Today’s Friday Finish!
Today’s Friday Finishes is a unique take on framing a finished piece! The first of its kind I’ve ever done.
Name of Piece: Item 4241 Hummingbird
Designed by: There is no designer listed.
Distributed as a kit by NeedleMagic, Inc. under their Stitch ‘N Frame series.
Kit Contains: 18 ct. Aida fabric, embroidery floss, needle, hanger, graph, and easy to follow instructions.
Finished Size: Roughly 3 in. by 3.75 in.
Today’s Friday Finish!
I’ve wanted to do this kit since I bought it, but I was actually rather disappointed with it. I’ve come to realize I don’t really like NeedleMagic Inc. kits that much!
Name of Piece: Item 4109 Love
Designed by: There is no designer listed on the kit.
Distributed as a kit by NeedleMagic, Inc. under their Stitch ‘N Frame series.
Kit Contains: 14 ct. Aida fabric, yarn, needle, graph, frame, self-adhesive mounting board, and easy to follow instructions.
Finished Size: I’m going to guess 3 in. by 3 in. because the kit only says “cover model shown as actual size.”
Today’s Friday Finish!
We are straight back to the Mini Kits with today’s Friday Finishes! I made a mistake with this one with the backstitch… and I framed it a little different from the cover model.
Name of Piece: #998-7011 Dragonfly
Designed by: Kooler Design Studio
Distributed as a kit by Janlynn Corporation under their Ready, Set, Stitch! Janlynn needlecraft series.
Kit Contains: 18 ct. Aida fabric, 6-strand cotton floss, frame, self-adhesive mounting board, needle, graph, and instructions.
Finished Size: 2.5 inches round
Happy 100th post!!!
Over the past two years, Little Thread Crafts has posted 100 articles on cross-stitch. From articles on finished pieces, to defining words stitchers use, to articles describing stash saved from the trash, and plenty of random articles about cross-stitch stuff! To celebrate, here are the Top Ten articles of the past 100 posts! Click the title to read the article. Happy Stitching!
Salvaged Stash: A Rescued Paula Vaughan
The second article in the Salvaged Stash series, I talk about a professional-framed Paula Vaughan finished piece that I rescued from a consignment shop, where the owners mentioned the piece was going to be thrown out if no one bought it, as per the consignor’s instructions. This is the number one article on the blog and written as a part of the Save The Stash From The Trash campaign.
In this Term of the Week, I define my favorite technique a stitcher can use while stitching. I personally railroad all my stitches! To see this in action, check out my video series The Five-Minute Stitch!
Crazy Stitching Habits is a picture series on all the things stitchers do that might seem crazy to other people. #6 is all about tiny mistakes a non-stitcher can’t see drives stitchers crazy. Click the link to view the image and read the article. You can also like and share the pictures on Facebook, at Little Thread Crafts’ Facebook page!
Looking For a Cross-Stitch Community? Try Facebook! & Facebook Cross-Stitch Groups Revisited
These two articles go over some of the cross-stitch communities on Facebook that are available for everyone to join! As long as you have a Facebook account, you can be a part of a group of stitchers on Facebook. Share progress on WIPs, talk about stitching, get advice… it’s the best way to get in touch with other stitchers when you don’t have a local presence in your neighborhood. 🙂
Salvaged Stash: Cross Stitch Pillow Cases
The first article in the Salvaged Stash series, I discuss how I found hand-stitched pillow cases being used to wrap up dirty glassware at a thrift store I used to work at, and how I rescued them. I was able to save a set to use as pillow cases, but I had to re-stitch the second kit. This article was written as a part of the Save The Stash From The Trash campaign.
The “About Me” page on my blog. It outlines my mission statement and what I hope to accomplish with Little Thread Crafts. 🙂
A Stitcher’s Dictionary: Table of Contents
This article is literally a Table of Contents for all the Term of the Week articles I do on the blog. In this article, you can find an alphabetized list of every article done on different terms so far. Including frogging, railroading, pinking, SINS, stash, confetti stitching… the list goes on!
