Coffee and Cross Stitch

Basketful of Summertime | Cross Stitch

I don't know about where you guys are, but the end of last week gave us a little taste of summer, and now I want it.  Bring me all the warmth and flowers and sunshine and poolside reading time.

This lovely piece is Basketful of Summertime by With Thy Needle and Thread.  This is yet another piece that was in timeout for a considerable amount of time.  I screwed up the basket somehow, and couldn't figure out where I'd made the mistake, so I packed it up and it sat on the end table for MONTHS.  A few weekends ago, I decided to see if I could finally find the mistake, and I did!  It wasn't as dire of a situation as I thought at the time, so I pulled out all the threads again and finished her up.

I stitched this on 35 ct WDW Confederate Grey.  This fabric is my nemesis because it's so limp and makes stitches crooked (annoyinggggg), but I love the color.

How cute is that little dog with the flag?!  Adorbs.

I haven't decided how I'll finish it...but it will likely be a small.  I went rummaging through my sewing fabrics the other day and found some good patriotic fabric to use as backing, so now I just need to get out my sewing machine and hop to it.  Look for the finished product here sometime in the next century.  ha.

That's it for today!  Here's to warmer, sunnier days ahead!

Patriotic Poppies | Cross Stitch

Well, it's been a minute since I got it together and posted something, so without going into alllllll the gory details of why these past six months have literally flown past my eyeballs, I'll just dive right into my latest finish.

Patriotic Poppies!

I've been holding onto this pattern for a long time now, and finally decided to just do it.  I have a few WIPs (but, i mean, for real, who doesn't...), and despite them all, I got this out after the new year and went to work.

I stitched this on 40 count Alchemy by Picture this Plus.  It's the perfect blue-grey to bring out the lovely shades of red, white, and blue of this piece.  I used all the called-for threads, with the exception of WDW Caper in one spot:  the sheep.  I thought it was inappropriate for him to have a green nose and legs (maybe older dye lots of Caper were more brown than green?), so I switched it out for GA Muddy Puddle.  Much better.  The graph also calls for you to make little wool felt poppies for I think two or three of the flowers (pattern to trace is included), but....I didn't really like that idea, so I took one of the reds used for the stitched poppies and instead stitched them in where the felt ones were supposed to go.  You'd never know ;-)

I've been on a bit of a patriotic kick lately - the more recent graphs I've purchased have pretty much all been patriotic ones - so I'll likely be posting more USA pride here in the next few months as I get working on them!  

Land of Liberty | Cross Stitch

Well, friends.  Here we are in August!  I can hardly believe it.  We've had some blistering hot days, but the past few days have been less humid with cooler days coming next week.  Summer so far has been busy; the weekends have been packed with activities, with work keeping the weekdays busy.  I am looking forward to vacation at the end of the summer, that's for sure!

This weekend looks like it's going to be beautiful, so I plan on heading out and enjoying the sunshine.  Perhaps a stroll through Georgetown is in order.  It's been a while since I've taken in the architecture of the city.

I've been doing a bit of stitching; more lately than the past few months, so I've actually gotten a few pieces completed.  

One is "Land of Liberty" by With Thy Needle and Thread.

I stitched this on 40 ct. Almond from Silkweaver.  I think it helps bring out the red, white, and blue in the flags and Uncle Sam's outfit.

I didn't like the color on the chart for the lettering - Heirloom Gold - so I switched it for Apple Cider.  Much better, I think.  I also changed the color of the pup - I used Hickory Sticks...so he kinda looks like Toto from The Wizard of Oz.  

There's never a bad time to be stitching patriotic-themed pieces, and I have quite a few more in my stash.  I'm still muscling through Shores of Hawk Run, and I've got a cute Country Cottage Needleworks Christmas piece I'm almost finished with, and Snow Queen that's been untouched for months (I found out the shaded areas don't actually overlap, so I need to copy one side and match it up...), so God only knows what I'll get myself into once I'm finished one of these in my WIP pile!!

Be Happy, Humble, & Kind

Being snowed in always sounds so wonderful.  Let's watch movies! Let's binge watch tv series we haven't gotten to yet!!  Let's sit and stitch for hours and hours because we can't get out!  Let's read tons of books from our book stack!!!

I'm here to tell you that I'm about ready to lose my mind.  I've been trapped inside since Friday thanks to one of the worst snowstorms DC has seen. I've finished one book, and I'm now bored with reading.  Stitching has almost lost its appeal.

Almost.

Thank God I had the foresight to stop at Starbucks on Friday morning before the sky dumped 30+ inches on us and got more ground coffee, because I wouldn't've survived.  Forget milk, bread, and eggs.  Coffee is the elixir of life.  

