Quilting

Hi my cross stitch friends!


I've been MIA for a really long time now, mostly because my cross stitch progress has been pitiful. Really, it's because I have started quilting. I bought another domain so I could do my quilt things in a blog type form as well, but then I never got around to it.

I thought it might be nice to share some of my more recent projects here anyway. Maybe it'll be a xStitchHaven - Cross Stitch and Quilting Blog. :)

My King Size Swoon Quilt

It took me 11 months from start to finish, but totally worth it. I kept getting board and I really hate doing borders and sashing. It looks fantastic on my bed, so it was worth it.

I recently finished 3 baby quilts:

Mesa Valley Pattern

Mesa Valley with Tula Pink fabric, this was in a SewSampler box (the colored prints & pattern). I love how this turned out and part of me didn't want to give it away!

Fancy Foxes - Elizabeth Hartman

This one used Rhoda Ruth Fabrics

Chuckles - Elizabeth Hartman

An Elizabeth Hartman pattern again, using Reef fabrics, this was also in a Sew Sampler box.

I also made two Christmas quilts I just couldn't part with:

I made this pattern up using 2 packages of charm squares in Juniper Berry by Basic Grey. I really love all their Christmas collections and have already preordered their 2018 one.

This was using "Jolly Bars" (5"x10" precuts) in Merry Berry fabric. I love love love this. It's my favorite of the two. I could not part with it though it's original purpose was a Christmas present.

My favorite is how I quilted it, spirals in a gold thread called "Vegas Gold". Swoon. Drool. LOVE. 

I started quilting when I moved to North Carolina just over 2.5 years ago. It's very addicting, just like cross stitch it, but I find (with the exceptions of course) that I finish projects so much faster. It's a more expensive hobby but the results are so much sooner. I've been dragged into the community full force! 

I took a picture framing course last spring and managed to frame about 15 things. 5 or so were cross stitch pieces that had been hanging out in my "finished" drawer. I'll have to dig up some pictures. Since then, I've finished 4 more things to frame. :D 

Also, this past fall, I took a photography class. I've been putting that to use in my finished quilts photos. I'm really loving how everything is turning out and how everything is so connected. :) 

Anything new up with you lovely readers? Am I the only one who moves form hobby to hobby?

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Mayyyyynia?

Hi all! I'm back with my monthly update. I think monthly updates are working much better for me now. I tried to get it in around the 15th, but this month has been a bit crazy (aren't they all?)

Anyways, it's May[nia] and I decided to start 2 new projects! Go me! :)

First is Little House Needleworks' Gingerbread(wo)man. If you've been here for... 2 years, you'll know I made this for my husband in 2014 with plans to make one for myself as well. I'm finally getting around to starting mine! Here's my progress:

I think it's coming along nicely. I really only work on it when I don't feel like doing something that requires my Lowery. We're going back to Pittsburgh for a week soon so I'll probably bring that with me.

My first start (gingerbreadman was actually the second one, I just talked about it first) was my first MIRA! YAY!

It's Roses of Provence. I love love love the colors. My only complaint is there's a lot of color changes. I think I might learn to park for this lady... thoughts? Is she worth it? Should I keep up with my cross country stitching of her? I'm torn on it. (don't forget you can click the picture and zoom in) It's on a very light version of Rose Petals from Crafty Kitten (It was an opps I got on her facebook page several years ago).

I did find this cute little thread holder at Walmart:

It only holds her floss right now. Adorable! Do you see the 7 skeins of white for her dress?!?!

I worked a bit on my Plum Pudding:

Funny story (not really) when I took it out to work on it there was a GIANT SPIDER on it. Even though I keep it "safe" in a pillow case when I'm not working on it. SOOOOO I decided I needed a better storage thing for it, so I whipped this guy up:

It's lined in flannel (because that's all I had that was large enough). It fits my 17x17 qsnap which was the point. Hopefully no more spiders on my work. UGH. *shudders*

I barely worked on Passport:

I did added some stitches and backstitching to this freebie:

I think I might have shown this before, but it's my "current" WIPs basket. I have more that I don't consider to be UFOs but aren't "current" WIPs either.

Annnnd last but not least, y'all might remember the stitch along back in 2014 for the Frosted Pumpkin's Halloween Town? Well, I hated part 3 with the bakery so I just lost all interest. I finally recharted the bakery into a house and am making some progress:

I love the color changes (like my teal & purple houses). Do you see the cat I added?!?! I think I'm going to give him some eyes, maybe some whiskers too! I'm still figuring out the house... and there was a witch charted, but I kinda don't want to stitch her either, so it's still a work in progress ... charting as I go along!


