Sunday, May 03, 2009

Prom and Stitchy Stuff

This is a picture taken in front of my daughter's house just before prom. My granddaughter, Moriah, and her boyfriend, Dalton, are on your left. My DH says the other two boys look like they came right out of the movie Deliverance. Her two friends wanted to go to this last prom their senior year, so Dalton provided his cousin and uncle for the other two girls. I wish I'd taken a pic of the back of Moriah's dress. It was the prettiest part of the dress.





Though I finished "Home of A Needleworker"" over 6 weeks ago, I went through a time of no stitching, then got back on the stitching wagon when I got over my illness. I'm not entirely happy with the changes I made to the pattern on the last line, so I'm thinking of re-doing the kitties and re-spacing the two little hearts on either side of the kitties. I've had it in the Q-Snap frame all this time, in a place where I could see it so I could decide what to do before having it framed.







Since feeling better, I've been stitching a bit on the "Gingerbread Cottage" by Country Cottage. It's pretty slow going on this fabric, which is 35ct, not so easy to get the needle through, and difficult to hold in my left hand, which gets painful after a while. Just another stitch bitch of mine with lupus and/or polymyalgia rheumatica. It's really fun to work on though... just so cute and surprising as you go along. I just can't stitch too long at one time. I just really want to get it framed so I can enjoy it next season.


I also picked up one of my many Little House Needleworks thread packs began putzing around on one of the scriptural ones for my dad, who loves the things I stitch for him. I'm thinking of making this into my first flat fold to give to him instead of another framed piece on his wall. I think it's going to be so pretty when finished!

Friday, May 01, 2009

Answer To A Question

I know... I've been absent for a long time, but I'm not giving up. It's been a struggle, but I've been here in spirit all along. I won't even try to share the boring details.

In one of my Yahoo Groups, Stitching Sisters, the question came up of a tutorial on how to make floss rings, and several of the girls directed us to several great sites that have directions on many of the wonderful things that intrigue and inspire us stitchers. One of the girls posted the same tutorial I used for the floss rings I've made: http://snippetsandstash.blogspot.com/2008/03/floss-ring-tag-tutorial.html Here are the two floss tags I've made. The first one was given as a gift to a friend.



Another girl suggested this site for a bit of all kinds of finishing: http://designersforum.org/finishingtutorials.htm . If you Google cross stitch finishing tutorials, you'll find no-sew and all manner of clever things to use to "finish" your finishes. It's my greatest desire to start making wonderful handbags with sweet cross-stitched inserts on the front with lovely small prints, sewn together quilt-like and lined with practical, easy-to-see bright prints with zippered compartment, pockets for cellphone, eyeglasses, lipstick, etc. I've seen them, and fell in love. I ran across a book bag on The Sampler Girl's blog today, which reminded me that I need to start researching, designing, and looking for fabrics for my purses.... no, I mean handbags. I've always called them purses, but it's a little more refined to say handbags, I believe. After all, you purse your lips, right? I used to think I looked cutesy with pursed lips; now, it deepens those lines all around my old mouth from drawing on cigs when smoking was cheap and cool. I have several of the designs shown on this site, on which I saw the backpack which reminded me of my handbag notion that will probably go nowhere ;). I have the Mrs. Lincoln Sampler and the pack of Vikki Clayton silks for it and several other small designs I don't see on her blog, but I just love her blog and all the darling little freebies. It's fun to see how they finished the freebies. Eye candy!