It's really just good advice. { a cross stitch gift }

Did you see this fb status that was going around after the New Year?

I did not "like" this status.  I did, however, have two friends post it.  I make things for people constantly.  That's really all I do.  I don't sell much at all.  And I don't make things for myself.  I do commissions and lots of gifts.

Roz posted this status and then we had a conversation about a cross stitch that she saw that was funny.  So I decided to make her one without "like"ing anything.  It jumped to the top of my list because It was fun to do.

I wanted to make it as unassuming and "granny" as possible.

ORT and TUSAL

What do you do with your threads?  Throw them out?!  I like to keep them to show just how much stitching I actually do. I started keeping them when I started cross stitch back in September the amount of little left overs I have is sort of mind boggling considering that I've only been stitching a few months.

ORT - Old Ratty Threads
TUSAL - Totally Useless Stitch ALong.

So to start the year right I got a huge mason jar, 24 ounces. 

I first saw the idea on hugsarefun.com

And it is originally from here.  Join us! 

This is what happened in January.  

Happy stitching!

The Perfect Color Wheel Colors.

I've had the idea of a series of color wheels rolling (har har) around in my head for weeks.

I felt like I needed to get a larger collection of thread to really be able to pull out the best color wheels colors.

I'm not the proud owner of about 75% of all the DMC threads.  I got 12 different oranges today and TADA!

I finally have my template!

The red/oranges were difficult, but I'm happy with this combination. Now I can get started on a few things.  :)

Finish with &Stitches - Family Periodic Table Cross Stitch

I'm inspired by &stitches and I'm gunna join in.  

They have a genius idea.  The finish-a-long.  The idea is simple.  Finish the projects that you just didn't finish.  There is no shame.  Just grab them and do them.  

I tend to finish my projects just because they are usually small and I usually become somewhat obsessed with them.  This project is my first cross stitch project.  I started it in August and I wrote this blog post then also.  

We're a nerdy little family and the idea of a traditional family tree or even a traditional cross stitch on the wall just didn't work.  I saw a friend's take on an element as a sort of birth announcement for her daughters and I totally stole her idea and combined us all together. (With her blessing of course!)

Here is the basic prototype.

I had considered just having the human kids, but the animals have been our family for a very long time.  They are our boys.  

I'm first cause I'm the oldest, then Domino is the oldest kid. Me and the pup have been through some stuff together.

Here is my square completed.  Short name, Tr.  Birthday and full name.

I finished the purple one, Violet's and started Westin's right after he was born.  (he is three months old today).

I'm going to start stitching on it again tomorrow.  :)

One Single Stitch. Every Single Day.

I'm jumping on the bandwagon with Becca and Molly and joining in the 365 day project a day fun.

I'm adding a small twist.  I tend to over generalize and over analyze.

I'm going to pick 5 colors and each color will represent a different mood of the day.  I'll pick a color at the end of the day and do my single stitch.

At the end of the year I will have a 12 by 31 (or so) cross stitch that is an accurate representation of my general moods each day, week, and month.

Too bad my therapist didn't think of this when I was 15.  :)

Mood/Color/DMC number

Neutral/Green/3851
Happy/Purple/333
Depressed/Gray/414
Frustrated/Orange/3854
Angry/Red/326

1/1/2014.  Frustrated. I spent too long on a pattern and never got it just right.  Ugh.

Updates monthly. Instagram updated daily.  Wish me luck!

Ladies Glasses Pattern

A lot of people have off work this week.  And if you are anything like me you need something to keep your hands buy.  Why not try this?

This is the glasses pattern on which I based the project on my last blog.

Now I have it for you for FREE.

Please head over to Craftsy to download a pdf version of my ladies glasses.

Please let me know what you think of the pattern and link back after you have completed it.

I love these glasses!

Cat Eye Glasses {heart} Mustache.

I've always been a little ahead of trends.

When I was 12 I started wearing black lipstick in 1994.  With my hyper color. And my perm.

When I was about 14 I started wearing dresses over jeans.  That got popular about 5 years later.

When I was 16 I painted my room purple and installed black and white checkered tiles.  In the basement.  It was freezing.  That summer I worked at Tinseltown in North Aurora.  And their whole motif is purple and black and white tile.

I'm not bragging.  It's a curse really.

I love hexagons, neon and neutrals, chevrons and mint green.

And I love cat eye glasses and mustaches.

I finished this in a 6" hoop and gifted to a couple of people that don't mind that it vaguely (alright maybe not very vaguely) looks like a face.

I really really love these colors together.  I want to just BATHE in it.

You can find the pattern for the glasses here. For FREE!

Oh Christmas Tree

A bit ago I gave a pattern for a blackwork Christmas Tree.

Of course I started the tree before I did the pattern, so It doesn't match.  I finally completed it.  And I HEART it.  I gave it to my mom :)

The best part is that I used my Kreinik thread.  All the metallic is Kreinik and it turned out beautiful.  I enjoy working with the tread.  Everything from the fact that it's in a spool to the different weights.  Love it.

I kinda love the back.

