Coffee and Cross Stitch

OMG. Shoes.

In my last post with my sister's wedding gift, I made a comment about our hotttt yellow shoes that us bridesmaids wore with our pewter dresses.  I didn't want to distract from the stitched piece, so I didn't post a pic.

Enter this post.  It's all about shoes.  OMG.  Shoes.

Mine are on the left - one of the other bridesmaids wore the ones on the right.  Holy hotttt amiright???  Those babies were a solid 4 inches high, with a platform.  

The obligatory "get in a circle and take a pic of your shoes" shot. 

Picture time on the front lawn!

And all our bouquets, purses, and shoes, lined up in the limo on the way to the reception.

Fun, right??!!!!

I really need to find somewhere else to wear those shoes....

 

 

 

So, There Was This Wedding... | Cross Stitch

It was my little sister's, and she looked beautiful.

Naturally, I had to stitch something that fully captured her on this day, which was no easy task.

I was able to find a pattern, and made some changes so it was more personal; more....her.

This is a Lavender and Lace pattern called "The Wedding".  If you click the link, you'll see an obvious change I made to the original graph - I took out the flower girl.  My sis didn't have a flower girl, so I didn't really see the point in having her there...plus...she kinda creeped me out back there.  Just sayin'.  Also, I took out the veil, since my sis didn't wear one.  Andddd....it looked like ribbon dancers (who else remembers them?!!!?) exploded from her hair.  No thanks.

Here's a quick close-up of the frame -

Love the detail on this frame - it's not too much, but just enough to accent the piece.

For my version of this gorgeous piece, I changed the color of the flowers to yellow, since the color of the flowers in our bouquets was yellow (as were our shoes...hottttt....), and I changed the ribbons to grey, since our bridesmaids' dresses were pewter.

I quickly became obsessed with the folds in the dress....they look so fluffy and fun :-)  And the beads on the bottom give the illusion of lace along the bottom edge.

A close-up of the bride and groom....

Like with the flowers on the dress and the bouquet in the bride's hand, I changed the color of the flowers pouring out of the "U" in the wording at the top.  I changed the gold thread from the DMC called for in the pattern to a Kreinik.  I hate Kreinik threads with a firey passion, but sometimes, there's just no way around it - you have to stitch with them to create the look.

I wanted this to be perfect, so there was a lot of ripping out & doing over, but I think it turned out just how I envisioned.  Simple, elegant, and classic.  

And the bride is in a poofy dress...just like Cinderella would wear...and I'm sure that's exactly how my lil sis felt that day - just like a princess :-)

So, there ya have it, folks.  The long-awaited lil' sis wedding gift!  It was torture not being able to show WIPs to you all, but I do hope it was worth the wait !!

 

Much love ~~~

I Bonded With Color Shine Last Night | Scrapbooking

Holy crap, you guys.  Holy crap.

I don't know how many of you dabble in scrapbooking, but one of my fav designers, Heidi Swapp (you may remember me being stupid excited to make this mini album from scratch using one of her tutorials), has a line of paper called Color Magic, and mists called Color Shine.  

I'm legit obsessed with the gold.  True story.  I may need an intervention.

Anyways.  The paper has this...magic...quality to it where only some of it absorbs the color of the shine that you  use.

Observe - 

Do you see that???  The color is all over the letters, except for the dots around the center.

Hello!!!!  That heart sticker?!!!??  Purple + gold = obsessed.  See how it zig-zags & the color is only on part of it??  Seriously. LOVE.

You may recognize this album....it's the one I made from scratch using Heidi's tutorial.  I finalllyyyyyy found a use for it - I'm going to make it sorta like a SMASH book with all my Instagram shots I've taken and had printed from last  year.  {ps - for those of you looking for an awesomesauce printing company for your Instapics, Persnickety Prints is AMAZEBALLS.}

Not even kidding.  I think everything will be purple and gold.  OB.SESS.ED.

 

"Amazing" stamp by Kelly Purkey; "created" date stamp by Amy Tangerine

Clearly, I have more work to do, but I had to walk away from the Color Shine.  It was getting out of control.

 

 

 

A New Blackbird Designs WIP | Cross Stitch

So, as most of you know, I've been working on some pretty gihugic pieces lately - my sis's wedding gift, and Quaker Christmas II.  

Since I stiched up that little coffee beaded piece wayyyy quicker than I thought, I clearly needed a small piece that would take me a little teeny bit longer to finish, but not quite an entire year, like the other biggies I'm working on.

Enter: Blackbird Designs' "Rose Garden".

 The original graph calls for a light fabric with a pink fiber...but, as you should know by now, I'm all about switching that up.  Since this is a one color pattern, it was really easy to make whatever change I wanted.

As you can see from the pic, I did the complete opposite of the graph instructions.  I mean, why the hell not?   Change it up - make it your own - that's what you need to do with some of these patterns.  If you don't like what the picture is telling you, change it!!!

I'm stitching this bad boy on 40 ct. Brandied Apple from Silkweaver using Shaker Threads Lambswool.  The color variation in the thread is just enough to be noticeable, but not overwhelming, and the overall color blends soooo nicely with this fabric.  

I've had this fabric around for a while, not knowing quite what to use it for, but this is working out perfectly!

What do you guys think?  I'm not big on pink fabric, but this one is growing on me, especially for this piece.

