prettylittlecorners

Dear Blog, Long Time No See

2011-08-08T18:22:00.001-07:00

I've missed blogging.

Missed sharing the crafting and stitching I've done. Ok...lets be truthful. Not a lot of crafting NOR stitching has been going on. And, with all that is going on in my life it will be sparse.

But, crafting and stitching will always be in my blood and I want to continue sharing what little crafting IS going on. I might not post often, but I will try to post more often than every 2 years. ;)

So, I'll just start with a cute photo of my new puppy. Eighteen weeks old my little Max is and quite the little stinker already. :)

Sampler Wall

2009-12-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

Up until a few weeks ago this was pretty much just photos. After seeing all the amazing sampler walls in blog land I got a little jealous and decided to create my own sampler wall with what I had on hand. I was ready for a change on this wall anyway and I decided that I would use photos and other knick knacks to fill in the blanks until I completed/framed more samplers.

Theres 5 stitching pieces up there and as when I get more up there I'll just skoot things closer and move things around a bit.

That is all I have for today. I think I hit a little burn out with all the stitching I did in November. Right now I just want to sit by the fire and watch TV at night and not focus on anything else. We have been having a bit of rain and cold weather which is nice. We really need the rain. I hope to finally start on something else as we are going away to the mountains into more cold weather on a small vacation. We are off to Mammoth California for some skiing/snowboarding and I always get some serious stitching while there.

Happy stitching!

Summer Basket Finish

2009-11-30T13:41:00.000-08:00

My little doggie is recovering nicely. (Thanks so much for the well wishes for her :) ) And I have been stitching away.

This is my finish this month. I know its not real wintery...but I have been itching to start this since I got it. I started it very early in November and as I went stitching along I made a goal of finishing it by the end of the month. I made my goal by one day! Yippi!

It was a fun stitch...but I have to admit to not LOVING it till I was almost finished. So even though its a bit more pastel than what I have been doing lately...I do love it now.

I haven't done 1/1 in years. And I'm sure I didn't do it right the last time. So, I just winged it and and it seems to have come out ok. Sometimes the thread slipped under, but then I just used another hole instead and it worked ok. Not sure this is the way to do it...but I was too lazy to look up another way.

I did find my colors were more pastel then the cover leaflet colors. And I really couldn't figure out how one of the specialty stitches on the band was supposed to work. On paper it SEEMED pretty, but then the stitches just kept slipping under...and I just made my own stitch instead.

I also added 3 initials instead of the two. The letter "i" of my first name is alwasy too narrow and it looked empty so I added the third of my maiden name. Much better! And also...I had two Clover skeins and one was way too light. So I made sure I used darker pink sections as I thought the light would just disappear on that fabric.

Off to pick my next project. Can I do it....can I finish it before December is over????? I'm gonna try!!

Happy stitching!!

Edited to add: Woops! Corinnas comment made me realize that it sounds like I did the WHOLE thing 1/1. Sorry! Not that talented :) I only wish. It was done 2/2 but there were a few letters, (2 of my initials and X,Y, and Z) that called for 1/1.

The Patient

2009-11-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

This is one of the reasons why I haven't been blogging.

Shes one of my babies. She also has 4 more days where she has to take it easy. No running, jumping, playing, chasing squirrels etc. I'm supposed to just let her walk for potty.

I have resorted to using the sedatives and waiting on m'lady hand and foot. Plus, I have a bad cold. ok....whining over :) Happy, happy, joy joy!!!

I'm stitching something new and making good progress....just need to ask m'ladys permission to remove myself from her side to take a picture of it to post my progress. :P

Till later! And HaPpy STitching!!

Shes been framed

2009-11-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

Nataliejo is someone whos work I admire so much. Such gorgeous finishes! I absolutely adored her finish of E&E Millenium Sampler (loved it so much I have the chart coming to me). Her framing of it was fanastic. See it here.

When it came to framing my lady. I immediately thought of her framing of her sampler and decided to give it a go.

I used a 12x12 deep frame off the shelf from my local frame shop...Aaron Brothers Art Mart. I used some 12x12 scrapbook paper for the background. The manufacturer of the paper is 7Gypsies.

A couple things I would have done differently. I would have been a little way neater in cutting my foam core board. I left the edges a little ragged. I didn't realize how much this would show when I wrapped my fabric around it. I might have to redo this eventually.