In these articles, I describe what an Ort Jar is, how to make one, and I show what one looks like! I need to update this as I have this particular Ort Jar finished, and another, and half of another one, since I last wrote these articles. They’ll get updated eventually!
Stitching with Care: Pain Management Tips for Stitchers with Health Issues
This Random Corner article is a brief list of tips and tricks for stitchers with various health issues to manage their pain while stitching. I have a small variety of health issues that can interfere with my stitching, so I share some of the ways I cope in the hopes that it can be helpful to other people as well.
Last but not least, this Random Corner article is a small rant on my dislike of large projects. It caused quite a stir as a majority of stitchers in fact do like large projects! And it rounds out our Top Ten List for 100 posts.
Our Term of the Week this week once again dives into our stitchy acronyms and pulls out a popular term!
RAK stands for Random Act of Kindness, and it’s become a popular term to use in the stitching world to refer to charity items and gifts.
A lot of stitchers do work for charities, and others simply don’t have the funds to support the stash a lot of us have access to. That’s where RAK comes in. Stitchers will pull together and collect thread, fabric, charts, all manners of things and pass them along to someone less fortunate than them. Sometimes a stitcher will send a ‘care package’ without prompting, surprising the fellow stitcher with stash supplies.
A RAK is something meant to be passed along. It’s a random good deed from one stitcher to another that benefits everyone in the end. 🙂
——————————————————————————
“Term of the Week” is a weekly blog post highlighting a new word or phrase commonly used among cross-stitchers but not found in an ordinary dictionary. These posts are to help explain the words’ meanings in context and provide a resource for anyone wondering what a term like “frogging” means. Check back every Thursday!
It is now May, and I am only just now sorting through all my progress pictures and getting them ready for articles from Christmas. I am such a procrastinator.
Anyway, I thought I would start with the small kit I got for Christmas from my grandparents two Christmases ago, and made to hang on our little Christmas tree this past Christmas. It’s called “Beary Kissmas” and fits in great with my love of the teddy bear motif. I didn’t pack it away with the rest of my Christmas decorations. It will be a year-round decoration!
Out of the four Christmas projects I started, this and a present for my nephew were the only two I actually finished. You can read more about my dilemma in this article: A Christmas Gift Fiasco.
The first round of stitching on this piece!
A little further before putting it down for the day!
This was an incredibly fast piece to do. I worked for probably around two or three hours and got more than half the piece completed in one sitting. Then I set it aside for a little while (as I tend to do) and when I picked it back up, I finished it!
Here it is, all finished! Just needs washed, ironed, and framed.
There will be a Friday Finishes on this piece shortly, with it all pretty and in its frame. Until then, you can see it on display in my Mini Kits article: Displaying My Minis!
So, after much procrastination and delay and the purchase of more thumb tacks, I have finally finished display the majority of my small kits, and thought I would share!
The mini cork board strip on the whiteboard above my desk was overflowing with my mini kits. I had them piled one on top of the other on the hooks, and I needed a better way to display them. So! I finally got more thumb tacks and hung up the ones that won’t fit on the cork board. 🙂
A pyramid of finishes.
If you’re curious, here are the articles on these finishes, with information about the kit and the design:
Friday Finishes #12: Love Bug 2012
Friday Finishes #16: Frog and Bee
Friday Finishes #17: Snoozing Kitty
The Dragonfly and the two Christmas bears don’t have articles yet! I will update when they do!
Some of my favorites!
That “Welcome Home” house is one of my favorite finishes. There will be an article on that soon!
The only finish pictured here to have an article is the Seashells:
Friday Finishes #20: Seashells
The other articles will be coming soon!
The last of the finishes!
My Sleepy Moon finish is still missing – I haven’t been able to find it. 🙁
Friday Finishes #13: Buzzing Bumblebee
Friday Finishes #15: Noah’s Ark
I have more finishes displayed around the room, but I like to keep all my mini kits in one place, so this is where they all ended up. 🙂 The humming bird doesn’t have an article, but it will soon!
