Newest Finishes

"Spot Sampler" by Margaret Bendig was actually started some 16 years ago, and was finally finished in June this year. 32-count Lugana, one strand over two threads, with Vicki Clayton silks. It's hard to tell in this photo, but threads were pulled and re-woven just inside the leaves-and-berries border (which couldn't be stitched until the re-weaving was done, as the border is stitched over the re-woven corners). I worked on this only in Margaret's monthly stitch classes, and there was a pretty long gap after Mom died when it wasn't touched at all. The original chart and leftover silks were gifted to a classmate; the working copies were happily run through my shredder.

 

"Love is Love" by Jan Hicks Creates. Lugana 28 in antique white, two over two. Started in the July class, but at home I got in the mood to stitch and wasn't feeling up to dealing with Teresa Wentzler's Fall Carousel Horse. Finished yesterday afternoon; washed and pressed and photographed this morning. I made a few changes on this, with several of the threads coming from the DMC Color Variations collection, and others from my stash of overdyes. The lettering on top was charted in black, but I changed it to a dark violet (Needle Necessities "Coronation"), and backstitched the letters in Gentle Arts Sampler Threads "Gold Leaf" to represent the newest addition to the flag, the violet ring bordered in gold for Intersex people. I haven't posted this to IG or publicly on FB because the intended recipient follows me in both places.

"Fall" continues to languish as The Tell-Tale WIP.

 

Needlework Update

It's picture-heavy, so be warned! 

Sorcerer Mickey framed. I actually forgot to photograph it before shipping it off to my niece, and had to text her to ask her to photograph it and send the photo. 

The piece we all called "Margaret's Monochrome Madness" finally framed. When I washed it preparatory to taking it to the framer I learned that an animal fiber (alpaca fur) had been eaten by something, and so had to frog those two blocks and re-stitch them in something inedible.

 Finished stitching Teresa Wentzler's "Carousel" back about 2011, and finally had it framed.

Teresa Wentzler's "Peacock Majesty," done for a cousin for the corner of his new home where he's putting the memorial for his mother, the younger of Mom's older sisters. The bauble contains the leftover floss bits ("orts"), for him to hang on one of his Christmas trees (he puts up several).

 A Sweetheart Tree anniversary sampler for my older niece's older daughter and her husband, who celebrated 25 years earlier this year (they married on my parents' and paternal grandparents' shared anniversary). This is the third of these I've done: a 25th for the older niece and her hubby, and a 50th for my eldest brother and his wife, parents of the nieces. 

 Bothy Threads' "Daisy Coo" for me, because  seriously LOVE "hairy coos.". Yes, I changed the fabric; I don't stitch on Aida, which is what came in the kit.

And a still-unframed "recent" finish: Little House Needleworks' "Home of a Needleworker I." Of course there are some color changes, including changing the color of the house to match "Home of a Needleworker II," which is framed and on the wall.

 EDITED TO ADD:

OMG, after all that, I forgot framed Hannah!

 

 

 

 

 OMG. It really has been a while. "Hannah Beeby" still isn't on the wall, and I have two other framed pieces which need to go up. Sorcerer Mickey went to my niece. 

Off to the Framer

I've taken two pieces to a new-to-me framer. One is for me; the other will be a gift. Hannah Beeby has been done quite a while. She's over on one 25-count Lugana, the name of which I don't recall offhand.

And this one's so old, it's on 14-count Aida. It's been so long since I've stitched on blockweaves that I don't remember what the last piece was. I know that nearly everything has been on one count or another of Lugana since "Amid Amish Life" was published in Cross Stitch and Country Crafts magazine in the mid-1980s.

Nearly Five Years??

 I keep telling myself I'm going back to blogging more, but I haven't succeeded yet. 

Currently: not much stamping going on, but lots of stitching, including a retreat in Temecula last week. I've also resumed the monthly usually-Saturday stitch classes since the Pandemic.

I've had a hankering to do another Teresa Wentzler design, so I created Wentzlerday, a day each week for stitching TW. I chose her Fall Carousel Horse, and started in November. I also allow myself some "bonus" days, such as when I decided that the other current project was not pleasing me, either with the fabric and count or with the counting errors. So I ordered new fabric, and awarded myself "Bonus Days" while waiting for it to come.

Last Friday was the last "bonus day," when the fabric arrived and I prepped it for a rainy Saturday start.