Much love ~~~

 

Happy St. Patty's Day! | Cross Stitch

Yeah, I know.  I'm a day late.  Better late than never, though, right?!  Besides, I'm late for ev-a-ry-thing, so late with a holiday wish should be no surprise.  HA.

I didn't do any special projects this year for St. Patty's Day, but I dug up this old post from 2 years ago, which has a cute little shamrock freebie from Paulette over at Plum Street Samplers, and is a super quick stitch.  Somewhere in that post I make some outrageous claim about doing the finish work on it so I could put it out for the following year (meaning 2012) to celebrate the holiday. 

Ummmm.......it's still in my "to be finished" pile.

Ahem.

Also, in case you missed it, I posted a St. Patty's Day model finish for my LNS the other day, so be sure to check that out, too!!

Have a fabulous Monday!!!

{note: to download your own copy of the freebie, head to Paulette's site, click on "freebie" in the category list on the right hand side, and scroll until you find it}

 

A Weekend Stitchy Post | Cross Stitch

Hello all :-)

It's a dreary Saturday here in March, but since tomorrow is St. Patty's Day, I thought I'd share this cute little model finish I did for my LNS, The Strawberry Sampler.

As if I don't have enough to do these days in my project room (including fixing the table I do my work on...but fixing is low on the priority level when there are so many things to be creating instead....), I'll be doing model finishing for The Strawberry Sampler.  

As an alternative to framing this fun piece, I decided to make it a little quilt wall hanging.  The stitched piece is 7 x 7 square, and with the fabric frame, it's a total of 9 x 9 square.  I used a dowel I had on hand to hang it for this pic, but you could use anything to hang it - a finished fabric strip, ribbon, cording, anything!

If you're in the DelCo area (outside Philly), stop in the shop!  More of my model finishes will be arriving at the shop soon!  I'm SO EXCITED to be working with those ladies and sharing my creativity with you all in the "real world" in addition to here in my little piece of bloggerville!!  :-)

Happy weekend, everyone!  Do something creative today!!!

Much love ~~~

A Heads Up To All My Lovely Followers

I just saw in my Typepad feed that Google Reader will be going away as of 1 July 13.

I know many of you use Google Reader for my posts and other blogs you follow, so I wanted to share the Typepad post I read which shares some great alternatives.  I tried them, and my personal favorite is Feedly - it's super user-friendly, and I like the interface. 

Anyways - I wanted to share so you're all aware, and so you have time to pick which feed reader you like so you can make sure you continue to get all my faboo posts :-)

Here's the link to the article:  
http://everything.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/five-great-alternatives-to-google-reader.html

Much love ~~~

(Almost) Instant Gratification | Cross Stitch

I don't know about you guys, but when I'm stitching larger-than-life projects like Quaker Christmas II, I need to have smaller projects around me that I work on when I need a break.  

I always seem to stitch those smaller projects with lightning speed, and they're done in no time.

This past weekend, I took out one of my beaded kits to work on, and was done in no time.

Might've also been the gallons of coffee I was drinking whilst stitching a project about coffee that made it go a little faster.

God, I love coffee.

 

A Quaker Christmas II WIP Update | Cross Stitch

Cross stitch WIP update, peeps!!

As evidenced by a post earlier in the week, I've been feverishly working on putting the final touches on my sis's wedding gift (I SWEAR - i know i've been saying that for what feels like decades, but i swear it's true. i had a sliiiiight issue with the color shading i did for the ribbons, so i had to rip it ALL OUT, and redo it. holy sore fingertips.), but in the moments when I couldn't bear to look at anymore white stitches, I picked up my Quaker Christmas II - Songs of the Season.

I'm completely obsessed with this piece.  I love anything and everything Christmas, but this is seriously my favorite Christmas piece that I've ever done.

I honestly can't remember how long it's been since I gave a WIP update on this piece, but I have a feeling there's a ton more stitched than last time.  I'm stitching down the left and then across.  Kinda tough to tell, since I filled in a lot up in the top portion, but I want to go across as I finish it so I'm not fighting with too much excess fabric by the time I'm almost done.  I'm stitching in-hand on 40 count Cider (which sounded like a reeeeally good idea at the time, and it looks a-may-zing as i'm stitching, but it's SO TINY. so tiny.), so there's a lot of fabric to fight with as i go blind making all those tiny x's.

I absolutely love how the song titles are done in green against all that red.  And that red is so variegated and different with each stitch - it just looks so.damn.pretty.  I also love how the song titles interspersed throughout include some that we don't always hear all that often, such as "Star of Wonder".

This is the bottom left corner - I lov how the motif to the bottom right of "Joy to the World" has a heart in the center. 

And I'm not quite sure why, but I L.O.V.E. this star.  Maybe it's the lining on the inside, before heading towards the center....maybe it's how it kinda looks like a poinsettia flower....I don't know.  I just love it.

But this teeny tiny Christmas tree???!!!!  Obsessed.  I love this little guy.  Love.

:-)

I don't know about you all, but I have spring fever like WHOA.  I may have to pick up a spring/summer themed piece after I'm done sis's gift to contrast with this piece.  I need to be thinking about the beach!  And umbrella drinks!!  Come on, summer!!!!!

Happy stitching!!  :-)

Much love ~~~~

The Final Wedding Sneak | Cross Stitch

I can finally take this for framing :-)

The next time I post about this piece, it'll be the full reveal.  Swear.

Much love ~~~