What a fun stitch! Each little bunch of flowers was a satisfying finish… some great colors and some specialty stitches along the way!
I’m thinking this would be great with an octagon mat cut, and I also think I’d like to hang it from a corner, so it’s a diamond shape on the wall.
I’m on to make a big push on Alpine Seasons!
I stitched and finished a series of ornaments for my family a couple of years ago. They are based on the Victoria Sampler Virtues Ornaments… I just replaced the virtue in the pattern with the name of a family member. Since I have a new neice, I stitched this ornament for her earlier in the week:
Here are the others that I’ve stitched over the years… each one for a family member is different (note, Casey and Carly aren’t family members!). You can find my finishing tutorial here.
I finally finished up the Sweetheart Tree Stitcher’s Favorite Biscornu last night!
I modified the back, as I normally do if the back is a repeat of the front. I also usually like to do a beaded edge on my biscornus, but I had some leftover teeny buttons and decided I wanted those on the corners, so just stitched up the edges without beads. I’m pretty happy with it! I also stitched up the matching fob as part of the 2009 Christmas Ornament Project:
So…. my brother and his wife are having their first baby girl (after 3 boys) later this month and I was suddenly struck by the desire to do a birth sampler for her. Her name will be Sadie Grace and she’ll be my first neice. So, of course, I immediately thought of the Victoria Sampler Heirloom Birth Sampler and remembered that I had started it many years ago and just never finished it. I had started it for a boy, though, and as you can see from the pics below, the “leaves” in the rose wreath at the top are a teal color, and the rest of the color on the piece is a matching teal. If it had been started for a girl, it was charted with pink leaves with matching pink for the rest of the sampler. I would want to use peach or lavender for a girl, but I’m wondering if I can get away with just using either of these colors for the rest (would replace the teal band, which is just ribbon woven through the hemstitching). Leaves ARE green/teal, afterall, but I would need to find a way to tie in the peach or lavender used in the rest of the piece to the top wreath. One idea is to do an additional ribbon rose in the center of the wreath in the right color. Pulling out the leaves that are already stitched is just not an option…. I’d have to take out the beads too, and I think the fabric would just look terrible… I’m trying to find a way to NOT have to start over. The fabric here is actually platinum, but it looks much lighter in real life!
All opinions/advice are appreciated… even if you think I need to just start over!
I finally got a decent shot of the Tree Frog finish – framed by me!
Here is my start on VS Heirloom Stitching Sampler! If you’re reading this in Google Reader, I originally posted the wrong picture here and reader seems to display the first post, rather than the most recent and updated version, you may need to go to my blog to see the VS HSS picture……
Its fun to stitch but I feel like the colors so far appear a little washed out on the recommended raw linen. I originally got a piece of a lighter fabric, then thought that the ecru and cream colors would blend into the fabric too much and one of the things I like about this is that the hardanger and specialty stitches in the lighter colors really stand out on the recommended fabric. I doubt I’ll start over, and I’m hoping that once I get some lighter and brighter fiber on the fabric, I’ll be a little happier with it. What do you guys think?
I finally finished up the frog piece I was working on for a friend. I took a pic over the weekend, but had forgotten my camera and the one I took with my phone didn’t turn out very well. I finished it with a precut grey mat, precut foamcore, and an 8 x 10 frame, all of which I found at Hobby Lobby. It looks great and my friend (a fan of frogs) loves it. 
So I’m all ready to start on the Victoria Sampler Heirloom Stitching Sampler! I did learn stitching from my grandmother (actually, she sent me my very first cross stitch kit in a birthday card and I taught myself), but I don’t have a daughter, so I’ll be replacing the verse as suggested on the VS website to the following:
“Grandma loved her fancywork and passed it on to me. I practiced well my needleart and share it all with thee. Our love and lives are intertwined for all of us to see. The threads with which I stitch today connect our family.”