Lugana 25 cream, with mostly Accentuate substitutions for the called-for Kreinik blending filament. I am using Petite Treasure Braid in gold for the gold metallic among the vines.

Some of the photos I've posted in the past were linked from the now-defunct PictureTrail, so those are missing from some prior posts.

So Little Blogging!

Makes it look like I'm not doing anything! Not much stitching, to be honest, but I have been doing some card crafting, and even recently participated in a 30-day coloring challenge. So this seriously picture-heavy post will focus on what I've done in that. And in no particular order. The object of the challenge was to get the participants to spend just 10 minutes per day coloring, and not necessarily for card crafting. Even completing cards wasn't required, which is a good thing, because only two of the pieces I colored have actually been made into cards! There won't be 30 pieces here because some days didn't see a piece completely colored, so the coloring was carried over to another day, or two, or three. And I have a couple of pieces which didn't get completely colored at all. Some of the pictures were taken with the phone, some with the camera.

Most of my coloring was done with my new love, Faber Castell's Polychromos line of pencils, but I also used the old standby, Prismacolor, and also used a few from some other lines from both Faber Castell and another manufacturer. The other FC line is their Pitt Pastel, and the other company, which I learned about during this challenge, is Caran d'Ache, with some pencils from their Luminance line. I'll be picking up a few more of these! The Polychromos line is severely lacking in pinks and lavenders/light purples.

This is a stamp image from Power Poppy, as were more than one of my choices, as I really like Marcella's artwork, having been a fan since her days with the original Flourishes. This image has a matching die.

Another Power Poppy, from a set of multiple sweet pea images. I just randomly assembled them on a piece of card stock, then used my MISTI to do the stamping.

This is also a Power Poppy design, but it's a digital image. I'm hoping Marcella will release this as an actual stamp.

Yep: another digital image from Power Poppy, and another I'd like to see as an actual stamp. This image will show up later on a different card stock in a slightly different colorway.

This is a single image stamped twice, from Hero Arts. Because the flowers are whimsical, I didn't bother with the shading I try to accomplish with more realistic images.

This one was done entirely in the Luminance pencils. These are from a set by Stamp Doctor, and are supposed to match the elements of one of their die sets.

This is a stamp from Penny Black.

And another Penny Black.

Another Hero Arts clear stamp set.

This one's from Inkadinkado.

The other, somewhat differently colored, Power Poppy image, this time on Kraft card stock, and with the ladybug enhanced with a colored pen. In both of these, the metallic bits on the pencil and the brushes were enhanced with Wink of Stella clear. The WoS was also used on the bees' wings in both, although I left the bees' wings otherwise uncolored in this one, where I used a very light grey in the first one. I think this is where I switched from phone to camera.

This image is from, if I remember correctly, Serendipity, and it remains incomplete so far. Hey, it was 10 minutes per day and no requirements to finish or to actually use the images! Blogger apparently doesn't have the option to turn an image, so even though its orientation is correct on my computer, it's off here.

This is another Hero Arts image. This one's finished into a card, with this image being the entire face of the card.

Another Hero Arts image, and yes, I did finally notice and color the uncolored bud in this one!

This image is from Ken Oliver, and has a matching die.

Another one still not complete. This photo does nothing to indicate to you just how small this All Night Media image is. The wood block is 2"x3" and the image smaller than that. I've actually taken this one off the block and attached it to cling foam. Unfortunately, the only way to keep the colored image on the block is to keep the whole damned block! Boo.

I not only had problems getting a clearly stamped impression of this Stamps Happen image, I never finished it and actually tossed it into the circular file.

I didn't even bother trying to color the building in this Embossing Arts image. And then there's the challenge of coloring the wicker basket on the bike and the bread in the basket without making both basket and bread the same color. The chain guard is on the wrong side of the bike.

I'm not even sure why I have this Rubber Stampede image, as I'm not that much of a fan of sunflowers.

I want to have a little garden shed like this in my back yard. This one is from Peddler's Pack. And yes, this Buffalo Springfield fan always has blue birds!

This image is from Holly Berry House, and I'm not sure how long I looked at it before I realized the image elements are squash of assorted varieties!

Double stamping of a single image, from Impression Obsession. These will eventually be made into cards for the upcoming winter holidays. Another one Blogger doesn't want to orient correctly. Not that it matters all that much, since no matter which landscape orientation you choose, one of these will always be head down.

