Good times!

I would like to wish everyone a good and happy new year!
I think that over all my year was good.
The only complaint is that I didn't do enough stitching! >.<
:)

Felt gifts

I said that I would post photos of the ornaments that I was making for my nieces and nephews.

They are felt and all hand stitched.

I was flipping through a Crate and Barrel catalog and saw these cute little felt ornaments and choked when I saw how much they costed. $40! For a set of four. WTF?!?
I thought to myself that I could easily make those myself.

They cost me under $2 bucks to make. Felt is cheap people!



One the last one I tried a herringbone stitch on it and it was very hard to stay straight, as you can see. But I MASTERED THE FRENCH KNOT BABY!!!!!!!! I feel so dumb that all this time I couldn't do one to save my life.



I just hope that they will like them.

Snip Snip!

Last year for christmas my sister got me a cute cellphone charm for Chinatown in Chicago. Unfortunately a charm is not the world's best thing for my phone. I have a BlackJack. I don't want to scratch the screen.
But I just had to use it, it's too cute to not.
So I noticed that my folding scissors had a spot for something like that. Now I rarely lose my scissors! She's decked out in a cute little kimono, parasol, and two little swords!

Dreaming of summer already

Sorry for the lack of posts. I really want to post at least once a week, but I have been sick lately and haven't really done anything. I've been playing World of Warcraft with the boy mostly. But I have been stitching in between places (if you know the game, there are periods of time spent in flight to get to the next area). So not all of my time is playing around. So moving on!

The color is a little washed out, and I don't have the time to take better photos. :( But they are quite vibrant.


Pansies

I had forgotten all about these projects that I have done a while ago, oh say like 4 years ago.
They came from a British x cross magazine, Cross Stitch Crazy July 2004. I like the British magazines better because they have more whimsical projects and a lot of little fun designs. The only down side is that they are expensive.


Geraniums


Petunias

They are all stitched on 14 ct. aida. I added little 3D objects to them for something a little different.

Bear + pegasus= pegibear!

This cutey was a freebie from Vermillion Stitchery , a few years ago actually. Sadly you can't download it anymore. It was a part of a calender series. I only downloaded the ones that I wanted. The site does have many freebies, so I check back every once and a while.
There is one thing that I hate about cross stitching and that is METALLIC THREAD!!! It is demon spawn! And this puppy called for gold AND silver!!! Actually I tend to stay away from projects that call for it. But in the end this little bear turned out so cute!!
He's stitched on 14ct. aida and he fits perfectly in a 4x6 frame. He currently sits on my sewing table.
The other charts from that series that I grabbed were a bear dragon, bear unicorn, and Bucchus the wine bear. And now as I'm typing this, damn I should have downloaded them all!

Video games try to rot your brain, try

Sorry for the period of nonpostiness. I will admit what I haven't posted in a while though. For the past several months I have been playing a video game with the boy. Over the past month I have been glued to it, in preperation for today. Yes, I play World Of Warcraft (the expansion comes out today). I'm not ashamed, I play with my husband so we still spend time together, and it has saved us butt loads of money. We haven't been going out to stores and spending money on crap that they really don't need. I've been ok with this. I talk to my friend every night through the game, she lives in Canada. So I'm really doing two things at once.
I've been working on some Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews, so not all of my time is spent on the compy. When I finish I'll post picys. And there is a little bit of a back story but I will explain when I post the photos.

Now I do have stuff to talk about cross stitch wise.
I don't normal post WIPs but this is my BAP! I started it in November of last year and it's been taking me a while to work on, a. it's big and b. I want to do small projects to put off my boredom with my BAP.

So anyway, on to my big ass project!

Geisha
I got this Janlynn chart at Wal-Mart before they became one large butt and stop carrying cross stitch supplies. It's just a chart so I bought everything else separately.
The finished product is 8"x15.5". This will be the biggest project that I have ever done. But I WILL finish it damnit!


This is my work "mess". It takes two floss cards and a lot of fabric. I'm using 22 ct. light blue Aida. I'm a hoop user, they work just fine for my, I normally wash my completed project and iron them so I get the hoop marks out. I don't use the wooden ones, they don't hold tension like the tension plastic metal ones (I'm not sure what their proper name is). And yes I have a charm (Hello Kitty in a kimono) on the end of my scissors so I can find them. :)


This is what I have done so far. It doesn't look like much but it is!
One of these years (haha) I'll finish it.
But I'm also working on another Geisha kit.
And as you can guess now, I LOVE Japanese culture!
You should see my living room, lucky bamboo to samurai swords!

Vintage Books!!

I have been busy over the past few days. Getting ready for my favorite holiday!
I actually started stitching again. I needed my little break.
But I was going through some of my things and I found some books that my mother bought for my over the years. She supports my craftiness and buys me stuff like this all the time. I thought that I should share.
These are fours books in a series from Better Homes and Gardens

They are titled:

Sewing Casual Clothes
Tailoring Suits and Coats
Pattern Adjustments
Professional Sewing tips
They are from 1966! They are in very good condition too.



This one is called:
Complete Guide to Needlework
It's from Readers Digest and is from 1979
The colors that they used in it are nasty 70's colors of yellows, browns and blues. But it's a very good resource book.

Yay for books older then me!