Another reason for my doll quilt obsession discussed in my last post could very well be my love of miniatures. It does cause me to do some crazy things in cross stitch.

And to buy some totally adorable Lustreware salt and pepper shakers. Why wouldn't it be at least a part of the doll quilt thing? I'm off to cut up some more tiny squares!

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope you have a very happy Valentine's Day! Things are very productive over this way today.

Finished redwork pillow (more information here and an in-progress close-up photo here).

One of my series of holiday cross-stitch pieces. This is the one that started that whole project, actually. I love the little heart at the top made of french knots and that the letters are wonky as they are.

And last but certainly not least, I have the Valentines I've received so far from Crow and Canary's second annual card swap. I love this swap! Here is my post about if from last year (complete with a crocheted heart pattern!).

2010 Crafting Year in Review

For the last few weeks, I'd been seeing all sorts of year in review posts on flickr and blogs. It made me think about what I'd actually finished last year. Mostly what came to mind was house projects or gardening accomplishments. But, in making a mosaic of my crafting from last year, I realized that I'd actually done more that I thought I had. Good reason to do this kind of exercise!

I think I knit that first sweater last year rather than the year before last. I made curtains for my house (and learned about printing by hand in the process), scarves for my etsy shop, pincushions, a doll quilt, stockings, and potholders for various swaps (and improved my applique, paper piecing, machine quilting, pattern developing, and quilt binding skills in the process), and a pillow just for fun from some fabric from one of my favorite illustrators/crafters. There was also a cardigan just for me, and a quilt for my parent's Christmas gift.

I suppose that I did more than I thought I did, craft-wise, last year! (Although I did turn out to have read just as few books as I kind of suspected that I did -- Julie & Julia, The Making of a Marchioness, and Cheerful Weather for the Wedding are really the only books that I finished. I'll have to work on finishing books in 2011 -- I probably started 10 that I never finished!)

Yet Another Collection

I'm dying to buy this book right now so, to deter myself from making such a large and unnecessary expenditure this close to holiday gift-giving time, I'm looking back at all of my other Blackbird pieces I've stitched over the past 7 years. Blackbird Designs are, by the way, my very favorite of cross-stitch companies and Barb and Alma are the nicest people (I was lucky enough, in about 2004 to get to travel to the cutest store in Mexico, MO for a rug-hooking class that they taught).

This is the inside of that needle book at the top of this post. An old, retired loose feathers pattern. I love how they mix little things like needle books and boxes in with the plain, flat cross-stitch pieces in their designs. They always have great instructions for finishing these little items and its fun to occasionally not just use the stitched pieces for framing or pillows.

My most recent framed cross-stitch project. A new addition to my miniature houses collection, from a Loose Feathers pattern. More miniature houses (with a box of pins for scale) below. I have done 3 of these houses so I guess that this is really becoming a Blackbird Miniature Houses Collection.

I don't remember offhand where the pattern on the left is from (if anyone is interested, email me and I'll dig it out of my old patterns to tell you what it is) and the one on the right is, if I remember correctly, a free download from their site from about 4 years ago. Maybe longer. Time flies.

This one can be found here. I have a series of cross-stitched pieces that I like to hang for each season/holiday. I think I have about 13 of them, mostly stitched between 2003 and 2005. Every place that I live, I find a nice prominent wall, put one nail right in the middle, and rotate out these pieces. I'm starting to want to put two nails in the wall and make a set of complimentary pieces. Yikes.

This one is my marriage sampler. It's from "A Fine Collection". They mentioned in the book how they'd originally stitched the initials of a group of their friends in among the leaves. I loved this idea and we had a tiny wedding so I put the initials of all of the attendees in among the leaves, with my and Patrick's names and the date at the bottom. We came to NYC on the train in December of 2003 after being married in November and I stitched most of this on that 3-day ride.

Also somewhere around here is another half-finished piece which I believe I'm planning to make into a pillow. But it's hiding. Probably with my rotary cutter and the bin pulls for the kitchen drawers. So I'll save it for a later post.

Maybe in the meantime I'll go stitch something else from the Fine Collection book since I've only made one thing from that whole book (and surely I don't need to buy another book until I've made better use of the one I already have!)

Stitching Away

I don't think I'm going to get a whole lot more done on these wonderful ornaments of Alicia's once I get started on this huge quilt but at least I've finished two (of six -- I think I was feeling quite ambitious) before getting distracted. And had a ton of fun doing them both!


Isn't this one cute, even with its waste canvas in? (Waste canvas is, by the way, magical! I'd never used it before and now I'm seeing cross-stitches all over everything in my house!)


After my cats' complete and utter (and undeterable) obsession with my polar bear, I decided that it was a bad idea (for me -- I don't think there is a single thing wrong with the patterns) to leave the bottom open, as instructed, and so I cut a little ellipse out of some leftover felt and made a faux-ribbed cuff to close the opening, while still leaving the bottom of the mitten "open" (the extra piece of felt made the bottom 3D, rather than just blanket stitching it all closed). Maybe this will keep it all in one piece after the cats find my hiding spot (on the wall) and play football with the mitten.

And, to close, a less dismally dark photo of my polar bear, complete with tiny scarf. He he!

Power Outage

Every time there is a power outage here (which is really quite frequently -- we're up in the mountains), I am dismayed to notice, yet again, just how much of my day-to-day life requires electricity. Not even just batteries but plugged-in electricity. No cooking. No machine sewing. No knitting in front of the television. No blogging. No dish washing (the boiler is oil powered but is triggered by electricity). Really unbelievable. Surely I can think of something to do about this?

