my stash - linen left over from one of my half-dolls, DMC floss, an assortment of beads, and cotton fabrics from my finishing supplies.

A friend of mine rents space at a local craft marketplace, and she has hinted that she thinks she could sell some of these for me.  I may not make a huge profit, but I also don't need 7 (8?  I've lost count...) jewelry boxes sitting around my house.

Finishing is my coping mechanism

An internet friend of mine passed away very unexpectedly last week...so I've been crafting (and plotting new home decor, thanks to Wayfair).

Here's a little jar wrap, using a Lizzie Kate piece I finished years ago and a jar I picked up at the thrift store for 79 cents.

A Small for June

I actually have a small this month!  This is "New Hampshire Woods" by The Workbasket.  It may have been a limited edition kit, but I'm not sure...I AM pretty sure I picked it up at Celebration of Needlework sometime over the past few years.  The kit came with 35-ct. linen and the materials to finish it as a bookmark -- I was just crazy enough to stitch it on 40-ct. instead and finish it as an ornament, and then remembered this little fish photo holder (each fish has a little grabber clip on it's back).  I added the shells to keep the stitched piece from sliding away, and ta-da, a finished finish!

Of course, I made some changes....from the top down:
- I added my initials and date
- gave the mermaid French knot eyes, and stitched her arms/chest in a flesh tone instead of the charted green.  Used an over-dye (Romy's Creations "Camouflage") instead of the DMC green charted.
- sailor has French knot eyes (he had NO eyes in the pattern!).
- modified both the mermaid and the sailor to have necks of a sort...
- both the boat and the tree trunk are an over-dye - Crescent Colors "Brown Sugar."
- added some light "beams" to the light house.
- the lady in the widow's walk was charted in the same flesh tone as the mermaid and sailor's face.  This was unsettling....did women often stand on the widow's walks in the nude?!?!?  I decided "no," and stitched her in a pink dress instead.  (Six Strand Sweets "Mulberry Wine.") I also did the entire house in blue - the pattern used gold for the rectangular side - and stitched the windows in gold as if the house was lit from the inside (the pattern had all the windows in gray). 
- I stitched the willow tree in the same over-dye that I used for the mermaid.
- and finally, I completely left out the gray....dog, I think?...that was between the lighthouse and the willow.  He was just too much for me.  And he looked like a crossroads demon dog.

Half Doll #3

I really have fallen in love with half-dolls.  I browse them on eBay all the time, looking for the perfect little ladies...and I'm picky.  While I can't afford the very high-end collectibles, I AM very choosy, especially when it comes to paint.  I don't want any of the ones that look like they were extras in a clown horror movie (and they are out there)!  From what I've learned, many of the really nice, delicately detailed and precise half dolls came from Germany, but then the molds were copied across Europe and Asia.  A lot of the ones that feel hurried and careless seem to come from Japan.  But I'm sure it all comes down to the luck of the draw, and who was wielding the paintbrush on any given day!

After doing two dolls using Giulia Punti Antichi's patterns, I decided to be brave and try one on my own.  I had this doll -

 - and an old German DMC sampler kit with a row that seemed like it suited her.  Then I found a piece of 28-ct. Quaker cloth in Palliser Bay from Kiwi Illusions/Country Stitch.  See, I'm using up my stash!!

And here she is.  I think I'll name her Margaret, after my niece who's (current) favorite colors are purple and blue.

Her underskirt isn't quite perfect, but she's a proper lady who won't be flashing her bloomers at anyone, anyway!  I had a tough time because her skirt was rather narrow, meaning that her cushion needed to be more of a tube than a poof.  The centers of the purple flowers on her skirt are filled with seed beads, and I used the same beads - plus one little drop from a prize in last year's Lima Beads Easter egg hunt - as her necklace.  The necklace was kind of a last-minute addition, as I realized while I was sewing her to her underskirt that her neck had a very well-done repair in it.  At some point before I got her, the poor girl must have lost her head!  So her little necklace hides the crack.

Now, time for another stash dive and something else to finish...

