Heart Fix

A few months ago, when the weather started warming up and I was looking to change out my bedding for something more weather appropriate, I decided to finally fix this bedspread that I ruined with the vacuum. How does one ruin a bedspread with a vacuum you may be asking. Well, it was dangling as bedspreads do and I vacuumed up the corner and the satin fabric on this bedspread melted with the friction. I cut off the crunchy melted part, leaving a hole that I covered in a heart shaped weaving technique.

I think it needs some more decorations, but I'm at least using it now. The bedspread had been tucked away for way to long waiting to be mended. Here is the in progress photo so you can sort of see what the hole looked like. Most of the crunchy melted part is gone, but you can see a little bit on the right. 

2024

Happy New Year!

It’s the first post of the year so I’m sharing my crafting intentions for the year ahead and also recapping my previous year’s resolutions. First, my 2023 recap: I got like 70%! (If I’m fairly lenient on what qualifies as complete and round up. These are my goals and my blog so I did pretty great!) 

Gardening is the category I did most poorly in, completing only one of my three goals (the row cover). Using my oil pastels and sharing about it gets a solid A grade. I completed 3/4 of my in-progress projects! (That quilt!!! Is 2024 the year?) And I’m saying I fixed the unreliable rss/email subscriptions because I thought I had twice and the issue is mostly out of my control.

Now on the the 2024 goals! Are some of them repeats of years past? Obviously!

My 2024 Crafty Intentions are:

In and For the Garden

• Pumpkins!!!
• Cut flowers
• Build three raised beds

Knitting

• A brioche knitting project
• Finish the leopard hat
• Knit more little men

Other Crafts

• More oil pastel drawings
• Mending clothes
• Floral bouquets
• Monthly photo challenges
• January - negative space
• February - portraits
• March - reflections
• April - frames
• May - leading lines
• June - macro
• July - shadows
• August - texture
• September - patterns
• October - silhouettes
• November - color
• December - bokeh

Mending

I haven't added a bright color thread when mending my jeans yet, but I did add a fun bit of embroidery thread to cover some holes on my very worn hoodie. They turned out great and I'm trying to figure out how I want to make little elbow patches because that area is completely white now. Do you have any suggestions? Also trying to figure out what color to use.

Cross Stitch Family Portrait

The Bear Family Cross Stitch Portrait is complete! I decided to stick with the three strands of embroidery thread and I like it!

Willy Billy Bear

I started working on my annual cross stitch family portrait for my sister. You can see the previous portraits here: Wedding, 2018, 2019, and 2020. For this portrait, I started with my favorite black cat, Willow. I like to say her middle name is William so I can call her Willy Billy Bear. On previous portraits I used all six strands of embroidery thread which is bulky and can be a bit difficult to pull the needle through. This has only three strands of embroidery thread and I'm not sure if I'll redo it because there is more open space than before, but this way is probably faster. Next week I'll post the finished piece, check back to see if I kept at it or decided to redo with more strands of embroidery thread.

Duvet Cover

It's finally finished! I started this project back in January and have been using the incomplete duvet cover basically ever since. In August I added quilt ties to one side, but the last stitch for the other side was placed late Tuesday night and it is so nice to have this project finished! 

/div>

That's a cute kitten! He decided it was way past our bedtime and I couldn't allow myself to move him out of the way.

Duvet Cover WIP

I am slowly working on my duvet cover. It has been functional for months, but the decorations have been lacking since the initial top stitching is basically invisible. Yesterday I decided to finish up the other side of the duvet with some simple quilt ties that Winslow thinks are kitty toys to attack. I still need to get the "main side" finished so can finally cross this project off my list.

Cross Stitch Portrait

I finished! And they look so cute! Even my niece with her bug eye and toupee.

Cross Stitch Family Portrait WIP

I was expecting to have this finished, but I forgot how sweaty my hands get when embroidering in the summer so I'm only doing short stints while working on it. So far we have the bodies of three of the four Bears. Check back next week to see the finished portrait. It will definitely be done by then!

