March Smalls

 I've been trying to get this post up for a couple of days now. It seems I have issues uploading my photos from both my phone and my computer! It's been extremely frustrating trying to get anything done.

At this point I have one of my finishes that I can show you. This is one that I had already kitted up earlier in the year and put aside. Not knowing what I wanted to do this month I decided to go with the obvious. This design is from the 2017 series of Fragments in Time by Summer House Stitche Workes. It's number four in the series.

I've stitched a couple of others from this series previously and gifted them to friends but this little one will be made into a pin pillow for me. I don't have the entire series of eight designs. I think I just picked out the ones that appealed to me and ordered them but they do make great gifts!

Okay so I thinked I've worked out all the bugs with my photos and have managed to get them all where I want them. Amazing!

My second small finish for this month was done in anticipation of spring and the upcoming Easter weekend. Spring Rabbit and Cart is a design by Jenny Hoffman of Country Rustic Primitives. It's a sweet little finish and it also will be sewn into a pin pillow and added to my bowl of spring finishes on display.

I'll also share with you a few pics of my Easter/Spring displays.

Definitely more room to add a few more finishes. I really don't have a lot of Easter/Spring decor.

I'm not sure if I'll get a small finish stitched for next month. It's tax season and I start working on our taxes tomorrow morning. Plus I'm really into working on some lovely bigger designs right now. You'll see some pics on my WIPocalypse post in a day or two. See you then!

February Smalls

It's been a great month for stitching as the weather turned much cooler in our neck of the woods which led to more time spent indoors. I aim to get out and walk daily but as the month progressed we started to get more snowfall. I won't walk outdoors until the plows have got the streets cleaned up and even then I'm very careful because of ice. After all I've known of two friends who recently fell and broke limbs, one an ankle and the other her arm. So I've stayed put more often, looking for other means of keeping active but also stitching more often.

Consequently I managed two small finishes for this month and made some significant progress on some of my larger finishes which I'll show in a later post.

 My first finish was in keeping with Valentine's Day. This is a freebie chart which was offered by Hands On Designs.

This was a very quick stitch for which I chose some lovely Dixie Sampler Hand Dyed Fabric called Cranberry Crunch. Final finishing should have been done but I was having too much fun doing actual stitching and immediately moved on to my second small.

The second stitching finish is one I did to add to my St. Patrick's Day bowl fillers. Threadwork Primitives Lucky Crow was a super fun stitch and this week I'll be hunting through my stash for some co-ordinating fabric and trim.

Love the leprechaun hat!!

I'm not sure what direction my stitching will take me in next month. Spring, maybe? That's only if we get rid of some of the snow around here though. I'm still not feeling spring yet. Looking forward to seeing what has inspired everyone else. See you next month!

January Smalls 2021

My stitching in 2021 has picked up some from the pace of 2020 so far. I managed to complete two smalls this month and have already picked out a project for next month. 

 I started out the month with an ornament that I've had kitted up for a few years now. It's a Little House Needleworks Design called Saltbox Village. I don't know what got into me but for some strange reason I decided to stitch the entire ornament over one. I was looking to do some small bowl fillers that are winter scenes or that can fit in with my winter decor and this one fit the bill.

The next pic gives you an idea of just how small this sweet piece is.

I think all told it measures 1 3/4" squared. I really love how it turned out!

I started a second ornament, this time a Prairie Schooler, and decided to continue on the same fabric. The piece is large enough that I could do a few more on it.

This Prairie Schooler is from the booklet Button Up and I'm calling it the Snow Angel.

There are a couple more from this book that I want to add to these but I also have a Valentine small to stitch first in February. See you next month!

 

December Smalls

 December was another busy month for smalls in terms of final finishing. I needed a push in the butt to get moving because once again I left things to the last minute and with less ambition and enthusiasm.

My granddaughters ornaments were the first priority specifically their requests, the snake and the rabbit. Here are the results of the final finishes. I've included photos of the backing fabric I used as well.

It was difficult to find a fabric in my stash to back the snake with. The fabric I chose reminded me somewhat of a snake's skin although it's not as clear in this picture as I would have liked.

With those two finished I moved onto finishing their Christmas ornaments. I cheated and pulled two previous stitched ornaments out of my pile and finished them up.

I squeeked out the final finishes on Dec. 14, packaged all their gifts up and mailed them out by Xpress post on Dec. 15. Believe it or not, they arrived at their home in Quebec two days later!! I was shocked. After all we all know how long it's taking to receive mail during the pandemic. 

I wasn't able to see the girls over Christmas but they took and posted a few pictures for me to see them opening their gifts. It looks like the ornaments were a hit as well as their requested pieces.

I also managed to finish off a name tree for my friend Trish and I finally got around to stitching one for myself after all the others were finished.