Here is Sweetheart Tree’s “Pink Flowers on Gingham” finished as a biscornu:
These aren’t really the best pictures, but I took about 20 of them and then decided just to do the best with what I had. I stitched up the side using the pink beads on every other stitch. Its not obvious in these pictures, but this is stitched on pretty pink and white gingham linen Besides the linen though, it didn’t call for anything special.. just DMC and mill hill beads. It was a fun, quick stitch and a perfect pick-me-up for my unemployed status and also for impending spring. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stitched this again someday as an ornament or a pincushion.
I loathe the watchmakers cases I’ve been using to store my beads in. The lids don’t fit right unless you bend the bases enough to make the lids stick… and last time I went to look for beads, I opened one of the cases to find that most of the beads had somehow spilled out of their individual containers and were a mixed mess.
So, over the weekend I was in Joanne’s and saw this!
The individual containers are clear and have screw top lids! I bought two! I did a little bead organizing today and ended up with this:
Yep – those are all of the beads I have (not very many, I know). I used a fine-tipped sharpie to write the bead numbers on the lids. I might try to find some tiny sticky labels for future use, but for now, I’m happy with this.
Over the weekend I worked on a little piece that I ordered from House of Stitches. It’s Sweetheart Tree’s Pink Flowers on Gingham:
Isn’t it pretty? I love that gingham linen! I’m going to stitch it again and make a biscornu (It came with a heart shaped button for the center which isn’t attached yet). I knew my friend Susan would like it and sent one to her also and we’ve been doing a stitch along together. I also ordered SHT’s new Colonial Roses Biscornu.
I won’t be getting any new stash anytime soon. I lost my job last week and just can’t justify anything new when I’ve got so many things I can start and work on in my stash already.
Its finally warming up here! I went out today without a coat! The piles of snow are melting! I’m looking for crocus…..
I read today that Teresa Wentzler’s design business is closing! Read about it on her website. Boo hoo! See below for pics of the TW designs that I’ve stitched over the years… I still have some of her stuff in my stash and am sure I’ll get to them someday!
I finally have a computer at home again, so will be catching up on my blog reading and writing soon. I’ve been working on my December ornament and chose something relatively challenging. It’s 4″ in diameter and solid stitching, but I should be able to finish it up before the new year.
There have been some changes personally for me… I’m single again. I think it needed to happen, as we had different ideas about what we wanted regarding our futures, and even though it saddens me, I’m doing OK. We are still friends and spend (very platonic!) time having dinner or going to movies. The worse part is that its the holidays and am spending a lot of time home alone as I don’t have any family locally. Even though I’m doing OK, I’ll be really glad when the holidays are over.
Here is a selection of some of my finished TW Designs. All of them can be seen at my Webshots page:
Friday I got the accessory kit I ordered for the Victoria Sampler Gingerbread Scissor Keep published in the 2009 JCS Ornament magazine. I managed to stitch and finish it up over the weekend! I used the template provided in the magazine for the final shape of it, but just finished as an ornament and not as a scissor keep. On this one, I really wanted to join the cording at the base, but couldn’t figure out how to do it and have it look nice, so this ornament ended up with a tassle:
Victoria Sampler Gingerbread Scissor Keep
While I had my finishing supplies out, I decided to finish one more ornament that I’d stitched earlier in the year:
Just Nan A Little Joy
So… I’m approaching the end of my 2009 Ornament Project. I have two more ornaments to stitch and finish, then one last stitched ornament that needs to be finished up!
This is another Sweetheart Tree Biscornu (Lavender Blossoms) I finished up a few nights ago:
This was a fun stitch… as you can see I simplified the back, which is designed to look just like the front.
I was so excited about receiving the Sweetheart Tree Stitcher’s Favorite Biscornu and Scissor Fob kits that I started them right away! I’ve decided that the scissor fob will be my September ornament and finished stitching one side of it tonight. I’ll post pics once its finished up as an ornament. It is a quick stitch, any the tiny size makes it even more cute!
So, I have finished four biscornus total. One I put a hanger on and gave as a Christmas gift last year, but the rest are just sitting in my bag of stitched stuff. What should I do with them? I could finish them as ornaments too, but it just seems like I should be able to do something with them so I can see them all year. A friend suggested putting them in a basket, but I have two kitties that would just LOVE to bat those around on the kitchen floor.
So… what do you do with your biscornus?
