JN SAL Month #2 - Spring "Hearts"!

Just Nan "Christmas Hearts" Freebie - Spring Hearts Variation!

Although I started stitching this piece for February, computer problems meant that I missed last month, so it is my entry for March. With the hearts and the celtic knots, it ended up working out well for both St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day :)

This lovely pattern is actually "Christmas Hearts", a beautiful holiday ornament that is happily available for free at Save the Stitches (right at the bottom of the list)!

To make it Spring-y, I substituted the colours and went a little brighter:

I didn't use the Balger blending filament suggested, but I did use Mill Hill Gold Beads! However, the number on the pattern is 4D567, which I think is the old system; mine is 00557, and as far as I know, is the basic gold metallic. The fabric is the white 28 count Evenweave by M.C.G. Textiles that I used for Rosebuds and reviewed here.

The greens and pinks are just lighter versions of the original darker colourway, but I added the two blues for a cheerful contrast, and they replace the original lavenders.

When I'm trying to choose alternative colours, I like to pull the cards of floss and put them side by side first, narrow the choices down, and then put the floss cards on my binder ring to see how they work together. Having them all on the ring is also handy for choosing fabric colours, as you can hold them against your possible options.

I'm pretty sure that this is a really common storage technique, but I don't think I've shared a photo of it before :) And I love Mill Hill Beads for the lovely colours and finishes, but the fact that they fit so easily on the binder rings is a wonderful bonus!

Here's some in-progress stitching photos:

The only significant change I made was in the number of threads I used. I generally like a thicker coverage, so I used three strands instead of two for the cross-stitches and the center Rhodes Heart. When I started working the Satin Stitch hearts, I had a hard time making them smooth, so I added an extra strand (four total) for fullness.

I also made a mistake in spacing my first heart and I didn't want to cut it out and restitch it again so I just went with it, and made all the hearts one stitch too short :) And the sides were looking a little pointy, so I left off one stitch on each side.

When it came time for the beading, I was delighted by the way the dark blue dots looked like flowers when the gold beads were added in the center! So I decided to leave off some of the other beads around them to keep that look ;) And the beads around the bottoms of the Satin Stitch Hearts are also spaced a little bit differently.

Here's some progress photos of the beading (oh, how I do love beading!):

So much sparkle :) This was a really fun design to stitch, and I fully intend to do the original Christmas colourway later in the SAL! I think the pattern would also look great adapted for the other three seasons too - brighter pink hearts for summer, red for fall and such. All four would make a nice wall hanging or ornament set, perhaps.

The Just Nan Stitch Along (SAL) 2014 is hosted by Zeb at Keep Calm and Cross-Stitch! Anyone can join at any time, including non-bloggers :) Come stitch with us!

SFS SAL Month #2 - A Special Find!

Sorry for the radio silence - my laptop adapter unexpectedly died, and I had to get a replacement :) But I do have some incredibly exciting news to share - thanks to The Great Stitchy Karma Gods, I stumbled across a pattern I've loved for many years!!!

Seasonal Carousel Horse - "Summer" - by Teresa Wentzler

After a really awful day, my Stitchy Guru Mother took me along on a trip to a little out-of-the-way wool store. I've been there before, and so I've looked through the very small selection of older cross-stitch supplies and patterns several times. But while I was flipping through the booklets, I found something that cheered me up immensely - this lovely rose-bedecked beauty - and I just HAD to take her home:

Now, after the Spontaneous Stashing of last month, I hadn't intended to buy anything in February. But I have long admired Teresa Wentzler's work - in fact, her designs are one of the major reasons that I first fell in love with cross-stitching - and I have always wanted to stitch a TW! That desire has only grown over the last few years, as I've been following the progress of other stitchers working her designs on their blogs.

(As a matter of fact, Jo @ A Stitch In Time is a TW enthusiast who recently finished Fruit Bellpull and gave me some very encouraging e-mail advice about stitching a Wentzler, and Blu @ Therapy By Thread is currently working on Egyptian Sampler!)

