Peaceful Silhouette

Peaceful Silhouette by Dimensions

stitched from a kit with included threads and fabrics

I'll be back in a few days with some pics from a recent Fair & Square exchange, but I am going through my draft posts trying to breathe some life into this blog.  Meanwhile, enjoy this piece from Mr. SweetPea, something he stitched up a few years ago and gifted to his brother (another one we failed to take a photo of once it was framed).

Mr. SweetPea doesn't fool around and often takes on more ambitious projects (and still manages to finish a few of them before I get through some of my smaller projects!).  To be honest, all these shades of brown and tan probably would have driven me batty, but he seemed to enjoy the process.  It is indeed a peaceful scene, though!

As for me, I've been very busy with Little Dude back in preschool and going back to work myself.  We're on the go all week, and try to do fun things with Little Dude on the weekends.  It's our favorite time of year to be out and about and we've been very fortunate to have some beautiful weather in the northeastern US.  Sadly, my stitching time has diminished.  I've been going to bed earlier (5:30 am comes quick!) and I'm a lot more tired at night, so I limit how much time I spend on my pieces because I'd rather not be endlessly ripping out mistakes.

But as I mentioned, I do have a F&S exchange to post, so you'll be seeing that soon.

Fly away, butterfly

Back to sharing some of the finished pieces I haven't blogged about yet (or framed). These two are both by Mr. SweetPea, and they're both from Dimensions kits from our early stitching years.

Exotic Butterflies by Dimensions

Obviously it's not the best photo, and the silvery frame on the piece itself is a bit off, but it's still a pretty piece. I'm thinking this might look nice in our living room since we have some stained glass pieces we inherited from Mr. Sweet Pea's grandparents already hanging there.  One in particular is a pretty blue and pink bird piece that echoes some of the colors of this one.




The second piece is Butterfly Triplex, also by Dimensions.  This piece coordinates with two others Mr. SweetPea stitched.  One was gifted to his mom but is currently awaiting re-framing since our original framing job wasn't a good one (we had NO idea what we were doing).  As soon as that one's finished (it's a Dimensions Rose piece), it will appear on the blog.

A joint project from the early years

Things have been MUCH busier around here than I anticipated. Little Dude is done with preschool for the summer, so most of my time has been consumed by entertaining a 4 year old. Trips to the library and the park, fun activities, playing trains - the days are just loaded. I'm still stitching most evenings, but I know I haven't been posting as frequently as I was for a while there.  My ultimate goal is to post at least once a week.  We'll see how that goes. 

I did go through our stitching drawer a while back and found some pieces I haven't shared on the blog.  There's a couple more of these posts in my draft pile, but here's something from way back.

The Sorcerer and The Sorceress by Dimensions

Stitched from a kit

These two pieces are from our early years of stitching.  Mr. Sweet Pea did the sorcerer, and I did the sorceress (why yes I did change her hair color to a slightly redder shade).  I don't even know if these kits are still available, but we bought these in the craft store.

Our tastes have changed since then, but these have sentimental value.  They were among our very first stitching pieces and there was a time when we both enjoyed fantasy literature on a regular basis.  They're still in the finished unfinished drawer, but perhaps some day they will be able to cast a spell and free themselves.

Happy 10th Wedding Anniversary!

My husband and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary today.  (And tomorrow will be 10 years to the day of our engagement).  We'll be together 22 years in June, and it's been a pretty awesome ride so far.  We are not without our ups and downs, but we have learned from the difficulties to put our faith and trust in each other.

Without getting too mushy, my husband is the best man I know and I am so proud of how hard he works for us, how smart he is, how good he is with our son, and how understanding (and wise) he is with me.  Happy Anniversary, Mr. Sweet Pea!

And now a look at some of the pieces we've stitched over the years.  I will have our 10th Anniversary piece in a few days as I got a bit of a late start on it.

We stitched this piece together before our wedding.  Our wedding colors were blue and silver, and there was a running theme of stars throughout.  (Yes, it is mostly because we are Dallas Cowboys fans, though it was far less embarrassing to admit that 10 years ago than it is now.  But let's not talk about that.)

Count the Stars - Dimensions kit

We had just started stitching, so we relied on this kit from Dimensions that we modified as a wedding record.  We changed the wording to the line we used from an ee cummings poem that has special meaning to us.  When we were in college, my scientist husband (then chemistry student boyfriend) would send me ee cummings poems as love letters, something I thought was incredibly sweet).  We used line from another of his poems on our wedding invitations, "one's not half two.  It's two are halves of one:"

Several years later, I stitched this piece as a Valentine's / Anniversary piece for him (It was stitched for Valentine's Day, but I didn't end up framing it until our anniversary that year.

It's Peas in a Pod, Me and You by Sue Hillis designs.

