I completed the project on September 19. The day before the baby was due. She wasn't born until September 29. I delivered all of my handmade gifts October 3.
I framed the project with a simple white frame.
I also made a baby card,
ornament,
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| back |
and paper purse to hold the ornament using my Cricut Maker 3.
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| front |
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I had a lot of fun making items in pink. My gifts are not perfect, but neither am I. I'm still learning how to work with vinyl on ornaments. I prefer paper crafts (cards).
I have completed the top left corner of roses. I'm now over 75% done on this project.
I started stitching on this project a week ago today. I managed to stitch the bottom 2 verses of the poem on the first day and finished the top verse on the second day. Then a few days later I stitched the right hand and a few days after that I stitched the left hand.
I started a new project!! This is my 12th time stitching the Handprints poem for a baby.
Fabric is 28ct white evenweave (Charles Craft Monaco).
The nursery theme is Vintage Cottage Flowers (dusty rose, sage green and beige). I looked through all of my cross stitch books and magazines and found 4 really nice flower patterns to use around the handprints and poem. Mom-to-be chose one, so I am ready to stitch.
I had to recreate the patterns in my cross stitch software, so I could add the handprints and the poem to the design layouts. I have been using Pattern Maker by Hobbyware for about 20+ years for personalizing my projects.
I have created a new tab called Handprints. You can see how I personalized the poem for all of my family and friends. At the bottom of that page, you can also see all 4 flower design layouts I created for the Mom-to-be to choose from.
I finished the hummingbird project called Summer Sweets. Now to decide on a new project.
This is how much I got done yesterday (5 hrs). Today I will finish the last leaf and then start to backstitch all of the flowers and leaves.
Last time I stitched was on January 26th, but forgot to post an update. I am about to sit and stitch for a few hours. We’ll see how much I get done today.
I have had 2 long days of stitching on the Summer Sweets (hummingbird) project.
Sunday, January 12 (5 hours). I continued working on the hummingbird.
Friday, January 17 (5 1/2 hours). I completed the hummingbird and moved on to the pink flowers.
Today I just filled in a few blue stitches in the water and backstitched all of the birds. I’m so glad to finally have a finish. It is my first since 2023.
I managed to cross stitch 3 days in a row. Today I was busy cleaning up my craft room.
Wednesday I finished the clouds on the right and completed backstitching the lighthouse.
Thursday I filled in the ground on the right side and backstitched windows in the houses and the stairs in the middle. Sorry for the photo, it was too sunny and I got a lot of glare, which takes away from the project. I will take a better photo tomorrow hopefully when I stitch again.
I managed to do a few hours yesterday on the lighthouse project. I filled in more of the clouds on the right side and backstitching at the top of the lighthouse.
Here is latest my progress.
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I have always been a one at a time stitcher. I start a project and work on it until it is complete. Sometimes I would have 2 projects (1 big one at home, 1 smaller one for travelling). At the moment I have 2 projects on the go.
1. Home on the Point - I never did finish the lighthouse project. I don’t LOVE the pattern because there is a lot of blending of floss. It takes more time to try and figure out what colour to use and then I lose track of where I am on the canvas. I used to love the challenge of more colours, now I just want to see it finished. I don’t have all that much left to do for a finish. This is how it looks as of today.
This is what it is supposed to look like.
2. Summer Sweets - I bought this cross stitch kit 20+ years ago for my mom. I taught her how to cross stitch. She loved working on it. A family friend came for a visit who also stitches and thought she would work on my mom’s project.
First off, you never touch someone else’s cross stitch project without asking them.
Second, you don’t stitch on some else’s project unless they ask you for help or it is a round robin.
Anyways, my Mom was left handed and stitched opposite from me (X’s where reversed), the family friend obviously didn’t know the correct way to cross stitch because she crossed her X’s whatever direction she felt like doing. She upset my Mom so much that she never finished her project again and gave it to me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish her project because we stitch different and she only stitched on Aida and I only use evenweave. My Mom passed away 9 years ago, so I thought I’d start this project over for myself as a reminder of my Mom.
Here is what it will look like.
Here is my progress after a few hours on August 12.
3. If I manage to complete these 2 projects I would like to finally try hardanger. I will start by stitching a Christmas ornament for my tree. http://manya72.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html this site has some free Hardanger Christmas ornament patterns that I will try.