OOOOOOOOh and I have an FFO! I know my friend doesn't read my blog so I feel like I can show this even though I haven't given it to her yet (excuse the glare at the framing shop):

I'm so pleased with how it turned out! And it was super reasonably priced. I'm kinda in love with it. I'll totally be taking more projects to this framing shop. I think they did an excellent job.

I bought some stash, butttttt what I bought is for my mom and I'm fairly sure she does read my blog, so I'm not going to spoil it! Goal is a September finish (her birthday is in Sept) but I want to finish one WIP (a decently sized one... like Halloween Town) before I work on that so it could get pushed to Christmas... not totally sure yet. I feel like I need to find some "manly" patterns and make something for my dad... any suggestions!?

How's everyone's May been? Productive I hope!

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New Year New Starts

That's how it goes for you too right? New Year = New Starts!

I'm starting off the year strong. My last start of 2014 turned into my first finish of 2015! I decided to cross off one ornament on my long list (which can be found here), Peppermint Latte by Casey Buonaugurio Designs (you can find it in the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue).

It was done on a mystery piece of pink linen. After I took the first two pictures I realized that I forgot the bottom line, so the final picture has that! I like how it turned out! I'm going to add it to my to-be-finished pile (there's only 3 pieces there right now). I would like to go find some fabric for it, I don't really have anything suitable in my stash.

I tok one final picture of my Tirasmu before putting it away for my Plum Pudding start:

I started my Plum Pudding by Glendon Place for the SAL that Neil and I are hosting (you can still sign up here).

I was debating back and forth on the fabric choice. My Tiramisu project is on Jazlyn and has a much thicker weave to it, while this Lugana is very open. I was thinking that they would look weird side by side, but, who knows if I'll even be displaying them side by side, so I'm going to keep on with this. It'll be the same dimensions anyway. Which is what I actually cared about. The colors are so difficult to photograph. They are totally dependent on the lighting, and it's been gray clouds here for days, and probably won't let up until March!

I have also borrowed some hardanger books from the library. I thought it would be fun to try! Here's the books I got:

And here are my first two designs. Let's not talk about the counting mistakes I made on the kosher blocks that I didn't notice until way later (the white bits)... I think it's pretty fun and I am going to order some Caron Waterlilies threads (the ones that are equivalent to the DMC perles, I keep forgetting their names) to have fun with.

The JoAnn's near me really didn't have any options, so I got 2 purples, one green and white to start off with, I've found a few patterns I like so I'm thinking I'll start with the non-cut work ones and then try some cutting too.

That's it for today! Anyone else starting off into new hobbies for the new year?

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Merry Christmas Eve!

Hello everyone! And Merry Christmas Eve (or merry Wednesday!) to you & your loved ones.

We've been pretty busy, Sunday was my husband's aunt's Christmas dinner. He's got 3 little cousins now and they are always quite entertaining. I ate too much, per usual. It's so easy to do when the food is amazing! :)

Tonight we're going to my in-laws house for presents and dinner. Then tomorrow we're going to my aunt's for dinner and I'm having my parents over to view Japan vacation pictures (I'll post some soon, I promise!) and eat some desserts. THEN on Friday we've got a surprise party to go to. It's a never ending busy schedule. Well, ok, it's over after that and hopefully no longer busy.

We finally made NYE plans. We usually stay home on the sofa. I cross stitch, he plays video games. Well we were going to go to this great restaurant for our anniversary (Jan 5th, we went last year and loved it) but they will be closed for January. But they are having a pre-fixed menu for NYE. And they are BYOB! Score! It's pretty expensive, but we're going to say it's for our anniversary too. That makes it better... I think!

I finished my co-workers ornament at about 8 o'clock on Sunday to give to her on Monday and she decided to work from home on Monday! I gave her a hard time, but she did come in on Tuesday so I was able to give it to her, I barely left enough room between the two designs on the fabric to cut them out, but I think he turned out super cute! Sorry, no back pictures. I didn't think about it!

Right after this, I ran out of bobbin thread and couldn't get the silly thing out, so I'm waiting until tomorrow when my mom is coming over to help me out and finish my second finish of the week. I'm still new with this whole sewing machine thing! I did also manage to finish the presents one, but I'm not sure if the mom reads my blog or not, so I'll be safe and not post it until next week.

I managed to finish stitching a grumpy cat ornament:

You can't really tell from the picture, but I used wisper thread for the hat to make it fluffy, DMC light effects for the star & some blending filament for the snow flakes in the sky. It's quite nice in real life.

I think my next project will be for our 2nd anniversary, it's cotton, so a stitched piece totally makes sense. I'm going to do "Wedding Row" by Bent Creek. I'm thinking about using my two favorite Weeks threads, peacock & taffeta. Which are almost our wedding colors. It won't be a secret since I do all my stitching with him sitting on the sofa beside me.

