Saturday Stitching: Embroidery

The last time I embroidered something was when I did the leaves on the Fox and Rabbit Changing Seasons MSAL. I didn’t really like what I’d done and after some research, I discovered why they didn’t look like they should – I’d done the satin stitch incorrectly. Before then, I hadn’t done any embroidery since I was about 16 – 30 some odd years ago.

Not long after I did the leaves, I was gifted with an embroidery kit:

I was actually quite excited to get this, and I quickly chose a section to work on first:

Once I got the hoop onto the fabric and actually looked at the pattern I lost interest. I told myself I’d start it later. Later became two days ago when I was wanting to stitch something, but I neither wanted to work on the MSAL not wanted to start something new. I took out the kit, got out the project and started watching embroidery videos on YouTube by Sarah Homfray Embroidery

I really like how soothing her voice is and how informative her videos are. I’d watched some of her videos before – couching gold work is very cool. I chose to do the stems first and watched a video to see how to do the stem stitch properly – turns out I’d done this one incorrectly in the past as well.

I’ve moved on to leaves now which use the satin stitch and after a fun video, I now make them properly too. I like the way they look a lot more now. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not a total dud either.

I’m only going to work on this project when I really need something different to do so, it won’t get done any time soon. I will share my progress from time to time so you’ll be seeing more of this in the future just not on a regular basis. I do have to say, now that I’m doing the stitches correctly, I’m a lot happier with the whole project.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Dollhouse Project: Update on Exterior

I finally got the back of the house mostly done. Since it’s the biggest part of the exterior, that’s what I’ve been working on since my last post regarding my fail. It wasn’t an epic fail, luckily, but it was still a fail. I went back and did the paper towel to faux stone technique correctly using cheap paper towels with no design on it and watered down school glue aka pva glue.

Once I got the back looking as close to proper stone in texture and scale, I took it outside and applied two coats of white spray paint. I didn’t want to use regular paint because I didn’t want brush strokes to show.

I still need to trim to excess off around the sides and paint the bottom white to blend in with the house. I’m also going to get some pigment powder to put a light coat of gray on it. I think it will make it a little bit more realistic. Then, it needs a coat of sealant to keep the pigment from being rubbed off.

While I’m waiting to get the powder, I’m going to work on the sides of the house now.

Personally, I think it looks very good for my second attempt at a faux stone look. I won’t be taking short cuts with this technique ever again.

Let me know what you think about how it looks as well as whether or not I should use the powder. Buildings in this era were made of stone and covered in a white lime wash so, I could leave the powder off….

Next week, I’ll show you some of the items I’ve acquired to decorate the inside of the house. I’ve begun getting items for it when I can, and I’ll be making quite a bit as well.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

Free Pattern Friday: All My Projects Are Done!

Between longer hours at work and pushing to finish the commissions for a co-worker, I haven’t done much else. Still, it’s been worth it to see the smile on her face when I gave her the two baby blankets and the four remaining octopi she’d commissioned from me. She assures me the children these will be going to will love them and so will the mothers. I hope so, but I still had fun making them so it’s a win-win.

Baby Blankets

I am so happy with how these two turned out! 🙂

Baby Octopi

She requested I make one smaller than the rest if possible so I used a smaller hook. I did put faces on them, I just forgot to take a picture before I gave them to her. These were fun and so easy to make!

I now have nothing else to make until the beginning of the year when I have several projects I want to make, for myself and for others. I’ll be sharing them with you as I work on them. 🙂

Let me know, please, what projects you’re working on and have just finished! I’d love to see them!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Stitching Saturday

Hey, I’m back to share with you my continuing journey with the Halloween SAL(A Storybook Halloween) hosted by Stitchonomy! For those of you not in the know, SAL means Stitch-A-Long. It’s where a designer, or group of designers, create a project which they release parts of on a timeline of their choosing. The Halloween SAL I am currently involved in releases a pattern every day. The Mystery Stitch-A-Long by Linen and Threads releases theirs once a month. These projects have a start and finish date, but the finish date is really when someone gets done – patterns are kept available for free for a time after the initial finish date so there’s really not a need to rush.

So, I started on 10 Sept which was a Friday, and my last pattern to date was done yesterday, 17 Sept. The patterns drop at 2pm Central Time, and I didn’t feel like waiting to share this with you!

