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.

Around the World Side Project

Some weeks ago, I explained here why I was restarting Around the World in 80 Stitches. That meant that I had a partially finished project. At first I thought I'd make the hearts into Christmas ornaments until a friend suggested an alternative I hinted at here.

Ta-Da!

 

I am so pleased with my box! After Denise suggested that the piece would be a great box top, I went to Hobby Lobby and found this wooden box. At a Baldy View EGA meeting, Laurie M. showed us how to use paint and Briwax to turn an inexpensive wooden box into something pretty. The mirror was already in the box. I painted the box light brown and then painted the outside with two coats of ivory. I sanded down the paint to let some of the brown show through, put two coats of dark brown Briwax on the outside and clear wax on the inside, and then lined the interior boxes with pretty paper and felt.

The box in process

I was happy that I could turn what I thought would be a loss into a really pretty gain. The pictures don't show how nice the finish looks. Thank you Laurie for teaching me how to do this. That skill let me turn a - get this - $7 BOX into something this pretty. Yup, seven whopping big ones after my 40% Hobby Lobby coupon. Another few dollars for the paint, some Warm&White and sandpaper while everything else came out of my stash.. I did buy the Briwax but I'd planned on getting that for something else anyway and wanted it for my stash too.

Cleopatra's Cat

Several of the local EGA members are doing a group correspondence course by Mary Long. This is a whopper (for me) project that is mounted on 16 inch x 20 inch stretcher bars.

The designer planned the project in blues but I have much more reds that blues in my stash so my cat will be red. It uses a lot of that pretty gold thread as a laid stitch under each section. Basically you lay gold thread across each row then stitch over it so that the gold peek out from between the more matte threads on top. It's a very pretty effect. I'm using the recommended canvas of eggshell and metallic gold too so it will really shimmer. I'm thinking the green for my kitty's eyes.