Yippee! Back to cross stitch!!!!!

My husband and I made the hour and a half trek from our home in Manassas to the apartment and town home, my daughter and my son are living on this year in Harrisburg, Va.

On the truck, where the rest of the things, my daughter couldn't pack in her Smart Car.  She forgot that she had a puppy to take back with her to school and all the doggie paraphanalia that goes along with said puppy, including the actual puppy.

Loaded on the truck was the couch, cushions, and some pillows with pillow covers for my son's bed.  Good riddance!!!!!! Two projects that had been looming over my head for weeks.  Plus my basement seems so huge without all the extra furniture being stored there until move in was possible.

I did the initial tuck in of the slip cover for them.  Off to lunch with the kids, a trip to Walmart to pick up things they forgot, and the back in to car for the ride home!

I walked in the door, fed our dogs, got some laundry going, and set up for my next project.  Cutting fabric, putting in Velcro, finding the correct scroll rods, breaking my floor stand down from the last project, and rebuilding for the new!

This was not what I intended to do next!  But since this is a gift, hopefully for Christmas, I decided I better get started on it.  This will be for my step-daughter who is a Florida girl through and through!

My Tropical Quaker Sampler

Wal D'Champs (WDCDesign)

White 14 ct. Aida

DMC

I managed to get a few stitches in last night.  But schedule is pretty full today, so I don't know how much I'll be able to work in it. But it's started!

The colors are luscious!  No specialty stitches, just plain cross stitch.  Why the Aids instead of linen you might ask? 

Because this another large piece and Aida is a lot cheaper than a piece of linen.  Especially since I'll have it professional framed, once completed.

Still knitting on the baby blanket and a scarf.  One of these days I'll post updated pictures on those as well.

Until next week, happy stitching!  I know it will be for me!

Another week of no stitching!

So sorry for my late update, but I have been trying to finish the stupid slip cover for the couch.

I already missed one deadline to have it complete, and my son didn't seem all that happy about it.  Since then, I have been working on it almost daily and all day long with little to show for my efforts. The arms of the couch were giving me quite the challenge and I think I finally may have got them at least acceptable.

If I thought the love seat was a difficult, try working with twice as much heavy fabric.  Tuck it in the couch, pin it, haul if off the couch, drag all that fabric with me to the sewing machine, sew it,  take it back to the couch, retuck, repin.  You get the picture?  It makes me recall why this type of sewing is not my favorite thing to do.

I am really making headway, but it's so slow going.  Because I missed the deadline, I'll need to bring it, once completed, to Harrisonberg. I will be, so doing the happy dance, when this baby is a picture in my rear view mirror!

I bought a few more pieces of fabric from the LNS that is closing its doors.  Even with 40% off, it's still a pretty penny!  But in the other hand for about $80 I got 3 pieces that are about a yard each.  In addition I order a yard of 14 ct. White Aida from fabric.com.  One yard, 60" wide, grand total including postage was About $15. I accidentally ordered a fat half of 36 ct. on eBay, on their buy it now feature, when I was trying to figure out how much a fat half would be, and hit place order, instead of the back button.

That was $45 I wasn't planning on spending this month.  Not that it won't be used.

I also knitted on the baby blanket, but too lazy to pull it out of the bag to take an updated picture.  Next week!

Here is a picture of the tin topper I made for myself, not finished completely yet.  I have to line the box and add some gold thread to the top.  Just not on the priority list to finish right now.

Until

Next week, happy stitching!  Even if it's not me doing the stitching!

I couldn't stand it!

With all my projects that I have going, and there are a lot, my determination to stay away from cross stitch barely lasted a week!  Thus the xstitchaddict call sign.

But does my promise to myself really count when it's a project I'm thinking about giving as a gift?  A not necessarily a project for my own personal use? Well to be completely honest, the first one would have to be for myself, so I can work out all the kinks. Dont want to mislead anyone.  

I started stitching the tin topper chart for Altoid tins.

