Brooch

I found this pretty pin at a vintage shop yesterday and bought it for my daughter Jodie. She has a soft spot in her heart for this type of pretty brooch. It's about two inches in diameter.

Throwback Thursday - 2001 (Part 5)

In June and July of 2001, I completed only three cross-stitch charts because I was working on a correspondence course on how to make tassels. I made 23 tassels altogether, so it will take me a few weeks to share them all. In the mean time, here are the three Christmas stitching I made that summer.

Two Turtle Doves

This is day two of the Twelve Days of Christmas by the Cross My Heart design company.

Partridge in a Pear Tree

And here's the first of the same series. I have high hopes of making this series into a quilt by the end of 2019.

HoHoHo

To distract myself from making more tassels in July, I decided to stitch up a quickie Christmas ornament from the 2001 Better Homes and Gardens Cross-Stitch Christmas magazine. This design is by Cecilia Turner of Heart in Hand, one of the designers I met at the retreat I took earlier in the year.

I remember enjoying stitching the pattern, but being quite disappointed in myself for the way I did the finishing work. It's a door hanger, meaning you hang it as a decoration on a door handle. I feel like I did a very clunky job of it, though. Looking back, I sort of feel sorry for the person to whom I gave it as a gift later in the year.

On the next #ThrowbackThursday, I'll share the first five tassels I made.

Daddy Time

OK. Last photo from our August visit. 

Our granddaughter sure does have a good daddy. It's common to see Melody sitting in Jeff's lap, listening to a favorite storybook.

Bonus: Just look at how he color-coordinated her snack bowl with her socks!

A Shapely Thank You

A longtime good friend of mine knows I have a collection of evening bags. I call them my Ladies of the Evening. Over the years she's gifted me several unique pieces. Recently she sent two, one of which is quite old and of a shape I've not seen before.

So I decided to make her a special thank you card -- in the shape of an evening bag!

1. I found some ideas online to get the basic shape.
2. I pulled out some handmade(?) special powder blue paper with silver glitter starbursts. I recently purchased a huge lot of scrapbooking paper from a local gal I found through Facebook Marketplace. The lot had some unusual and beautiful paper mixed in with garden variety scrapbook paper designs.
3. Then I used a few new die-cut shapes to create the purse flap and the little flower shape where I stamped the "thank you" cloud with blue ink.
4. I added a silver ribbon for the purse's handle.
5. I made the purse "clasp" from two sizes and shapes of sequins. So sparkly!

As you can see, the shape of the purse flap is one-half of the shape of the paper on the inside message. The die-cut set has several sizes of the same shape, so they are easily stackable. I embossed the blue scrapbook paper to give it texture. Then added a message on top.

I have some beaded evening bags that are quite pretty. Perhaps next year I'll make one of my 19 in 2019 goals to post photos of each one and tell the story of how it came to be in my collection.

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Inspired by scrap-a-little.com

Fall Decorating

I started decorating for Fall this weekend. Our autumn wreath looks so pretty hanging on the wall in the dining room instead of over the living room mantle. The proportion is just right and the contrast with the paint color works better than the bricks.

I so love Fall. We didn't have much summer fun outside due to all the smoke. But our Autumns around here are wonderful. The morning air already has a hint of autumn crispness in it. I'll know Fall is really here when the burning bushes turn bright red.

Laid-Back Sunday

Not a lot going on today. Still smoky outside, so we're staying in. We did get a little rain. Not enough.

For lunch? BBQ chicken sandwiches, watermelon, and chips.

Other than that, poking away at another jigsaw puzzle.

I love Sundays. Sundays are lovin' me back.

Playtime

Look who we got to spend the day with today! I love this little family. Jeff, Julie and Melody posed for a family portrait ... sorta

It was less smoky in Moscow than it is in Post Falls, so Grandma and Grandpa took Melody to the park for about an hour and a half. Mommy and Daddy had a much needed break. Grandpa and Melody made up a new game on the swing.

Melody turns 15 months old today. She's become quite a climber.

And quite a charmer!

Smoky Sunset

We've had days and days of air quality alerts. It's hard to be outside for any length of time at all due to the smoke that cuddles into our valley. The one upside is that it makes for some astounding sunrises and sunsets.

This is what I saw from my front yard this evening.

Throwback Thursday - 2001 (Part 4)

It's #throwbackthursday once again. I had a busy time in the Spring of 2001. These are the stitching projects I made in at the end of April and in May.

Bunches of Bunnies Heart

This is one of the few band samplers that I really enjoyed stitching. I won this chart from The Sweetheart Tree as a door prize. The techniques include herringbone stith, couching (a narrow satin ribbon couched with silver cord), tent stitch, satin stitch, cross-stitch, and a little beading. I stitched it on 28 count Monaco with DMC floss. The finished size is approx 4"x 4".