Last week, I sent a gift to one of my good friends from high school, who is now a real estate agent, as a thank you for helping me rent out my house when I moved here last year.  It wasn't a great time to sell, so she helped me find renters while I had already moved my life for a job in DC.  She was incredible.  There is absolutely no way I could have done that without her help.  None.  So, I had to make her something to show my gratitude and appreciation for all the work she did to help me while I was three states away.

Knowing her and her decorating style,  I picked a With Thy Needle and Thread piece that I knew would fit perfectly no matter where in her house she decided to hang it.

I love the blues and greys that make up the color theme of this piece.  

Her little shoes!!  I die.

The bees! I can't.

I stitched this on 36 ct. Confederate Grey from WDW.  You all know how I feel about WDW fabric, but I love Confederate Grey, so I muscled through.  It's such a great color, and wonderful for primitive pieces such as this.  It's a really great neutral.  Now, if we could just get them to use a tighter weave fabric for dying......

Happy Wednesday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas | Cross Stitch

Yeah, I know.  It's been looking like Christmas since before Halloween, but places are starting to put up their lights, so it's really starting to look Christmassy here :-)

If you couldn't guess, Christmas is my ABSOLUTE favorite time of year.  I'm a summer baby through-and-through, but Christmas makes me so happy I can hardly stand it.  The music, the lights, the decorations, the card making, the cookie baking, the mulled cider, the hot chocolate, ALL OF IT.  I want it to be always.  

But, then it wouldn't be such a special time of year, so I have to settle and only have it be during December. 

(sigh)

All this Christmas excitement has me pulling out some of my newer (to me) Christmas stitch patterns, like this one from With Thy Needle - 

 This is "Letters to Santa" and is adorbs.  I am in love with the snowmen and the giant candy cane in Santa's hand.

 

And the reindeer!  I die. (ps - this second shot is closer to what the fabric really looks like - the lighting distorted the top pic a little)

I haven't decided if I'm gonna frame this (I stitched it on 40 ct. Purely Primitive from Silkweaver, because the 22 ct called for in the graph is just too much.) - it's a 5x5 square - or make it into a small.  I pulled the green fabric from my sewing stash, just to see what it would look like with this piece, and I'm really torn.  I'll probably decide sometime in 2017 what to do with this, but until then, I'll just keep on stitching.  :-)

Are you guys working on anything for Christmas right now?!  Or are you already 2 seasons ahead of me and working on summer stuff???

Witch Hazel | Cross Stitch

Hello, my friends.

It's been far too long, so let's get to it.

I've been doing some pretty crazy amounts of creating lately, including this fun cross stitch number, named "Witch Hazel" by With Thy Needle and Thread.

Wicked cute, right??  I love the 'fraidy cat ;-)

This I stiched as a model for the shop - it was such a fun stitch, and really got me in the fall/Halloween mode.  

As it's 90 degrees today in Philly.  Go figure.

Happy Thursday, my friends!  I hope you have a wonderfully creative day!! 

Much love ~~

And...the winner is....??

Hello all you lovely people!

I am finally back to the land of the living (albiet barely) after being really sick all of last week.  My apologies to all of you who have been anxiously waiting for me to announce the winner of my giveaway which closed last Wednesday.

I thought it would be fun to have you all watch a lil' video of me drawing the winner, so guess what?!  That's precisely what I did!  

And then....YouTube was being a pain and I lost my patience.

So...instead of the lovely video I had planned for you all, I had to resort to a picture taken from the stills of the video --

 

The winner!!!

 

MrsCourtneyP!  Congratulations!  Email me your address so I can ship this out to you ASAP!  :-)

You can see the jar in the background where I had everyone's names who left me a comment on the post (or sent me an email). 

THANK YOU ALL for participating!!!  I hope to have another giveaway very soon....because I love making stuff....and I love giving it away :-)

Much love ~~~

March "Word Play"

It's finished!!  Well, I finished the stitching...but I haven't actually done the finish work on it yet.  

Isn't that always the way, though??  We all stitch all these beautiful pieces, and then they end up all in a flat pile (to avoid creases and being ruined, of course) waiting to be properly finished.  

I'm really trying to finish all the pieces I do, even though it's so hard to keep up, especially when SO many cute new patterns come out which you HAVE to have.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a perpetual starter.  I finish the stitching on all the projects, I just seem to stop there.  I don't make them into ornaments.  I don't frame them.  I don't make them into little smalls.   I just start a new project.  

I need to get better at this.

