Frogging

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Tonight I finished up Autumn Flowers, and then had to decide if I wanted to rip out the two small flowers and redo them, or just leave it as it was. Here is the finished project along with the picture of how it should have looked.

In the end, I had plenty of floss left and there was enough time to rip out and restitch the two flowers tonight. I felt that if I didn’t redo it, I would forever look at it and wonder why I had left it. I am so glad I decided to frog the orange flowers and make them yellow.

Frogging is a term cross stitchers use when they make a mistake and have to rip out stitches. “Rip it, rip it” sounds like a frog saying ribbit, ribbit. Get it? Generally, I don’t make mistakes when I cross stitch. I am a slow stitcher, and stop every few stitches to cross off what I have done on my chart. On large pieces, I grid. And I am always double checking to make sure I am doing the right thing. So I rarely ever have to frog my work. But on this project, I wasn’t even looking at the key. I knew I was to use two colors of variegated threads, yellow and orange. And since I had done the first flower with the orange on the outside, I just assumed I was supposed to do the small flowers the same way. Oops! But it wasn’t much work to rip out my mistakes and start over. And I am so pleased with the end result! So often I get caught up in large projects that take months to finish, and my stitching time is so limited. So I am glad I was able to get a quick finish done.

XXX
Carrie


A Tisket, A Tasket, Three Flowers in a Basket

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Last night my daughter wanted to read her new Owl Diaries book aloud to me. We sat on her bed and she read while I stitched. Occasionally, she would show me a funny picture from her story. I didn’t get a whole lot of stitching done (reading, although something she excels at, is not her favorite pastime) but I’m glad to have three flowers done as well as the start of the basket.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying very close attention to the pattern, and apparently the two small outside flowers are the reverse of the larger central one. The outside was supposed to be yellow, with the orange for the inside. Oops! Now I have to decide if I want to keep it as is, or rip out the two small flowers and start over. I definitely won’t do anything about it now, I will wait until it is completed to see how it looks, as well as see how much floss I have left over.

XXX
Carrie


One little flower

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One little flower peeking through after a nice and relaxing stitching session!

I ended up choosing 32 count linen, three shades of Weeks Dye Works floss, and one shade of DMC Color Variations (for the orange). I just didn’t have a suitable orange color in my stash of Weeks, and I wasn’t happy with any of my silk choices. I had the right shades, but none of them were variegated, they were all solid. I really wanted the orange to have the variations in it like the stitched sample had.

XXX
Carrie


Done!

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I’m so excited to finally have this sugar skull finished. Things had gotten so busy that I was unable to work on it for quite a while. And then one day the internet went out and I couldn’t work, so I decided to sit down and stitch for a while. The next morning the internet was still out, so I was able to finish this guy. And then I even got right into a free cover kit that had come with the latest issue of World of Cross Stitching. It was sitting on the coffee table and was so cute, I couldn’t resist jumping in. That little hedgehog card should be finished up in one more stitching session.

For the sugar skull, I think I will try to find a wooden frame that I can paint in a bright, bold color that matches one of the colors in the design. I think I would want to do it lime green, actually!

This was a fun and quick design (when I actually had time to sit down and stitch!) and can be found in the 2016 Halloween special issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. It was actually charted to be solid black, but I used colors of DMC Color Variations that I hand picked. You can purchase the magazine here: crossstitchers.com

XXX
Carrie




The mouth!

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sugarskull2

I love how this is turning out. I just wish maybe I had used a higher count fabric, like 16 or even 18. It seems like there is an awful lot of white space, and I have a feeling that when this is done it is going to be huge. I hope the effect will be noticeable without having to stand several feet back.

XXX
Carrie



What’s Next?

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I have been thinking about what project I should start next. I want to stitch the mermaid, but I can’t seem to find the right fabric. If it is the right type and count, then the color is all wrong. If the color is perfect, the piece of fabric isn’t big enough for that project. I don’t want to buy any new fabric since my stash is so huge, so for now I think I will move on to something else. I really want to work on the sugar skull from the 2016 Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue. I thought I had the perfect fabric and floss for that, but I am worried that it won’t be enough floss (I only have one skein). So instead I have decided to stitch it on white fabric, and use lots of different shades of DMC Color Variations. Last night my daughter and I sat down to color together – her with an adult coloring book (those pages take FOREVER!) and me with the skull pattern. I used colored pencils to color in each area with different shades of purple, pink, teal, yellow, and green. Then I got out the whole set of CV floss and tried to pick which colors I like best. I think these shades will look nice on white fabric, and I will keep the lime green fabric and over-dyed silk floss that I had picked out, for something else.

XXX
Carrie