66 - Stitching Friends Ornie

Remember way back when I stitched my first Travelling Pattern?  It was Shakespeare's Peddlar's Count Your Blessings and I asked people to tell me who their Stitching Blessing was.  Freddy's Mama (aka Kirsten) told me about her friend Irene and as Kirsten's name was pulled out of the hat I decided to make a little something to thank her "blessing".

The design and stitching was simple.  I like the quote "Stitching Friends are Friends who Count", it's a nice pun and a lovely sentiment.  I laid out the quote on graph paper in an invented font and added the symbols from the Travelling Pattern (anyone know the name for those 8 leaved symbols?).  Then I decided to make it into a padded ornament.  I stitched round three sides inside out then turned it the right way out, so far so good.  I stuffed it and slip stitched the final side.  Now I have two nice corners and two different corners.  So I decided to put cord around the edges, but I should have buried the cord ends inside the ornie before sewing it up.  So I was left with two ends.  Which I sewed together and tried to hide with some gold braid wrapped round them!!

I sent the ornie off to Irene with an explanation that this is my first and probably only ornie!  It arrived yesterday and as I remembered to take a photo before it went off to the USA I can show you all, here it is:

The back is made from one of the fabric samples I got earlier this year.  They make lovely ornament backings so I will include them with any giveaways I do so people who actually like making the things can do so!!  The thread is a variegated DMC.

65 - London Skyline from WOCS

No picture - oops

Stitched on navy aida and sent as a card

64 - Christmas Card from WOCS

Bottom Right - Tree Ornie from WOCS magazine.

Stitched 2 over 2 on 36count evenweave.

63 - Christmas Card from WOCS

Top Left - Coventry Skyline

The winner of my mini-competition was drawn at random by the large boy from a pile of scraps of paper.  The person who will receive a Christmas card stitched with the skyline of her choice is.......

Kaisievic aka Kaye

Kaye's comment on Coventry was very long!  She gave a complete history lesson on Lady Godiva (from memory).  I googled the story to check her facts and apart from being one century out she was spot on!  If you are interested in learning more about Coventry, here is a very interesting website: Historic Coventry.  HAED do a gorgeous Lady Godiva design too.

62 - Christmas Card from WOCS

Here is the card I stitched for Rachael for winning the Doll's House 100 Followers' Giveaway.

  The motif is from World of Cross Stitching magazine and is stitched on 40 count Newcastle over 1.  The coin is a 2p piece and shows the stitched area is only an inch wide.  As the Giveaway prize was the Doll's House chart I wanted something small scale to send but baulked at the 48 count silk gauze (this year).  

61 - Christmas card from WOCS

Stitched on 36 count linen over 2

Design from WOCS

60 - San Man Original Spooky SAL

San Man Designs
Stitched on 28 count Burnt Orange Jazlyn

59 - iStitch Mystery SAL

The more eagle-eyed of you (and those that have stitched the design) may have noticed the slight difference in my finished piece.  The final block was for a Sajou initial and Carol gave us a whole alphabet to choose from.  Unfortunately the letter "J" is an awkward one.  It is not symmetrical at all and often looks unbalanced to my eyes.  I waited until other J people had stitched the piece but I still wasn't feeling the letter at all.  I tentatively emailed Carol asking for help, would she mind sending me the bonus chart so maybe I could use that?  Bless her, Carol sent me a rose!  I don't know if it comes from one of her other designs (which are all lovely BTW) or she charted it especially for awkward people but it's lovely.

Carol is my New Best Friend and Favourite Designer now, how many other designers would not only not be offended by whinging about their design but also send a replacement chart idea?  If you missed out on the SAL the chart is now available here for a very reasonable price.

The box was a Christmas present last year, it's from RUCraft and came filled with a selection of DMC threads.  It's been quite popular as one of the magazines gave it away with new subscriptions this year.
The fabric is 36 count evenweave and the thread is a blue from De Havilland threads many moons ago.  It is silky and smooth, one strand is fine for 36 count so I have loads left!

58 - Lizzie*Kate Love is Best Travelling Pattern

Love is Best by Lizzie*Kate.  A Travelling Pattern from Cucki.

What do you think of the fabric?   The original is stitched in Sampler threads so I pulled the DMC threads as charted and thought they were rather austere.  This is a Cucki pattern and needed a kooky look.  So I got my piece of 16 count white aida and coloured it in with my fabric pens!  I've done this a couple of times before and have always been pleased with the result.  It's a nice cheap and easy way of getting coloured fabric especially when you only want a small piece..

I changed the colour of the bottom heart to the heather (778) used in the middle heart on the chart as it would have clashed with the stripes in the fabric.  Then I used 115 variegated to stitch the middle heart.  I do like the colours in 115 but it doesn't change enough for many designs.  I like a variegated to change several times in a length and this only changes once every length.