I was messing around with our fancy camera and took a some what  pretty Christmas tree picture that I'll leave you off with today! Enjoy the day everyone! May your day be merry & bright!

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Back from Japan

Hello lovelies! I'm back from Japan and have finally gotten over the jet lag from the return trip. They are 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and wow did I feel every minute of that on our return trip. I've slept so much in the last week since we got back it's crazy! I managed to pick up a cold while we were there too so I'm pretty sure that did not help the situation at all.

I thought I was going to get some small stitching done. Nope. Not one stitch was put in. However I did manage to read 4 books and start another. Yes. 4 while on vacation. It was so much easier to just pick up my kindle rather than take out all my stitching. In case anyone was wondering I read the following:

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
2. The Winter People by Rebekah Purdy (I got the wrong book, I meant to read, The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, whoops)
3. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
4. The Girls With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
5. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

I found all of these by looking at Goodreads.com's "Best Books of 2014." I liked some more than others, but I didn't put any of them down after the first couple pages, which I will do if I'm not into a book, there are too many books to read and I'd rather not waste time on one I don't care for.

While I was away, my "Stashmas" gift came in the mail. I belong to a group that does an exchange every year called Stashmas. I was terrible and my gift didn't get sent out until I got home. Basically I ordered a big order from a new to me company and it never arrived. Now I'm dealing with my credit card company trying to get my money back. I am so disappointed. I had heard good things about them from the stitching community and my husband ordered from them for my birthday and had no issues. I've been emailing them and getting no responses. I ordered on October 7th so you would think that 2 months would be sufficient time but apparently not. I think I was in such a rush to mail out the gift of mine that I didn't even talk a picture. I had ended up ordering replacements from 123stitch.com because they have never let me down. 

Here's what I got: 

I'm a huge Little House Needleworks fan and I have had this on my wish list for awhile! She also sent me the two skeins of overdyed floss and the button that goes in the middle!!! I love it and I cannot wait to stitch it. It's probably going to have to wait until 2015 though.She also sent over an adorable ornament!

I am almost done with the second little bear, I've ran out of motivation for him. How silly because he's soooo close now!

 
I started a new project that I am hoping to complete by Christmas. It's going quite well so far. I might be able to make it twice! It's Fleur de Lys Tree by ScissorTail Designs. I'm using Dinky Dyes, Evergreen.

While in Japan I stopped at a store called Yuzawaya (www.yuzawaya.co.jp Japanese only) and picked up a bunch of Cosmo floss and a biscornu.

The store was like a JoAnn Fabrics, with less fabric and more crafty supplies. It was on the 7th floor of a department store type building. I would call it a mall, there are so many malls in Japan. SO many! It was a little hard to find, mostly because we don't speak Japanese and we went on our first day there. I don't have any pictures from inside, I clearly wasn't thinking about blog posts while I was there.

They had DMC, Cosmo and Olympus (I bought some coral colors of this, I'd never heard of it). They didn't really have very many kits or anything though. The biscornu kit is from Cosmo as well though. I thought it was cute! They had tons of cute needle felted animals too. I probably could have bought the entire store, but it was day one and I didn't want to lug everything around in my suitcase. We tried to keep all of our shopping until the end which is only kinda a good idea.

I was also able to find a Japanese needlearts magazine at a bookstore attached to a subway stop,
Stitch Idées:

It's filled with tons of cool ideas, I'm kinda in love with these little pin cushions.

And there are some Christmas designs.

The charts are all pull out ones. It's different, but the quality of this magazine is amazing. It's like a book with the paper quality. I need to find all of them now! ;) It was only 1,200 yen which according to today's exchange rate, $9.92 (usd). All the ones I can find on eBay are about $17 + shipping from Japan. Not as awesome. I should totally have done more shopping while there (maybe seek out a used bookstore or two)! I suppose this just gives me another reason to go back!

Also, last, but not least by any means, I received a RAK (random act of kindness) from Andrea over at her blog, The Craft Room:

Isn't it beautiful?!?! I'm so excited, the finishing is so lovely and the pattern is awesome! I love how there's snow on top of the letters too. What a cool detail! Thanks so much Andrea! It's going to look awesome on my tree... as soon as I put it up! I seriously just took my Halloween decorations down this weekend. I mean, I was gone for half of November... I heard she also MADE the card that it came with!!! That's so awesome and I love it too!

Oh and check out the back, how cute!!! I have these little charms, but I haven't used them yet. :)

Another awesome thing that I learned since my last post, there is a community stitchy group here in my home town! I had run across someone's blog who was talking about this great framing shop she found and I emailed her about it (it's actually the framing shop I past almost weekly, I had even told my husband I should try it, how awesome is that?) and she mentioned a stitchy group that meets every Friday! I've been too busy lately, but I think once January rolls around I'll be able to attend. I'm really excited!

