Projects

I have not had much time for crafts lately (as I thought I would). Here's an update on what I'm working on. I made this cool iPod cozy out of leftover sock yarn, it even has a pocket for headphones. Hubbers is worried that the wool might scratch the touch screen, but I tried rubbing a corner of the screen with the cozy and couldn't see any damage. I did buy some cotton yarn to make this, but then decided that I really wanted use up the last of that sock yarn.

A while ago, I started this sweater vest with yarn from Ireland. It's getting close to finished. It looks almost like a vest. I just need to sew the shoulder straps together, and then there is an edging that goes all the way around the neckline and arm holes. It will probably need to be blocked quite a bit to make it fit right. I'll be glad to have my wearable Ireland souvenir less than a year after the Ireland trip :)

Then there's a sorta-secret cross-stitch project that I'm working on. It will be a gift, so you won't see any photos of it until it has been received. However, the recipient knows about (and even requested) this gift, so it's not so secret that I can't talk about it. It's a birth announcement for my friend's third baby. I made baby samplers for her first two babies, so she rather expected that I'd produce a third cross-stitch. I have picked out the pattern, assembled all of the supplies and started it. I should have another couple of months to work on it.

The big C

Cancer is always such an unwelcome surprise. I'm sick of cancer already, and I've never had it.

This gift I made for my father-in-law as he goes into surgery tomorrow to remove a tumor from his liver. Hopefully he'll enjoy watching lots of movies for the next few weeks while recuperating, and then he'll be back to normal.

I also want to encourage all female readers to join the Army of Women to support breast cancer research. The idea is to recruit one million volunteers for various research trials. I don't have one million readers, so you also have to ask your friends!

Here are some close-ups and details about the cross-stitch. The lettering was all stitched using fancy hand-dyed embroidery floss from A Different Drummer's going out of business sale. The purple/green stuff is made of silk as is the darker blue stuff on the first two lines. The turquoise floss in the middle is made of wool, and it was terrible to work with. It fuzzed up and pulled apart... how is it supposed to be used?



The bear came from a little pattern that I had, but I modified it a bit. Mostly the colors for the butterfly and the blanket thing he's sitting on.

Backblog

It is long overdue for me to post this cross-stitch baby sampler that I finished in December for my new nephew. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the picture before putting it in a frame and behind glass. So ignore the reflections. The fish come from a pattern that I bought in Hawaii last summer (and have been unable to find online, so if you like the pattern... go to Hawaii). I made the crab pattern myself with Pattern Maker (the outline of the crab came from an online photo). The overall layout was inspired by other baby samplers that I have seen. It's really more fun to assemble my own pattern than simply follow a pattern :)

New Project

I will post some recently completed projects soon (once I get pictures of them). In the meantime, it is finally time for me to start a cross stitch pattern which I bought a couple of years ago at a great little shop in Victoria, BC. It's a design from Stitching Studios.

It's one of the most dramatic cross stitch patterns I've ever seen. So I am very excited to work on it, although my mom warned me that working on black cloth will be tough. We'll see how well it travels with me to Maryland this week. I better get it started before leaving. Maybe the dim light on the airplane won't be good enough for black cloth, but I hate to lose all that great stitching time on the airplane.

This photo is from October. It is not so warm here right now that I can sit on the patio and stitch. But I couldn't resist posting this picture anyway. I wish it were warm enough to sit outside to eat my breakfast like I usually do. On the other hand, this weather is good for skiing.

Baby samplers

I feel compelled to write about the cross-stitch project that I'm working on right now. It is a baby-sampler. I pieced together a pattern from purchased patterns and a design of my own. However, to keep it a surprise for the recipient of this project, that's all I'm going to say about it. It's been fun working on it, and as it is a design in progress, I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Here are some other baby samplers that I've done in the past. I think I have done more baby-related projects than anything else. At this point I don't have any completed cross-stitch projects in my own house... they have all been given away. And in the past, I did not take pictures of my work before sending them off. I think it would be fun to go visit all of my cross-stitches because they all belong to people that are very important to me. These two cross-stitches now reside in Chicago where I visited a few weeks ago.

Voila!

As promised, here is the completed wedding cross-stitch. Note that the wedding isn't for a another week, so SHHHHH.... don't tell the groom and bride about this. Actually, it won't be that big of a surprise for them anyway. And I couldn't wait to put this online, especially because I won't have much computer access after the wedding.

This lettering was done using the DMC rayon floss. It does have a certain shine to it. This design had a simple color scheme with only 4 colors, but it makes the lettering that much more striking. We were also excited to find a two-tone from and the black/red matte that highlights the colors of the cross-stitch.

Work in progress

The wedding cross-stitch that I have been working on for months is nearly finished! I'll post it when it is... but first I'll share with you the history. I thought my husband's art would make great cross-stitch patterns, better than a straight from photo to pattern converter can do. Here's a painting of our dog that he made.

I was hoping that he could take a photo of his cousin and fiancee and turn it into a drawing that would make a good cross-stitch wedding gift. The photo we used was post last week. And here is the resulting pattern on grid... It was difficult to explain to my hubby why the lettering on this would be nearly impossible. I think I pulled it off, though. It was fun designing a cross-stitch pattern with someone else, but it was also frustrating working with someone who doesn't cross-stitch. I may try it again, but not on my next piece of work.

Inspiration

We celebrated the 90th birthday of Troy's grandma in Denver last weekend. We enjoyed record-breaking heat, a 3-month old poodle, and plenty of luau-themed food. We forgot to bring the camera, so I'll have to wait for someone else to send me pictures.

I was inspired to try new things with my cross-stitch. One thing that caught my eye was this rayon embroidery floss which has a nice shine. So I'm giving it a try for the lettering on a design. It seems a bit fussier to work with. I hope it stands out as much as I envisioned. I am hoping the letters will look somewhat like foil embossed lettering on paper.

Work in progress

Early this year I had the idea to combine my husband's art with my craft to create a wedding gift for his cousin. We started with a picture from the couple, then Troy drew a design, I made a cross-stitch chart from the design and am now stitching away. Here is the inspirational photo.

... I'll share the resulting cross-stitch later (it does not look like this photo). I often get frustrated that most of the cross-stitch patterns I find are too cutesy or fuddy-duddy, so this was an attempt to make something new and more personal.