As a little girl, I loved carousels and merry-go-rounds at travelling fairs. I collected figurines and stickers, and even had a t-shirt :) Before I ever even thought of cross-stitching myself, I fell in love with the TW Seasonal Carousel Horse series seen as little tiny thumbnails in the back catalog pages of my Mother's stitchy magazines. So to find one of the horses in the series - let alone my Very Favourite horse - was some kind of miracle, and I am thrilled to pieces to have the chance to stitch Summer!

There are three other horses in the series - "Winter" (1989), "Spring"(1989), and "Fall" (1990). Summer was originally released in 1990, and although the series is listed on the Current Designs list on Teresa's website, from what I can understand the original hand-charted pattern leaflets like this are discontinued. I think all four of the horses were once available together in a pattern booklet too. But new computer-grafted versions (all except for Winter) are available digitally at Patterns OnLine.

Also, there is an excellent article on the Collector's Weekly website by Lisa Hix called "Where Have All The Carousel Horses Gone?" that is a lenthy but interesting read. It traces the history of carousels and merry-go-rounds, the different types and notable designers, and the restoration of the endangered older wooden rides including the Pennsylvania ones that Teresa Wentzler based this series and "Carousel" (1988) on!

Like all TW designs, "Summer" is intricate and complex and it will be quite a stitchy challenge for me. But I went ahead and purchased the threads I was missing and some Evenweave to stitch her on too :) The original was stitched on 25 count cream Linen, but I think this 28 count "antique white" Evenweave will work well with the colours.

So here's my SFS Spending for this month: I spent $6.00 + tax for the Pattern Leaflet = $6.78. I bought the threads and fabric at Michaels: I bought 12 skeins of floss at 49 cents each, and used a 40% off coupon for the fabric (regularly $9.99) - the total, including tax, was $13.41. Altogether, I spent $19.89.

And it wasn't until the day after I bought the fabric and threads that I received the notice of the special "Splurge Weekend" free spending LOL, so that comes out of my monthly allowance of $25, leaving me $5.11! That, combined with my leftover from last month, means I have a total of $15.09 banked, which I'm quite happy with :)

I wasn't intending to start a large project this year, and I haven't stitched one in quite a while. I'm not even sure if my Q-Snaps are big enough for it yet! I have to dig them out and do some measuring. But finding Summer was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, and I'm really excited to think about stitching her! I'm not sure if a start will be feasible right now, time-wise. Everything else will have to work itself out right? ;)

The Stitch For Stash (SFS) SAL is hosted by Mel @ Epic Stitching

Just Nan SAL - Month #1: "Rosebuds"

I'm excited to introduce this project to you not only because this is my first entry into the Just Nan SAL but also because this is my first time stitching on Evenweave fabric!!! As you may remember, I was gifted this lovely pattern from Just Nan by Meggie, and it marks my first experience with this designer. Here is the leaflet:

I followed the colourway exactly, but mine turned out a little darker and leaned more toward the mauve than the pink. According to the chart, the model was stitched on "Zweigart 32 CT Antique Lavender Belfast Linen", which may have affected the way the colours photographed. Overall, I think mine has a more vintage feel but I like it :)

When it came time to choose my fabric, I was at a bit of a loss. Because the center is partially worked with a new-to-me Specialty Stitch called the "Mosaic Stitch"(which seems to be a smaller version of the popular Needlepoint favourite, the "Scotch Stitch") and there are Eyelets (a Diamond Eyelet in the center and Algerian Eyelets in the corners), the design cannot be stitched on Aida cloth. I couldn't find any 32 count linen here, but the design also gives measurements for 28 count.