This has turned into a rambly post. I think I'm going to close off here for today. I am hoping to go through my vacation pictures soon and might post some next week for everyone! 

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MMMM 2.2

Hi all! I'm back again for MMMM (Mega Mini Madness Month) hosted in November by Justine!

I was hoping to complete this little guy's buddy by today, but it looks like I wasn't quite there. I am really close though!

I'm bring him on vacation with me and also two patterns from Cross Stitcher magazine, I can't remember which issue right now, but it's these adorable little deer. I'm going to make two of them on this same light blue fabric!

I have a 14 hour flight (hopefully sleeping) and at least one 5 hour train ride, so I'm hoping to get Mr. Presents done and hopefully a lot of one of the deer. I also am bringing a Little House Needleworks design just in case. I scanned everything into my iPad, so it's not like, taking up room or anything!

I'm off to start packing! Hopefully I'll have another update for you next Wednesday with some travel pictures!

Anyone else travel with their stitching?

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MMMM 2.1 & a SAL

While Pull the Other Thread's MMMM might be over, the lovely Justine over at Justine's Cross Stitches decided to host in November. You have until November 5th (today!) to sign up! This one only requires 4 posts since the sign up deadline is a week into November already. I'm breaking away from the roman numerals and starting to number these posts instead.

I'm really hoping I'll manage to get 4 posts in this month, but honestly, I'm going on vacation for 2.5 weeks later this month and it might be a struggle. I do have a post or two lined up already, I'll just have to add some mini information and status updates to them! There will be a few train rides, so I'm thinking some stitching might be accomplished then.

My husband and I are going back to Japan and this time I'm looking up cross stitch stores. I don't know if anyone out there reading this knows of any stores, but if you do please feel free to let me know in the comments! I think I might have found one in Kobe, but I am not totally sure of their hours. Google translate can only help so much. I am for sure going to the fabric district of Tokyo, so I might find some cool stuff there.

I have finally started my holiday stitching! I'm 79% sure that none of my friends read my blog, so I am not really worried about posting pictures. :)

I started this little guy on Friday and he's been such a quick stitch! He's called "Festive Ted" and he's from the November 2013 Cross Stitch Collection magazine. It's amazing the difference back stitching makes!

The lack of light this time of year is really effecting my pictures unfortunately. My husband did buy me a light box, so I'm going to bust that out soon. The background is actually a lovely pale blue Monika linen I had in my stash. The bear's colors are from Victorian Motto. I think they were... shades of pumpkin maybe and a mix of DMC. I love love love Nacy's threads. They are really a pleasure to work with and I find that they don't tangle as much. Maybe because I don't keep them on bobbins, but in Floss A-Way bags instead.

He's got 3 buddies (Presents, Stars, & Mistletoe) but I think candy cane was the best. He is meant to go in a card, but I thought he would be just as cute as an ornament. I wish all of my projects where this quick!!! I think I'm going to make a buddy of his too since he turned out so well.I still have to add the year and my friends' baby's name, but it's done for now! 

I'm also getting around to stitching my swap gift up with the beads. I really don't think I'll ever do this again, my needle isn't small enough and picking up each silly beads is super annoying. I need one of those tacky bobs or something:

I have three more patterns picked out for some other people. I am hoping to start working on one of those tonight! I'm hoping to get these four finished by December so I can concentrate on one for my parents and then have a finishing day and crank them all out at once. Fingers crossed! At least I have already finished 7 of them this year so no one will be missing out on a present or anything. :D

Speaking of quick projects, or in this case, not quick for me projects, Neilteil (Stitched Up!) and I are going to jointly host a Glendon Place Amazing Desserts Stitch Along for 2015. You can find all of Glendon Place's "Amazing Desserts" Series here (scroll to the bottom). If you are interested, check out my link in the sidebar: Glendon Place SAL for more details and to sign up! There will be a fabulous prize at the end! The sign up deadline is January 1st. With your first post due by January 15th (but you don't even have to start stitching until April!) Hopefully there will be enough interest in this. If not, Neilteil and I will be doing our own!

I already have the Plum Pudding pattern so I'm asking for the floss, fabric, and beads for Christmas! I've clearly already started the Tiramisu pattern, but I think that would be an unfair advantage, so only new starts are allowed for the SAL (to be eligible for prizes).

Update: Nacy is having a 25 Days of Christmas giveaway, go and enter here! Her fabrics & threads are AMAZING. :)

Who else has signed up for another Mega Mini Madness Month? Who is interested in the Glendon Place SAL?

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