Tag 14 count Aida

Winter Scene (Art. 126)

CraftyK Leave a comment

This cross stitch pattern is from a kit that was supposed to be made into an ornament. I’m not a Christmas tree person and personally have no need for ornaments and turned this into a card instead.

While the design is small and seems easy, it was more challenging than I expected. Not only is it tiny (and a tiny piece of fabric provided) it has quite a few colors. Along with backstitching to finish it off.

The card was a multi-step process. After picking the paper, I decided I wanted to make it a frame. Because the pattern is small and no words are stitched on it I also wanted to add some text.

I’ve acquired many stamps over the last few years, but I have avoided Christmas ones. With no stamp and not wanting to handwrite anything I chose to use the writing feature of my Cricut. Since I don’t pay for Access that means any font I use is outlined and not a single line.

I decided that wasn’t a problem because I recently bought alcohol markers and could color it in. In my head I just made my own stamp. The nice thing about that was more color options and testing colors before working on the final version. No cleaning a stamp between color tests!

For this card everything is heald together with double sided tape. Nothing too fancy there. I did use interfacing fabric to seal off the back of the cross stitch.

Stitching

Started: April 12

Finished: April 19

Stitching time: 4 hours

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Class of 2021

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It’s finally here! My second project finish of the year. This was a super fast project that I designed myself. The font did need to be tweaked after typing in the text to make it look right. If you would like to see the first graduation project I did for her sister a few years back, you can find that post here.

I somehow managed to make the triangles different on the pattern and had to fix as I went while stitching.

My niece is into grey and pink right now, but her school colors are dark blue and grey. I compromised with the triangles standing in for school colors and the text using a variegated pink thread. I didn’t plan for the 21 to be the darkest part, but I’m not mad that’s how it turned out.

To keep with the light and neutral theme I chose a white frame for finishing.

Stitching

Started: March 11

Finished: March 18

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Bounce

CraftyK Leave a comment

This was one of the longest cross stitch I’ve had probably ever. After completing 50+ cross stitch cards in a year I was a bit burned out. I started this project right after finishing the card project and really struggled to keep up the motivation.

My niece’s looming graduation put me into high gear to get this one complete. After letting this sit for several months I finally picked it up again and really focused. The challenge of this pattern was all the odd stitching.

It was beyond just straight whole stitching, there were quarter and three-quarter and what were who knows what fraction ones that I converted to be something standard.

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By early 2021 I was finally making some progress. I even managed to take pictures along the way. I’m not sure what skill level this pattern was meant to be, but as someone who has many many hours of cross stitching under my belt, this one was downright hard and frustrating. 

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Even with much concentration I still managed to miss-count and make the pattern my own, but not on purpose. At some point I gave up and just kept pushing forward to eventually get to this stage.

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There are a lot of details. Tigger is cute, until you have to backstitch each odd shaped stripe. It really makes everything pop. There is a reason for backstitching! It was nice that everything was one color. 

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For anyone who follows this now you know why it has been such a long time since my last post. And a very long story about a house that has made life all the more interesting and annoying.

Stitching

Started: November 29, 2019

Finished Stitching: February 15, 2021

Finished (with backstitching): March 9, 2021

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finished card laying down side view

Birds on the House

CraftyK Leave a comment

This card has gone through several patterns. The first one was from dailycrossstitch.com. Every time I went to order it, there wasn’t a pattern. The one pattern that is missing from their site. I tried reaching out, but no one responded.

in progress birdhouse

I had found a different pattern that was more complex, but not as bright and fun. Then I got a new cross stitch book and ended up finding this pattern that seemed to fit what I wanted. I don’t know my aunt all that well, so my mom came up with birds and flowers.

pre-backstitching of birdhouse

My aunt used to make beautiful cards for people by stamping and coloring them in. She stopped making them years ago and I am a little sad I wasn’t able to fit any stamping onto the finished card. I do like the paper I found though. I think it really fits with the style of the cross stitch.