More framing done

Another thing this moved showed me was just how MANY frames and finishing ideas I had stashed away in various bins and boxes.  It was a little horrifying, really...and overwhelming.  I was at a point where organizing and using any of it felt downright oppressive.  So now I'm working through things, finishing items and stitching designs that I know I bought finishing materials for.  (Currently I have another half doll on my work table!)  And this little guy - the frame actually wasn't from my stash, it was one that was left in the house by the previous owners.  It had a little piece of mass-produced calligraphy in it - a quote about good neighbors - so I disassembled it and repurposed the frame.  I even left the glass!  I cut tiny strips of mat board that fit between the glass and the stitching, but are not visible from the the front, to keep the stitching from touching the glass.

This was a Sudberry House clock design that I modified a few years ago.  I didn't want to stitch the clock face, so I added the Quaker pattern and the Rhodes heart at the top.

I Vant to Feenesh Tings...

(it is hard to write in Vampire.)

I think having a craft space in a more central area of the house has led me to get more excited about finishing projects.  Before, I had to go down to the basement, and while the space was nice, it felt so distant and removed.  I guess for some people that could be a good thing?  But for me it felt isolated and lonely, and I never knew what my family was doing or if they needed me or if I need to get dinner started or...well, you get the idea.  For as introverted as I can be, I do seem to thrive on connection, particularly with those I love!

So now Self-Isolating Bat is finished.  Hehe.

I've shared him in several places, because he just makes me grin.  Those plastic fangs!  LOL  Those are the cheap plastic fangs that you can get at most party/costume shops or online at places like Oriental Trading - you know, the ones that don't fit anyone right and end up being crummy party favors?  A friend sent them to me, and I initially thought I could build a "frame" of sorts with the right bracing in back.  When that failed, I further destroyed the back of the teeth and sewed them on using an upholstery needle.  The plastic was soft enough that while it wasn't easy, it was doable with a thimble and some swearing.

Quarantine = Crafty Productivity

As the quarantine began, and we are still getting settled in our new home, I resolved to work through some of my smaller patterns.  I hoped I'd get the satisfaction of both some finishes AND some things cleared out of my overflowing stash storage!  (It will still take me several decades to get through ALL the stash, and I know I'll still buy more.  It is the nature of the beast, after all.)

Here is my first finished product - "A Child's Dream (Moonshadow Mini)" by Full Circle Designs.  It is all done with DMC, so it was easy to kit up.  I still made a substitution or 2, though -- the stars are stitched in silver Kreinik, because I just could do them with black as charted.  Black stars?  Nope!

I framed it myself, too.  The frame is from Olde Colonial Designs, and I think I picked it up at Celebration of Needlework last year with another project in mind.  But it was perfect for this one, and since I don't remember exactly what else I was planning to use it for...

Springy

Yes, Easter is over, and it is currently snowing here, but since every time I try to make a face mask it turns into a blindfold, I decided I need to stick to my strengths.

This was fiddly, but fun!  And only a one-day project.  The little bunny butt is from Oxmoor House's "One-Hour Cross Stitch" book, and the bunny ear napkin holder was another find at A.C. Moore's going-out-of-business sale.  The fiddliness came in because the holes in the napkin holder are not exactly symmetrical.  I had to trace each one on comic book board and fit them several times before I was satisfied.  I originally wanted the back to look "framed" like the front, but then realized I needed to push and adjust from both the inside and outside of the ring to make that work.  Once the front was on, there was obviously no way to do that  for the back piece.  So the back is more of a smooth fit.
I loved making this!  It just makes me smile.

Crafter Gotta Craft

As we're getting settled in our new place, I've discovered that there is an A.C. Moore craft store along my commute to/from work.  Now, A.C. Moore is going out of business...but!  That means sales!!!

Oh dear.

Yes, I've made several stops there, looking for things to stock up on "just in case."  And honestly, there hasn't been that much.  I've grabbed a few glass jars (because I love making jar wraps out of small ornament-size patterns), some of the unfinished wood things that might be useful given my love of boxes, and some teeny picture frames - I have a crazy idea that I could stitch a bunch of Prairie Schooler Santas over-one.

But then I saw these little carrot photo holders.  You know, the kind with the little metal curly-Q on top to hold a picture or a name at a place setting?  And I thought, "ooooo."

I call him Carrot Egg Bunny.

Here is his backside -

(I may have a small army of little carrots, too, but I will neither confirm nor deny that.)  But for .75 each, can you really have too many potential carrot bunnies?  His bead trim came from the clearance sale, too, only $1.29 for 5 yards.  The bunny pattern is from Gillian Souter's "120 Celebration Cross Stitch Cards."