I completed the finishing work over a year later in September 2002. This was fun and involved a lot of experimentation. I started with a cardboard heart-shaped box (approx 5.5" wide x 5" tall x 3" deep). The sides were embossed with roses.

I painted the box with a base coat of acrylic paint, then two shades of green and two shades of pink for the roses. I whitewashed the roses after painting them for a muted look. I used a sponge technique with the silver paint. Then I sealed the painted box with  a coat of clear sealer.

On a cardboard heart shape, the stitching is padded and held in place with a gathered straight/basting stitch instead of glue. A piece of felt was glued to the top of the box. Then the stitching was stitched, rather than glued, to the felt. This is a more archival way to finish the box than simply gluing the stitching to the box top.

To finish the top, I added a string of pearl beads to the edge of the stitchery using an overcast stitch.

The inside of the box is special, too. I embossed a heart onto a piece of velvet by pressing dampened velvet onto a rubber stamp. The steam heat crushes the velvet, leaving the imprint of the stamp. Cool technique!

I then lined the sides of the box with the velvet, gluing into place. I covered the bottom of the box with the embossed rose. The finishing touches included adding a length of rayon cording and a large pearl to the bottom inside edge of the box.

Perhaps I'll take some new photos of this box with close-up details. I love how this project came out! I often display it in our guest bedroom which is decorated in hearts.

Merry Chrismoose Ornament

This is my April Christmas project, made from a Lizzie*Kate's Tidy Tidings III design. It's another cross-stitch moose for my college friend. There are real bells hanging from the moose's antlers.

This was the first time I finished an ornament with this technique, and it's turned out to be a favorite. The stitching is padded, stretched over a cardboard form, and glued into place. A coordinating fabric covers another piece of cardboard for the back. The two piece of cardboard are glued back-to-back with hot glue. I made the twisted cord from floss, then glued it around the edge of the ornament.

Round Robin

This was a class piece from the stitching retreat I attended earlier in the year. It was a collaboration by three designers. Each designer taught the portion of the chart which they designed.

I stitched this design twice: once over two threads of linen ground cloth, and once in petit point over one thread of the linen ground cloth.

stitched over two threads

Most of the design is cross-stitch, but the hole in the birdhouse in an eyelet, and the bird's wing is satin stitch. It also has tiny button embellishments.

I did the finishing work on the petit point piece in March of 2014 (!!!) using a finishing form (much like a covered button). It's not that much bigger than a quarter coin! You can see some really nice photos on that blog post. (Hooray! My photography shows much improvement!)

petit point

Christmas Goose Ornament

Finally, here's my May Christmas ornament. 

At the time, I was working on a canvas design for EGA which was not going well. I was frustrated with it, so picked up this small ornament kit by Traditions in order to regain calm and meet my Christmas project goal for the month of May. The design area is 31 stitches by 33 stitches, so it's quite small. The kit came with the round frame. I'm pretty sure I still have this ornament.

That's it for April and May! In May, June, and July I was working on some big projects for EGA, so there are only three finishes to show in my next #throwbackthursday installment. But in August I finished a correspondence course and will have quite a lot of tassels to share.

Pause for Poetry

I was encouraged to read a poem today. To think about it as I walked. I found this.

Fit No Mold 

I look out in wonder as my story unfolds
However I try, I fit no mold

I try to conform, only to witness a storm
So great a weight, on so small a form

I keep true to self and let belief ensue
For why should conformities dull my hue

The questions afloat, the answers unfound
They say when one is lost, one is found

by Hartaz Kaur Jul 29

https://hellopoetry.com/Hartaz/poems/

I don't know the name of this photographer. If you know, let met know.
I'll give photo credit.

499

Welp!

Looks like somebody picked a poppy!

This was one of the more difficult puzzles I put together lately. I don't really like big jigsaw puzzles or hard ones. I like to give my mind a little something to do while it's figuring out how to handle some other problem, or to get me though rough emotional days. This poppy field teetered on the edge of being more work than fun.

What poppy was picked? The missing piece!

Another Milestone

I'm sticking with it. 400 days in a row of meditation with Headspace.

Thanks, Andy!

Lazy Hazy Sunday

What's a person to do when they're eyes are burning from looking at a screen for too long, it's so smoky outside you can barely breathe, and the smoke makes everything have a brown, ugly tinge?

My solution is to get out another jigsaw puzzle. This Poppy Field is quite a challenge! Putting the sky together wasn't too difficult. But the field of flowers? Yikes. This puzzle is likely to take another two or three days to complete.

It will be pretty when done, though!