I used the Cricut to cut out the frame, used up all the paper since the Cricut messed up as usual and cut off the paper and on the mat instead. Sometimes it likes to do that, other times it works just fine. I never know and can waste a lot of paper and need to pick something else before it cuts right. I’ve been told what it’s doing isn’t normal, so if you end up with a Cricut it will probably work just fine.

Stitching

Started: September 26th
Finished: September 29th

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full front of birdhouse card

the sloth

Hangin’ in there sloth style

CraftyK Leave a comment

Are you familiar with the Hang in There cat picture? This is a take on that, just with a sloth. My husband’s cousin loves sloths. When this came across as a free pattern one day on dailycrossstitch.com I just had to grab it.

Overall this pattern is simple. Just some long rows of brown. For the leaves I decided to use variegated thread to give a little dimension. As you can see I very quickly hit a super light part of the thread.

 

the bottom again

Since I was running out of time to get the card made (I let the finished stitching sit for a while) this card is pretty simple. I found a dark yet bright orange as the background and used interfacing fabric to hold the Aida cloth together to be a cut out.

This card is larger than most of them that I make. It ended up being a 5×7 card since I stitched on 14 count. It was easier to see that’s for sure.

With the year over half over and my card project still floundering I think I should take this message to heart of Hang in there! I’ll get this project done. And then maybe take a stitching break.

top of card

 

Stitching

Started: July 28th
Finished: August 9th

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front of hanging in there sloth

bottom up view

3 Sports

CraftyK Leave a comment

I’ve been investing quite a bit in new cross stitch books and even some magazines. There are so many that offer small patterns that fit well on a card. I spent the first 20ish years of cross stitching doing kits only. Now I can’t believe how much I was missing out on!

golf bag and clubs

The bowling ball was not a motif that I found, but I did take a basketball and turn it into a bowling ball. The set the golf clubs and football came from also had a basketball that I thought would work as a bowling ball instead. There was a fourth thing, but I can’t remember what it was now.

bowling

 

They were grouped into a square, for my purposes I wanted separate pieces. I redrew the patterns into WinStitch so I could separate them and change the one to a completely different sport ball. I had to really figure out where I was cutting around them to get everything placed right once I began. Luckily I cut a little extra width to the fabric just in case.

football

For the card assembly I went back and forth a lot. Search through my paper options and finally settled on a thick wallpaper. I ran it through one of my birthday embossing folders and it actually went through really smoothly.

I mounted the cross stitch squares to using foam tape. I wasn’t going to do that, but with the embossing I felt it would look better standing off even more from the front of the card. I used a yellow colored fabric, so this card is fairly yellow-tinted in real life.

Stitching

Started: July 21st
Finished: July 27th

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3 sports full front of card

Happy Birthday text in focus

Teddy bear

CraftyK Leave a comment

Birthday twins in the family are becoming more common. Not just the actual twins, nope, these are the new people marrying in and having babies. There’s just under 60 people in the family and there are 365 days a year. We have at least 5 overlapping birthdays already of non-twins. That just seems so crazy to me!

Anyway, this card didn’t take too terribly long to stitch. I actually outlined the letters as I went since I wanted the thin parts to be thicker, so two threads across the board on that one.

The bear I wanted to show a before/after of the stitching vs stitching with backstitching .

teddy in progress

Here’s my wonderful cell phone photo of the bear before I got out the black thread for it. It’s always fun to see the before and after on these and the difference it makes.

side angle right

The assembly of the card didn’t go as I’d hoped. It was a bit like the Hippo I made earlier this year. The paper is the thinner I guess regular printer paper weight and doesn’t handle being cut and taped down over the fabric very well.

It seems to go ok until the bottom and I get a bubble that turns into a pronounced crease. Other than that I like how this card turned out.

Stitching

Started: July 16th
Finished: July 20th

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teddy card full front

top down view

Tweety Bird

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This card is for my brother’s wife. I was 10 when they got married and remember her love for Tweety Bird.

beginning the project

I remember my brother trying to teach me how to wrap gifts nicely (that lesson didn’t stick) and the gift he was wrapping were Tweety slippers. Those huge fluffy things where you put your foot into the “head”. It was a popular thing at the time, might still be.

top focus

 

Because of that memory (hoping she still likes Tweety) I found a small enough pattern to make for her card. I was able to stitch this on 14 count and it came to about under two inches wide and not even two inches high.

