January's Tiny Stitches

You may or may not know, but I used to cross stitch a lot years ago, before patchwork became my new love.  I've always loved the slower rhythms of hand stitching of all sorts and I'm sure if you've been hanging around here for long enough you'll not be surprised by that, and will have seen plenty of evidence in EPP patchwork, hand quilting, a little embroidery and occasionally a cross-stitch piece, too.  In the mayhem of 2020, I found solace and sanity in those slower rhythms again, something I think 2021 is also going to require.

At the end of last year, I fell down a rabbit hole of Floss Tube, SALs, new patterns and available freebies and I have so many things I want to stitch that I hardly know where to start.  Though I think I may just have figured that out, but more on that next week ;-)

In the meantime, the lull of a long January and the tightening of lockdown restrictions pushed me a little deeper into that rabbit hole. Patterns were printed off, online shopping carts checked out and project bags made ready, so I have a few little bits of cross-stitching to show you from this month.

Fat Quarter Stitch were offering this quilty inspired Stitches from the Heart pattern for free as part of their plans for #beminesal in February and I thought, why not? I found this satisfying as a stitcher and a quilter.  By the way,  if you are interested there is also a free quilt pattern for a Stitches from the Heart mini quilt and a wallhanging.

Of course, I couldn't resist the Lori Holt Sew By Row SAL hosted by Fat Quarter Shop either.  Though, I had to wait until a couple of weeks after the start of the SAL for the pdf of this pattern to become available to purchase.  It means that I'm a bit behind but I'll just try to maintain my own weekly pace rather than catch up.  There is a spot and a frame ready for this one just beside my sewing nook! Aren't those tomato pincushions adorable?

Then, watching Floss Tubes and Fat Quarter Shop I've gotten a little Valentine stitching bug.  If you knew this house, you'd laugh because we are the least Valentine's celebratory home in the world.  But that's not because of me, so I decided that I'm going to change that and celebrate Valentine's myself with cute stitches when I fancy.  It's a lovely excuse to stitch pretty little patterns, of which the 'Bee Mine' by Stitching with the Housewives that you see above is just one of many I have bookmarked for future reference.  Available from either Fat Quarter Shop or the Stitching with the Housewives Etsy shop.

You might be able to make out in the picture above that I had a go at dyeing my aida pink.  I used the juice from Baxters pickled beetroot!  With no real clue of the 'how to' I just pressed on and it's done.  I wet my aida with water, dunked it in the beetroot juice and took it out when I started to get nervous. Whether it'll fade dramatically I have no idea. I did try to 'fix' it with salt and then with heat, so maybe I'll get lucky.  Either way, I'm happy.  I have a little scrap of pink aida to stitch on and feel very 'Good Life' about it ;-)

This is my progress so far with 'Bee Mine' - 

It makes me happy!

Finally, having uncovered this cross stitch UFO in a box before Christmas I decided to take it out and finish it.  The pattern is from this lovely book by Barbara Hammet.

I'm not sure why I ever left it unfinished because honestly all there was to do was the little bit of backstitching on the butterflies and caterpillar, the honeysuckle stamen and the leaves.  It has been languishing for years for the sake of 45mins stitching! Anyway, it is now complete and awaiting a little framing attention so I can hang it in our bedroom. Winner!

I did tell you I'd fallen down a rabbit hole, didn't I?  And, like I say, there's lots more to come hopefully.

Good job I made some more project bags with the scraps leftover from the Kindred Spirits quilt ;-)

Project Bags

 

Last Sunday, I decided to make a project bag.  

As you can see, it quickly became two, three, four then five project bags!  I reckoned it was as easy to do the maths for all of them at once, and I may have been trying to hide from feelings of homeschooling doom that were threatening to settle :-(

I've been watching too much Kimberley Jolly and Lori Holt on You Tube so my head was full of their pretty project organisers and I had a case of the wanties.  A mess of vinyl, zips and happy fabric choices later, these little pouches are ready to store my hand stitching WIPs.  Yes, you read correctly that I have actively planned to have numerous WIPs and thus the need for sweet storage solutions ;-)

These two now happily house my Emilie Aime La Pluie embroidery from Un Chat Dans L'Aiguille and my Stitches from the Heart cross-stitch (a new free design from Fat Quarter Shop).  It's very satisfying to see them in their new little bags, and I have plans for the other two bags as well.  Just waiting on Royal Mail to deliver them!

While the pouches above have vinyl fronts, this one features one of my older sampler stitches instead.  It used to be in a nasty plastic mahogany effect frame - it wasn't doing it any favours! When I decided not to put it back on the wall after our home re-vamp in the autumn, I also knew that I didn't want the sampler to be consigned to a drawer for ever.  So, I thought maybe it would be nice to enjoy it on a stitchery pouch.  I wasn't sure if the Tilda fabric worked well enough with the cross stitch and blackwork sampler, but the good folks of IG gave it the thumbs up and ta da, one sampler project pouch!

This one is quite a large bag.  Big enough for an A4 sized project pack.  You'll note I've filled it already.  During my mega tidy out in the autumn, I discovered this long forgotten cross-stitch advent calendar project. I couldn't have told you how long this one has been around except I found the packing receipt in the package.  2006!!!!  I do remember eagerly awaiting it's arrival and getting stuck straight in but I have no idea what happened that my enthusiasm fizzled out so quickly.  I've stitched some of the little ornament parts on the plastic canvas mesh but there's much more to do, and I haven't even started on the actual calendar fabric itself.  Oops!  Perhaps it's something that CT would enjoy - it is very cute.  Of course, I need to NOT leave it another 14 years to finish up.  Maybe one or two years more and she'd be a good age to appreciate it ;-)  Living in hope, folks!

I'm chuffed with my little project organiser bags and suspect I'll make some more in due course - just sayin'.