Tag Archives: cross stitch

30

Sep. ’22

Retreating

This weekend I went on retreat with the SoCal Stitchers. I think this was my 4th year attending but it could be my 3rd. I cannot remember anymore. I love retreats and I try to go to as many as I could afford. The retreats I like the best are the ones where I can work on any project i want to.

One of the views

This retreat is a cross stitch retreat so I worked primarily on my cross stitching. I stitched on Gamer and my MFE SAL daily as those are my primary projects. But one night I worked on Jeanette Douglass’ Cheerful.

Modern Folk Embroidery SAL 2022 – finished April’s clue

As I continue working on the MFE SAL I’m leaning more and more on stopping. I’m not loving the project as much as I had in the beginning and my time is limited. I am enjoying stitching 1×1 on 28 count. That is what keeps me going. However, I just finished the April clue and I’m 5 months behind. So it will take forever… maybe I’ll set it aside for right now.

Orient Express Shawl – chart #7

I continued to knit on my shawl daily. The rows are really long. I don’t want to do the calculations to figure out how many stitches there are per row right now as it will probably discourage me. So I just knit a row a day and admire my progress.

Gamer – another diagonal complete

And here’s Gamer! I really love working on her right now and it’s hard to put her away to work on something else. I know I should because I know myself. If I work on her too much I burn out and will set her aside for months. I don’t want to do that. I’ll keep working on her for this week and will switch to a different project on Sunday.

I worked on some needlepoint too but I forgot to take pictures of my progress.

I make a lot of progress at retreats because I can focus on just the projects I bring. and at this retreat we are spoiled with 3 meals a day so we don’t even have to think about what to eat.

I have a smaller retreat scheduled next month. It’s one where we go home every night but spend our days at a local quilt shop. This one is a quilt retreat and I bring so much more stuff for it. The projects are already in a suitcase because I work on specific retreat projects. The nice thing about this retreat is if I forget something I can bring it the next day.

Happy crafting friends

Melanie

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27

Mar. ’22

Back from the framers

I heard from my framer yesterday that my pieces were done so I ran over and picked them up.

Here is Mama’s Bukid – finished in March, 2020 right at the start of Covid. Thank goodness for this blog because if I relied on memory I would have thought I finished this a long time ago. And while it has been 2 years and for some that is a long time ago, my thoughts were more like 2018 not 2020. Anyway, I gave this to my mom that fall for her birthday unframed. My thought was that she would have it framed. But I know my mom would cheap out on a frame so I took it back in 2021 with the intention of framing it. I didn’t get to that task until last month. I chose a really good quality plexiglass because with real glass it would be really heavy. We didn’t want it to be heavy. And by really good, it is supposed to prevent 80% of UV rays from getting to the piece. There is museum quality glass (plexi?) that would prevent 100% but that would cause the price to skyrocket and while I think my piece is awesome, I don’t think it’s that awesome. 🙂

Mama’s Bukid – Framed

I’m sorry for the picture quality but the reflection of the light cannot be helped at this point. You’ll find better pictures on it’s personal page when it was not framed. Anyway, this is a finish and for that I’m thrilled. Can I count it as a finish for 2022 even though I counted it in 2020 as well? I will because I’m the boss of my blog. 🙂

I do plan to put a label on the back. While I’ve been very good at putting labels on my quilts, I’ve not labeled any of my cross stitch pieces and I’m planning to be better on that end going forward.

Inherited Piece – Save the stitches 2022

The picture really is bad here and I apologize. I was gifted on 2 occasions a number of UFOs from recently deceased crafters needlepoint projects. This one, while not complete, was practically finished. And without the pattern I could not do more unless I did more research. And with my own projects who has the time for that? I decided it was good enough and had it framed. I plan to give this to my mom who is bemoaning all her empty wall spaces that I am happy to fill. I will also put a label on the back with the stitcher’s name.

Happy stitching!

Melanie

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20

May. ’21

Cross Stitch: Gamer Nouveau

Gamer Nouveau 5/13/2021

Last week, Gamer came up on my Tiny Decisions App. And if you remember, my goal for 2021 was to finish row 3, which after some calculation, meant I would need to do ~700 stitches per week. I can tell you that that’s not going to happen. I struggled hard at the beginning of the year to do the 700 stitches per week and after a couple of months, put it away until now.

Here’s a close up of what I’ve worked on recently:

Gamer Nouveau 5/16/21

Happy Stitching!

~Melanie

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04

May. ’21

Cross Stitch: A new start – Bountiful Blossoms #2 – Cheerful

Last week, Cheerful was my xstitch project of the week.

This was a SAL (Stitch A-Long) with Off the Grid Needlework Podcast that was supposed to start last October 2020. I had planned to participate as October is my birthday month and I thought this would be my birthday 2020 start and treat. Well, last October we just moved into our home and I was just too busy to start the project. I added this to my tiny decisions app and last sunday, the app picked this project for me to work on.

Here is what it will grow up to be:

Designer: Jeannette Douglas

I’m using the called for silks and things on 32 count linen. I bought the kit from 123stitch.com.

Here is where I ended up at the end of the week:

Bountiful Blossoms #2 – Cheerful

I was able to stitch 4 days last week and I enjoyed stitching with the silk. I’m not sure if it’s worth all the money silk costs but we’ll see how it goes.

Hopefully I am able to continue stitching this week.

Stitch on my crafty friends!

Melanie

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27

Apr. ’21

Cross Stitch: Titania, Queen of the Faeries, an update – 4/27/2021

Last week, Titania was my xstitch project of the week.

The last time I posted a picture was from 9/17/2020, here is what it looked like: 

Mirabilia Titania 9/17/2020

And here is what it looks like when I put it away last night.

Mirabilia – Titania – 4/25/2021

I only worked on it once last week and that was it.

Since my stitching mojo has been seriously lacking the last several weeks, I’ve decided to go back to switching projects every Sunday. I use the tiny decisions app to pick my project, get it all ready on Sunday so that everything is set up the rest of the week. It makes it so much easier to get going (even though it’s hardly going at all).

Hopefully I’ll stitch more than once this week. 🙂

Stitch on my crafty friends!

Melanie

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02

Feb. ’21

Cross Stitch: Gamer Nouveau

Gamer Nouveau 1/31/21

Here’s a close up of what I’ve worked on recently:

Gamer Nouveau 1/31/21

And how it looked the last time I showed a picture of it.

Gamer Nouveau 1/6/2021

My goal for 2021 is through row 3 and I calculated the numbers, I have to do 100 stitches every day. Or, 700 stitches per week. I’m not sure if I can sustain those numbers working on one project every day but, so far, I’m on track. But I still need to finish row 2 which is where I’m at right now.

Happy Stitching!

~Melanie

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21

Jan. ’21

2021 cross stitch Plans

  1. 3rd row of Gamer. I’m working on finishing the 2nd row. I calculated it and I will need to do close to 100 stitches every day to finish the 3rd row of Gamer. Or I can stitch 700 stitches per week. Either is a lot of stitches and I’m not sure I have the mental wherewithal to stitch that much on one project. I am going to make a solid attempt and we’ll see where I’m at at the end of the month. 🙂

The rest of the projects pictured below are fun projects that I rotate through. My plan is to do a diagonal at a time and then when one diagonal is complete, to use my tiny decision app to pick the next project. Because I’m working on Gamer mostly this year, I don’t foresee getting much done on these projects and that’s okay.

A Stitch in Time HAED
Shades of Rose – Northern Expressions
Autumn Owls – HAED
Mirabilia – Titania
Tsuru Kame – 25 count – HAED
Unicorn – GeckoRouge

I know I have a bunch more that I failed to take pictures of at their current state. But I’m sure they will get posted as I work on them over this year.

Have a good stitchy day!

~Melanie

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30

Dec. ’20

Cross Stitch: A Stitch in Time, an update 12/30/2020

The last time I showed this project was back in April. I’ve made some progress.  Because of all the confetti (and all my other projects), my progress is super slow.  But here is where I am now.

A Stitch In Time Aimee Stewart Heaven and Earth Designs 25 Count, 1×1 12/30/3030

Here’s a close up of what I’ve worked on recently:

A Stitch In Time Aimee Stewart Heaven and Earth Designs 25 Count, 1×1 12/30/3030

And how it looked the last time I showed a picture of it.

A Stitch in Time
4/19/2020

I can’t believe I didn’t post more pictures. Especially when I finished the previous page. There are times where I have so much joy working on this project. and then there are times where I feel frustration. I like to finish a diagonal at a time, hoping that I only experience the joy and that I put this away before frustration sets in. Sometimes those days happen when I’m trying to finish a page and do more than I can mentally do on this project at a given time.

Happy Stitching!

~Melanie

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21

Dec. ’20

Cross Stitch Update: Tsuru Kame

Tsuru Kame
Artwork by: Haruyo Morita
Heaven and Earth Designs

 
Started: December 2018
 
Here’s what it looked like when I posted this last time in August, 2020.
 

Tsuru Kame
Designer: Haruyo Morita
Heaven and Earth Designs
8/18/2020

 
 
Here’s what it looks like now: 
 
Tsuru Kame
Designer: Haruyo Morita
Heaven and Earth Designs
12/21/2020

I’ve been doing about 100 stitches a day for the last few days on this project and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. But now the diagonal is complete and I put it away.

~Happy Stitching!

Melanie

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17

Sep. ’20

Cross Stitch, progressing along

A Kiss for Snowman
A dimensions gold kit
9/17/2020

I finally finished the cross stitch on this Dimensions kit. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. I still have to do the back stitch so that will come around at it’s next rotation. This is not my favorite WIP to work on.  It’s a 6″ square but there are a lot of blending floss together and using 1, 2, or 4 strands at a time so it took a lot of paying attention.  I’m really happy to have gotten the cross stitch done and I hope to get the back stitch finished soon as well.

Titania
Mirabilia
9/17/2020

I worked on Titania this week and got a few stitches done before I got bored and moved on. Most of my cross stitch I stitch to finish a diagonal but this is one of those exceptions. So I don’t think I get as much done because after a couple of days I want to move on.  I may have to count stitches on this one and make it so that I get a certain amount of stitches done when it comes up on the schedule.

Gamer Nouveau
09/17/2020

And then I worked on Gamer and got another diagonal complete. This is my favorite project to work on. The kit is offered by GeckoRouge and the designer is Medusa Dollmaker. My goal for this year was 6 pages and I will have to check out where I was in the beginning of the year to figure out how much I got done. I would be really happy if I could finish the row this year.

Gamer Nouveau
09/17/2020

 

Gamer Nouveau
09/17/2020

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