On the upside, last week these fantastic ornament kits from Alicia came and I'd not had time to get started on them, despite my huge excitement, due to all of the aforementioned "distractions".

Aren't they terribly cute, all packaged up?

I actually only stitched up the polar bear before the power came back on (they're used to the power-out drill up here, as I said) so the rest will have to wait for another day (including this guy's little blue scarf) but I had so much fun stitching him in front of our (smoky) fire, with a cat on either side. Hooray for an occasional power outage!

The Swaps Continue

Continuing on with the Scrappy Pincushion Swap, I've decided to jump on the paper piecing hexagon bandwagon. I used this tutorial and the hexagon "graph paper" generator she links to, set on 0.75". The hexagons were indeed fun to piece. I don't know if I could do a whole quilt of these though. I pulled all of the fabrics from the pile shown on Tuesday. The sides of the pincushion will be an embroidered flower garden.

I've also just joined my first swap (ravelry link) on ravelry, which I've finally joined. My friends have all been after me to sign up for several years but I've only just now decided that I have a bit of time to devote to the infinite browsing everyone says follows signing up. It's not happened yet (honestly, I find the site a little bit difficult to navigate) but I'm still having fun with this swap. More on that to come!

Book Excitement

Why are there so many wonderful craft books just out or about to come out right now? I can hardly stand it! I'm going to have to save all of my pennies to get at least part of these. And then I'll need materials to make things from them. . .

It's a vicious cycle.

First there's the Wee Wonderfuls book which is out already. I've been meaning to buy her patterns for Mr. and Mrs. Gnome but this book is a whole new dimension to the idea. And I have several friends with small children who will be needing Christmas gifts fairly soon. Perhaps it's justified?

(And while I'm on the subject of Hillary's wonderful-ness, how about this quilt? I'm completely obsessed with this color combo.)

Then there's Samantha's upcoming book. Eep! I purchased Maggie from her some time ago and do think she'd probably like to have a friend or perhaps a house? I can't imagine how anyone other than Samantha could draw so beautifully with a sewing machine but perhaps that is the point (for me) of the book?

And there's also Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion. I'm going to have to hunt around the internet for more previews of this one to see more of what's actually inside but it certainly looks promising. And I do love to embroider.

Even beyond the craft books, there are two book-books I'm very excited about due out at the end of this month.

How can I be asked to choose just a few of them??

Junk Sales!

It's been so long since I've lived in a place where there are actually inexpensive flea markets / garage sales / random little ladies selling sewing supplies out of their garages, that it's about my favorite thing about this summer so far. I've not bought a whole lot but, to me, I found some treasures.

I love the little embroidery of the barn especially. There was one like it at a store in Brooklyn but it was already embroidered and they wouldn't sell it so it was great fun to finally get a little barn embroidery and to get to work it myself!

In case you can't tell those dogs are cross-stitch patterns. They're in a crazy embroidery manual from 1967 which is fun to look at but I will actually stitch some of those dogs.

We're using the big old crock as a compost cannister. It's too bad that it doesn't still have its handle but I think it's cool anyway.

And all of this is not to mention all of the good stuff left behind in our house (most of the things left behind were horrible, like piles of Reader's Digest Magazines from 1994 and a very very old hospital bed). But that's for another post.

Buttons, Buttons Everywhere

Lots of button-related posting for today. I've put up 4 styles of cross-stitched buttons over on etsy.

Also, I'm working on a summer cardigan (Marigold Sweater from Interweave Knits, Summer 2010) and, due to my extensive button collection, can't decide which buttons I like best for it. Any opinions?

vintage red plastic (from Tender Buttons -- designed by a store employee pre-1960's)

peach glass

pink ceramic with imprinted flowers

white victorian shoe buttons

Alabama Studio Style

What have I been doing since the giant snowstorm, you ask? I've been obsessing over Alabama Studio Style, just like most of the rest of the world's crafters, of course! Everyone needs a break from house-painting and curtain-sewing once in a while. So I've been following, with huge interest, the blog tour of Natalie Chanin and I've also signed up for her workshop in Brooklyn on Sunday! I'm hoping it'll be the push I need to finally find some cotton jersey and get started on some slow crafting.

This will, of course, to Patrick's dismay, require my journey into the city on a non-work-day but I think it will be worth it to attend a Natalie Chanin workshop (and it's not quite as far as I would have to go for one of her Weekend Workshops). And did I mention that there's a free party afterward? What more could I want?

Where I Got This Habit

I see lately where I get my Unfinished Project Gene! In the world of Unfinished Projects, this one is a doozy. My mom swears that she didn't start these until shortly before I was born but the date on this special offer begs to differ (I guess I'm going to have to find my own frame for this one):

Up at the top there, it says "Prices effective through June 1,1975". Not that it has anything to do with the length of time this project has been waiting for completetion, but I also get a kick out of the line below that that reads, "Dear Sirs: Please send me the handsome hardwood frame as pictured on this package. . ." Now THAT'S marketing! I feel convinced that I must have this "handsome" frame! Too bad it's 30 years too late for it.

Isn't the embroidery the cutest though! And I love that my mom made it for me when I was a baby. Maybe it's a little late to be for baby me but I'm still going to enjoy it to it's fullest. And when I get around to getting a frame made for it, I'll even hang it on the wall. Surely it will take me less than 30 years to get it framed. But you never do know! Maybe by the time my mother finishes the other little girl that she started at the same time as this one, I will have managed to have the 2 frames made.