Random Free Pattern! Instagram logo!

Just a little sumthin sumthin.

Here is mine about to buttoned.

And your slightly improved pattern.

Enjoy!  Let me know how it turned out.  :)

Pixel People Christmas Present.

I really like little cross stitched people.  Whether it's Welittlestitches or Martha Stewart style.  They are adorable.

I made one for my brother in law and his wife for a Christmas present.  I was very excited to give it to them and they seemed to like it  :)

Here are Phil and Tiffany with Vi as a baby.

And in pixel form.

They are stitched on 14ct adia with 2 strands of DMC and placed in a 4x4 frame from Target.  :)

All the pretty colors.

As a teenager you are asked what you listen to.  What's your favorite band?  That's easy.  Old? The Beatles.  New?  Type O Negative -and- Nine inch Nails.  It's too close to call.  

As a kid other kids ask, whats your favorite color?  Hmm, that's tricky.  What other colors is it going with?  How long will I have to commit to it?  What am I wearing?  As a kid I would say purple, sometimes red, rarely green until I discovered teal or gray.  

As an adult this problem has only gotten worse.  I often just stand next to the floss and stare at all the shades.  Or get over whelmed with the picker in Photoshop.  I am absolutely sure The Beatles, NIN, and Type O negative are still my favorite bands. 

But colors?  

Today it's these.

<33333

Blackwork Christmas Tree Pattern

At 31 years old, last week, I purchased my first Christmas tree. 
It was on a great sale from Michaels.  With two kids it felt like it was time to start caring about Christmas. 

With that I've decided to make a ornament each year.  Some day I will be gone and what else will my kids have to remember me by but a box of ornaments they will be obligated to keep in the back of the closet.  They don't even like embroidery, but Mom made them.

So, here is the first:  2013

I've started it and will post when finished  :)

Free "Value" Cross Stitch Pattern

This was the first one I did so It will be the first I give away.  :)

I wanted something clean and simple and beautiful.  First I was thinking about camera terms like aperture and f-stop and light meter.   All things I want to play with in the future.  

Naturally I then went to color and texture and tone and VALUE. 

Value refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a certain area. Value can be used for emphasis.

Values are added to colors to create what you and I see as the different colors within true color. The difference between a powder pink and deeper rose pink. 

Like this -

Credit

Depending on what website or book you look at the scale has a few or many light to dark shades.  I settled on 5 for the sake of the piece.

The DMC colors are (left to right)
762, 415, 414, 371, 3799

The lettering works best as a middle gray.  I didn't do this, but I think that was a mistake.  I would suggest using 317.

As always, comment below for a pdf of the pattern and color selections.  

Wish me luck!

Elements of Design Flash Cards

This is likely going to become a series.  Whether or not I do them ALL is something completely different.  I want to design the rest of the alphabet.  That would require me to read a lot more about design and color theory.  That's much of the reason I want to do it.  

These particular cards are for the Back to School Stitching Competition.  I really enjoy this site and this idea. 

I had a completely different design I was going to embroider having to do with cameras, I ditched the idea and started Value two days after my son was born.  The deadline was 10/15 but got extended to 10/20 (thank you!) so that gave me "enough time" to do Hue also.  

Stay tuned for the free patterns and color suggestions!

RuPaul Cross Stitch!

Just a friendly reminder. Do you have a deadline? A date? A new project to complete? A new dress? Well, you better work it!

Made to fit in 8X10 frame using 14pt cloth. Green lines denote 10 spots.

This is for sale on my Esty, but since I just gave life I thought I'd give a little love too.  :)

I trust you all know about right click save as.  If not, leave me a comment about who you will be making this for and I will send you the pattern as a PDF.  

"Where da moon?" Progress

Violet really like cars, airplanes, trains, cats, the colors blue and purple, Britney Spears, Tool, acting like she is sleeping/ snoring, pulling my short hair and finding the moon in the sky. "where da moon?" Mama, where'd it go??" ... "There he is!"

So much so that I'm going to make her a moon for her room.  

A friend of mine found some cool glow in the dark thread that seemed perfect for the project.  These are Kreninik brand, which I haven't used before.  I'm excited to try.  

I whipped up this moon.  It's 10 x 10 and meant for a 12" embroidery hoop.  

I'm hoping to work on it before Christmas.  I gotta catch her while she still cares where the moon is.  :)

BONUS!!!  Comment below and I'll send you the pattern as a pdf. 

Update: 9/25/13

So, I can't wait.  I tried to wait and finish other things.  But I just can't do it.  

GAME ON.

Just a couple notes about this project already.  It's actually going to end up being about 8by8 in a 10" hoop.  That just felt better to me.  

The thread is, as you know, Kreinik Metallics, but it is also medium braid.  Having only bought basic DMC thread previously I didn't realize how thick this was.  It was actually a pleasant surprise.  I had been wanting to do something other that straight up cross stitch for this project.  Because the thread is thick I think it looks great with only one pass.  More sketchy.  :)

Also the pattern is kinda huge.  So I'm printing corner by corner.  The yellow bits are where I highlighted the middle gray color.  This is just to help me see it a bit better.  

