Tag daily cross stitch

Make Your Own Kind of Music

CraftyK Leave a comment

I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to finish this one before my friend turned the big 4-0, in November. Clearly I was on top of it with plenty of time to spare.

I’m writing this in late July and you will be seeing this in November. I don’t want to share it early even though I’ll be sending it in a few days.

My friend is not only an amazing photographer and writer, she also has a passion for music. I found this pattern on dailycrossstitch.com and just had to make it for her.

I did a little modification of the pattern. For the arrows I used variegated thread to add some dimension. I also added backstitching around the word music. It wasn’t standing out enough against the lines.

I used a purple sparkle paper for the frame and cut it out with my Cricut. The back of the cross stitch is stabilized with interfacing fabric.

Stitching

Started: March 30

Finished: April 10th

Stitching time: 11.25 hours

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the otter stitching

Otter Love

CraftyK Leave a comment

The newest addition to the family by marriage loves otters…and Harry Potter. While Harry Potter is great, a little harder to come by cross stitch patterns. And for some reason I remember her otter love before HP.

I went searching for an otter pattern on Etsy and ended up with one from dailycrossstitch.com that is pretty adorable.

the pieces

There are lots of browns in this pattern, with pops of color with the pink and blue. It’s a very easy pattern to work which is good when you need to move through them quickly.

standing front view

This card ended up using a few new things I have learned about over the past year. First is the super new interfacing fabric that I think I mention every post now. The next is embossing powder for stamping.

The fun curves of this pattern lent itself to being one that is cut out and mounted. Since it doesn’t take up the full space I also decided to pull out some stamps. Then I read that the ink was the kind you can emboss with…and found I had bought powder called “Tinsel”. Knowing that Iris has mailed just glitter in an envelope before I couldn’t help but add some to the card.

close up of stamping

I haven’t figured out how to “clean up” the powder before running the heat gun over it making everything permanent. So this attempt looks messy to me along with some areas being heavier on the glitter than others. Overall it’s a cute card that came together nicely.

Stitching

Started: April 21st
Finished: April 29th

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front only

semi side view

Rocky Mountain High

CraftyK Leave a comment

It’s my sister’s birthday today. While really looking at the walls at my parent’s house I have noticed just how many cross stitches there are adorning the walls. Some of them my sister made. I know one for sure was for me.

Now it’s my turn many years later to make one for her. Mine is by far simpler as it is only one color and only a few inches high and wide, but it’s the thought that counts right?

the beginning

My sister loves the mountains. For a time she was going to move to Colorado however that hasn’t happened. She’s in Texas now, which is a bit different climate and view wise. I thought this simple image of mountains would be nice for her. She also did oil painting for a few years and many of those were of mountains. Again mine is not really comparable with its simplicity.

I finished the stitching in just a few days and started on the next one. It was coming up with how to mount this to a card that stumped me for the longest time. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to create a frame or put the raw fabric on black paper, maybe grey.

side view

The first step to deciding was to browse my wallpaper collection. I wanted something with texture which just doesn’t happen with standard cardstock. Even wallpaper can be disappointing at times, there were some marble looking patterns that were on the smoothest paper you can find.

The paper I finally settled on was the first one I pulled out. It reminds me of rock and looks like a close up of a real mountain (at least to me). I think it really helps the stitching to stand out, yet adds another level of texture to the card overall.

front view

I used my handy Cricut to cut out the wallpaper frame. Amazingly I measured correctly and didn’t cut off any stitching. Once I had it cut I was so glad I had enough cloth left at the top to run the bottom row of stitching along the bottom border of the frame.

This card is simple yet stands out to me. It’s quite striking now that it’s complete.

Stitching

Started: February 25th
Finished: February 28th

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close up front

Curious Cat

CraftyK Leave a comment

The curious cat. Aren’t they all so curious and frustrating at times? I happen to have 2 of them and know all too well their mischievous ways. Little did I know that a second cousin of mine also has an affinity for these adorable creatures.

It was just finding a pattern that would be fun for a birthday card. I was able to find one in an old pattern book for afghans (blankets, not the people). I’m not sure if this was supposed to be stitched on much larger cloth, but I went with 14 count Aida for this one. This pattern is only 39 stitches high by 42 wide! So small, yet so many stitches in there.

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For the longest time the body of this cat looked like a fish to me. My niece guessed what it was very quickly on Snapchat. The flowers added a nice pop of color to this piece.