There she is!!  March "Word Play"!!  I love the fibers used for the clovers -- it's called School Yard from CC, and it's a blend of green and brown.  So cool.  The keys that seem to be making an appearance in all of these graphs are so cool.  They remind me of big, iron skeleton keys that would be used back in like, the middle ages or something, to open a cell door in the Tower of London.  

Yes, that's where my mind goes.  Medieval England.  I can't help it.  That period of European history totally fascinates me.

I digress....

This is kinda bright, but I wanted to give you a close-up of some of the stitching.  Like I've said before, I'm totally in love with this series.  I've been working on them in between putting stitches in the big, big project I'm working on.  No sneak peeks on that till the summer.  Just me talking about it.  And I'm not even really talking about it, I'm just mentioning it.  Again.  I don't want you to think I'm not stitching with all of the crazy scrapbooking and cardmaking i've been doing.  Fear not -- my needle and thread have been close to me at all times.  I just can't reveal what I'm working on.

I'm sorry -- but those lambs are SO stinkin' cuteeeeee!!!!!!!  Love them.  LOVE.

I find that there's always one thing in these graphs that just makes me love them even more.  In the February one, it was the flowers.  In this one, it's the lambies.  Who knows which one in "April" will speak to me!

That's all I have for today, dear stitchers!!!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!  Mine will be filled with first bday parties and wedding/bridal shower goodies.