Since I already discovered when we went on vacation that the tins are the perfect size for carrying your extra stitching needs.  Then Rebecca Dorrie of Samplers and Such sent me a picture of all the charts she had made to pretty up the ordinary tins. I just couldn't resist. 

I figured if I did the first one for myself, work out all the kinks. Then perhaps I might do one for a friend that lives in my area, who has been a real godsend at times when I truly needed help. 

Onto other pending projects.  The cushions for the couch are completely finished.

The drop cloths for the couch have been washed and dried several times, and are awaiting tearing out the side seams so that they can be sewn together in one huge piece of fabric.

Meanwhile I have been knitting away on my second baby blanket too.  The yarn is even softer than the chenille yarn was.  With the left over yarn thought about knitting up some scarves to give to my niece. The niece that is having the baby, her younger sister is still in grade school and I thought by knitting up scarves for her, out the of the same yarn, she wouldn't feel so left out.

Meanwhile after getting all the seats for the couch finished, I had quite a bit of extra fabric.  I asked my son if he wanted me to make some extra throw pillows with some pillow forms I already had.  Nope!  Happy with the four plaid ones I had already recovered and are the ones that came with the couch.

But in checking out my craft storage room he found two pillow forms 24" X 24" which I had bought for some project and now can't remember which one. He latched onto those and asked me to cover them so he could use them in his bedroom. But wanted different fabric.  Off to JoAnn's to pick out fabric.  He picked out some type of sweatshirt fabric based on color and softness. Of course it wasn't on sale. Luckily I had a 40% off coupon, but 2 yards still cost over $11.

Another project to complete before he's back to college in the middle of August.  Continued updates to follow.

Until next week, happy stitching!

 

A week of not one single cross stitch

Making this post a bit earlier than some of my more recent posts.  Still lots of projects to complete before I get back to my favorite hobby which will always be cross stitch. A day without stitching is truly a day without sunshine!

Today the hubby and son leave for Harrisonberg to begin the big move for my son into the town house.  I put the final stitches in the love seat cover this morning.  Nothing like working under pressure and a deadline.  Gets the heart beating that's for sure.

But this means I have to start sewing the cover for the couch.  Bigger piece, a lot more fabric, and even less time to complete it. But at least I know what I'm doing this time and hopefully won't make the same mistakes from trial and error on the love seat. Biggest lesson learned, don't cut until absolutely necessary!

I do have one cushion cover almost done, which means 2 more to do.  I still need to wash and dry drop clothes several more times.  Plus Dixie is still awaiting her haircut. Not to forget doing laundry and making a stab a house cleaning so that I won't be featured on an episode of Hoarders!

I have also managed to continue the knitting in a the baby blanket.  It has become my new take along big project. Surprised at how many rows I can finish while wasting time. Even took it on the boat with me yesterday and was quite pleased when I got home to find that I had reached 31" which means I can start the final 8/9 rows of seed stitch for the final border on the end.

However, more yarn awaits me for another blanket when I couldn't decide on yarn choice, so I just bought it all!  No additional pressure.

Not to say with all this going on that cross stitching is never out of the back of my mind.  I was so tired of looking for the hardware that goes to my various stands that I decided to do something about it. A trip to the local Walmart store I found exactly what I needed in the craft department for storage.  And for less then $4.00, soooo worth it!

I also have been keeping my eye open for charts do something personal for my youngest son and step daughter. Backtracking in my blog, earlier posts you can see the pieces I stitched for my oldest son and my daughter.  I think I finally found something for my step daughter who lives in Florida.  She just moved into her very own apartment.  When she was here recently she didn't seem all that impressed with some  of my reproduction samplers. 

But if I'm going to stitch something, even as a gift, I want it to be fun for me too!  After searching the net, I finally found this chart that was available for download.  Nothing like instant gratification. 

It's called My Tropical Sampler.  Think I'll just stitch it on white 14 ct. Aida when I work it into the rotation.

Guess that's about all for now.  Until next week-happy stitching in whatever form it is!