I am super proud of myself for taking photos both during the making of and before backstitching this pattern.

The small size gave me the flexibility to use one of my full page happy birthday embossing folders. I did find that this particular folder (purchased direct from China) wasn’t exactly the right size. I put the paper through, but then trimmed off the edges and then trimmed the card as well so the embossing ran side to side without a gap. Making this card just a little smaller than normal.

embossing

To cut out the yellow paper to size it for the card and cut out the hole for the stitching I used my Cricut. Had a small mishap at first where it decided to cut part of the board and paper really making it the wrong size, then tried again to get this one.

 

After that was done I ran it through my embosser to give some texture and say happy birthday. Using double sided tape I laid in the pattern so it looks like Tweety is swinging from the top of the hole. I made sure to leave a little extra space when measuring for the hole to make it almost like a window, watching someone swinging outside.

Stitching

Started: June 17th
Finished: June 21st

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full front

top front of card standing

Simple Cross

CraftyK Leave a comment

I’m not sure where to begin with this card. I made it for a second-cousin of mine. He’s been through a lot in his life and part of this cross stitch has a little extra meaning because of where the thread came from.

About 15 years ago my cousin and his family were in a terrible car accident. His wife died and one of his children was left with a brain injury. He’s recovered well beyond what was every expected for which we are all grateful.

It’s not easy to lose a parent. If I remember correctly he was about 6 years old. I know his mom loved cooking (which is why we have the family cookbook) and she cross stitched. At some point my mom ended up with her thread. It’s in a brown case, everything sorted out and each color braided onto the cards. To this day I cannot rebraid them if one becomes undone.

thread on cloth on pattern

For this cross stitch I picked two colors from her collection. I went with blue, hoping it’s a color he likes. Blue is a pretty universal color. These two stood out, so going with “there’s a higher power” they must be what it should be.

The pattern is something I found online. I didn’t want anything too crazy and trying to search “cross cross stitch” doesn’t go so well, the internet doesn’t understand that I did mean to write cross twice.

The pattern had a circle element to it that I decided to leave off. I wanted to keep it simple, I liked the clean lines.

angled view front

I used the Cricut to cut my frame.  It took a few different papers to come to the plain grey. Again for the simplicity of it. I didn’t want to add any text, embossing or stamping. Just simple, especially because the thread in this case has more meaning than anything else.

Stitching

Started: May 30th
Finished: May 31st

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front view full card

 

 

cat face

Happy Kitty

CraftyK Leave a comment

Hopefully you like cats. I do. I have 2 of them. My cousins have several cats among them as well. The cousin who is getting this card however had to give up his cats after finding out one of his kids is allergic. Yet the whole family still loves cats. They are all getting a cat card to at least have a non-allergy causing cat around. I cannot guarantee the card is free of cat hair either. I usually have one on my lap while attempting at stitching.

happy cat thread

This pattern is part of a set from a quilt book. I tried to highlight the symbols and colors I would need, yet missed the pink. It’s not in the picture when I started, but I had to go find some pink for the ears by time I was done.

stitching top

This was a pretty fast pattern to work on. It was the designing of the card that took a while.

I had no idea where to begin. I went through both paper drawers a couple of times before finding the blue geometric patterned paper from a book I bought last year.

The pattern was small enough to add some stamping with a birthday message. That paper was easy to find, I find myself using it a lot. It’s not white and has some character to it.

bottom view

I used my Cricut to cut out the blue paper and ivory paper for stamping on. I have a corner rounder cutting thing I used to round the corners. I was lazy and didn’t design the box in Illustrator and the Cricut program doesn’t allow for rounded corners.

After stamping I decided since I had my clear embossing powder by me to emboss just the word birthday. A little got on the letters above, but not enough to change the effect I was going for.

front of card standing

For not having a clue how to start designing this card I think it came together really well. Bringing in the additional element of the stamp helps offset the smaller cross stitch design.

Stitching

Started: May 9th
Finished: May 11th

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front of Happy Cat