The first name tree is designed by Nouveau Encore Designs and my name tree was designed by M Designs who unfortunately is no longer designing.

I also finished the stitching on two small ornament finishes of a design called Twinkles by Stitcharoo Gifts. I spotted this little ornie on either a Facebook or Instagram post by another stitcher. I thought it would be a sweet and quick little finish.

I have stitched in on two different fabric linens. One is a pink-blue colour and the second is a light green with brighter colours for the floss.

As you can see, I have almost completed the final finishing on the first one. These will be put aside for next year's gifts for my granddaughters so I'm already ahead of the game!

I don't know how but I managed to squeek out all my finishes on time!

November Smalls

November has turned out to be a very productive month in terms of stitching. I needed a kick in the pants to get moving and I don't know where it came from but it sure worked! I started out the month working on my Christmas gifts for my granddaughters. The oldest requested a snake and the youngest, a rabbit.

 They both turned out far better than I could have hoped for. The snake is called Tribal Snake and is a design from KLT Charting Designs while the rabbit is simply called Rabbit and is from an Alisa Kit out of Russia. I will be turning these into flat ornament finishes so they may hang them or display them on an easel in their room.

I also give the girls a tree ornament each year and this year, to put less pressure on myself, I decided to use one of the many unfinished but stitched ornaments that I have in my collection. I plan on finishing these up this coming week. 

Next I finished most of the stitching on a name tree for a friend. I ran out of floss just as I was finishing the stitching on the tree stand. I ordered more but if the floss doesn't make an appearance in time I will substitute with one other that is extremely close in colour or I may just leave it as is. This name tree is designed by Nouveau Encore Designs.

I know that I had another skein of the floss but I suspect that it fell in the wastebasket near my work area and went out in the trash. This particular tree spells Trish but that T looks more like a C to me so I hope she likes it. I made a small error in counting in the letter R but rather than frogging I adjusted and made sure the same error appeared on the opposite side of the tree so the branches would appear the same. The picture doesn't show it but the fabric is a lovely silver opalescent. If the floss arrives and it's finished, the tree stand will be wider than it is in the picture. Right now the tree looks a little top heavy!

After finishing my gifts I was relieved but didn't know what to tackle next. While rooting through my stash I came upon a partially finished ornament from a start in Oct. 2011. I think I abandoned this one because I didn't like the appearance of the Toasted Marshmallow for the snowman but didn't want to frog it all out. I had got as far as stitching the main body with the Joy lettering. I had no idea what floss I had used other than recognizing the Toasted Marshmallow. The original chart called for DMC for the remainder of the floss and I could tell that I had used an overdye for the red. So I dug out several reds and compared them to what I had done until I found the right one. It had been some time though since I'd stitched with 2 strands of floss, lol!

Here is Sam Sarah Design Studios Winter Joy. It's can be found in the 2007 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Preview issue for those of you who collected these issues.

I decided that it was about time that I had a name tree for myself on our tree. I had a custom pattern by M Designs from 20005 that I ordered sitting in my stash. Imagine.... I've had it for 15 years and hadn't stitched it yet!! I still have 2 others waiting for me to stitch for my sisters too. M Designs has retired as I can no longer get these from her so I am glad that I ordered them when I did!

Mine is not completed yet but I'm stitching it on the same silver/grey opalescent as the previous one. I'm using a really lovely Christmas green silk floss by Gloriana called Serene Green. I love it so far. I've got as far as stitching the letters Y and one of the Ns.

My name tree is stitching up faster than I expected considering it's stitched over one. If I had stitched it over two as I had the earlier one it would have been far too big and I wanted to hang it on the tree, hence the over one.

I have found several other UFOs in my Christmas stitches that I might work on throughout December or I may just stitch something completely new. I haven't decided yet.

I also managed to finish off two of my larger pieces this month which I will post about next week on my monthly WIPocalypse.

Not too shabby this month considering my previous motivation, lol!

October Smalls

As much as I'd hoped to stitch some Halloween smalls this past month it just didn't happen. I realized I was falling behind in my stitching and I had some Christmas stitching to get started at as well as two birth samplers to work on. Christmas stitches will have to be mailed well in advance this year so now I'm pushing myself.

I got started on the first stitch which is a Christmas gift for my eldest granddaughter. It looks anything but Christmas though as she had requested that I stitch a snake for her. A snake! Where was I going to find a chart for that? It couldn't be a childish serpent either as she is now 15 going on 16. I spent several weeks checking out online links to patterns but so many of them were actually larger or complicated pieces which I just knew would take a huge chunk of time to complete. Finally I came across a pattern that I thought would work. Tribal Snake is a cobra snake design by Kim Treagust of KLT Charting Designs. I downloaded the pdf chart and after checking it out I decided to stitch it over one. The design was much larger otherwise and I didn't want a framed piece. 