I went with all scrap thread for this one since it was so small. I figured I would be safe. I was able to match leftovers from a kit to one of my bobbins of thread I already had. They are close enough I combined them. Can you tell? It’s the one with way more thread than the rest in the picture above.

Once I got to the “framing” of this piece I went for wallpaper. I wanted something brick or at least brick-like and found this goldish heavily textured paper.

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The parts that stand out aren’t wrinkles, they are meant to be there. I wanted to try and align the top line with the rope from the basket, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Cricut isn’t the most reliable thing in the world for matching what you see on the screen to where it might cut your paper. I took a gamble and lost this one, but it still turned out ok. I did like the extra space at the bottom to put a little birthday sign.

I employed the Cricut for some drawing. The letters are drawn with a pen by the Cricut and then it cut out the square. That is mounted with foam tape to be more 3D. I really enjoy foam tape. I was lazy and didn’t find a stamp to try and fit the 3.25″ width I was cutting (to match the frame) so I used the writing feature of the Cricut instead.

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I mounted everything to white cardstock with double sided tape. The wallpaper is struggling to stick though. The backing of this wallpaper is a strange fabric weave type thing.

Stitching

 

Started: January 8th
Finished: January 13th

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Young Chef

CraftyK Leave a comment

When looking for patterns for this project of cross stitch cards for my mom’s family I found most at dailycrossstitch.com. The patterns are pretty simple and small which works perfectly for cards. I don’t even think the patterns have backstitching or odd stitch sizes.

This is going to be a huge help with getting around 40 cards (might be over that?) done this year. January and June are the busiest months for birthdays so in between I need to keep cranking these cards out.

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This card is for a second cousin of mine. His mom already has her card. Her son, while an avid football player, also enjoys cooking and baking. If I recall correctly he now has a Kitchen Aid mixer to aid in his baking endeavors.

So for his hobby of being in the kitchen I chose a chef pattern. I am trying very hard not to have a repeat pattern. Having many avid football fans in the family makes that a little more challenging and requires a little sleuthing to find additional interests.

I have many papers, but it was hard to find one that said “food” or “chef”. I ended up with a brown checkered pattern which mimics a traditional picnic blanket or pizza restaurant table cloth. This is actually wallpaper. I can’t imagine having something so dark on a wall, but I guess that’s why it’s now discontinued. It works well and doesn’t detract too much from the actual cross stitch.

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To cut the paper I used my handy Cricut. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done and I’m able to place the pattern neatly in the newly created frame. I mounted all of this with double sided tape onto my standard white cardstock.

Stitching

Started: December 31st
Finished: January 6th

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cropped in front view

Born to Sparkle

CraftyK Leave a comment

This card became a last-minute add on to the 2018 family card project. I didn’t realize my niece’s birthday was at the beginning November and not the end. I wanted to make a card and decided to go for it and create her cross stitch card a year early.

I also felt that I needed to redeem myself from the card I made for her last year. It was my first attempt at doing something custom using different elements after being inspired by an Art Journeling class on CreativeLive. It was around that time that I discovered the Cricut and that has changed my crafting completely.

last year's card

Last year’s card

After the last few mishaps with the back stitching, this one has NONE! Once the stitching is done this is ready to put onto a card.

In my rush to get started I did not take a “before” image to share. I don’t even think the beginnings made it on Snapchat. I put on my CreativeLive lighting class and got down to business.

front view of card

I’m not sure why I thought that if a pattern was up to 80 stitches wide I could fit it on a smallish card. On 14 count that’s almost 6 inches. This project is on a very small piece of 22 count to make it closer to the 3-4 inch mark. Having barely finish a 22 count a few weeks ago I think my eyes were still able to look at itty-bitty holes. I pulled out the size 28 needle again and got started.

close up of stitching

This one was run so close to the edges of my fabric I wasn’t even able tape up the edges. I just had to be very careful not to fray anything, which didn’t work. I found myself pulling on the fabric a lot. Luckily I didn’t fray it to the point of taking out stitches.

top view of card

To keep with the purple sparkle theme I used my purple shimmery paper as a mount. The crazy design cutout was drawn in Illustrator using one of the built in brush patterns. Without a machine I wouldn’t have been able to cut all those curves.

Stitching

Started: October 27th
Finished: November 1st

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side view close up of card