Tag: cross-stitch

The Downfall of the Background

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In painting, colored pencil, basically any medium, a single color background makes the task easier. You just use one paint/pencil/marker/etc. and can use broad strokes to fill in the space more quickly.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way in cross-stitch. Sure, you don’t have to stop and change thread very often, except when you run out. But you still have to make each individual stitch. And thousands of single-color stitches at a time can start to drive a person crazy.

Fortunately, I am finally done with the background, but lack of motivation to complete the ocean of yellow has thrown me way off schedule. What started out as 300-ish stitches a day quickly became nearly 700. Which means I better find some more motivation as the picture starts to define itself. Or this birthday gift will become a father’s day gift.

I have go to start these gifts much earlier…

Bird-day Presents

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Haha, bad pun. Anywhooo….

My grandmothers have birthdays about three weeks apart, so I was looking for something I could make each of them relatively quickly. When I told my mom we needed to go to the craft store to find something, she pulled a kit out that had been given to her. It had two pillowcases with hummingbirds on them. Perfect!

That one got sent out to my maternal grandmother a few days before her birthday. Took maybe two weeks to finish? I don’t really remember. But it was pretty fast, mostly because my mom had already started it. She did most of the light green before putting it down and forgetting about it a bit.

This is where I am with the one for my paternal grandmother. I’m plugging along pretty well. Too bad her birthday is less than a week away. If I’m really lucky I will get it sent Monday. But I’ve still got to finish the backstitch and french knots (grrr, french knots…) plus wash it and let it dry. I should also find a card…Better get back to work.

Surprise Minion Cross-stitch

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One good thing about NaBloPoMo was finding new sites to read. One of those, Little Thread Crafts, inspired me to pick up some cross-stitching again. I used to, when I was younger, but then I got much more into the embroidery than just cross-stitch. Kind of went with my major a little easier.

So reading Little Thread Crafts inspired me to cross-stitch something for my mom for Christmas. unfortunately, I was inspired to do this around 2pm the day before we were to exchange gifts. I wrapped up the supplies with this note:

(Yes, Simpsons fans, that is a poorly drawn, tiny Captain Lance Murdock riding the Whiplash…to be completed in 1994.)

I used this pattern from Crafty Guild on 14 count Aida fabric and was able to finish in less than a week:

It’s a minion! It’s also my first counted cross-stitch. I think my favorite part of this is the slight shiftyness to his eye.