Until next week, happy stitching!!!

~~~~ J

I should have just started all over with today....tomorrow.

Ever have one of those days where you wish you could just have a time-turner and start all over again???

Today was totes one of those days.

I was watching the news while I got ready for work, as per usual, and during the traffic report they said that Rt. 1 northbound was closed.  All three lanes.  Shut down.  Accident.  At least I found out before I left the house, amiright?

Bad news is, I had to take the only other route to work, which literally takes me all around the outskirts of the city.  Yes, there are quite literally only 2 ways for me to get to work.  NOT good when you work in/around a major city.  So, even though I didn't hit any traffic on my way to work (thank you Action News!), it took me a solid 20 minutes extra because I had to go all the way around the city.  I did get to see my favorite place to be in the summer --- Citizens Bank Park --- and got super excited that opening day is LESS THAN A MONTH AWAY!!!  WOOP!!

So, that happened.  20 minutes extra on the trip to work.  Then, to make matters slightly worse (after jinxing myself, of course), I got the heel of my shoe caught between the sidewalk cracks, and it scraped the leather off my heel.  AWESOME.  That was at 0800, and I still had a solid 9 hours of the day to go.  Amazing.  

Needless to say, when I got home, I needed nothing more than some tunes and my craft room.  Like whoa.   

First up -- the finishing touches on this frame for the pic of the gals at D's wedding in October --

The theme for her wedding was pumpkins, and her bridesmaids were in black dresses with hot pink shoes, so I used the black & pink to keep with the feel of the night.  Her wedding was SO much fun.  Seriously.  A total blast.  Can't wait to celebrate with these girls again at my sister's wedding!! :-)

Next up -- some cards I made --

This one came out way cooler than I thought it would.  I got a window punch a week or so ago, and am still getting the hang of it, so I think this turned out pretty good for a first-timer!  I stamped the "Merci" on a piece of grey paper over and over (not always re-inking), and then put the window on top for the layered effect.  Pretty cool, right?!

Here again with the window effect, I just swapped the square for a circle, and just used it as a little addition in the corner.  Not too much, but just enough.  I find that with this pack of cards I got, you don't need to add too many adornments to make it really special.

I have a ton more of these thank yous, which I swore I posted here somewhere, but can't find the post to give you a link back.  Maybe I dreamt I posted them.  Altogether possible.  Anyways....they're going to be part of my shower gift to my sister, which she can then use for either the shower or for her wedding thank you's.

Um....how ADORBS did this come out??!!?!  This is for my friend's baby, we'll call her T-girl.  Her 1st bday is coming up, and I clearly had to make her a very special card for the occasion.  The base card is from my favorite paper store and yours, Paper Source.  I believe I got them on sale, so they may not have these particular ones anymore, but I'm sure they have something similar.  I also got the bday cake stamp there.  So funky and fun.

 And you have all been so patiently waiting for me to show at least one cross stitch WIP, so wait no more.

For those of you obsessed with the With Thy Needle and Thread "Word Play" series as much as I am, you'll know that this WIP is "March."  I seriously love this series.  Love.  They're so simple, yet so....nice.  I don't know how else to say it.  I just love each one so far.  "April" just came out, so I'll have to get that...hopefully this weekend.   This pic came out kinda dark, and I apologize for that, but I just couldn't get it any brighter so you could see the fiber colors.  I'm stitching it on 40 count "Purely Primitive" by Silkweaver.  At least...I think that's the name.  I know it has "Primitive" in the name.  Man.  I need a vacay.

Alright peeps.  That's all I got for now.  Do something creative today!! Stitch your hearts out!

Much love ~ ~ ~

PS - before you even ask...all my pics were taken using Instagram....my new obsession.....
 

February.

I said it before, I'll say it again...holy crap on a cracker. (bonus points to the follower who can cite where i got my new favorite saying)  February is almost over.  I still can't believe it.  Easter will soon be here.  How do I know that?  Well, it's not because the weather is getting warmer -- it never really got all that cold here in Philly.  I'm not complaining because I cannot stand winter, but it kinda freaks me out.  Not gonna lie.  We've hovered in the high 40's low 50's almost all winter.  Weird.  

But back to my question - how do I know Easter is almost here?  Today is Fat Tuesday, which means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which means today I should have made a gluten-free version of all these fantastic cakes I keep seeing pics of to celebrate Mardis Gras.  But then I'd have to schedule in baking time between putting laundry into the washer, and walking up the steps.  Not enough time.

I seriously need a time-turner.  

In all this time I've been absent from the blogosphere, I've been doing some stitching, doing a lot of papercrafting/scrapbooking/cardmaking (go here to see the "Save the Dates" I made for my sister in case you missed them), and trying to keep it all straight.  Oh, and I got a cold in there somewhere, so I was out of commission for a few days, but I'm back in the saddle.  I'm still a little congested, but I'm hoping tomorrow I'll be back in my workout routine.

Today I'm going to share a recent finish I did from the "Word Play" series by Brenda over at With Thy Needle and Thread.   I'll be honest - I didn't expect to like this series.  At all.  In fact, I thought this was another prim design series that I just wouldn't be able to stand; however, I really, really like this series.  Like, a lot a lot.  I have all of them so far (October through February - March isn't out just yet), and can't wait to get started on the next one.  

I've been collecting a bunch of "smalls" that I've been working on, since I want to make a cutie little basket for display in my living room.  I plan on using this series as part of the display so I can have a theme of sorts, and I can switch up the other "smalls" in the basket to accompany the month as it applies.  You know, have Easter-themed "smalls" during March and April, maybe throw a St. Patty's Day "small" in there, too (remember this???); flags during the summer for all the Americana holidays; Halloween ones during October...I think you get the picture.  I'll take one once I can get my act together and create this wonderful basket of stitched goodies.  Ha!

OK so finalllllyyyyyyyy.....here is the pic of my finished "February" --

I haven't stuffed it yet, nor have I put the piping around the edges like I want (clearly), but at least I sewed the backing fabric on!  That's quite the accomplishment.  Trust me!  Also - a word to the wise - see that teeny tiny opening at the bottom right?  The one not much wider than the width of my pinky finger?  Leave yourself a little more room than that for turning the piece inside-out.  Jusssst wanted to throw that out there...

Like I said before, I really like this series.  This February isn't too Valentine-y, not all red, and very earthy.  Like I was just telling one of my dear stitching friends, I find my tastes in cross stitch patterns are changing, and I find myself drawn to these more earthy, primitive designs. 

Faboo!!  Something about those keys really draws me in.  I'm kinda obsessed with this old theme of keys.  Not sure why.  But I am.  I feel a pattern in the making.

Seriously though, peeps, love this pattern and all the rest of them that have been released.

Here's a shocker for you all -- I didn't change any of the floss colors this time.  I know, right.  As I wait for all my friends to pick themselves up off the floor, I'll explain - I didn't want it to lose its primitive feel.  So, I felt that the Crescent Color earth tones that Brenda chose were appropriate (although, i'll admit, it was really, REALLY hard for me to leave the word "february" blue.  i almost changed it to a shade of red.), and therefore, I kept them all.

I did change the fabric, though, which is almost a given at this point.  I chose 40 count "Cider" by Silkweaver.  Awesome.  Also brings my giant stash down to 36 lifetimes v. 42 lifetimes' worth.  Gotta keep pluggin' away at that 40 count stash.   The finished stitched area ends up at 4" high x 6.25" wide if you use 40 count.

Before I go, I want to leave you with a small aside - I'm working on a big project at the moment, but unfortunately cannot reveal any sneak peeks or any details other than this --

I hope to be able to post other little projects I'm also working on in between completing chunks of this, but for now, this picture is all I can reveal.  I know some of you are hating right now, but you'll just have to wait until I have the finished product framed :-)

Until next time...

Love and stiches ~ ~ ~