And I found that I really needed some stability on all four edges of my "lifted" foam board other wise it kind of "rocked". I had a 3" square of foam board in the middle to lift the sampler but then when placing it found it rocked too much. So I had to tuck pieces under which was kind of a pain, but still worked out.

Thank you sooo much for all the nice comments. They are always appreciated. I haven't been as good posting to all your blogs though. One of my little doggies is recovering from leg surgery. Poor baby. This is her 3rd and shes only 6 years old. She has luxating patellas and has had the left done about 4 years ago then she tore her ligament in the same leg. Now the left patella really had to be done as she was starting to limp bad. Sigh..... 6 weeks recovery...oy.

Happy stitching!

Little Jumpers

2009-11-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

I pulled these out of the "vault" the other day...aka. the rubbermaid container in the garage. I had a good laugh parading these for my 20 year old son and his girlfriend. He just laughed it off. Not embarrassed in the slightest. :)(hes cute that way).

He was 2 or 3 when he wore them. Got tons of compliments.

I was able to make them so cheaply (not much of a budget back then). A little bit of broadcloth, a little bit of aida, some cheap buttons from the fabric store...tada!!! Cute Sunday outfit. After these I learned how to smock and stuck to smocking for quite a while.

You know what I love best about these?? Is they look brand new. They were washed multiple times and the stitching held up beautifully! Love that.

The CS patterns are ones for baby bibs. I can't recall where I got them from and the books are long gone. They worked wonderfully. I basically just adapted a simple boys jumper pattern for the CS insert and for the blue jumper did add some piping to the insert before adding it into the jumper.

I've got a girl version too which I'll post soon too.

Thank you for stopping by! Happy stitching!

P.S. I framed my Lady...shes super cute! I'll try and add pixs of her later this week.

Glad Tiding Finish

2009-10-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

The blob (turkey, poodle, some kind of bird) is no more. I replaced it with the bird found on another BBD pattern.

I did have to do a little trimming of some bird feathers because the tail was going to hit the border so it ended up looking more like a duck...but I can live with that.

Thank you for stopping by everyone and HAPPY STITCHING :)

I don’t do blobs

2009-10-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

I've been holed up in my little stitching hole stitching merrily along on my Glad Tidings. The more I stitch, the more I can't ignore the obvious. There is a weird object in the lower right corner of the chart.

It is a black blob, which is obviously of some significance to someone, but no matter how hard I squint or how hard I try to relax my eyes (remember those optical illusions that looked like nothing but it you relaxed your eyes you would see Marilyn Monroe or some other object) I can’t see a thing.

The closest thing it looks like to me is a poodle with no back legs. Can you see what I'm talking about?

At this point even if someone told me what it was I couldn’t stitch it since I pretty much look at that blob and think “poodle”.

So I’m going to look and see what replace the blob with and finish this baby up this week since I’m finding that I suddenly have an inability to start anything else without finishing this one. I really did try though…but I find that I’ve suddenly developed a little stitching OCD (this is a new thing, believe me…I never had a problem with this in the past). I’m sure I will get over it, but in the meantime I am so close to finishing I might as well go with it.

Here's my progress so far...

There also were a couple of questions from comments I wanted to answer:

Sandra asked about the colors of Glad Tidings. If I used what was suggested. I used pretty much what was suggested. I didn't use the fabric suggested which I believe is more of a mustard color. I think the photographer must have used a flash on the cover photo because the flowers look pink and all the other colors are off. I only changed the border color in my version. I'm using what was suggest for the mysterious blob because the suggested color was too near the basket color and I didn't like it. I 'm also going to change the butterfly wing colors because the color suggested is too close to my fabric color. Those are the only two color changes I'm making.

Jennifer asked if BBD Summer Garden is still in print. Jennifer it isn't. But, I know every once in while I see it on ebay, so you could check there.

Jane asked what type of camera I have. Jane, I have a Nikon D300. For most of my pictures I use a 24-70mm lens. Sometimes I use a 50mm lens. I shoot in manual mode. So, I change the settings depending on how fuzzy I want the background. Some compact cameras allow you to shoot in manual too so you can change settings that way. It really depends on your camera. Try shooting shooting in "Portrait" mode. That will change your settings (or F-stop) so what your camera doesn't focus on will be fuzzy. I hope that makes sense.

Better get going...Glee is on!!! Anyone else obsessed with Glee??

Happy Stitching!

My Quaker Lady Finish...