Lantern Puzzle

I was in a "mood" yesterday. I had lots of things that needed my attention, but I didn't have any attention to give. What I really wanted to do was sit quietly, listen to an audio book, and work on a puzzle. So I did. I got about 3/5 of it done yesterday.

Today Dale and I had planned to go visit Julie's family. But because of all the smoke and poor air quality, we weren't going to be able to do the outdoor activities we had in mind. So we're postponing our trip until next weekend. We hope the smoke clears by then.

In the meantime, I was able to complete this puzzle today.

Sometimes what I love the most is to do something that's satisfying and not at all exciting.

Flower Bunny

In yesterday's #throwbackthursday blog post I mentioned that I still have the bunny pin that I made for my daughter Jodie in 2001. Here are a couple updated photos of it. As you can see, it's about 2-1/2 inches from ear tip to ear tip, and about 1-1/4 inches from top to bottom.

In this close up you can see how the entire pin is made from beads on perforated paper, with a whip stitch around the edge. The beads still shine after all these years. The bellflower Mill Hill Treasure has a nice soft glow in contrast to the matte white beads of the bunny's fur and the shiny pink seed beads in the ears and the rest of the flower garden.

For being 17 years old, this bunny is in fine fiddle, don't you think?

Throwback Thursday - 2001 (Part 3)

If' it's Thursday, it time to jump in the time machine. These are the first five stitching projects I made in April 2001.


Rose Romance

This project is from the Daydreams collection by Dimensions. This small kit worked up very quickly on 14 ct. aida.

This single rose is framed with a printed mat between two pieces of glass which are held together with four clips. The stitching is 3 inches square. The entire piece is only 8 inches square. This hangs in my dining room with a few other stitched and painted roses. Perhaps I'll take some updated photos of this piece to share here.

Giraffes: Noah and Company

In the Spring of 2001, I decided that I wanted to start collecting giraffes. If you recall, I stitched my first giraffe in 1999 after my Mom died. She loved to watch giraffes at the zoo. Then one of my daughters gave me a giraffe to stitch on perforated paper that I made into a magnet.

This giraffe piece is stitched, but I'm not sure I ever did the finishing work on it. I might have framed it, but more likely, it's sitting in that box in my Studio! I'll have to check on that.

I do like that the giraffes are checkered, that their tails are braided, and I'm fond of that little heart button embellishment.

Little did I know how quickly this giraffe thing would get out of hand! And, NO. I'm not collecting giraffes anymore!


Leaping Bunny

I made some beaded pins for my daughters for Easter. This was for Julie. It's made from a Mill Hill kit. There's stitching and beads on perforated paper with a Mill Hill flower Treasure (button) embellishment. Besides the cross-stitch and beading, there are some Colonial Knots in the tail.

Flower Bunny

This beaded pin was made for Jodie. Again, it's stitched on perforated paper. It has even more beading than Julie's pin. The entire garden at the bottom is done in two sizes of seed beads. That's another Mill Hill Treasure (button) under the bunny's chin. It's supposed to be a bell flower.

Jodie actually gave this pin back to me when she was a teenager. I'll take some new photos of it to share later, now that I have a camera lens that can do it more justice. If Jodie would like it back someday, I'll be happy to return it to her.


Picket Fence

This final pin was stitched for Jeanne. It, too, is a Mill Hill bead kit stitched on perforated paper with DMC floss and two sizes of seed beads. This pin is very 3-D. The little wings on the bee and the petals on the purple flower are loops of petit beads that stick out away from the backing. The two Mill Hill Treasures that create the red flower are fuchsia channeled hearts.

I made one more project for Easter that April, and one Christmas project. I'll share those and others in my next #throwbackthursday installment.

Still Life

#WordlessWednesday
#CornerOfMyHome

Dare

Speedy Recovery Card

Over the weekend I had a chance to do a little paper-crafting in my Studio. I used a new combination of materials and tools and came up with some designs I was pleased with. The first card was to a member of my extended family who recently underwent heart surgery.

I started with a blank brown paper cardstock card with matching envelope. I printed out an image of the "Operation" game board on white cardstock.

The first layer is a waffle-textured brown cardstock that I further textured with a heart pattern. The second layer is the game board image. Then I punched out two circles from the same brown cardstock, and two hearts from a light coral cardstock. I added a small bandage over the heart.

Most of the layers are adhered with double-sided tape. But I used some 3-D foam squares to adhere the coral hearts to the brown waffle-textured circles so that they'd pop up for added dimension. On the back of the card, I used the two self-inking stamps ("handmade with love" over the line of hearts), and signed my name between the two stamped images. I kept the message on the inside simple, in my own handwriting.

