Finished Project of the Week – VS Herbal Sachets

I decided to do another finished project of the week post.  This series of posts, called “Finished Project of the Week” are about projects finished prior to me starting a blog.  I hope you enjoy reading about them…  it’s kind of fun for me to reminisce about them…

I have absolutely no new stitching to show, mainly because I’m working on my Fall House exchange and am not supposed to post a pic of it yet.  I think I can have that finished this weekend though and get it off in the mail.

Here is Victoria Sampler Herbal Sachets:

And a close up of one of them that shows some better detail:

I just love that tri-color herringbone band.  I so wish Thea would design more of these…

All six of these were separate kits intended to be little sachets.  I stitched them all on a single piece of pewter evenweave and framed them together.  They were SOOOO fun and quick to stitch…  teeny samplers with little beaded flowers on either side of the name of the herb.

I’m really happy with the framing on this also.  When I took it to the framer, I realized that I hadn’t counted correctly between each sampler and it was kind of tricky to compensate for that with the window type mat, but I’m happy with it.  The mat color is perfect and goes with both the fabric and the color scheme of the different samplers.

Less than two weeks until Celebration of Needlwork in Louisville!

Finished Project of the Week – Victoria Sampler Lavender Hearts

Are you noticing a trend with my finished project posts?  Victoria Sampler and Teresa Wentzler?? 😀  This series of posts, called “Finished Project of the Week” are about projects finished prior to me starting a blog.  I hope you enjoy reading about them…  it’s kind of fun for me to reminisce about them.

I did this design right after learning to do hardanger – early 2000s?  I had also just learned how to reweave the threads on the sides to do hemstitching – I love purple and the minute I saw this one, I got it right away and it took me about a month to stitch.  Right now its hanging in my dining room:

Victoria Sampler Lavender Hearts

I just love the framing of this one.  The blue mat matches the blue in the silk purple/blue overdye called for in the design (Caron Waterlilies – Flagstone).

Shortly after, I was planning a trip to Banff, and BettyAB (I don’t know if she has a blog) invited us to visit her home in Calgary, about an hour from Banff.  I had plenty of leftover materials from Lavender Hearts, and stitched her the little ornament/pincushion option that was included in the leaflet and gave it to her.  This was the first time (and maybe the last?) I’d ever made my own cording…

 

I met Betty, her husband, and her daughter and had a wonderful dinner with them at her home.  I was fortunate enough to see so many of her finished pieces, along with a quilt she’d done with all of the Victoria Sampler Beyond Cross Sttich kits.

If anyone knows that Betty has a blog, please send me the link so that I can include it!

Finished Project of the Week – VS Welcome Hearts

I took this as a Victoria Sampler Cyberclass.  I had everything printed out and was happily stitching away on it when our new golden retriver puppy, Buddy, jumped up onto the couch and grabbed my printouts from the cyberclass and proceeded to completely shred one of the pages before I could get to him.

I sent an e-mail to Thea, at Victoria Sampler, with the title “The Dog Ate My Welcome Hearts.”  I sent her a pic of the cute puppy, a pic of the shredded pattern, and asked her if I could get another copy of just that one page.

She was wonderful and sent me a PDF by e-mail and I finished up the pattern.  Here’s the finished product:

I’ve stitched this a second time, this time using white linen instead of platinum, red silk for the letters, gold beads, and gold kreinik for all of the algerian eyelets. (The original as shown here had purple beads and uses perle cotton for the algerian eyelets) It was a gorgeous modification – very elegant and christmassy!  I gave it as a very much loved and appreciated Christmas gift.

Finished Project of the Week – TW’s Tradewinds

Here is the next installment of “Finished Project of the Week.”  In these posts, I highlight a project finished prior to when i started blogging.

The first Teresa Wentzler (TW) pattern I started was the Fruit Bellpull, but the first one I finished was Tradewinds!

I love this pattern! The only real modification I did was to put a half stitch of pearl kreinik over the white in the waves in the amazing border. It makes the waves actually look wet!

I love the framing of this and in the various houses its lived in, its always had a place of honor where it would be highlighted as obviously as possible.  Visitors always comment on how beautiful the design is…  It was really fun to stitch and I love the dolphins and mermaids in the borders and it was easy to break up into small areas for frequent little accomplishments.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for all of the wonderful comments you leave!

