Summer Sweets - Happy Dance

 I finished the hummingbird project called Summer Sweets.  Now to decide on a new project.

Lighthouse - Happy Dance

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.

Fully Finished Gallery - July 2023

 

Thanks to Rachel over at Ten Hour Stitcher for this monthly SAL. This is the first time I’m participating this year because it is my first big finish of the year. My husband Dave requested a wall hanging to replace the winter snowman one, so this is what he got.

I made it into a quilted wall hanging. It is bigger than I pictured in my mind but I had to use more butterfly fabric between each flower or you wouldn’t see much of the butterflies. I thought a metre of fabric was enough but that only did the front. I found some purple fabric in my sewing stash.

I watched a video on How To Make a Flanged Pillow by the Twisted Stitcher (Vonna Pfeiffer). She taught me how to make sure my evenweave fabric was cut straight. I used the pulling a thread method instead of the rotary cutter because my fabric was crooked. This way I knew I’d have the same amount of threads all around the square flowers. 

December - poinsettia

 I just completed the last monthly flower.

Next week I will assemble the 12 monthly flowers into a wall hanging.

November - chrysanthemum - Happy Dance

 I just completed another monthly flower. I’m on vacation for the next 2 weeks, so I may not have time to start the last flower until I get home.

October - calendula (happy dance)

 I was able to finish the flower this evening.

2023

 Happy (late) New Year!

I am still cross stitching, but just terrible at blogging.  I started a new project for my husband.  He asked me to stitch something to hang on the wall that isn’t winter themed because I already have a winter wall hanging (Snowman Wisdom) and he wants to replace it during the other seasons of the year.  So I looked through my computer files and thought flowers would be nice to look at throughout the other parts of the year.  You can find the free monthly flowers by Ellen Maurer-Stroh on her website.

This is what the flowers look like (I borrowed these images from her website. 

I plan on doing 2 columns of 6 flowers. This is the butterfly fabric I will be using in between each square. I couldn’t find one with brown, but I think it will be fine with the flowers.

The pattern calls for DMC 3864 for the square borders (outside and inside), but I used DMC 3862 (a bit darker) for the outside double border and the DMC 3864 for the inside square border instead.

January - Carnations (Nov 14-23, 2022)

May - Lily of the valley (Dec 2, 2022 - Jan 5, 2023)

February - Violets (Jan 5-13, 2023)

March - Daffodils (Jan 15-19, 2023).  This is the only pattern so far that has backstitching.

April - Sweet Peas (Jan 19-27, 2023)

June - Wild Rose (Jan 27 - Feb 1). I added the backstitching because I thought it needed it. Might go back and add to the other flowers, but not sure yet.

I am thinking of participating in the 2023 Botanical Blackwork SAL at The Steady Thread. I have joined their Facebook page and am watching everyone else to see if I want to commit to the project.  It is 47 weeks long.  There are 2 versions (square and hexagon) with different border options to make the project more personal for everyone.  I’m planning mine out first on my computer to see which border and extra items to add to it in case I want to join in.  It won’t take long to catch up on blackwork.

Miss Witchy and her Sister - Happy Dance

Last night, I finally completed the two witch mice.  I will cut the whiskers to the right size after they are assembled.

Miss Witchy Mouse

Miss Witchy’s Sister Mouse

Animal Crossing - Green Joy Con Controller - Happy Dance!!

I can’t believe I finally finished the green joy con controller.  It seems like I have been stitching it forever.  I used 4 full skeins of DMC 954 plus whatever was already on my bobbin (not sure if it was 3/4 or a full skein).  

I love the how the green looks. I wish I had chosen a different blue (even though it matches my real switch) because it is hard to see it against the blue fabric.

My goal is to finish the blue joy con controller by the end of May.  June 1, I want to start stitching the monthly characters (by then I’ll have 5 to stitch).

Animal Crossing - JewelBeach & Jade - Happy Dance

Sunday, I finished Jade's head (that's all I designed) and then backstitched my island name JewelBeach. I love how these turned out.  I did change the eyes a bit as I was stitching them.  I tried blending a green and brown strand of floss for hazel eyes, but didn't like the way they looked, so I stitched green around the outside of eyeball and brown on the inside.  I like it much better this way.

I started stitching on my island. I stitched one of the rocks to get my count correct.  I will alternate between doing the rocks along the top (back of my island), the sandy beach around the outside of the island (left, front and right sides), and the green grass map area on the inside of the island.  Hopefully if I do little areas, I will be able to count and less frogging.  

Here is a closeup of my island start.  I changed the colour of the rocks from 452 (beige) to 413 (dark grey).

This is a closeup of how the grass looks like in the Animal Crossing game.  There are 3 different colours.  Stewart also designed the grass map area with 3 different colours.  Main green (704), lighter triangles (471) and darker triangles (310).  I am already doing so much more stitching on this project, that I decided to make my life easier and blend 2 greens together 1 strand of 704 + 1 strand of 471 to make the grass pattern.  Personally, I think the black is too much of a contrast to the greens.

Here is a closeup of Jade standing on the sandy beach in the game.  Stewart’s design uses 3855 (yellow gold colour).  I am also going to try blending  1 strand of 3855 + 1 strand of 437 (light brown).  We’ll see how I like it after I cross the half stitches I did on the top portion of the beach area.

SYOA - Harry Potter Letters From Hogwarts - Happy Dance!!

It has been a wonderful adventure this year at Hogwarts.  I started on January 25 (after receiving my fabric order) and finished yesterday on December 27. For awhile, because of all of the items I kept adding to the project I never expected to finish it in 2020. I felt like I needed to keep adding more stuff because this was going to be the only Harry Potter project I will ever cross stitch. I have LOVED every stitch I made and/or frogged to make this the most perfect personal completed project. I’m going to really miss working on this project.

