My first award!

I received my first blogging "award" this morning from Terri, which I thought was really sweet! Thanks, Terri!

I'm pretty new to the blogging community, so I don't really know who has and hasn't gotten one of these. I'm going to pick a few blogs that I like to read that inspired me to start doing my own.

1. My friend, Michelle, aka Fickleknitter, who started all of this.
   
2. Another friend, Ashley
   
3. Jenn, one of the first cross stitching blogs I started reading
   
4. Meari, who sent me one of my first welcomes to the blogging community
   
5. Von, another early welcomer
   
6. Anita, who helped me get better adjusted to blogging
   
7. Lauren, for providing some excellent links to tutorials
   
8. Susimac, for doing detailed, photographic tutorials
   
9. Abi, for providing much inspiration in her beautiful pieces
   
10. Carol, also for inspiration

I've never seen anything like it!

Sushi cross stitch patterns - you have to check these out!

http://origamisnail.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

An apology, some progress and an SBQ: Recycling

I am such a dumb ass. I was wondering why nobody was leaving me comments and then I figured out I had them turned off. Hopefully that's all fixed now! (Thanks for letting me know, Anita!)

The good news is I did make some progress on my baby gift. The bottom panel is almost complete - I have to stitch the rest of the sky in white and do the outlining. I've also started doing the rope border.

Today’s SBQ is:

When you have to frog out stitches, do you reuse that thread or do you start over with a new strand?

I am OBSESSIVE about checking and double checking and triple checking my work against my chart. Obsessive. Mostly because a mistake will bother me to the point where I will have to rip it all out and redo it, even if it is a tiny little mistake. I'd rather spend the extra time checking on something instead of tearing it out and restitching it. Usually I'm pretty good though - I'm most obsessive about the first part of stitching, and then I work from that, so everything else usually lines up.

When I do have to frog something out, I reverse stitch back to the mistake and go on from there with the same thread if I catch it soon enough. But if the mistake is large or deep into the piece, I keep a seam ripper and tweezers with my stitching stuff and tear it all out, then stitch it over again with a new thread.

SBQ: Stitching Mastery

This SBQ was suggested by Ternezia and is:

What for you means to achieve mastery as a stitcher?

I never really thought about "achieving mastery". I am a self taught stitcher, though I did embroidery when I was a child - mostly stitching over iron on patterns (Aunt Martha's and such) and a little bit of stamped cross stitch. I originally bought one of those cheap little $1 ornament kits with the plastic frame at the craft store just to try it out, but ended up doing a larger project instead and it went on from there.

I am comfortable modifying patterns, combining patterns, changing colors, etc. I've done some specialty stitches and I don't have a hard time figuring them out from written, illustrated instructions. I can also do a lot of my own mounting, framing and finishing.

I guess what I would consider mastery for myself is completing a hardanger piece.

SBQ: Gift Giving

This SBQ was suggested by Jennifer and is:

What proportion of your stitching is for your own personal use versus gifts?

The very first piece I did was a birth announcement for our niece, one called "God's Babies Birth Record" by Dimensions. My husband and I picked it up both as a new hobby and something to make for our first niece. We even modified our very first piece, changing the blue threads for the name to a pink color. It's one of the few pieces I don't have a scan or photo of - I keep meaning to ask my SIL to take a picture of it for us.

Since then, I would say about 90% of my stitching is for other people. I have only kept a few pieces, including the Vickery collection one mentioned below, and The Sorceress, another by Dimensions. (I modified her skin tone to a lighter color and made her hair red, like mine. This is a sample picture - mine is not framed yet.) My husband stitched her companion, The Sorcerer. One other piece we have kept (and actually framed) is Count the Stars (Dimensions). We modified this one by replacing the current text with our names in the top bar and our wedding date on the bottom. Most of the pieces I stitch are for specific occasions - I've ton tons of weddings, housewarmings and new babies. I like to pick pieces that are meaningful to the recipient and reflect their tastes. Most of the wedding pieces I've done include something from the wedding - a reading, a theme, colors, etc. I try to pick housewarming pieces that fit the style of the home or a birth record that suits their nursery theme. Sometimes the gift is a little delayed because it takes a while to find the right pattern.