After some fruitless hunting around in my local fabric store for some linen by the meter, I chanced upon a package of white 28 count Evenweave from M.C.G. Textiles at Michaels. This American family-owned business is new to me, and I am so very impressed with this product that - as I mentioned in my last post - I immediately went out and bought another package halfway through stitching Rosebuds :)

Here is the front and back of the package - the fabric is larger than I expected (20" x 27"), and retails here for $9.99 CA. Although the fabric is folded, the creases were light and easily came out when I sprayed them with water and let the fabric air-dry for about fifteen minutes. No ironing was needed! And that's a big plus for me ;)

The fabric itself is softer than Aida cloth, with a nice drape. And the colour is much brighter than it appears in these photos, a lovely true clear white with bluish tones rather than yellowy cream. But what impressed me most is the, well, evenness (for lack of a better term!) of the Evenweave! The threads are plump and close together...

...as you can see in this extreme close-up of the center area (before beading). This is a HUGE deal to me! I've looked at lots of other Evenweaves, in person and online, and while less "slubby" than Linen, the threads are seldom regular. And that drives me NUTS! Also, there were no flaws, bumps or loose threads in my package either.

Made of "100% Combed Cotton", the product descriptions on the packaging and the website also state: "Our fabric is a woven 3 ply yarn. Carefully woven in each direction which details a distinct box to hold for ease in stitching". This makes the strands easier to count, I think. It took me a while at first to adjust to working over two threads instead of one, but the regularity of the weave was incredibly helpful!

The 28 count Evenweave at M.C.G. Textiles is also available in a smaller 15" x 18" package and a larger 30" by 36" package. There are five neutral colourways in the range - White, Antique White, Mushroom, Khaki and Rose (more of a mauve) - and a really neat sample pack with 12" x 14" cuts is available. You can see the Evenweave options here, and the best part is that they're all currently on sale (site-wide too)!

The company also sells several other needlework fabric options, including pre-finished items to stitch on. And M.C.G. Textiles manufactures Aida cloth in a variety of counts and some beautiful colours (with sample packs too!), including a gorgeous opalescent line called Starlite Aida! They also sell Linen imported from Belgium.

This is definitely a product I'll be using again, and that I highly recommend trying! It's really disappointing that the lovely colours and the sparkly Starlite line aren't available here locally, but I'm considering trying tea/coffee dying to get a tan colour.

I'll let you know how that goes, if it goes (and if you have any advice, I'm all ears!).

Here's a few pictures of my progress on Rosebuds :) It was a very fun stitch and worked up quickly! Besides the Specialty Stitches, the rest is all in whole cross-stitches, and although there are a lot of colour changes in the flowers you usually have at least a two or three stitch block so it's not like working confetti (thankfully!).

The pattern called for two colours of beads by a company called SJ, which I think is SJ Designs. According to the site, they carry Japanese imports, and the colour numbers no longer match those given in the chart. One was a "White Pearl" and the other was a "Rose Blush", which is basically a pink pearl finish from what I can tell.

While I had equivalents in Mill Hill Beads, the white didn't show up against my fabric so I made some substitutions that - although I wasn't sure of at first - I'm now very happy with! The colours I chose were MH #02016 (Green: Crystal Mint) in place of the White Pearl, and MH #02024 (Purple: Heather Mauve) for the Rose Blush :)

The pattern states to attach the beads with a half cross-stitch using a colour to match the background, in this case white. That's what I'd usually do too. But since I was substituting iridescent transparent beads for opaque ones, the white just washed them out. Both colours were not-quite matches to my floss, as they were too pale.

So I used the dominant floss colour to attach each bead (in this case, 503 with the Crystal Mint, and 316 with the Heather Mauve) which showed through the glass enough that the beads then matched the floss near-perfectly ;) Neat trick, hey?!

You can see the beads with the threads through the holes in the top photo, and how the beads look from the front in the bottom photo. I also used a whole cross-stitch for bead attachment, as I normally do, but I made the stitch over only one thread of the Evenweave (just below the bead) so that the floss didn't show up on the white. I'll have to remember that in future ;) The beading around the Diamond Eyelet in the center is different that way - squarish instead of aslant - but I was okay with that.