 So far it's going fairly quickly. I basically started with the outline and then will do all the fill in next. I'm stitching this on a piece of 28 ct Sudden Storm Lugana with a Victorian Motto floss, Something Wicked.

I think it's going to turn out pretty cool. The floss looks black in the pic but it's actually a dark grey-blue.

That's the only small I've worked on all month and I only got started at it a week ago! I'm also getting ready to start my younger granddaughter's choice which was a little easier to find, lol. She chose a rabbit so I ordered a kit from Alisa which is where I found the Hedgehog kit that I stitched a few Christmases ago.

Here's a link to what it will look like. I will not be using the Aida for this. I will use the floss supplied and look through my stash for an appropriate choice of linen or evenweave. I find the evenweaves are a bit easier to work with during the final finishing.

That's it for this month! I would also like to stitch a couple of actual Christmas ornaments for the girls in addition to their choices so I'm on the hunt for a couple that won't take too much time so that I have time for some personal stitching before the holidays. See you soon!

September Smalls

 Only one small was completed this month but it was an important one and all my other ideas were pushed into the background. I originally planned on stitching some new autumn or Halloween smalls. I even have some lovely new (to me) designs by Early Workes the I especially ordered for this purpose. 

While I was checking out my new purchases, I noticed a pile of loose charts that I had put aside on one of the shelves in my cross stitch room. So I pulled out the charts to have a look at them and figure out why they hadn't been filed away yet. Perhaps they were being considered for future stitches? As I looked through them I came across one in particular called Oh Mother Dear, designed by The Sampler Girl. Bells started madly ringing in my mind as I realized that this particular chart was based on the children's tale, The Three Little Kittens. 

Why was this so important? Well, it just so happened that my daughter-in-law's baby shower was coming up mid month and instead of including cards with our gift we were asked to bring a copy of our favourite childhood book. Yep, you guessed it! Mine was The Three Little Kittens! It's no longer in print but I had found a copy in excellent condition from an antique book shop on Etsy.

Having come across this particular chart was absolutely perfect. I decided to stitch it to accompany the book. I've included a pic of the original chart to show you. The poem is based on three kittens who lost their mittens and therefore should have no pie. The original chart includes the kittens and the mittens but also a key. I replaced that key with a small cross stitched pie since it's an integral part of the story. I also personalized the design with my initals, the year and the baby's initials. The addition of a small heart button completed the piece which I finished into a small pillow to place on the shelf in the baby's room. I found the perfect backing fabric for it in my stash too!

I think perhaps that this book may have influenced me more than I realized. Take a look at the illustration on the final page. Could it have anything to do with my current obsession?!

The chart for this piece was very simple and didn't take long to complete but my month has been taken up with working on the birth sampler, a couple of other samplers and then a trip home to Windsor, Ontario to check on my mother who turned 90 in late August. 

This pic was taken with my niece. I loved the balloons and the Birthday Girl badge that they pinned to her shirt.

It's very unfortunate that my middle sister and her family were unable to join us because they live in the US and the border remains closed between the US and Canada due to the pandemic.

Watch for my WIPocalypse post in a few days to see the rest of the stitching which has been occupying my time. See you then!

July Smalls

I've been trying off and on all day to get this post up from my laptop and finally gave up in disgust. I'm posting from my tablet now. On July 1 we celebrated Canada Day and that got me into the mood to stitch a couple more of Jeannette Douglas' Patriotic Snippets. I received the floss I was waiting on for last month's snippet, #5, and started by finishing it off.

It's hard to see the shine from the metallic floss but it's there. It's been years since I've used any kind of metallic floss or blending filament. I'm not a huge fan of it but it served its purpose in this piece to demonstrate the Northern Lights.

I'm not committed to stitching these in any particular order so the next start was snippet #2.

I was really motivated because I went ahead and did the final finishing of each of these! Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not fond of finishing and tend to put it off but I've had a lot of time on my hands lately so here are the results.

After seeing how well they turned out I pulled out my Canada 150, another Jeannette Douglas Design, that I stitched up last year and completed the final finishing on it as well.

I'm so pleased with how they all turned out. I was able to display them with some of my previous patriotics, just in time for the holiday.

The last snippet stitched this month #12, I finished up last week.

I'll wait until I've stitched a few more before I do any more pillows.

I've been concentrating on larger projects this year and when I need a break these are a great diversion. They stitch up quickly and I've feel like I'm making progress. 

The weather here has been so hot and humid. In fact Ottawa broke a record for the hottest July ever! When the humidity gets bad I spend most of my time indoors. I'm really hoping August cools down some. If it does perhaps I'll get in the mood for some autumn smalls!