SBQ: Working on the Railroad

I am going back in the SBQ archives and answering the older questions to catch up.

Do you railroad?

I never used to until I was looking for information on a different topic and came across a discussion on railroading your stitches. It seemed like a good idea, so I tried it, and the result was quite nice. However, I should probably strive to be more consistent and do it all the time as opposed to "when I remember it". This is the technique I like to use.

I've also found that separating the threads one at a time from the skein, then combining the number of threads I am using back together also makes for nicer stitches, but I don't do that as often as I should either.

Weekend Stitching

We spent the better part of the weekend doing stuff around the house (and watching FOOTBALL!), but we did manage to get to our LNS to drop of a piece for framing. It was the Dimensions Gold "Rocky Point" cross stitch kit.

Believe it or not, my husband stitched this piece over the course of about a year, and it was only his second or third piece ever. Luckily, he likes a challenge! It's 11x17 and it's ALL stitching. There are no blank spots of canvas. And there's a ton of outlining, especially on the rocks. Normally, we can frame things ourselves, but this is something we wanted to have professionally done, so we took it to our LNS, and my mother-in-law will foot the bill as our Christmas gift. The original frame we selected would have come out to over $100 for the frame alone, so we went with our second choice - equally beautiful and far less expensive. I'll post pictures when we pick it up.

And in keeping with the lighthouse theme, I stitched up this quick little piece I'll be turning into an ornament as part of the baby gift I am currently working on. I like to give ornaments to newborns to start off their collections. We collect ornaments whenever we travel and my husband and I also have ornaments dating back to our first years. It's always a wonderful experience to decorate our tree every year. Each ornament brings back memories of places we have been and people we have known and I just love looking at our tree when it's all done.

Finally, I made a little more progress on the baby gift.

The lighthouse is really taking shape and most of the rest of that bottom panel is going to be a lot of blocks of color. The sky is predominantly white stitching and the rest of the water will be the same color blue. I'm hoping to knock out the bottom panel tonight or tomorrow, and maybe even finish the outlining there. I'm making it my goal to have this piece finished and mailed out before the baby's one month old, since I've been a slacker in the past with other baby gifts.

You can see how the green on the right bottom corner is really darkening up when I go back and put the second stitch in.

A little more progress

I made some additional progress on my Nautical Dreams piece. I'm working on the bottom section now. You can start to see the lighthouse in the bottom section - it kind of reminds me of the Annisquam Light on Cape Ann in Massachusetts. It's one of the reasons I chose this piece - the new baby's mom went to school in Massachusetts and misses the East Coast so much, she chose the nautical theme for the nursery. I thought it would be nice to have a reminder of one of her favorite places in her baby's room.

Speaking of lighthouses, here's a peek at my unfinished lighthouse ornament for our tree this year. It's of the Sea Girt Lighthouse in New Jersey. I originally picked it because I didn't think I'd be able to find an ornament of the lighthouse (we try to find ones of the lighthouses we've been to), but when we were there a few weeks ago, lo and behold they had some for sale. So I bought one, but I'll still finish this one for the tree as well.

Also a few minutes from being completely finished is this bookmark. I did the bookmark following this tutorial, and I have to say - NEVER AGAIN! It certainly made a good looking bookmark, but it was kind of a pain to make sure everything was lined up properly before I stitched it closed (inside out). Turning it right side out was more difficult than I anticipated, and the bookmark is thicker than I'd like it. I'm also not sure I want to put all that work into something and end up ruining it or getting it dirty. I'm still thinking of a better way to do bookmarks, as I'd like to do one for my sister-in law eventually.

I did a nun stitch on the end and fringed the remaining threads. Since I didn't want a contrast on the edges, I used white thread to match the aida cloth.

SBQ: Designing

As part of my stitching blog journey, I started looking for other blogs to read and be inspired by. One of the things I noticed was that many of them had posts devoted to SBQs and I wondered what that was until I found the Yahoo! Group SBQ, which stands for Stitching Blogger's Questions, a meme of questions specifically for cross-stitching bloggers.

Today's SBQ (Stitching Bloggers Question) was suggested by Ternezia(http://loreleicrafts.wordpress.com/)

If you were a cross stitch designer, what would your design style be?

This is a pretty good question - it definitely made me think. Probably I'd design pieces that are enjoyable for me to stitch, which means not a whole lot of outlining (my least favorite part of stitching). It's odd, because while I don't really like country or primitive decor, I like more simplistic, sampler like patterns for stitching. I really like doing samplers because of the variety - you don't get bored doing the same thing over and over again.

I tend to choose patterns by The Design Connection. Their patterns aren't complicated, but you get beautiful results. They have a classic feel to them that would be at home in most homes. I would like to design pieces that have a wide range of appeal, though I would mostly focus on natural or nautical themes (because that's what interests me).

I also like patterns that can be adapted into smaller pieces - pulling out an elements for something like an ornament or coaster. Another important concept for me is personalization. Most of the pieces I make are intended as gifts for specific occasions - weddings, births, new homes. I like the ability to personalize a piece for the recipient and that's something I'd be conscious of designing into a piece I'd create.

Two finishes I am really proud of

I finally got around to taking pictures of two pieces I finished earlier this year. I try to photograph and/or scan everything that I do, especially pieces I make as gifts. The first piece is something I stitched for my husband for Valentine's Day. I worked on it in secret when he wasn't home so it was a surprise for him.
Well, sort of. I ordered the frame and mats from PictureFrames.com.

When I went to put it together though, it seemed that the top beige mat was slightly off. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, or if I was doing something wrong, so I ended up showing the piece to my husband before it was completely finished (he was still surprised). It turned out that they cut the top mat to the same dimensions as another mat I had ordered at the same time for another piece. The sizes were similar, but just different enough to really mess me up. I called and explained the problem and their customer service person was VERY helpful and apologetic. She checked my order, said it was completely their fault and they sent a new mat out at no charge the next day. She even told me to hang onto the old mat in case I could use it for something else. The new mat arrived shortly thereafter and we put the piece together.

I've ordered from PictureFrames.com several times and would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone, especially if you're not framing a complicated piece. It's definitely a lot cheaper than having the piece framed at a shop or craft store and the quality of their materials is excellent. (We'll stick to having things framed at our LNS for really complicated pieces). It's a little difficult when you can't see things in front of you, but I've chosen well so far. Also, I HIGHLY recommend you ask them to send you a set of sample mat pieces. There used to be a link on their site to order a set for free, but I can't seem to find it. I'm sure, however, if you call and ask them to send you a set, they will. The mat colors look very different in person than they do on a monitor, and it's really best to have the sample in front of you.
One of the things I like best about their website is that you can upload a scan or a photo of your piece and play around with different combinations of mats and frames to see how it would look. You can even change the wall color! If you want to try framing some of your own pieces, they're definitely worth looking into.

This is one of the other pieces I photographed yesterday, Celtic Seasons by Vickery Collection. I started on this piece last year when my husband was in the UK for six weeks for work and finished most of the color stitching. I set it aside when he came back, but picked it up again earlier this year.

I finished the last of the color stitching and started in on the outlining. I love the look of outlining in a piece, but I really hate doing it. Mostly because I am obsessive and for most backstitching I force myself to do it square by square (over 2 if that's how I did the cross stitching.) In most cases, it looks neater and stays tighter - you don't have long stretches of thread that can sag or droop in a finished piece.

It took weeks to finish the outlining in this piece, but I think it was well worth it. It's still unframed, but it's one of the few pieces I've completed for myself.