A piece for Shane

"Yes, Mom, I know it's been awhile since I called..." Sorry for the long break. Between a bit of family upset, a minor illness, and a whole lot of lassitude, I'm back in the blogging chair. The metaphorical blogging chair, that is.

Here is the result of about four days of work on a piece for Shane. Who is Shane, you ask? My daughter's fiancé! I have to get this done for him because everyone in the family MUST have one. I'm not going to tell you what it is yet though I'm sure it's fairly obvious, especially if you look through my blog history.

It's actually from a Dimensions kit from 1996. I've become so used to over-dyed floss these past few years that I'd forgotten about "blended floss." Some designers use the entire palette of floss colors of DMC or Anchor. Some, like the Silver Lining's Marc Saastrad use DMC and 

Anchor combined to create a palette of over 700 colors. But back in the 80's and 90's, we did a lot of "blended floss." Take strands of different colors and put them together in your needle to create a third color. The large rounded object in my photo (just for fun, let's call it "the moon") is done with two strands of yellow floss and three strands of pale brown. In real life, it looks a bit like straw. The rest of this round "moon" will be stitched with only five strands of yellow.  This creates a texture I wouldn't get with a single color and a uniformity I wouldn't get with over dyed floss. I really need to remember this trick. You'd think that doing it in half crosses would go faster but I have to constantly check on the tension of all five threads in each stitch.

In more news, the Shoreline Stitchers Showcase here in Southern California was held last month. I entered four pieces. I was a bit frustrated that I had so little to choose from but I just haven't gotten a lot completed recently. Some years it seems like I get nothing completed and then other years lots of big projects get completed. This was not a period of high completion. Sigh.

This is Jonathan's stocking. It is an all-over cross stitch design and took a second place ribbon. I love this design.

Here is Jonathan and Michal's wedding sampler that won a first place blue ribbon. Again, you can't see it in the photos, but the designer called for the bells to use a whole lotta blending filament, gold in the gold areas and white in the white areas. This made the bells look metallic. 

My Around the World in 80 Stitches box won a second place. Not bad for something I was considering throwing out.

Here are my Gingerbread House ornaments stitched on perforated paper and with lots and lots of beads.

And here are the backs.