I decided to add my own little offering to the #bewellandstitch free patterns various designers have released. Charted in both DMC and Gentle Arts Sampler Threads, I hope this little design helps you find a little peace and tranquillity as we go through these very uncertain days. Design size is 85 x 35.
Know that I am sending you love and peace and joy as well. You can download the pattern below.
I have been asked to help host the Bloomtopia Fundraiser Stitch Along by Fat Quarter Shop. They have done quilting ones for a number of years and have decided to add a cross stitch fundraiser this year as well. Every year, they do these stitch alongs to raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Central and South Texas.
I am thrilled to have been asked to join with the group of people hosting this. Bloomtopia is a sweet design but the colors were a little too orange for me. If you’ve been visiting me for any length of time, then you know that orange is not my favorite color. Besides, I always like to change things up to make them more unique!
So I spent some time looking at floss, and I came up with my own colors, using mostly Weeks Dye Works overdyed flosses as well as a different color of linen. The design is charted in both DMC and Aurafil flosses. Here is the original DMC palette.
And here are my choices.
The fabric is a 32 ct linen by Wichelt in Water Lily. As you can see, I have pinked up the colors just a tad. I am so excited to start stitching this and see how these colors work out!
The stitch along starts on Feb. 1. Fat Quarter Shop is suggesting a $15 donation to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Use this link so that your donation will be credited under their fundraiser. Their goal this year is $30,000! Wow!
Started working on Shades of Gold by Northern Expressions Needlearts after reskeining the large skeins of silk from Missus Sedas into smaller, more mangeable skeins for stitching.
Colorways Darling and Jan’s PrideColorway Darling from Missus Sedas on Etsy
Two new Flosstubers to check out: CreatedtoCreateBH – has great multi-media ideas for finishing cross stitch Cynthia Brew Creates – is a fairly new cross stitcher and has jumped in with both feet. Lots of lovely projects.
And now, my list for Stitch Maynia 2019. A new stitch with me video everyday, featuring the following projects.
May 1 – 16thcentury English Garden May 2– Aloha May 3– Aloha Hawaii May 4– American Farmhouse May 5– Blessed Bee May 6– Brick House Sampler May 7– Colorful Deer May 8– Do-Re-Mi Sampler May 9– Four Seasons Street Scene May 10– Fractal Bookmark May 11– Grace Quaker Sampler May 12– Green on Green May 13– Guiding Light May 14– Hibernation Day May 15– History of Sheep May 16– Hoity Toity May 17– Home For Christmas May 18– Jacobean Tree May 19– June May 20– Leeds House Sampler May 21– Louise and Henry May 22– Luz Gonzalez May 23– Midsummer Garden May 24– Mr. PeacockMay 25 – Mushrooms May 26 – Om May 27 – Paradise Floral May 28 – Phillip Foster House May 29 – Pink Etude May 30 – Pretty Little Hawaii May 31 – Pretty Little India June 1 – Quaker Four Seasons June 2 – Quilter’s Cottage June 3 – Sally Spencer June 4 – Schoolhouse Lessons June 5 – Sea Glass June 6 – Seasons – Summer June 7 – Small House June 8 – Spring Door June 9 – Taj Mahal Mandala June 10 – Things Unseen Sampler June 11 – Tree of Dreams June 12 – Vitreous Art No 2 June 13 – Welcome Friends June 14 – Shades of Gold
Photo courtesy of Tempestry Project Blog – Tempestry display at North Central Michigan College
Concerned about climate change and the effect it’s having on our world? I have come across an organization that has put out a call for people to contribute to adding to the understanding and knowledge of climate change, using knitting or crochet as a medium to create a visual representation. This organization, called the Tempestry Project, has teamed up with the National Parks something something to help raise awareness of the impact of climate change on National Parks. You can learn more about it here: National Park Tempestry Project. Want to join me and knit or crochet a National Park Tempestry Project? I have chosen Haleakala National Park. What Park will you choose? National Park Tempestry Kits
Aloha Hawaii by Jeanette Douglas – 30 ct murano with some of the called for silks as well as some substitutions of cotton hand-dyed floss. If you’re interested in getting this pattern, you can email Jeannette at info@jeannettedouglas.com.
Om – Indian Elephant – 28 ct. Dense Fog Jobelan stitchisn’t 2 over 2. This link is to an Etsy shop called LoLaLottaShop. If you have never been to that shop, I highly recommend you get a drink of your favorite beverage and spend some time browsing through the hundreds of gorgeous patterns! Gorgeous designs from many Russian designers!
