Tag hardanger

angled layflat of princess

A Princess

CraftyK Leave a comment

One of my cousins who married into the family is a huge Disney princess fan. While I didn’t have any patterns of actual Disney princesses I did find this generic princess on dailycrossstitch.com.

Since it is for a card I ended up stitching it on 22 count to make it small enough to fit a 4.25×5-inch card. As with most of the patterns from Daily Cross Stitch there was no backstitching. This helps speed up some patterns to just stitch and be done.

This also means less pictures to take as I go since there isn’t a difference after adding backstitching. Or what I like to call outlining. Since that’s essentially what you are doing.

close up of princess

Not much to say about this card. It’s very straightforward with the stitching and the frame is made from wallpaper. I was able to line it up on the Cricut well enough to get the loop over the right corner. I liked the swirls on this wallpaper and that it is thick and has texture to it. All of that made it a great finishing touch to this card.

Stitching

Started: November 6th
Finished: November 16th

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full front of princess card

top front, slight angle

Antique Storefront

CraftyK Leave a comment

I think this is the most detailed and challenging card of the year. The pattern calls for 14 count fabric making the design 5″x5″. To keep to my “standard” card size of 4×5.5 I needed to make the design smaller, so I went with 22 count fabric. Making this already detailed pattern even more daunting. The pattern is from an old issue of The Cross Stitcher, I’m not sure if it can be found anymore, but that’s where to start the search. They had a whole Victorian Village Afghan Series.

thread laid out

I used my more “aged” fabric that is kind of loose in a way. I had a few times while stitching, mostly during backstitching where a whole row would just rip out. Like it wasn’t really in there at all.

This pattern has a lot of backstitching to it. So I decided for the first time in my cross stitching life to do some of the backstitching as I went. I even took a picture before I started in on the bottom half. I thought it would be fun to finally show a work in progress or WIP in the cross stitching world. (I learn so many new things from the Cross Stitch Club Facebook group)

part of backstitching done

Once I got all the detail work done. I attempted at double checking it. There was so much I just hoped for the best. I tried to take some semi-detailed pictures of the stitching top and bottom. Tried using a different camera with a macro lens and was a little frustrated by how far away I still needed to be from the design to focus.

For the frame I picked out a wallpaper that has some pattern to it, but still kind of plain. I really kept trying different plaid patterns, but they all seemed too busy. I really wanted the cross stitch to stand out since it is so detailed and took a lot of hours to get done.

front of card standing

To cut the frame I got out the Cricut and measured pretty darn well. There are times when I leave no breathing room, but this one wasn’t too bad. There was even enough space on the sides for the wallpaper to be taped to the cardstock.

Stitching

Started: June 1st
Finished: June 16th

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full front of card

laying top corner

Steampunk Stitched

CraftyK Leave a comment

Sometimes there are patterns that come through my email from Daily Cross Stitch that just scream, “This is for [enter name here]!” This pattern was one that did just that. I had a former co-worker from maybe 3 jobs or so ago that I still keep in contact with. She likes Steampunk, as do I, but she is much better at it. I’m more of a passive lover of the genre.

starting out

To get this pattern to fit on a regular sized note card I had to stitch it on Hardanger (22 count). If you remember from my Wine pattern I learned that 1 thread is much better than 2 on this cloth. I was super excited to have a cream almost antiqued Hardanger on hand, which goes perfectly with this mostly brown pattern.

side view top

For the background I knew I wanted to use my gears embossing folder I had purchased. It was just how to mount the stitching and what paper to use.

Eventually I settled on cutting out the stitching after using interfacing fabric to keep the edges from fraying. To make the card very 3D I not only embossed the back, but also used foam tape to mount the pattern.

top view embossing

The background is wallpaper. I think the colors work well with the overall feel and grunginess of this card.

front view standing

I really like how this one came together in the end. It seems like a very cohesive piece and can for sure double as art.

Stitching

Started: May 1st
Finished: May 8th

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full front

Front of card standing

Love, Laugh, WINE

CraftyK Leave a comment

I am not a wine person. I never even graduated past a Moscato. I learned a little about wine at one of my previous jobs where I helped lay out a Wine & Food newsletter. I was then told that Moscato is for starting out, however not really what a true wine connoisseur would drink.