2009-10-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

I finished her in the wee hours of the morning last night. Couldn't wait to iron her and take some photos this morning. I tried my best to get some Ohhs...and Ahhs... out of my daughter by showing her off...the best I got was "Shes pretty"....I guess that's good enough :)

Now to find a frame for her. Well, I need two frames because I'll eventually do the Gentleman.

Back to work on Glad Tidings and finish that up. But, I'm going to start a couple things as a reward for finishing up The Lady.

Couldn't resist adding a photo of my dahlias. They are in full bloom right now and as pretty as can be!

Thank you for looking and your lovely comments!

Happy stitching!

Floss all in a row

2009-10-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, there were better things I could have spent my time on then arranging all the tags on the floss I got yesterday and taking a picture. But, laundry and dishes aren't this pretty.

Happy stitching!

Love Story: A Covered Book

2009-10-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

I was doing some cleaning in the office/craft room and came across this little scrapbook I made last year to commemorate our 20 yr anniversary.
Although its not cross stitch but some surface embroidery I was thinking it would look cute with cross stitch on the cover. I think I need to buy a couple more of these and put it on my "to do" list. I could see the inside as a notebook or custom calendar.

The book is a plain 5x7 chipboard book by Maya Road. The outside fabric is some duckcloth and the surface embroidery is my own design using DMC threads and the leaves are wool felt. The photo is under an acrylic bookplate that I attached with some rhinestone brads. I used some bookbinder glue to attach it to the album and then used some scrapbook paper inside to cover the raw ends.

I'm starting on the alphabet on Quaker Lady now and shes looking cuuuuuttte! I'm going to try and finish her this week because I'm itching to start something new.

Thanks for stopping by and happy stitching!

Summer Garden

2009-09-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Summer Garden is the last BBD I have stitched up. I have plenty more in my stash (and a few more I got in an order this week.)

I hope I can get another one completed this year. I'm going to try!

I used the recommended fabric (30ct over 2) and the recommended GA and WDW threads except for the centers of the flowers above. I ended up picking a DMC light pink because they were blending in too much and I wanted them to stand out a bit.

Thank you sooo much for the suggestions on Quaker Lady. I think I am going to omit the plum...as pretty as it is for a few reasons.

First, someone asked if I was going to do the Quaker Gentleman and I think I am...eventually. I think I will be all Quakered out after this...and in the mood to stitch something else. But, I think keeping the three colors will make choosing colors for the Gentleman easier and two...when I (eventually) hang them together I think I will really like the more monochromatic scheme.

Someone else asked about the coffee bath I gave my fabric. And well I'm no expert...and I'm sure there are quite a few tutorials on doing this. But, basically I just made a pot of coffee and put the coffee in a casserole dish and dunked my fabric in it. I rinsed well, and repeated until I got my desired effect. I just let it air dry. I know some put it in the oven....but I didn't do that.

All around the blogospere people are talking about Autumn weather....no such thing here...ugh. Its been hot, hot, hot! In the high 90's...although its supposed to cool a bit. Not taking any chances though...I think we are going to try some museums in Balboa Park this weekend and stay cool inside.

Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting...you are all so sweet to take time to stop by! :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Quaker Lady Progress 2

2009-09-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Just time for a quick blog and run. Here is my progress so far. Should I add the fourth color or not??? Going to think on that one a bit.

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone! Each and every kind word is appreciated.

pretty scissors

2009-09-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

I don't have any close friends who are crafty or stitch. And I don't belong to any stitch groups here at home. So, I thought I was the only one.

The only what??

The only one with this strange obsession with scissors. Yes...pretty, pretty, shiny, sharp, pointy, scissors. I've found my people!!! And people with WAY more scissors than I.

Woah...I'm humbled by their abilities to find the cutest scissors around. I want to be like them and be their friends and touch their scissors.

And names.....scissors have names??? I did NOT know I had two pairs that have names. I feel so uneducated. How could I not know that???

I'm not in the league of some of the scissor queens out there....but I've got my eyes on a few other little pretty pairs. So, here is my little shadow box where I keep mine. I've got a couple others not here. But, this is pretty much it.

Its a small shadow box frame and I added some scrapbook paper to the back and supplies to pretty it up. And used some short scrapbook pins to add my scissors. Some of the pins have little loop on them and I added those to my Gingher scissors and I'll add their names to them. (It might be too small to see the little tag).

Nina has a very cool scissor cupboard here too.