This was how it looked when I first started:

As you can see, I changed the eyes on my cats because I didn’t like how they looked. I originally used a French Knot, but I didn’t like how big they were. I then changed over to the Colonial Knot which is smaller and for me, easier to make. All of the red dots you see are the Colonial Knot. I’m still not crazy about the look but with the size constraint, making a drop of blood that’s realistic isn’t possible. I’ve seen pictures of people using beads, and they aren’t much better.

I haven’t done the backgrounds on these little gems because I’m planning to use Glow in the Dark thread. It’s white in the light so I’m going to have to get creative to have everything still look pretty creepy in the dark. Any ideas on the cats? If I outline them, they will look more like bats, and I don’t think their eyes will show up.

Also, any ideas on the spine of the book? I think it’s a bit plain even with the sparkly letters. What about the pages?? It’s great the designer provided a floss list to use but is still allowing the use of other colors of the creator’s choice. Still, I could use any ideas or suggestions you have because I’m just not sure….

I am really enjoying this SAL, and I’ve found myself looking forward to the next pattern with a great deal of anticipation.

So, here are the blocks and the stories they’re related to:

Block One: Black Cats for Edgar Allen Poe’s Black Cat

Block Two: The Pumpkin King for The Nightmare Before Christmas

Block Three: A Moth for the Mothman Prophecies

Block Four: The Babuk(Sack Man) for (mainly) Czech folklore.

Block Five: Beetlejuice which is actually based on a book by the same name

Block Six: A Raven for Poe’s famous poem

Block Seven : A Fanged Mouth for Dracula

Block Eight: A House for The Haunting of Hill House

Note

If you decide to join the SAL, the free version started yesterday with the frame pattern and floss list having been released for both paid and free versions last week, or maybe sooner, I forget. The paid version – joining the Pattern Club – had its patterns started last week. I joined the club so I could get started sooner and finish sooner.

This project is a lovely break from Fred, but I still need to get Fred done by the end of the year so I don’t want to be away from it too long.

If you do decide to join the SAL, let me know in the comments below with a link to wherever you’ll be posting your own journey so I can follow along! I’d love to see what others make!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

My First Book Nook!

I’ve watched quite a few YouTubers making book nooks, and I decided to try my hand at making one as well. I didn’t know anything about painting, making book nooks, putting in mini lights, or anything else that might help me with this build. I researched, asked questions, and watched what other people did. Then, more importantly, I just did it. I just started making a plan on what I want to make and how I was going to make it.

I gathered all the materials, and I began to put the thing together. Some things didn’t work at first, and I had to backtrack. Still, I moved forward and didn’t give up. Now the infinity mirror effect I tried didn’t work the way I wanted, but I have learned why. With this knowledge, I can try again in the future with more confidence it will work the second time.

I didn’t take pictures of the build itself, only the end results. It wasn’t something I planned to teach people to make or anything. I just built as best I could over the course of three weeks – most of the time spent waiting to get materials like the faerie lights. I did take pictures of the end result, and I welcome feedback.

I am a big Stephen King fan, and I thought this would make a nice first try as well as a great addition to my bookshelves once I’m able to have them again. I think I did okay. Feel free to comment on the build and what you think of it.

Note: the box is not made of wood. I had some friends tell me when I showed them the pictures they thought the wood box was great. It’s actually the box Ramen Noodles come is – the 12 pack box. 🙂 I had to actually use two boxes to make the final one because I used the second one for parts, including the right wall.

I had a lot of fun making this nook, and I learned a lot while doing so. I plan to make another one inspired by the book, IT, but I won’t be doing it right away because I have a bunch of projects still waiting to be done.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

30 Days of NaNoWriMo – Days 9 & 10

Yes, I’m doing two days today instead of one. That’s because I was so busy yesterday I totally forgot to post about NaNoWriMo and my writing project. It had crossed my mind I could write two separate posts and try to pass one off as having been written, but I couldn’t. I am trying to build a rapport, one of trust and mutual respect with a flavoring of ideas and events we both enjoy. I can’t do that if I lie, and the time stamp would easily make a liar out of me. So, I’m merging the two posts into one…

Monday, 9 November

I wrote 3,550 words bringing my overall total on that day to 34,836. I’ve begun tweaking the formatting of the chaptters as I write too. I made the paragraph indentation too wide in the first 8 chapters using a one inch indent. I’m going to fix those chapters while continuing on with the standard half inch indent from now on.