Lila’s Studios Seasons – Summer – using all the called for fabric and flosses
Green on Green by Rosewood Manor – 32 ct. burnt bronze fabric from Under the Sea Fabrics and 3 colors of Silks4U floss. See my Color Conversion page for details on the silk colors.
Fractal 705 Bookmark – stitched on 28 ct. evenweave 1 over 1. This is March’s free pattern. I don’t know how long these remain available.
This week’s projects: Grateful Hearts – this week saw a little more progress on the one over one block. (This chart is from 2000. I don’t know if it is still in print. You may be able to find copies on EBay, and of course, I will be giving mine away when I am finished with it.
Next up we have Quilter’s Cottage by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet. You can find it for sale at the Fat Quarter Shop here. Interesting side note: Fat Quarter Shop is starting to sell other designers’ patterns, such as Little House Needleworks, Country Cottage, Hands On Design and more! Does this indicate a growth in the industry? Let’s hope so!
The color conversion for this piece can be found here.
The BAPs I worked on this week were Grace Quaker Sampler. I love how quickly each little Quaker motif stitches up. I feel like I got multiple finishes on just this one piece! (Please watch the video to see the true colors of this piece. The photo really washed out the pink fabric. The fabric is 40 ct. Ash Rose from xJuDesign on Etsy. The flosses are all from Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe.
The small letters and numbers on this piece are all stitched over one fabric thread. Stitching over 1 one 40 ct. is quite a challenge for these older eyes!
While I enjoyed the progress I made on Grace, after 3 days I was ready to put her away and pull out the next piece, A Peacock’s Garden by Linen and Threads. This is the Mystery SAL for 2019, and I am so happy I decided to join in on this one this year. I love it so far!
The colors used in this piece so far are Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe Thread (VMST) Tropical Wonder, Gentle Arts Sampler Threads Island Blue, Weeks Dye Works Ocean and an older Needle Necessities colorway whose tag I have lost.
March Fractal Freebie shown in video is from Cross Stitch Collectibles. You can find it here.
Hope you enjoyed this update! See you Friday for my weekly Stitch with Me!
Time to revive my blog and start using it again. Not only am I going to keep notes for all of my YouTube videos here, I will be making weekly progress/new start/finish posts in order to keep track of my progress while I’m working on so many things. These weekly posts will also help me keep track of what I’ve worked on each week, and provide a place I can point you to, when I’ve made color conversions. It’s a great place to just keep it all together, right? So, let’s get started!
This past week, I spent some time on Four Seasons by Soda Stitch, a Korean company. This is where I started:
And this is where I am now:
This morning, I put Four Seasons away and pulled out Leeds House Sampler by Rosewood Manor. This is where I left off the last time I worked on it:
This week, I also started Quilter’s Cottage by Lori Holt from Bee in my Bonnet and The Fat Quarter Shop. This is one of the patterns they sent me as promotional material. While I think this is a super cute pattern, I feel the colors lend itself to more of a country feel and I prefer a more beach cottage feel. So it was time to change the colors. I have done several videos on the color change. This one shows my process for choosing fabric and converting floss colors. This one is a Stitch with Me where I talk more about what to think about when you want to change the colors in a pattern as well as tools you can use to make that process easier.
Here is the original pattern:
Super cute, right? But I wanted the colors to coordinate with my Wish Upon a Star piece. Wish Upon a Star is a design from 1987. The colors were totally 80s. Think soft pinks and blues, mint greens and peaches. I needed to punch up those colors. This is what I came up with and the colors I wanted to use for Quilter’s Cottage, so they can be companion pieces.
This is what I have so far and I’m quite pleased with it. I jumped around a little bit in order to try out the different colors.
Here’s my color conversion if you are interested in this look yourself. (The DMC color is listed first, and my substitution second.)
817 = Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe Threads (VMST) Black Cherry 3705 = VMST Southern Belle 760 = VMST Holland Tulips 435 = Gentle Arts Sampler Threads (GAST) Cottage Blue 743 = VMST Yellow Green 703 = VMST Southern Mint 702 = Mystery Variegated Green from my stash 964 = Cottage Garden Threads (CGT) Earl Grey for window panes/VMST Southern Belle for other areas 825 = VMST Easter Special 2018 535 = VMST Slate 169 = CGT Earl Grey Ecru = WDW Whitewash Tree Trunks = VMST Primitive Stone
And that’s it for this past week and going forward into this week! Happy stitching and be sure to find your joy!
Using the design Quilter’s Cottage by Lori Holt/Bee in my Bonnet Co Designs, in this video I show you my process for changing up the colors of floss used and how to decide what size and color of fabric to use. Hope you find this helpful!
If clicking on the above image doesn’t work, please click here.