September SAL - Garden Club 3

I have been stitching and ripping and restitching for 3 months and finally finished. Totally my fault. I don't know what was going on . . . or I had too much going on! But here it is, for the Stitching Lotus SAL.

July stitching

Finished the last of my Santas.  

This one joins two others, now all stuffed as ornaments. I just came back from the Indiana State Fair where I found they were awarded second place in the Holiday division of Decorative Art! Here they are, mounted on a plywood tree shape just for display purposes:

May Cross-Stitch

Christmas in May--my piece for the Stitching Lotus SAL. This little guy is one of three in a Vervaco kit, done on 18-count cotton fabric with provided threads (probably DMC or Anchor). It came with the backing already attached--finished very nicely, with an opening down the center for filling, but making it difficult to stitch more than an inch or so away from the center. He joins this guy, whom I completed for last year's February SAL:

 

They're the same size; it's my photo-staging skills that are off!

I've also started a larger piece--much larger! Here's the genesis, you might say:

It's the first square of the 24 in Mary Beale's Advent calendar. I'm doing it on 32-count Belfast cream linen with charted DMC colors. The original was done in NPI silk (DMC equivalents provided), but I've never stitched with silk and thought I probably shouldn't start with this! And I just love DMC anyway. Each of the squares is about 5" x 6" and I think I'll arrange them 4 across and 6 down with a single row of cross-stitch framing each and a very narrow border around the whole calendar. It's really quite a beautiful design (you can see it at marybeale.com): 22 little vignettes from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible that in Christian belief prefigure the birth of Christ, and then 2 from the New Testament--the Nativity and the Magi. Mary Beale calls it "Advent," but I'm calling it "Deliverance," and hope to have it done by Election Day 2020.

April SAL

This is the little piece I completed for Stitching Lotus's April SAL. It's "Apple Orchard," the second in the Blackbird Designs Garden Club series, stitched over 2 on 32-count WDW Confederate Grey with charted GAST colors. It's about 4" x 4". As I did with the first in the series, my March SAL, I simplified this design somewhat, replacing a flower to the right of the bird with the little diamond motif and some additional foliage spilling out of the apple basket with the other little diamond. The cluttered look of many Blackbird Designs pieces really appeals to me at first, but I find as I work that I want to edit them slightly. (What? Me? Declutter?)

I framed "April Is the Cruellest Month," a 2016 SAL, and had it hanging on my office door this past month. Now that the craziness--if not actual cruelty--of that month is over, my exam- and final paper-grading week begins, then I can look forward to the flexibility of summer: reading and writing and house-and-garden projects. Extensive personal experience tells me that by July, I'll be itching to get back to the craziness . . .  

My contribution to Stitching Lotus's March SAL: the first of Blackbird Designs Garden Club series (there are 12 in all). This is roughly 4" x 4", stitched with recommended GAST colors on 32-count WDW "Cocoa" linen. I did change the lower right--the original design has a tiny basket with tiny stemmed flowers stuck in it, and I just thought it looked too cluttered. So I replaced it with a repeat of the motif in the border on the upper left. 

I've already started on the second in this series, so hope to post that in April.

February 24, 2017

Here's my contribution to the Stitching Lotus SAL: an Erica Michaels design from the 2008 JCS Christmas Ornament issue. It will be an ornament, eventually, to pair with the Eiffel Tower SAL I finished for the same SAL in January 2016 (see below). This one has beading, too. (It's about 4" square, 2 over 2 on 28-count ivory Cashel.)

I just sent this piece off to my sister, who completed the Avon 39-mile walk for breast cancer in April. It's a Bent Creek design, stitched 2 over 2 on 28-count Wichelt Star Sapphire linen. The charted greens were a little too muted for me, so I selected my own from Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and also used the DMC variegated green (4035?) that has become my favorite all-purpose green.  I left off the white dots and buttons of the original--I thought it gave it too wintry a look. This sister is a green girl (as my mother would say; she remembered everyone's favorite color) and red birds are special to her.

The colors in the photo above are pretty accurate, but here's a view without the distortion:

I love the silver-painted wooden frame that the frame shop helped me pick out.