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.

I entered two cross-stitched pieces in this year's Indiana State Fair. This one won an Honorable Mention in the small (less than 100 square inches) category:

Framed area is about 8" x 8", stitched over 2 on 28-count Cashel (I think?) Willow. Design by Lori Markoviz for La-di-da. Frame from local thrift shop, painted black. The quote's from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," of course; I've had this hanging in my office for the past school year and decided on a whim to enter it.

And this one, I'm pleased to say, was awarded Second Prize in the intermediate (101 - 150 square inches) category:

The design area is about 9" x 12", stitched over 2 on Light Mocha Cashel. Design by Sandy Orton for Kooler Design Studio, published in The NeedleWorker, Summer 1998. (Obviously, unframed and unironed--I didn't get a picture of the professionally framed piece before I submitted it.) The verse is from the Book of Job, and I like it because it reminds me of how much we have to learn from creatures other than our human selves. 

June SAL Small

The joke's on me. I was trying to do this for April and it was just too much stitching to get done at such a busy time of year . . . also May! This is "Sweet May Flowers" from Threadwork Primitives, stitched on 28-count Cashel that I hand-dyed. I changed the verse to a line from T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land that I always really feel as the semester's coming to a close!

March 2016 Small SAL

A tiny contribution to the Stitching Lotus SAL, and a day late at that. I'm overwhelmed with papers and exams to grade; it's a busy time of year for teachers.  This is a 2" x 2" design on aida, stitched from the design provided by Concern Worldwide's Stitch for Syria project. Just a little show of solidarity in this rough world. You can join by going to their website at https://www.concern.net/en/stitch-syria-help-refugees-our-cross-stitch-challenge to download their chart at no cost.