Here's how Rosebuds look before and after the beading:

When I was first planning the project, I thought about leaving off the beads entirely (since I didn't realize using the floss colours would make the match so good!), but I'm very glad that I changed my mind because I think the embellishment adds a lot to the design. In fact, beading seems to be a design characteristic of Just Nan patterns, and if Rosebuds is any indication, the sparkle makes them lots of fun to stitch ;)

I'll leave you with a close-up of the lovely heart-shaped Celtic Knot in the center:

The Just Nan Stitch Along (SAL) 2014 is hosted by Zeb at Keep Calm and Cross-Stitch! Anyone can join at any time, including non-bloggers :) Come stitch with us!

My Great Giveaway Win!!!

Some very exciting news to share this week - I recently won the absolutely fabulous "300 Followers Giveaway" hosted by the lovely Meggie of Cross Stitch Cottage!!! Unfortunately, Meggie has had to take her blog down for the time being, but I really hope life settles down for her soon and that she'll return to writing again :)

Before she left the online world, Meggie very kindly gave me her blessing to make one of the beautiful cross-stitch charts she sent a Travelling Pattern, and I'm thrilled to be able to share her generosity!!! I've never hosted or participated in a TP before, so I'm still working out all of the details. Since it's me, it'll likely be a little different ;)

I'll let you know ASAP! But for today, I just wanted to show you the amazing gifts:

It felt like Christmas when I tore into Meggie's package outside the post office ;) She had also wrapped everything wonderfully, but none of that survived to make it to the photos LOL! It's a little hard to see everything, so here's some close-ups:

Here is the card she sent, a great (and very useful!) heart-shaped magnetic needle-minder, beautiful Pink Ribbon scissors with beaded Fairytale fob (the charm is a cute little castle!), paper Bunting kit and "Live, Laugh, Love" sampler by Helen Philipps.

Just look at all these gorgeous overdyed DMC Colour Variations!!! I was SO happy to open these, and I've never even seen most of these lovely colours before ;) Here's a close-up of the label numbers in case you're interested in a particular colour:

From left to right: 4065, 167, 4090, 4220, 4245, 4250, 4042 (Christmas mix!!!), 4122 (Autumnal mix!!!), 4210 and 4190. I'm just starting to get into using overdyed threads, and I can't wait to work with these, especially the Christmas one ;)

Meggie very kindly included some extra Just Nan charts when I told her that the lovely little ornaments - "Rosebuds" and the Christmas-themed "Snowberries" - would be my first experience with the designer :) That was incredibly thoughtful and I can't thank her enough! The extra charts are the ornament "Primrose Path" (which I can't show because there is no finished image) and the magnificent "Harmony":

From what I can gather, "Harmony" was a special limited edition kit that came with unique overdyed silks and charms for each of the four seasons. While researching the design, I came across this great stitching finish, using the kit materials!

Finally, Meggie sent two other beautiful charts - "Love is a Garden" by Waxing Moon Designs - complete with a cute little butterfly button! - and "Geranium House" by Country Cottage Needleworks. Both designers are entirely new to me too :)

The Mascot for this Giveaway was the cute "Little Bear" Meggie crocheted, and she was a little bewildered when she was first unwrapped, after her long trip overseas...

But Mr. B. Floofy, being the gentleman that he is, hopped right over to say hello...

And now bunny and bear are the very best of friends :)

Little Bear is fabulously soft, carefully crocheted in some sort of wool blend, and is perfectly finished with a cute ribbon bow and little heart button on her belly!

I've been calling her Little Bear ever since I received her, and it works, but (like Mr. B. Floofy himself last Easter) I think she needs a special name :) Any suggestions?!

Many thanks again to Meggie, and to all the kind stitchers who share their stash :)