Completed project. I plan on framing it with a simple black frame. I want to enjoy all of the colours in the project.

Top banner.

The 6 Chapters.

Bottom banner.

Peppermint Purple (Green) - Happy Dance!!

Today the last block (week 52) was released on Peppermint Purple Facebook Group.  I decided to complete this project before going back to SYOA tonight.

SYOA - Phoenix - Happy Dance!

I did complete the phoenix on Sunday, but it was too dark at night and yesterday was also dark and dreary with lots of rain.  Last night the rain turned into snow and today it is still snowing, but it is bright outside.  I finally got some more photos of my project.

The phoenix up close above Hogwarts.  I only had to substitute one floss colour.  It called for using Kreinik Vintage Amber, but I swapped it for DMC 3829 on his chest and wings.

Here is the top portion.  Do you think it needs some floating envelopes above the Knight Bus, Hogwarts and the Hogwarts Express Train to fill in the empty spaces?  The project is called Letters From Hogwarts.

This is my layout idea with the letters. Let me know if you think it is too much.  Do I really need them?  That would save me some stitching. :). Yes, the letter in the phoenix’s claws says SYOA AC2021, because I’m not expecting to finish this until early 2021.  Unless I get everything completed in the next 4 weeks.

Here is a photo of my wand with the 4 small house crests.

And finally the whole project so far.

SYOA - Chapter 6 - Smoke & Wand - Happy Dances

Yesterday I stitched the smoke above the train.  I chose the same dark (DMC 04) and medium (DMC 03) grey that I used on the brick wall in The Three Broomsticks.  Then I added a lighter (DMC 02) grey to go with them.

Today I stitched my wand.  I tried to make the handle look like tree bark and the shaft to look like the inside part of the tree.  I’m happy with how it looks.

That is 2 things off my list.  Next will be the phoenix, but it will take me a few days.  My goal is to have it completed by the end of the weekend.

SYOA - Chapter 6 - Happy Dance

I finally finished Chapter 6 and I love how it turned out. It is one of my favourite parts of this project.

I thought you might like to see the whole project.

I have 10 or 11 more things to stitch and then it will be complete.

1. Wand (open space under the snitch and broom)
2. Smoke above train so the train on the right side will be balanced with the Knight Bus on the left
3. Phoenix (above Hogwarts castle)
4. Flying letters at the top (not sure yet, will decide after seeing the smoke and phoenix)
5. Book 1
6. Book 2
7. Book 3
8. Book 4
9. Book 5
10. Book 6 
11. Book 7

I have 5 more weeks until the end of the year and I do love a stitching deadline.  Let’s see how much I can get done by the end of 2020.

SYOA - Knight Bus - Happy Dance

I can’t believe how long it took me to stitch the Knight Bus.  It looks so straight forward by my design.  My computer screen shows the floss colours different than in real life, so I had to change the floss on my design as I was test stitching it.  I’m very happy with the results, even with all of the frogging.

Here is the Knight Bus when we last left off.  My oldest son Jaspar complained he couldn’t read the light green letters on the pink sign.  He said it was like doing one of those colour blind tests, so of course the perfectionist in me had to frog all of the letters (and green backstitching that you can’t see in the photo). At first I tried to backstitch the letters with dark green in stead of frogging, but hated the look, so after frogging I went with a dark green (699) without backstitching (to save a little bit of time.  As you can see in the 2 photos below, the dark green letters are a lot easier to read.

This morning I finished the Knight Bus letters.  The backstitching got lost, so I used long stitches instead to create letters.

Here is the whole project so far.  If you are wondering how large this project is, the photo is taken with the fabric tucked into my reclining chair seat.  It takes up the whole seat area and I will be adding more to the top portion and bottom portion, so it will be really long when completed sometime next year. 

I thought I was getting closer to finishing the top portion, but Jaspar said the train looks like it needs something above it to balance it with the long flat top on the Knight Bus.  I only wanted to add designs that were either Stewart Cunningham’s originals or my own, but someone did create a design for smoke billowing out of the top of the train.  So to save me time with reinventing the wheel as they say, I will use their free design that was posted on the Facebook group.  I love asking my sons’ for their opinions on my projects, even though it does usually mean I will be doing more work.  :)

Miss Ghostly Pumpkin Mouse - Happy Dance

I just finished the Autumn Mouse.  I’ll try to assemble the mouse sometime this week.

SYOA - Hogwarts Express Train - Happy Dance

I have just completed the Hogwarts Express Train.  There was no back stitching instructions on the chart Stewart created.  I had to put them where I thought they should be.  I followed what some other stitchers did and I also added some extra lines myself.  I will leave it for now and look at it for awhile to see if I need to add anymore back stitching.  Some stitchers have added smoke I’m not sure if I will or not.  If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.  As I’m typing this I realized I forgot to add the 5972 number of the train.  I will add that tomorrow.

SYOA - Hogwarts - Happy Dance

Last night I finished all of the back stitching.  No stitching tonight, I’m tired from staying up late too many nights in a row..

SYOA - Hogwarts House Crest - Revision

I know that I said Chapter 1 was finished and it is ... but the more I looked at the Hogwarts House Crest the more I wasn’t happy with it.  I didn’t like the light yellow that goes all away around the letter H.

Hogwarts House Crest before with the light yellow border around the letter H.

I had to frog all 4 colours (Red/Green/Gold/Blue) because of the 1/4 stitches.  It was easier and faster to pull all of them and leave the letter H and border.

Here is the Hogwarts House Crest after without the light yellow.  All 4 colours meet in the middle with the letter H.  It was worth the frogging, I like it much better because now you can see more of the 4 house colours.