4. I also have 5 Just Nan mice to assemble. 3 Gingerbread mice (Santa, Mrs. Claus, Reindeer), and 2 witches ( Miss Witchy, Witchy’s Sister).
Other Hobbies in 2024.
READING - 1 read every day, so I managed to read 148 books (physical, e-books, and audio books). I also started a reading journal where I track the books I have read. I usually read 3 different Genres (Romance - pink, Romantic Suspense - blue, and Fantasy - green).
Dave & I don’t care to travel, so I try to read books taken place in different countries around the world. I have maps that I colour to show where the book takes place. Ex. Harry Potter takes place in England, so I coloured England in green. I’m trying to colour as many countries in the world.
PUZZLES - We built 4 x 1000pc puzzles and 1 x 1500pc puzzle.
2025 - We want to build 2 x 2000pc puzzles and 1 x 3000pc puzzle.
CRICUT - I bought myself a Cricut Maker 3 for Mother’s Day in May. It took me quite awhile to learn the software to design and create 11 Christmas cards and 19 birthday cards. Unfortunately, I live in Canada and the Post Office went on strike in November, so I couldn’t mail my Christmas cards to Dave’s family. We handed out to family and friends who live close.
GARDENING - We have 4 metal raised garden beds (2’ deep, 6’ long, 3’ high). They are the same length, depth and height as a 6 foot kitchen counter. This makes it easier to garden as we get older. Less bending to weed. We planted vegetables in all 4 of them as usual. We also added 2 more smaller plastic raised garden beds. When we had a turtle, she had an indoor pond where she lived and a temporary outdoor pond for her to get some fresh air in the summer. She has been gone for several years and I finally found a way to recycle her 2 ponds into raised garden beds. We just had to make 2 strong bases on wheels.
2025 - I want to create a pollinator/wildflower garden for the birds, bees and butterflies to enjoy.
WOODWORKING - Dave & I built a spice rack for the pantry door in our kitchen.
VIDEO GAMES - I still LOVE playing games on my Nintendo Switch. I am patiently awaiting a few new games and a brand new model of the Nintendo Switch coming sometime in 2025.
2023 was a productive year for stitching!
I stitched 16 different items in total this year.
Thank you Rachel at the Ten Hour Stitcher for hosting this SAL.
I stitched these 2 snowmen ornaments months ago. I fully finished them last month. The one on the left (pink & blue scarf) was mailed this week in a Christmas card to a video game friend in OHIO. I wanted an ornament that was flat to mail. The one on the right will go to my son Jordyn and daughter-in-law Sarah. I have given them an ornament every year since they met in 2014.
I started the first lighthouse on Saturday, August 25. It is called Home on the Point and was printed in the June 2001 issue of Just Cross Stitch.
Here is my progress from the weekend.
I was finally able to finish the Handprints - Woodland Animals project with baby info. Henry was born on August 17 (only 3 days late). Here is a photo to see how the fabric will look with it the wood frame. I still need to frame it properly, this was just to check the colour. The love how the frame matches the colours of the raccoon.
In the meantime, I have stitched 2 snowman ornaments. I have stitched this pattern in the past. I will mail one to a friend in OHIO (keep the 2nd one for a backup sometime), that is why I decided on this design because the ornament is flatter than most. You layer the 3 snowballs on top of each other.
I’ll try and build them for next months FFG along with assembling 5 mice.
I just found out that the files for the Letters From Hogwarts will be removed from Cunning Cross Stitch on August 31, 2023. Incase anyone would like to still stitch this project.
Stewart will be releasing a new stitch your own adventure on September 1, 2023. I'm excited to see what he has come up with this time.
I finished stitching the gingerbread reindeer mouse this afternoon.
I didn’t add whiskers to the reindeer mouse. After showing my daughter-in-law Sarah, the Santa and Mrs. Santa mice, she noticed I used black instead of white floss for the whiskers. I always make black whiskers, I wasn’t thinking about Santa’s white beard would have white whiskers.
So, I removed the black whiskers for now. I will add white ones when I assemble the 3 of them.
I thought 3 mice would be a fast stitch. I completed Gingerbread Santa Mouse last week, but too lazy to update my blog.
I just completed Gingerbread Mrs. Santa Mouse this afternoon.
Next I will start Gingerbread Reindeer Mouse.