One of the first colored, but actually the last to be posted and the first to be made into a card. The recipient's birthday is right around the end of the challenge, so I didn't want to post it sooner in the group. I know she didn't participate this year, but I wasn't sure whether she was lurking there. The image is from Mostly Animals. Happy birthday, Melissa!!

All of the actual stamped images were stamped with Tsukineko products, primarily their VersaFine Onyx Black. The Stamps Happen image was stamped with VersaColor Boysenberry. The digital images were printed on my Canon printer with Canon inks. The white and eggshell/offwhite card stocks are Strathmore Bristol; the Kraft card stock is Neenah Desert Storm.

Birthday Card for Melissa

I like using orange for Melissa's cards because she's a Vols fiend. And she loves irises, even has an iris tat in memory of her iris-growing granny. So I threw this card together, and promptly screwed up by assembling it wrong. And instead of doing it all over again, I opted to cut the original apart and put it on a slightly larger card base, which led me to create a homemade envelope, too!

I don't remember what the cardstocks are, although the replacement base was a Bazzill--that much I'm certain of. The others came out of stash. The stamp is either All Night Media after they went mass market or PSX, and of course it's gone walkabout (it's around here somewhere!). The ink is VersaFine Onyx Black.

It's colored with Prismacolor pencils, and I think the dies are from the HA "Infinity" rectangles. I think I've said before that I'm no fan of front-of-card sentiments, and only use them seldom.

The really fun part? I even asked her advice on what to do when you've mucked up your assembly. Her answer? Cry. Well, it didn't go that far, but it was a frustrating few days of pouting over the blunder before I decided to go slightly-larger-than A2 for this one, even though it meant the custom-made envelope--which also got stamped and colored, but I don't think I photographed that.

Edited 4/8 after the iris ended its walkabout: it's an old Hero Arts stamp.

I'm entering this in the Less is More #321 "Recipe" challenge.

Another "Color and Assemble" Class with Shirley

So yesterday we had another "color and assemble" class with Shirley at my LSS Stamp Fever. I do these not because I'm actually learning something, but for socialization and maybe some ideas, as well as possible introductions to other stamp companies. We did these in no particular order.

Card Number 1:

This stamp is from Power Poppy, and I used Prismacolor pencils to color it in. The yellow card stocks are from Bazzill. I'm not sure what she uses for her white, but it's probably Neenah Classic Cover.

Card Number 2:

The three images on this one are a single stamp, and I don't remember what company it's from. Funny how that works when it's just not your style! I know the yellow layer is Bazzill, but I'm not at all certain of the sources for the other layers. And again, colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Card Number 3:

Once again, the colored card stocks are Bazzill, and I colored with my Prismacolor pencils. I think the image is a Penny Black. Shirley kindly did the fussy cutting for me. (Melissa, would you believe I actually started to type "fuzzy"? It's All. Your. Fault!)

Then Bette and I had a little get-together to go over the plans for the class we're co-teaching next month. Background stamps. That's all the information you're getting for now.

Another Challenge to Enter!

This one is over at AAA Cards and is "blending."

This is actually on a cream card base, and the image is directly on the card base, so it qualifies as pure "clean and simple" as well as featuring the blending technique. It takes several passes with the die-cutting machine to get the acetate to cut all the way through all the way around, but acetate does make nice reuseable masks. For this I used the Spellbinders' Deckle Edge. The inks used for blending are from the Memento line of Tsukineko products: New Sprout, Pear Tart, Bamboo Leaves, and Cottage Ivy. The Hero Arts "grasses" image was stamped in Tsukineko's Versa Fine "Olympic Green."

Another Plea for Birthday Cards

This time it's for a young person whose next birthday is likely his last--his cancer is terminal. 

I used one of my favorites, the cupcake tower from Peddlers Pack, but it's been so long I'm not sure what ink I used. It looks like it may be Tsukineko's VersaMagic in "Gingerbread." No clue where the cream-colored card stock the image layer and card base are from. No clue where the striped stock is from. The "antiquing" is one of the Distress Inks from Ranger's Tim Holtz line, probably "Tea Dye." And the edges of the image layer were scraped with one of those distressing tools. The inside is pretty much the same, but the "Happy Birthday" image layer is tilted in the other direction. Happy birthday, Jacob.