Finished Project of the Week – Victoria Sampler Summer Dreams

Here is the next installment of “Finished Project of the Week.”  In these posts, I highlight a project finished prior to when i started blogging.

I adore this design – Victoria Sampler Summer Dreams!

Isn’t this gorgeous?

The colors are a little less muted IRL than they look here.

I stitched this as a wedding sampler for some friends and honestly had a very hard time giving it away.  I love the whitework, the soft, muted peach and green colors, and that beautiful wreath filled with ribbon roses and sparkly beads.  This is easily one of my all time favorite designs and fully intend to stitch it for myself someday…. not necessarily as a wedding sampler, but maybe a birth sampler, or just a plain band sampler.  I already have ordered an additional accessory pack.

I also really like the way the framing turned out in this one.  You can’t see it in the picture, but the white mat is actually embossed with really wonderful leaf pattern.  I understand this particular mat has been discontinued and I’m hoping I’ll be able to find it somewhere on the web when I’m ready to frame the version I’ll stitch for myself.

Thanks for visiting!

Finished Project of the Week: Indigo Rose Desiderata

Here is the next installment of “Finished Project of the Week.”  In these posts, I highlight a project finished prior to when I started blogging.

This is Indigo Rose Desiderata.  I’ve always loved this poem and saw this online somewhere and HAD TO HAVE IT.  One it arrived I opened the chartpack and was immediately intimidated by the pages and pages of speciality stitches when I’d only done cross stitch before.  I kind of put it away and wondered if I’d ever be able to stitch it.

A few years later,  I started doing Victoria SamplerBeyond Cross Stitch Kits to learn new stitches and hardanger.  It wasn’t long before I saw the Desiderata in my stash, and bolstered with confidence from the BCS kits, ordered a big piece of fabric and got to work.  This actually took me several years to complete, and my big piece of fabric turned out not to be big enough, so the bottom hardanger band had to be modified to fit.

I had this framed a a local shop.  This picture is what it looked like when I got it home.  As you can see, the fabric is a little wonky up at the top, distorting the box around the “G” at the beginning of the poem.  Since it had been laced, I took the backing off and straightened it out and now it looks great and is hanging in a hallway.

The poem is a little hard to read here, but if you’re not familiar with it, you can go here (then scroll down) to read it.

As always, thanks for visiting!

A New Blog Feature….

I’m really starting to feel like a slacker stitching blogger. Most of what I stitch are BAPs and I don’t have a whole lot of progress to show on a daily, or even weekly basis. I love to look at finished stuff on other people’s blogs, and figure they’d like to see the same on mine.

It is for this reason that I’ve decided to start a series of posts called “Finished Project of the Week.” Every week that I cannot share any major current stitchy progress, I’ll post one of my older, finished projects and talk about it for my readers’ stitchy pleasure.

This week’s Finished Project of the Week is Teresa Wentzler’s Diamonds in Squares.  This is stitched on 25 count antique white lugana and was a lot of fun to stitch. I like doing geometric patterns as they aren’t too counting-intensive once you get the borders laid out. One of the things I loved about this piece was the bold geometrics combined with more natural looking leafy themes. I really love the pillow finish shown in the above link, however I cannot sew….

I had the idea one day while surfing around the net to see what Sudberry had to offer as a finishing option and found this cute little table that was the perfect size! I mounted the finished project and inserted it into this table I loved it! Its in my living room near the couch, and most often serves as a place for my laptop to sit when not in use.  (Yes, its under glass).  The link above shows the design in more detail than is available in this picture…

In other news, a potential disaster was averted last night…. We here in Northern Indiana had a line of severe weather including thousands of lightning strikes, high winds, and cloud rotation moving across the state. The local stations interrupted regular programming with hours of continuous severe weather coverage. We watched a wide red band with little tornado graphics move toward LaPorte, Indiana. DBF asked me if I was worried about the House of Stitches. I had an image of tangled floss hanging from tree limbs and patterns and stitchy gadgets laying under downed trees and power lines….  the horror!

Fortunately, after passing through LaPorte, and while heading our way, the weather people said that no major damage was done in the downtown LaPorte area…