I recently bought two lots of scrapbook paper from local sellers through Facebook Marketplace. My paper stash has grown four-fold with those inexpensive purchases. It's given me quite a lot of inspiration. I hope to make time to construct more cards for the pure joy of creating them.

Point of View

One of my guilty pleasures is to buy small bags of "Belly Flops" at the dollar store. These are packaged misshapen and, perhaps, odd flavored Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. Some of them look and taste fairly normal. Some of the flavors are doozies. I've found lots of "conjoined twins" beans and lots of blobs.

Like this:

But whether or not these are misfits might just be in the eye of the beholder. Where others see a blob, I see a little bite of cinnamon love.

I suppose it's like life. How you view oddities depends on your point of view.

Christmas Heart 2

In Part 1 of my Year 2000 #throwbackthursday, I had an unflattering photo of one of my favorite projects, a needlepoint on canvas Christmas ornament designed by my friend Carol Clarkson Timm.

This beautiful piece uses a variety of stitches including satin stitch, a Rhodes Heart, and a diamond star eyelet. It's stitched with #8 metallic braid, Neon Rays (a wide, flat fiber), Marlitt rayon, and perle coton. The seams are covered with a velvet ribbon.

After the stitching was complete, the canvas was formed around a Styrofoam ball. I display this ornament with some Tamari balls on a special ornament stand each Christmas.

Throwback Thursday - 2001 (Part 2)

Here are the projects I completed in March 2001:


Bargello Needleroll

In March our EGA chapter had two programs about the bargello technique. The class project was a needleroll worked in cotton floss on canvas. The design was created and taught by my friend Carol Clarkson Timm.

Each member got to choose her own colors for this project, and stitched the canvas. Then we learned this "joining stitch" which is an overlapping series of Xs. It ends up looking like a braid. We filled the needleroll with horse hair, which is supposed to help your needles stay in good shape, like an emery.

Assisi Embroidery Pin Cushion

This is another EGA "Petit Project" which my online EGA chapter did as a group. The idea behind Assisi work is that you stitch the background and the void areas form the design.

Kaleidoscoping Values

This was another EGA group project, an online correspondence course in needlepoint. It used a variety of fibers on a canvas ground cloth. The purpose of the course was to learn a variety of canvas stitches, and also to learn to stitch with values within a chosen color family to great effect.

Part of the fun was in getting to design two of the squares. My two designs are the upper right and lower left corners, as well as the center focal point.

I stitched this project with the intention of giving it to my husband who likes muted colors. This is one of my many projects where the stitching is complete but I never did the finishing/framing work. It languishes in a box in my Studio.


Mini Bellpull

In the first week of March I was able to go on a retreat for stitchers, sponsored by the designers from Twisted Threads, Heart in Hand, and Bent Creek. On this spectacular weekend, I participated in four classes where I learned a number of new "specialty" stitches. This little bellpull was made from my doodle cloth where I learned the stitches. The stitches are (in order from top to bottom): backstitch, fence stitch, cross-stitch, rhodes stitch in two sizes, fly stitch, colonial knot, rhodes heart, crossed corners cushion, double leviathan in two sizes, closed herringbone, norwich stitch, and nun's stitch.

I turned my doodle cloth into a sampler bellpull as a remembrance of my time on retreat. I made the cording and mini tassels from some matching floss, and used a toothpick as the rod at the top of the bellpull.

The other great thing about the retreat is that it introduced me to Skamania Lodge. Dale and I have returned there several times, including for my 50th birthday celebration. It's a wonderful resort with beautiful views and the very best rocking chairs you'll ever sit in.


Three French Hens

This is March's Christmas-related chart. If you recall, I had a personal goal of stitching one Christmas chart by the 25th of each month. I pulled out an ongoing project of The 12 Days of Christmas. I intended to stitch each of the 12 designs and make them into a wall quilt. I had been working on this quilt off and on for over five years.

You'll eventually see all 12 of these squares. But this is another project in that stashed-away box of stitched-but-not-finished-for-display pieces in my Studio. I even bought the fabric for the quilt back. I'm not confident in my quilting abilities, so I've not completed it either. YET!


Gardener Moose

This design one from the "Malcolm the Moose" series from The Stitchworks. In the series, Malcolm is in all kinds of settings making mischief. I chose this design for my college friend's birthday. She loves to play in the dirt and make things grow. Plus, we have a running joke about moose which grew from the true story of when we came upon a moose in the wild while camping together in Idaho.

I finished this project as a small pillow, using a garden/plant print for the backing and some complementary piping along the edge. I wish I had a photo of the completed pillow, but unfortunately I don't.

In April 2001, I finished seven projects, so I'll show them all in my next #throwbackthursday post.