This is now my main project.  At least until the new crochet book I ordered comes in...and until I get up and print out the embroidery pattern that I'm planning to do for this.

And the baby is due in 10 days.  UHOH!

Update: 9/26/13

This is about 2 hours of work today.

I like it :) I'm debating on taking out the green.  It's the darkest of the three "grays" and I think it would cool just not there are all.  Hmmm.

Bloglovin, DMC Mentor, and Craftsy. OH MY!

I'm trying to get a little more into this.  There is more options for crafter/bloggers than I had anticipated.  One of which is Bloglovin. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

I'll have to add an icon to the right when Jeff has a minute.  I attempted it myself, but honestly, why?  My husband codes.  Duh. 

Bloglovin seems to be the thing that I've been looking for.  You can't search blogspot, which is annoying. Pinterest can only take you so far and Facebook, well Facebook is not the place and I'm sick of staring at it waiting for something to happen. 

Bloglovin allows you to follow blogs that you like and even notifies you when there is an update to a blog you follow.  God knows I don't need to be on the computer more than I already am.
Hopefully this will help to make my time a little more efficient. If this is a service you already use, please, feel free to follow me here.  If not, check it out, there are a ton of different categories.

One of the other things I did recently was sign up to become a DMC Mentor.  They accepted me! 

This means that I am qualified to do small classes of cross stitch and embroidery.  They will send me kits and give some information and tips for of instructors/mentors.  This is absolutely something that I would want to get into.  They are sending me a starter kit and I'll post about the goodies when they get here.  :)

If you want to learn to cross stitch, embroider or crochet, let me know.  I'm qualified.  :)

I even got a business card!

I've also requested to be an affiliate with Craftsy, and was accepted.  That's just kinda cool.  You will notice my new Craftsy button on the right.  ----->

They really are a great spot for fiber arts and especially sewing.  I'm going to use the credit they give me for a class for a sewing class.  Onward Operation: Learn All The Crafts!

The DforV Etsy Shop is Officially Open!

Finally, right?  

I have been having a good time making up my odd little cross stitch patterns in Photoshop.

It's a cool way to play with really simple design.  I haven't found a software that works how I want it to but I have figured out a round about way to create a pattern with the pixels as a square.  It works, that's what matters.  Maybe I'll put up a tutorial on how I create a pattern with PS.  Hmm.  Good idea, me.  :) 

So I opened up the shop to share my patterns.  I won't use them all.  Some will be dumb, some abstract, some really mainstream. We'll see what people like.  

I'll eventually put up some crochet patterns and finished pieces. Maybe after the baby is born and things settle down a bit.   Shrug.  We'll see!

So many possibilities!  So much potential!

I've got two for sale at the moment.  

The first is what I think of when Violet sees the cat.  She is in love with the cat.  The cat is a good sport.  But she really loves and squeezes him.  She will yell KITTY! at the top of her lungs until she gets to him then gets in his face and says HI KITTY.  Poor animal doesn't even bother anymore.  

  

You can get the pattern on Etsy right over here. 

Free Pattern Friday! Cross Stitch Edition

As I'm sure you have noticed the last month or so I've been heavy into cross stitch.  Embroidery was my first fiber art love so it's not a huge stretch.  

I'm also a design nerd (with very little formal training).  Maybe I'm a just a girl that knows what she like to look at.  I've been really enjoying playing with my knowledge of Photoshop and making a few cross stitch patterns.  I know now that there isn't a software that is correct for what I want to do and there isn't a website with a huge selection of patterns and ideas like there is with yarn (Ravelry).  

I've learned so many new things and ways of things playing with this craft.  That's why we craft isn't it?

That all said I've been wanted to get a color wheel at my desk for a long time.  I work a lot with color in many different ways and decided cross stitch was the way to make an interesting one.  

So here it is.  Cross stitch color wheel.

It is made to be 6x6 on 14pt cloth to fit an 8x8 frame.  

I haven't started it yet, I need some colors.  I'll update with suggested colors when I know.  Until then....  
Stitch on, stitcheroos!

The girl likes cupcakes.

The girl meaning me.  

Cupcakes became Violet's "thing" before she was born.  This onesie from Carters I bought in nb, 3,6,9 and 12 because I really just wanted to see it ALLTHETIME.  It's it cute?!?  It says momma's sweetie.  

I'm doing more cross stitching because it's giving me the ability to create smaller more design driven projects. 

This is the second thing I made.  It's for Violet's gallery wall and it's her "full" nickname from me.  We call her Squirt, Turtle, Chicken, Chick, Doll, Doll Face and whatever else.  This just came out of my mouth one day.

This was done on 14pt Adia Cloth.  It took about 2-3 hours or so. And was a really good practice.  I got the pattern on Pinterest. The 5x7 frame from IKEA.  It's been laying around for a while and I think it was a set of 4 for $2.50.  Plexiglas, which I like for a kids room.  And card stock cut in the shape of a mat.