Butterfly and Pram
Whoo, I’ve not posted here for a while and that’s mainly because life happened. But I did finish two cross stitch pieces in October, and both of which were gratefully received by friends. I made them both into cards and enjoyed stitching them — and today I realised I’d not posted them here! So here we go… :-)
The amazing thing about this one was that I intuited what to stitch for this particular recipient, a tutor on a course I took in 2008. As it happens, her office is painted in lilacs and she has a lot of butterfly artwork in there! I made this piece into a card for her (as shown) and it was signed by everyone on my course for her. I am so glad that she liked it.
The other piece I stitched was for my wedding stylist, who is expecting a baby. As I don’t know if the babe will be a boy or a girl, I went for this lovely little chart I found as it’s so brightly coloured it can be neutral. I used seed beads instead of French knots to make things easier and give it a bit of texture. Again, it was made into a card.
I’ve not had time to cross stitch anything since. I do have some WIPs and also a couple of knitting items on the needles, but for the moment nothing new to show. Here’s hoping I can spend more time in 2009 doing crafts! :-)
Scorpio and Scarf…
I recently finished a knitted scarf and a cross-stitched Scorpio, both for a friend in the States. She’s since received (and is enjoying) them, so I thought I’d post the detail here. :-)
This is from a chart of a cute twist on the zodiac, namely Scorpio. I loved stitching this guy — only about 10 hours on 14ct aida. I later frayed the edges and mounted him onto a card:
To go with the card, I knitted a simple 4×4 rib scarf, in a gorgeous deep red colour. The yarn is Rowan’s Kid Classic (shade 825), which is 70% lambswool, 26% mohair, and 4% nylon. Did I ever mention how much I love knitting with mohair and mohair blends? This scarf was so great I wanted to keep it for myself in the end LOL … But no, to the States it went! :)
Here’s a close-up on the detail, for anyone interested. Again, you can click for larger if you like:
Finally, remember Hello Kitty? I made her into a sweet card for a different friend’s birthday. I recently found a back of blank, pearlescent cards in a variety of pastel shades, and whilst I don’t usually do pastel colours these cards make beautiful companions to some of my cross stitch finishes!
As to WIPs, well … Knitting wise, I’m working on some jumpers and wrist warmers, whilst in the world of cross stitch I’m participating in a mystery stitch-a-long (MSAL) via the LiveJournal Cross Stitch community… Pictures coming soon…
And now for something cute…
I recently picked up a copy of Cross Stitch Card Shop magazine and it had this adorable chart in it for a very sweet Hello Kitty. The magazine reckoned a stitching time of 2-3 hours, so (as I was looking for something quick and easy) I decided to stitch it.
As it happened, this little girl took me around 5hrs 30mins - 6hrs to stitch! Now, whether it was because I was using 28ct linen rather than the 14ct aida recommended, or that the magazine had timed it incorrectly, I don’t know… But this chart sure did take longer than I anticipated (and I’m not a slow stitcher)!
Despite that, though, I do find her rather sweet. :)
Now all I need to do is decide what to do with her … ROFL!
F**k Cancer!
This is another finish of mine, which I framed and presented to a dear friend recently. Originally from Subversive Cross Stitch, I did some colour substitution on it so that it matched my friend’s favourite colours … Be warned though — as it’s a Subversive piece, it’s gonna have some language… ;)
Another of those gorgeous brushed silver framed suited this one well — maybe I should just buy a load of them in different sizes next time I’m in the store, as I always seem to gravitate back to them! — and it was a delight to stitch. All told, it took 4.5hrs — not bad at all, and as it’s my first Subversive piece I can well and truly say that it has me hooked! LOL :)
I’m glad to say, too, that my friend loved it — turns out she’s had her eye on this chart for a while, so it was a lovely surprise when I gifted her with it. She’s one of the most inspiring, strong and loving people I know so it really meant something to me to be able to craft this for her.
Two framed finishes…
Along with the knitting projects that have kept me busy of late, I’ve also finished and self-framed a couple of cross stitch pieces. For a change, these are both for me and are now on display in the small lounge.
I love the framing job on this one. I couldn’t find a frame to exactly match the dimensions of the mount, so instead I found a frame I liked (and I adore the brushed silver effect here!) and added some black card as a background to lift the piece a little. I believe it’s worked out really prettily, and the whole piece is just adorable. :)
The second piece is Cross Stitcher in Residence, which was still a WIP when I last blogged about it. Well, I finally finished it in mid-May, and despite not being totally sure about the colour substitutions I’d chosen I really like it now. You can see the original Lizzie*Kate chart here, but I wasn’t that enthused by the pale blue and pink so I reworked it with two different shades of red (DMC colours 498 and 815, to be precise) and utilised the dark blue for the large crosses at the top and bottom. I do think it came out better than I anticipated! All in all, it took around 10 hours.
Andrew helped me choose the frame, as I didn’t quite know what I was looking for at the time. He was right, though — aiming for something more rustic worked wonderfully.