Cross Stitch Family Portrait WIP

I'm working on an updated cross stitch family portrait for my sister! This is the fourth in the series.

Their previous portraits: Wedding, 2018, and 2019.

Upcycled Washable Scrubbies

One of my Earth Day Resolutions was to finally make little washable pads to use to remove nail polish. I successfully completed eight little scrubbies using an old stained washcloth! My original plan was to use a serger to make nice edges, but I was getting impatient and decided just to add a blanket stitch using embroidery thread. I'm not sure how well they will hold up, but before washing they work great! Since they are double layered, they hold a lot of nail polish remover so they clean my nails so quickly and easily! They work much better than just a single corner of the washcloth.

Cross Stitch Family Portrait

I started the tradition of making cross stitch family portraits for my sister when she got married. Today I'm sharing the third in the series! Here are Taylor, Kari, and Willow:

Taylor is looking mostly the same, Willow has lost a bit of weight since last year, and Kari has my nibling growing inside of her!

Pencil Case Embroidery WIP

I've recently become a student again and I purchased a mesh pencil case and document holder so that I could embellish them with embroidery. So far I haven't made much progress, but decided to do a little embroidery sampler on the pencil case (at least one side of the pencil case) as time allows. Here is my progress. It is only one little part, but I need help deciding if I do only reds and pinks or if this is the start to a rainbow. Let me know in the comments!

Cross Stitch on a Wood Slice

My little bird cross stitch is complete! It's now hanging in my hallway! Finding matching thread took a bit of time; I looked at every blue colored embroidery floss and was finally able to find the two matches.

Cross Stitch WIP

I've been working on a little cross stitch in a tree slice where I drilled holes. Unfortunately I ran out of the colors of embroidery floss I picked from my stash. There are just a few more Xs of each color to complete this project; my guesses at how much embroidery floss I needed were wrong so I'll need to pop into a craft store with my project to try to match the colors so I can buy more!

Cross Stitch Family Portrait

After finishing the wedding portrait, I started work on their family portrait. Here are Kari, Taylor, and Willow:

Cross Stitch Wedding Portrait

I started working on this gift over a year ago and it kept coming out wonky so I'd start over. Finally I finished and my sister has her little cross stitch wedding portrait!

This is a little portrait of Kari and Taylor in their wedding outfits, similar to some others I've made for some friends. They were made following cross stitch patterns from Do-it-Yourself Stitch People book by Elizabeth Dabczynski-Bean. I made Taylor's legs two taller and Kari's two shorter and they are about the right height.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I finished this colorful turkey embroidery in time for thanksgiving. Hope you are having a lovely day!

Last Minute Embroidery

I decided to do a little Thanksgiving embroidery, but haven't actually started stitching yet. Need to get to work! Thanksgiving is a week away!

The Blue Haired Fairy

The embroidery sampler I've been working on is sort of inspired by the blue haired fairy in Pinocchio. Yeah, this is a Craft Book Club post!

September's Craft Book Club read was Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi and not only did I read it to the end (even though I think Pinocchio was a little jerk who should have been thrown into the fireplace when he was still a horrible plank of wood and can't believe Geppetto actually finished carving him), I watched the movie last night too!

In the book, the fairy was blue haired (I'm really bummed Disney decided to make her blonde and boring) and at one point changed into a goat. I wanted to make a craft inspired by her so got out my blue roving for her hair then didn't know how to make it look like hair in my embroidery so I put a clump of it down. The wand is really the only other item on my embroidery sampler that sort of references the fairy. I tried adding an origami/geometric looking goat, but it looked bad so I added some other designs to fill in space.

A few things I might be changing are: removing the roving and the scalloped ribbon. They seem out of place to the rest of the embroidery and make that side heavy/unbalanced. I might try stitching something hair-like (maybe a goat too) in that space. (Maybe it will be a goat with a long, human-type hair.)

October's Craft Book Club read is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I've actually finished this one already and am thinking I should make something reversible. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments!