Monthly Archives: July 2022

Jul 31 2022

Pumpkin Time

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It’s still summer, and I do have that new bicycle project to start on. But sometimes you just need a break to work on something really simple. I love these Bent Creek Zipper kits because they are stitched on 18 count fabric over 2, and with pearl cotton – only one strand! Woo-hoo! The kit came with a really dark brown shade of DMC for the pumpkin, which I thought looked really off. So I found this skein of Chrysanthemum from Weeks Dye Works in my stash and it looks like a wonderful pumpkin shade!

But after I had stitched quite a bit of the pumpkin, I realized I was probably going to run out of floss, and I didn’t have another one. I could order one, but the odds that it would be an exact match would be pretty slim. So I started strategizing. I stitched the far right side of the pumpkin, then the far left side. To do the middle sections I would stitch a couple of rows, jump over to an empty spot, and stitch a couple of more rows. This way if I had to pick 2 solid colors of DMC to fill in, they would not be all in the same place. As I stitched more and more, I filled in the empty areas I had, in a sort of zig-zag motion. When it was getting close to the end I could finally sigh with relief and I completed the pumpkin with about 7 inches of floss to spare. Whew!

The photo doesn’t clearly show the colors. The raven is black and the stem is dark green. The star is a brown color stitched with the only variegated floss that came in the kit. The pumpkin is made up of two shades, orange and coral.

XXX
Carrie

Jul 11 2022

Halloween Special Issue 2022

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It’s one of my favorite days of the year! I’ve waited so long for this gem from Just Cross Stitch magazine to arrive! I have a new idea for this year… I am going to see how many items from this magazine I can make in a one year period. I think I will give myself time to go through the magazine and make a list of what fabrics, floss, and embellishments I will need to create these designs, and order whatever I don’t have. And then I will start stitching on October 31 and stitch through October 30 of 2023. I probably won’t stitch them all because there are a few designs that don’t appeal to me, and I don’t have anywhere to hang the really large designs. Plus I will want to stitch other things besides Halloween. But this will give me a great large assortment of smalls to display for Halloween next year. In the meantime, I should also try to finish off the Halloween smalls that I have stitched throughout the years that are just sitting in a box and have those ready for display for this Halloween.

All in all, I think the majority of the designs in this issue are right up my alley!

XXX
Carrie

Jul 5 2022

A New Summer Stitch

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Getting the supplies together for my next project! I can’t wait to start on this new project from Tiny Modernist. I did notice that the American flag was backwards, though… you would never see a flag with the stripes attached to the pole; the pole would always be attached to the union. I was debating how I could flip the flag, or flip the entire design, or use the chart for the Canadian design (which is already flipped) but then I would have to change the colors to be US colors. But the I went on the Tiny Modernist website and found that there was already a “corrections” page for this flag! So I printed off the correct flag chart and now I’m good to go. This is such a cute design!

XXX
Carrie