I'm going on the lookout for a larger one soon because I know I'm going to need it. :)

Edited to add: No Ginny, not offended AT ALL...just laughing. :)

Bee Keeper

2009-09-09T18:17:00.001-07:00

I've been spending the last few days working on organizing my little stash. Its very little. It fits in 1/4 of a basket. I know...I'm so ashamed of how meager it is *head down in embarrassment*.
But, as I mentioned to another blogger, I mean to remedy this situation soon. My wish list grows by the day.

I started by going through some old WIP, old Cross Stitch Mags and just cleaning out what I never was going to do....ever. I found some freebie charts from a while back too.

This cute little Bee Keeper Scissor Keeper is from a 1997 chart from The Drawn Thread. Never mind that when constructing this I put the stinger on the left instead of the bottom. Ack! I realized when it was all sewn up. I figured it wouldn't matter.

Well, now at least one of my scissors has a little keeper. Back to Quaker Lady!

Shes coming along...

2009-09-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

My lady is coming along nicely. I am loving the colors. I can't remember if I posted this, but I did end up dying the fabric with coffee. I realized the colors against the white were a bit too stark for me.

I'll have to finish her up tonight during Monk or Psych. Impatiently waiting for new shows ( I'm such a T.V. junkie). I did watch Project Runway last night and am sooo glad Michel is gone. I can't believe he even got on the show! Don't they ask about their sewing skills before they get on the show???

Progress Pictures

2009-09-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

Glad Tidings is going along good. I really like the colors and the satin stitching on the leaves makes for nice texture. Its just enough of a specialty stitch to be interesting, yet not too hard to make me have to think too much while stitching. And its going along quickly...me likey quick.

This was last Sat.

This is today.

Almost done with the leaves...and then on to the alpha.

Also...thanks so much for all the loverly comments! I'm making my way slowly through blogs but its taking time. Not kidding...everytime I go to someones blog I end up putting at least one chart they have done on my wish list. So, I have to pace myself LOL.

Update on Quaker Chick: She is coming along. I'll post some progress pics tomorrow. I've got to stitch a little more on her so I don't look like a loser slacker, because everyone has got so much done on her...and me...well...not so much. :D

Whats a SAL???

2009-08-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

I asked myself that question when I first started to visit cross stitch blogs. I figured it out soon enough. What a great way to get motivated to stitch, I thought.

Nichole made me do it. I saw her pretty lady and succumbed to peer pressure. (But what lovely peer pressure it is!)

I also joined the My Ladys Quaker SAL. Although it took me a while to figure out how to post. ("Oh, wait...how to I post??? Oh, sign in....Right...that might help") Yep, wasted a whole morning. Its 11:02 and I'm still in my pjs. Better remedy that....soon.

Belle Soie: Noir, Plush Plum, Attic Tea, Strawberry Shortcake
Fabric 36ct Edinburgh, Ant. White

I decided I really liked Danieles colors. So, I picked out colors similar to hers.

Better get movin'!

Thank You!

2009-08-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Thank you everyone for talking the time to visit and thanks Cathy for bringing so many to visit my blog :) I appreciate it!

I'm still trying to figure Blogger out so I'll be playing a bit with the layout. I also fixed the issue with the comments section if anyone couldn't comment before I think you should be able to now.

I also plan on making a post telling a little about myself, and adding older projects (not that there is that many :)

Here is another BBD project. I wish I would have marked on the back the date I finished it...but I'm thinking it was around 2007.

Strawberry Garden, using the recommended threads. I don't know the thread count, although I'm thinking its 30.

some closeups

Thanks again for visiting and taking the time to comment. I'm going to be looking at all your blogs this week (although I'm sure most of you are on my Google Reader that I have been filling up with cross stitching blogs in the last weeks. )

The one that started it

2009-08-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is the pattern that started my love for Blackbird Designs and renewed my love for cross stitch. I can't recall where or what store I got this from as LNS are few and far between in my neck of the woods.

Its of course #3 in the Loose Feathers series, Evening Shades the Garden. I just loved the colors as they went with the colors in my home and it was so different from the charts I had stitched in the past which were more pastel. I also loved that it seemed manageable...what I mean is...no outline stitching! Yahoo! Seeing this made this chart manageable to the very short attention span of my older age.

As you see I finished stitching this in 2006. And I still love it today.

And here are a few close ups.

Thanks for visiting!

2009-08-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

A new start.

This is Blackbirds Designs Glad Tidings using the recommended floss by Gentle Arts and Weeks Dye Works over 32Ct. (unknown fabric)

2009-08-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

first post of a new blog.