There wasn’t a write-in scheduled for today by anyone so completed my writing for the day and began researching how to make a simple loom for when I start learning how to weave. I’ll also be able to use if for macrame I do believe. 🙂

Tuesday, 10 November

I wrote 3,538 words today bring my total for my project to 38,374. I made notes on where I want to add a scene and where I want to split the chapter into two separate chapters. It will help things to flow smoothly and no slow down too much. I’m not happy I didn’t write more, but there’s still time for the additions I have planned once I get the initial goal reached.

I missed today’s write-in because I was busy doing research on industry in the 1930s in New York. I like to have some reality woven into my stories. It gives them more depth, I think. Anyway, I was reading and taking notes, forgetting all about the write-in until it was over. There’s a replay, but the live show is more entertaining and helpful.

I did fix the formatting on the first two chapters – it was niggling at me to do so. I didn’t want to forget to do it and end up with a mess like I’m dealing with in regards to Crimson Knight.

That’s all for today folks, I’ll see you on the flipside so don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

Pretty Gray Pillowghan – Project #5

This project didn’t turn out quite as well as I’d hoped, but what is wrong is a quick fix. I’ve decided to go ahead and share it. I found this pattern on a blog called Crochet Parfait over on Blogspot ages ago, but I’d never worked it up until this week. You can find the pattern here.

I used Heather Gray and White yarns from Red Heart. I ended up using one skein of the white, Super Saver size and five skeins of the gray yarn in Super Saver size. I didn’t know I had that much of the gray when I started, but I’m glad I did!

Hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed making the project. Let me know what you think please!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Scrap Yarn Throw – Project #3

Every so often I get all my left over yarn, the scraps, and I make something out of it. These projects usually differ in size, shape and even what they are. A while back, I decided to do something easy that would take a while to complete. It stands to reason it would since I use only scraps on it.

Anyway, this project is now complete as I took the time to gather up all my scrap yarn once again and found some time to work on the throw I’d begun work on months ago. I try very hard not to repeat the yarn I use but sometimes, it happens. The nice thing about this project is I can always add on to it when I want to make it bigger, and I don’t have to do anything more than get out my scraps.

This throw is long enough lengthwise to take up the entire futon, but it’s not wide enough from top to bottom to cover the entire thing. 🙂 Still, it makes a great cover up when I’m reading or watching television but don’t want a full blanket on me. I’ll be draping it over the back of the futon so it will be handy whenever I need it.

Let me know what you think!

I’ll see you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Baby Pink – Project #2

A friend of mine has a lovely bedroom she’s doing in shades of pink and red with lace and frills – a Victorian style room according to her. Anyway, she commissioned me to create something to drape over the end of her bed, not a full blanket, more like a quarter of one. She gave me some bulky baby pink yarn to work with at the beginning and gave me the red yarn for roses when the main piece was nearly done.

The baby pink part was designed by me without a pattern. I just winged it with some simple yet lacy looking so it would go with the rest of the room. It took 12 skeins of yarn because the skeins weren’t that big, and the yarn is bulky. I got the rose pattern from Cre8tioncrochet.com. Fair warning: Her pages are loaded with animated ads which could eat up your temp memory while you’re trying to work up the pattern. I made 8 roses with one skein of yarn, and the roses are about 3 inches wide, roughly.

That is my futon in my livingroom it’s draped across. My friend’s bed is a queen size, and the edges only drape over the sides about 4 inches – if that. I didn’t measure the piece before I made it or before I posted this, sorry. I know it’s 240 stitches across with a J hook and size 3 yarn. 🙂

Since I’m moving to 12 hour shifts tomorrow (Monday) night, I won’t be getting any of my other projects done in the near future – except maybe the body pillow I’m working on. I just need to do a little sewing. Other than that, the others will take time to get done. I hope you all can wait.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

As Promised – Peacock Project

I actually finished this project several days ago, but I had so much other stuff going on I didn’t have time to sit down to write a post until now.

This piece was originally supposed to be for an accent pillow. I found the pattern in a vintage pattern book circa 1915 – The Priscilla Filet Crochet Book No. 2 in fact. The pattern called for size 300 thread which I had no clue about so, I used what I had. The piece is now 47 inches wide by 55 inches tall. I am selling it on Etsy too –

https://www.etsy.com/listing/588687694/filet-crocheted-peacock

If the above link doesn’t work, please let me know. So far, it’s working.

That’s it for now folks, more to come, so see you on the flipside. Enjoy and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!