And that’s it! How do you display all your mini kits? Leave a comment and let me know!
Once again, here is the Christmas article I promised about how I managed to stress myself with my Christmas projects.
I will admit it – I am a slow stitcher. I have a stitching bug that comes and strikes me so I stitch for several hours in a row (although I’m not supposed to) but then not stitching for weeks at a time. Under most circumstances, that’s totally okay! I stitch mainly for myself as a stress-reliever, and a way to make beautiful pieces of art.
But what’s the point of creating art if you can’t share it with anyone? This past Christmas (Christmas of 2013, to be more precise, since we’re three months along since then) I had the great idea of stitching a few pieces for my family. A stuffed animal bib for my nephew, some pillow cases for my sister, and my first attempt at a needlepoint project of dragonflies for my mom (she loves dragonflies, and these were blue, her favorite color). My plans were originally much broader, as in stitching a small piece for everyone, but I decided against it at the last minute.
I had everything gathered and ready to go by the end of October. By the middle of November, I had finished the stuffed animal for my nephew, and started on the needlepoint project for my mom.
I guess that’s kind of when I hit a wall. I was making good progress on the needlepoint, but it wasn’t going fast enough. I wanted to get the needlepoint done before I started on the pillow cases, because those would be easier to work on and get done quickly, so I could finish them during a crunch. As December 24th drew nearer and nearer, I started to panic. I definitely wasn’t stitching fast enough, or often enough. I couldn’t afford to waste days, but some days I didn’t want to pick up the needle. What was I going to do if I didn’t get then done? I didn’t exactly have back-up gifts to replace them.
And then: total disaster.
I realized I was almost out of one of the colors, which was strange, because there was still a lot of that color to stitch. So I took a closer look at the thread list and realized… I’d used the wrong color. I was absolutely gutted. I couldn’t frog out the color mistake because it was such a huge section I’d stitched, and I didn’t have enough left to stitch the parts that did require that color. If I left it and continued on with the right color, there would be an obvious color switch between the two (subtle, but there) and I didn’t want a project I was doing as a gift to have such a big mistake in it. If I stitched it for me, it would be different.
I was distraught and at this point, totally stressed out I wasn’t going to finish in time. I wouldn’t have time to fix this project, finish it, and finish stitching the pillow cases all two weeks before Christmas. It wasn’t possible. I worked a full schedule every week (retail, yay) on top of trying to finish everything in time for Christmas.
I told all of this in a moment of stress and frustration to my boyfriend, who gave me a strange look. “Calm down! They aren’t going to care if you don’t finish it in time. You shouldn’t be stressing out over presents. It’s Christmas, just enjoy it.”
That’s exactly what I needed to hear. Cross-stitch is an art, and it’s meant to be a stress-reliever. In trying to finish on time, I stressed myself out over something I didn’t have to worry over. My family would understand if I didn’t finish on time. They know how much work and effort goes into stitching. I had to tell myself to relax and not worry if I didn’t finish on time. Which I didn’t.
In the end, I wrapped up the cover picture of both pieces and gave it to them as an IOU, and an example of what the piece will look like when it’s finished. At this point, the Christmas presents will probably be birthday presents! But it’s the thought that counts, in the end.
Have you ever stressed about finishing a project before? How did you overcome it? Did you end up finishing the project on time? Leave a comment and let me know!
—————————————————————————————————–
“Random Corner” is a place for all articles related to all manners of cross-stitchery and the cross-stitch community that don’t fall into the topics covered in the regular segments. There is no set schedule for Random Corner articles, they’re just random!
No one understands why you have jars of bits of thread scattered around your home…
(Ort Jars are some of my favorite decorations!)
——————————————————————
Have a crazy stitching habit of your own? Feel free to leave a comment and your habit may be in the next segment! 🙂
Salvaged Stash: Cross Stitch Pillow Cases
Since featuring my seashell pillow cases I’m remaking from my Salvaged Stash, I’ve got an update on the pillow cases!
The previous update.