Sadly, the last "anniversary" piece I stitched was for our fifth anniversary, you know, five years ago.  It has yet to be framed (I do HAVE the frame, I just have to convince my framer - Mr. Sweet Pea - to get it done.  Why yes, I do make him frame his own gifts.)

This is Always and Forever, by Little House Needleworks.  You can get the details here from our fifth anniversary post.  I ordered a somewhat ornate black frame for it, and it's all ready to go.  Perhaps it will get framed AND hung up sometime this year.  Won't that be exciting!  I actually have a spot on the wall all ready to go.  We have a corner area in our front hall where we've hung some old black and white family photos, including some wedding photos.  We even have a black and white wedding photo of our own hanging up, and I'd like to hang this piece along with them.

As I mentioned earlier, the 10th anniversary piece is currently in progress.  I had put it out of my mind for the longest time, and when I was at my LNS a few weeks ago, flipping through the racks, it occurred to me that MAYBE I should stitch something for our anniversary.  Nothing was really working for me, and then I spotted a chart I already owned (yay!) and was able to pick up the fabric I needed for it.  So now it's one of four (five, six....) projects on scroll frames sitting next to my stitching chair.  It's a fairly easy stitch (compared to the Sampler Cove and Long Dog pieces I am also working on), so it should be done soon.

Dreaming of Tuscany

Dreaming of Tuscany by Dimensions
Stitched on 18 ct. Aida with included threads
Finished 2005 - Framed 2011

This is another of my husband's pieces, again from back when we first started stitched and stitched primarily kits. Neither of us are Italian or have any Italian heritage, and while I've been to Italy, I haven't been to Tuscany. Still, we both really like this piece. We both love a good bottle of wine, so that counts, right? (And I love Northern Italian food)

I framed this one as well, but used a black wooden frame with an open back (small metal clips hold the artwork in place). Since there's more room in the frame, I was able to use the glass also with the mat board and the needlework, and not have to worry about squeezing in a backing board. When we're ready to hang this one, my husband uses double stick framing tape and brown framing paper to seal off the back of the piece. (The framing tape and paper are available at any quality art supply store).

I wanted to be able to cover this one with glass because I plan on hanging it in our kitchen. We have a small section of wall between our basement door and the doorway to the dining room that this will be perfect in.

But I'm also holding off on hanging it up until my husband finishes the piece he's currently stitching on: Tuscan Greeting by Dimensions, seen here


When I was preparing to write this post, I went looking for a link to the first piece. I like to include a link whenever possible because I've had people email me asking where they can find the piece for themselves. And I know I always appreciate a link on someone else's blog when I see a chart I really like. It's nice to know where to be able to find it. Anyway, when I went looking for the link, I saw this piece in the "You May Also Like" section and decided, yes, I really do like that one. The next time I was in a craft store, I picked it up (it is available at chain stores like Michael's and AC Moore), and now my husband is working on this piece. We already have a large enough unfinished pile, but I already have the frame and mat for this one ready to go. As soon as it's done, we'll get it framed and both pieces up on the wall.

I've made a small dent in our FUFO drawer, but there's still several other pieces I'd like to get finished and framed our our walls. The problem is that I like to have an overall plan in mind before I start framing, so I can make sure the pieces I want to hang together look like they belong together. They don't have to be matchy-matchy, but I do like them to coordinate. I've learned to be a little more patient with things and hold off until we've decided what we want to do. Yes, sometimes I get a little antsy and would like to display more of our work, but in the end, it ends up being worth it to plan ahead.

Another piece escapes the FUFO drawer!

A little while ago, I mentioned a drawer full of finished unfinished pieces / objects - FUFOs, as I've heard them called and it got me thinking about actually DOING something with them. Yes, many things I've stitched have been finished and given as gifts, but there are still many more languishing in a drawer in our guest room.

Some of those pieces were stitched by my husband. Technically, I'm not allowed to discuss his stitching, but I am going to ignore that "rule" because I'm quite proud of him. While most stitchers I know are women, there is a handful of men that stitch and my husband happens to be one of them. He does amazing work, and has patience for things I don't, such as massive projects. I might have even said before that he was the one that started us stitching as a way to curb our nighttime snacking habits. He figured we should do something to occupy our hands that wasn't conducive to snacking as well, and stitching fit the bill. We were living in an apartment at the time, and stitching didn't take up a whole lot of room. We started out with pre-packaged kits from places like AC Moore and Michaels, then discovered our LNS, The Strawberry Sampler, where we graduated to charts, overdyed threads, linens and evenweaves.

Since my husband will NEVER start a blog of his own, I'd like to showcase a few of his pieces on my blog. This is one of the first pieces he stitched, and here's a shocker for you - it's a lighthouse!

Nautical Light by Creative Accents (Dimensions)
Stitched on 14 ct. Aida with included threads
Finished 2002 - Framed 2011

The project was in a kit in a standard 5x7 size, making it quite easy to frame with an 8x10 frame and 5x7 mat. This one will be going on display on our living room bookshelves.

I should have taken a picture of the back of the piece, but didn't. I will say it's amazing how far we've both come with technique, especially carrying threads over the back of the fabric. See the whale and the ship off the stitched coastline? Mr. Sweet Pea used one long thread to stitch all of them, carrying the thread across the back. Yikes! We'd never do that now, especially on linen or evenweave. Fortunately, the thread did not show through the Aida fabric, so I let it go.

I did, however, restitch the outlining on the lighthouse. Originally, the outlining on the lighthouse was done with long, somewhat loose threads (Even on the package photo, the outlining is done like this and at the time, we didn't know any better.) But when I went to pull it out for framing, those long threads drove me NUTS and I had to pull them out and restitch the backstitching over single threads. It looks so much nicer, I think.

I should also confess at this point that we were not as careful with the fabrics as we are now. In fact, there might have been some *gasp* masking tape residue on the edges of the piece as we used regular old masking tape to prevent fraying. (I'll give you a minute to pick yourself up off the floor). And before you call the stitching police on me, we're much better now. Most pieces we stitch now are on custom cut pieces of fabric from my new LNS (is it still new after 2 years?) Just Crossstitch in Lederach, where Carolyn serges the edges. On fabric I cut myself, I use a fabric fray check and pinking sheers which works out fine.

But back to atoning for my previous sins. On one hand, the fabric under where the masking tape had been was clean. On the other, that stripe of clean, bright fabric around the edge made me realize how dirty the rest of the fabric was, even though I had washed the piece in cold water and Ivory dish soap before putting it away. I wanted to make sure the piece was as clean as possible before I framed it, but I had concerns about the red dye running. After a bit of google searching, however, I found that many stitchers agreed OxiClean was safe enough to use on stitching and could remove most stains, so off to the grocery store I went for a tub of OxiClean.

Lucky for me, it worked just fine, and I had no bleeding of the red dye. (YAY!) I was quite nervous but it all turned out in the end. The stains were gone and the piece looked much better.

I have a few more pieces from my husband that I will be posting in the future, and I'm hoping to rescue even more FUFOs from the drawer.

Finally Framed!!!

I thought maybe you all deserved a break from all those ornaments! Let's take a little trip down memory lane and a dive into the finished AND framed pile (pitifully small, I know.) I like to show *finished* finished pieces on the blog, but someday I will embarrass myself and post a photo of my finished unfinished pieces. Maybe several photos. Maybe a lot of photos. I have a whole drawer full of pieces patiently waiting to be finished for some form of display.

The Path by Dimensions (kit)
Stitched on 14 ct. Aida with included threads

I don't even know when I actually finished this piece - probably back in 2003-2004 when I first started stitching, and it's been languishing in a drawer ever since. It was one of the first pieces I purchased, a Dimensions kit, and I think it may still actually be available in craft stores. I admit, I almost never look at the Dimensions kits any more. Not much changes with them anyway and they're all sold with some kind of Aida cloth, which I rarely stitch on. (There's one small chart I stitch for the occasional birth record that I like using Aida cloth for a chunkier look).

While we're on the subject of confessions, I will confess that I probably ordered the frame and the mat 2-3 years ago as well, and they sat in the drawer on top of the finished piece. I have no idea why it took so long to get around to framing it, but once I pulled it out and said, "THIS TIME I MEAN IT!!!" (for the fourth or fifth time), the whole thing got framed in about 30 minutes.

You can't tell from the photo - my husband's patient framing saved me - but the stitching is completely off centered. There's an inch or so of fabric on one side, and three on the other. I don't know how it happened, but somehow I started stitching off center and by the time I realized it, I wasn't about to rip out everything and start over. I had already been planning on framing the piece, so I figured I'd just fudge things a little when I got to the framing. Lucky for me, it worked out.

This piece is intended for a friend of mine, one I've known since kindergarten. She lives in Virginia now, so we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. In fact, it's been about a year and a half now since we've seen each other. Now that we both have children (hers are school age), it complicates travel even more, but I still think the sentiment holds true for us. It's just that sometimes, that path means picking up the phone more often than seeing each other in person.

Happy Anniversary

Count the Stars
Dimension Gold Petite Kit
(modified from the original)  

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary and the weather is much like it was for our wedding day - gorgeous and sunny, and even a little on the warm side. The funny thing is we were married the week after Easter, and this year, it seems like Easter was AGES ago!

This is the piece that DH and I stitched together for our wedding. Whenever I make something for a wedding, new house, or new baby, I try to personalize it as best as I can for the recipient and our own piece was no exception. We were fairly new stitchers at the time, so we were lucky to find a kit that only required a little modification. We used stars as a theme for the wedding, partially because we are huge Dallas Cowboys fans. I would have liked more silver in the piece, since our wedding colors were navy blue and silver, but I couldn't figure out how to work in a silver or white sun, so I left it the original colors, and we framed it in navy and silver.

You'll have to excuse what looks like some wonky trim there - I took this picture before we got it straightened out and properly framed.I should take a picture of the framed piece - it looks quite nice! Also, the original piece had the phrase "Look towards Heaven and count the stars", but we changed it to what you see now. If you don't recognize it, it's a line from a poem by ee cummings that has very special meaning to us.

silently if,out of not knowable
night’s utmost nothing,wanders a little guess
(only which is this world)more of my life does
not leap than with the mystery your smile

sings or if(spiraling as luminous
they climb oblivionvoices who are dreams,
less into heaven certainly earth swims
than each my deeper death becomes your kiss

losing through you what seemed myself;i find
selves unimaginably mine;beyond
sorrow’s own joys and hoping’s very fears

yours is the light by which my spirit’s born:
yours is the darkness of my soul’s return
–you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars

My DH is a scientist, but developed a great appreciation and fondness for ee cummings. If you're not familiar with the poet, he's actually quite romantic and several of his poems made it into notes and cards from my DH while we were dating. I knew we had to include something from this poem in our wedding, and changing the wording on the piece was perfect.

We also used a line from another poem on our wedding invites: one's not half two. It's two are halves of one. So there you have it. Happy Anniversary to us!

It's been a while since I've posted some pictures

I've been organizing and cleaning up some photos this morning, so I thought I'd share a few.

First up is the piece I finished for my BIL and SIL's Christmas gift. DH framed it up for me and we gave it to them on Christmas morning. My SIL was especially touched - she teared up a little when she opened it (hopefully it meant that she liked it!)

Next up is Nautical Dreams, which DH also framed before we left for Christmas, but I just sent it out yesterday. It's on it's way to Colorado, so I hope it doesn't get stuck in any snowstorms. I also sent along a Boston Harbor ornament I stitched up from a Treetrunk Designs leaflet. I like to give ornaments as gifts to new babies to start their collections. Boston is very near and dear to the heart of my friend (the baby's mom) and I am sure it will become very important to her daughter as well.


And finally, something my DH stitched for his mom for Mother's Day. It's a Dimensions kit she picked out when they came to visit us a while back, and we just forgot to take a picture of it before we gave it to her. DH also framed it for her, and I think he did a great job. It's now hanging in the entrance to her kitchen.

And I know I promised Kim some pics of my progress on Princess, but I messed up the ones I took and have to take new ones, so they'll be coming later.

Look what came back from the framers!

Rocky Point by Dimensions (kit)
This is one of the first pieces my DH stitched. I know! Quite ambitious!!! It took him over a year to stitch the piece, and it languished in a drawer for a few more until my MIL asked us what we wanted for Christmas. DH and I had been discussing getting some of our more complicated pieces professionally framed, but the expense was a little daunting. However, getting one or two pieces at a time done made it less daunting, so we asked MIL if she'd like to foot the bill to have this piece framed. She thought it was a wonderful idea, so I took it to my LNS to have it done and picked it up yesterday. It's absolutely gorgeous, and will have a place of honor in our new home.

A few other things also managed to follow me out of the store. I don't know how it happened. Really. I swear. LHN's Princess and the Pea followed me home. I was just going to stitch it in DMC floss, but then I thought well why not stitch it in the recommended fibers, so that necessitated an order from Stitcher's Closet when I got home. And then I saw on Kim's blog that she was working on the piece as well, so we'll be stitching them together as soon as my fibers arrive

Also following me home were threads I picked for Carriage House Sampling's Acorns and Threads. I went with GAST Dark Chocolate, Apple Cider and Chamomile instead of the recommended fibers. (A gorgeous dark blue/purple called Auntie Dee slipped in there as well, though I am not sure what I will use it for). And then there was the Crescent Colors Belle Soie in Creme de Menthe that will probably be used for some Christmas ornaments.

Finally, some fabrics. I've been deciding on a few ornaments to do from the JCS ornament issue and decided on Snow Bunnies and Winter Love for myself, and DH is going to do the woodpecker. Our house backs up to woods and we have a feeder on our deck, so we get lots of different birds for us (and our cat!) to enjoy looking at. My favorite is the red bellied woodpecker with the cool red head (like me!), but DH likes the downy and hairy woodpeckers - the black and white ones with the tiny little red stripe on the males. I've been looking for a woodpecker ornament for our tree for a while now, so this is perfect.

Last night, I made a little more progress on Nautical Dreams, but I didn't take any pictures. I need to hurry up and get it done because I can feel myself getting bored doing it and itching to work on new projects.