Sandy's Birthday

I have a wonderful co-worker that I've been working with for 9 years. Our birthdays are only a few days apart. This year, I've tried to make the majority of her gifts handmade, either by myself or finding something on etsy. I need to photograph the box that I've put all of her birthday treasures in, but I wanted to show you the last part of her present.

I'm seeing this all over the web lately and I think they are very creative. I figured I could do one just as well. I really liked the way it turned out. It's the same navy blue aida cloth that I'm using for the Christmas Holly. The floss is hot pink!

Here's the back.



It's hard to see, but I've just glued the fabric to the inside circle. Once it's completely dry, I'll trim the excess fabric and take another picture.

WIP - Christmas Holly

I was able to get a bit more done on Christmas Holly. Only a photo of the front for now (and it's blurry). It's amazing how much you can stitch in just a day or two!

Crew's Baby Sampler - Finished!

I just finished Crew's sampler a few minutes ago. I decided to go very bold on his name and birthdate. The font I used was Times Roman. If you're not familiar with Yarn Tree, it's a great cross stitching resource. I was able to plot the name and birthdate using downloads of graph paper from their site. Here's the finished piece.

I know these are dark, but I had no natural light to photograph in at the moment. Here's the back.



Now I just have to wait for the Michael's discount framing coupon and get it framed. I'm not often very smart about things, but the one thing I quickly realized was getting to know my framer. Hopefully she'll never leave this Michael's or I'll have to start the process all over again. She really enjoys my work and whenever I bring something in, she gets just as excited as I do about picking out the right mat and frame. It's a pleasure working with her and she takes pride in what she's doing. It's also nice to hear that I bring in some of the best pieces. She says she gets some that are quite wonky and mis-shapen and the customer looks to her to try and make it "square." She says she's also amazed by how many pieces come in dirty. Maybe she's just buttering me up, but it's always nice to hear that your work is appreciated!

How I Store my WIPs

...in Ziploc bags! Every piece I'm working on gets thrown into a plastic bag, along with the directions, floss and a pair of scissors. I pick scisssors up at Ikea. You can get 3 pairs for $1.99 so it never bothers me if I lose a pair. All my floss is stored in individual snack-size bags.


If the piece is too tall for storage in one bag, I use another to cover the top (to keep dust away). It's not very exciting, but it's easy to grab a bag and know that I've got everything I need to work on a piece.

WIP - Crew's Baby Sampler

I've been working on this one for a couple of months. One of my niece's had a baby in April 2008 and her husband loves airplanes. I thought this would make a great birth sampler. I just have to add his name and birthdate and then send it off to be framed. Again, it's from one of the U.K. cross stitch magazines that I like. This is Elliot and Buttons from Cross Stitch Crazy, Issue 108. It's obvious by now that I have an affection for U.K. designs.




And here's the back of it...



I'm now trying to decide what type of font I should use for his name and birthdate. Hopefully I will be inspired by one today.

WIP - Christmas Holly

I just started this piece about a month ago. It's from the U.K. magazine, The World of Cross Stitching, Issue 130. As you can see, it's a series of "Christmas Floral" however, I'm only drawn to the holly, so that's the only one I'll do.

I've never used metallic threads before, and these designs use a silver thread. I'm curious to see how it works out. Here's a quick photo of the pattern.

I've only started, so there's not much to look at right now. I think the silver will look really great against the navy blue fabric.

And here's the back...

WIP - Tatty Teddy

I thought I would start showing all my works in progress. There are several! My least favorite thing to do is back stitching even though I know it adds great detail to the cross stitch piece. Here's probably one of my oldest, unfinished pieces. Doing the fur (what make's Teddy "tatty") just kills me.

And here's the back...

He's just adorable. I'm not sure what I'll do with him once he's finished.