Love, Laugh, Wine

My aunt however is quite in the know on wines and loves visiting new vineyards to try new varieties and such things. Seriously I know nothing about this. I have been told I don’t even sample wine correctly (you spit it out?!). So based on her love of wine I found this pattern at dailycrossstitch.com to make for her birthday card.

This cross stitch was not my first venture into stitching on 22 count or hardanger fabric. I did learn that I have been going about it all wrong. I have been torturing myself stitching multiple patterns on 22 count using two pieces of thread. It’s extremely difficult, creates uneven lumpy stitches, and is overall quite aggravating. This was my fourth attempt at stitching on this size fabric.

 

close up of corner

Since the beginning of the year I have joined a Cross Stitch Club Facebook group. In this group people as questions such as, “How many pieces of thread do you use on 22 count?” Guess what the overwhelming answer is: ONE. Seriously! I only ventured off of 14 count kits last year so that’s one reason for not knowing this extremely helpful tidbit of info. After painstakingly stitching out the word Laugh in “bold” 2 thread. I finally decided to try 1. Just to see what happened. Holy crap it actually made stitching go so much faster! And the stitches were actually even. You can see the difference in the photo above.

The next thing I decided to do on this pattern was to correctly stitch variegated thread. Again something I learned about by seeing various people ask in the Cross Stitch Club group. Of course the part of the variegation I was on wasn’t very varied (have fun saying that three times fast), it still worked out giving a little bit of depth to the wine bottle label, see the photo below.

detail of stitching

Now that I have learned something new, that will make my life so much easier when I need to stitch on 22 count again.

Assembly of this card was pretty standard. I pulled out the Cricut to make the frame out of heavier purple glittery cardstock. The finished pattern was placed on interfacing fabric in an attempt to keep things from stretching and warping as I put it in the frame. I still don’t think I have perfected this as I can’t get things in straight and still need to pull and prod it, which is creating bubbles. Maybe I’ll figure that out by time this birthday card project is finished.

Stitching

Started: April 1st
Finished: April 6th

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Full front of card

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

Birthday Care Bear

CraftyK Leave a comment

the completed project

Today is my best friend’s BIRTHDAY! When she told me she liked the Care Bears I found a cross stitch book on ebay and found this Birthday Bear! I knew I wanted to make it for her. It took a long time, but it’s done and delivered!

I started this cross stitch immediately after finishing the butterfly card. Since I survived using the dark 18 count Aida I assumed I could manage Hardanger (it’s also called 22 count). Boy was I wrong! And I overestimated my eyesight. I know it is small, but didn’t realize just how hard it would be to stitch. I could barely tell if there was a full x or not.

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I ended up at Joann’s for a LED magnifying glass on day 2 of working on this project. Even with using it I couldn’t see very well or my vision is going bad faster than I thought. I found it challenging to keep my eyes focused for very long. Not sure if this is common since I don’t know anyone who regularly works on Hardanger. If you have and have any tips please share!

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8/25/18: Although this milestone is hard to see, it is a milestone. I got the white on white almost complete. There is still some in the ears, but I don’t trust myself to count that far from my current position. I did however complete the belly area of the bear. The count is 1 off somehow, but I’m hopeful I can work around it without making the entire image seem off.

care bear with white belly complete

8/25/18: progress report

After much more work on this I finally finished. The left side is definitely off, but that makes it unique and handmade right?

10/14/18: The stitching is complete!

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10/14/18: progress report, the main stitching is done

Now time for backstitching and well the french knots ended up not happening. I realized this as I started typing this.

I used the Cricut to cut out the frame to finish this. The total size is 8 in x 8 in. As much as I tried to make a card out of it I wasn’t able to. Five attempts at cutting a card from my A3+ paper and it just left my sticky board a mess. The paper shredded no matter what setting I used when trying to pull it off.

I was so desperate to finish this on time and with my other commitments I completely missed actually finishing everything on this project. Maybe it’s time to slow down a bit (which I know can’t happen with many stokes in the fire).

I used to do really well and not miss stitches or anything else. Now my work has mistakes everywhere, too many things happening that are distractions. I have many more deadlines to reach, so no slowing down now.

Stitching

Started: July 21st
Finished: October 16th

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