Heathwitch’s Stitchcraft

[finish] Best Dad

Last week, I finished my most recent WIP, “Best Dad”, which was being worked on 28ct Zweigart Cashel Vintage Linen in Country Cream. Andrew worked wonders framing it in time for Dad’s birthday.

Here’s the finished cross stitch, newly washed and ready for framing. It took 8 hours and 10 mins in all, but I did decide not to stitch the border as shown on the original Lizzie*Kate chart as we both felt — what with the double matting we’d decided upon — that it would detract from the piece.

Andrew then self-framed it, using two pieces of card for the mounts (which he measured and cut himself) — one in a deep blue, the other in a shimmery cornflower blue. They work very well together, it must be said! If you like, you can click this image for a larger version:

And Dad himself? Well, when he unwrapped his gift and saw it, he was very touched. You could tell; for a long while he didn’t know what to say and got a bit teary-eyed — and that I got a massive hug (Andrew was out at work at the time). Later in the week we also took him to Glastonbury Abbey for the day, which is a bit of a trek for us but so worth it — Dad had wanted to see the Abbey after watching a documentary on the dissolution of the monestaries on the television, and Andrew and I need no excuses for visiting one of our favourite towns! Still, I am so glad that we managed to make his 71st a little extra special. :-)

[wip] Best Dad

And now for an update about my current WIP. Well, actually, it’s one project on from “Bloom”, because there was another piece I did this week — but I can’t share that until it’s back from the framers and in the hands of its intended recipient (’cause I know they read my blog). What I will say is (for once) it wasn’t a Lizzie*Kate piece, and that it was a steep learning curve on black evenweave, and made me worry a lot about the quality of my eyesight… ;-p

Anywho, the new/current WIP is a little Lizzie*Kate piece that I’m stitching for my Dad’s birthday, later this month. Hopefully it’ll work out a nice size so that I can finish it as his birthday card. Here’s where I’m up to so far, after 2hrs 35mins…

This is being stitched on 28ct Zweigart Cashel Vintage Linen in Country Cream; a welcome change from the black evenweave of late! True to form, I’ve been stitching while (initially) listening to music (Garth Brooks in concert FTW), and then, later, whilst half-watching Men in Black with Andrew. Goddess, that film is twelve years old — Will Smith looks so young (especially compared to The Pursuit of Happyness, which we watched last week) — and now I feel a lot older than I should do.

Or maybe that’s all those late-nights-sitting-up-stitching talking…

Note to Self…

… Black evenweave plus Light Effects thread means sore eyes. Very sore eyes.

What was I thinking?!

[finish] Bloom

The other finish of the weekend (started on Saturday night and finished on Sunday morning) was another Lizzie*Kate design (are you sensing a theme here, yet?) — one the freebies, “Bloom”.

This time, for a change from stitching on evenweave, I worked this piece on 16ct aida, in a lovely celadon colour. While I did use some of the thread colours as suggested by the chart, I did some other substitution — like adding DMC Colour Variations 4110 for the border, and experimenting with DMC’s Light Effects thread (colour E316) for the text.

Excusing the wonkiness of the scan — I couldn’t get it straight for some reason — here’s how it came out, after 6 hours of stitching:

While I liked working with the Light Effects, and think it came out pretty well, I do have one thing to say about it. Thread Heaven. Seriously. I would not have coped with the metallic thread without it — I had a lot less tangles and problems when I remembered to use used Thread Heaven. :-)

…And for those who’ve wondered what the back of my work looks like, here you go. As you can tell, I like to keep things as tidy as possible:

I’ve since started another Lizzie*Kate chart, and hopefully should have a scan of it as a WIP soon. Other than that, a package of some black 28ct evenweave arrived, so that’s another project to start… ;-)

[finish] Wear a Smile

I finished Lizzie*Kate’s “Wear a Smile” on Saturday — it turned out to be a smooth 8-hour piece, and that’s on 28ct evenweave (so it’ll probably be finished in shorter time if stitched on aida). Here’s how it looks now:

I replaced all the colours on this piece, too — not by much, just opting for a different shade of red and green (for instance, in terms of the red, choosing DMC 3685 instead of 3777), and also choosing a blue-based Colour Vatiations thread (DMC 4240) instead of a plain blue.

Some folks over on my personal journal have said — after seeing the WIPs of this recently — that they couldn’t make out the variations of hue in this thread from the scans, so hopefully a close-up of the “m” in “Smile” will help…

… But that wasn’t the only piece I finished this weekend, oh no… ;-)