Tag pattern

Class of 2021

CraftyK Leave a comment

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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bottom up view of Americana Eagle

Americana

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The first of the December cards. Also one of the last 3 cards for 2019. As of right now I don’t have any intention of doing any more birthday cards for 2020 and beyond.

This card is going to the stepson of a friend of mine. Her children received the Precious Moments patterns for L and H. Since they were animals it was cute and made sense. For A and J it was angel and jogger, so I decided to ask her what the kids were into so I could come up with something else for them. For the little girl was a mermaid and for the older boy he likes Americana.

I searched my books and magazines that I have been collecting over the last year and found this pattern in once of those motif books. I redrew it in the WinStitch program so I could make the pattern bigger and color on it. This pattern does have some extensive backstitching for how small it is.

eagle before backstitching

I made sure to wait on the backstitching so I could have a before/after photo of this one.

front angle view of eagle

Assembly was pretty straightforward. I found a piece of wallpaper that would look good and let the eagle really stand out. I ironed on interfacing fabric to the pattern so I could cut around it with less fraying. Then I attached the wallpaper to the cardstock with double sided tape. The motif is attached with foam tape.

Stitching

Started: November 2nd
Finished: November 5th

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full front view of "Americana"

birghter card text

You Are Sunshine

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Some of the cards I have made this year went through a few changes. Originally this cross stitch pattern was going to be made for my uncle, instead I made it for his wife. I was having a hard time coming up with what to make her.

My uncle is my godfather so in our family that meant I would exchange gifts with him every year at Christmas. He is also the godfather to one of my cousins. We would both receive a cross stitch ornament of some religious Bible theme (Christmas based) as the bow of our wrapped gifts. Every year my aunt would pick out a different pattern and stitch it for us, put it into a tiny frame so we could hang it on the tree.

sunset stitching bottom of card

My aunt is involved with several volunteering activities along with watching most of her grandkids on a daily basis. If you need her somewhere, she finds a way to make it happen. I’m not sure if she cross stitches much anymore, but a cross stitch card is very fitting for her.

The saying on this card is Some people make the world brighter just being in it. I feel like that is something very fitting for her. She gives of her time and talents as often as she can.

brighter card laying down

I chose the simple brown paper for the frame to really let the colors of the stitching stand out. I also used a lighter tan paper as the base instead of the standard white.

Besides the Cricut ripping up my first 3 attempts at cutting this frame, assembly went well. Double sided tape and interfacing fabric can be your best friends when making cross stitch cards.

Stitching

Started: October 26th
Finished: October 27th

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full front of brighter cross stitch

top of Boba Fett card

Boba Fett

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Anyone else have some Star Wars fans in their life? I have a few and bought the AMAZING Star Wars cross stitch pattern book (not an affiliate link). It’s so nice to have a book of patterns that are official to use for people who really love this universe.

Boba Fett in progress

You may remember in February I made the 3 Stormtrooper pattern for my nephew (my brother’s kid). My brother is more known for his Chewbacca costume, but I swear at some point he has mentioned Boba Fett. So on that point I’m hoping for the best. There just weren’t any Chewie patterns that I liked.

This card ended up being a 5×7 because it is fairly tall. I special ordered some sage colored 14 count Aida cloth. I think the book called for something even darker, but I think this worked out well. The photos don’t capture the color of the cloth, either too blue or yellow, just wasn’t into balancing today.

laying down angled view of Boba Fett card

The inside of the card is also unique. I have a daily calendar from 2016 that I’ve been slowly using on Star Wars cards for my brother and nephew. This time I used 3 pages to line the inner left side of the card. This makes it even more Star Wars-y right? Even though it’s from the beginning of A New Hope, it’s still the right movie series.

reusing daily Star Wars calendar

The frame and stitching are mounted on regular white card stock. The black frame was cut out with my Cricut. Everything is taped down using double sided tape.

Stitching

Started: October 16th
Finished: October 21st

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Boba Fett full front of card

top down angle of fairy in rain with flower umbrella

A Fairy in the Rain

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This cross stitch was a long time in the making. Not the physical making, but the “I’m going to make this someday” making. The moment I saw this in the April 2018 issue of Just Cross Stitch (you can buy it here, just a link direct to the issue, I don’t get any kickback) magazine I knew I wanted to make it for my best friend.

Then last year we started talking about another book I had gotten that was Care Bears. So she got that instead. You can see that one here. That was my very first 22 count pattern. I did 2 threads on that thing, tons of quarter stitches and enormous frustration. The only thing I learned on that one was to use a smaller needle. Unfortunately it took until earlier this year to learn that in addition to the smaller needle you use 1 thread.

Even though this year has been madness and adding another more challenging pattern to the mix wasn’t advisable by anyone, I was determined to make this pattern.

bottom up view of fairy card showing text

I did recently use the same paper for another more complex pattern that I just had to make and felt it was fitting for this card as well. My friend is an artist, graphic and mix media. For a long while she was really into watercolors and this paper reminds me of that so I wanted to use it. It pulls some of the colors from the pattern, but really it was for the watercolor effect that I used it.

The frame was cut with the Cricut. I’m still fighting with it to cut correctly the first time, hopefully we’ll come to a resolution soon.

Due to the time constraints I’m under to finish these cards and working two other jobs I didn’t take any “in progress” photos except on Snapchat. I broke with my (until the last few months) tradition of doing all backstitching at the very end and was doing it as I went along for the most part. Showing that contrast is always awesome, I hope to do more of the before/after photos in the future.

Stitching

Started: October 6th
Finished: October 16th

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full front of fairy card

finished card laying down side view

Birds on the House

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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

cake cat laying down angled

A Cat Made Cake

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This card finishes out one of my cousin’s families. This particular card is for his wife. While I tried to make it the same size as the other cards, the stitching ended up being too large and had to be placed on a 5×7 card.

If you would like to see the rest of the family cards you can find my cousin, his oldest, and youngest. I can’t remember which one is allergic to cats, but they used to have a couple. I wanted to give them all cats they can keep. And probably includes some authentic cat fur in the mix, because, well, my cats like to leave their hair on everything!

before backstitching on cake cat

I got the pattern for this card a long time ago off of the cross-stitching website. It is no longer available and I have been unable to find another copy. I believe it is in an old copy of The World of Cross Stitch magazine, but I have no idea how to get a hold of one since I am not in the UK.

This is the most adorable pattern and one of my favorite cards I have made this year. This one took a little longer than I expected. There is a lot of detail in it. So many colors to create all the shading. Then the backstitching took quite a while, but I finished that on a plane ride. Backstitching really does make a difference.

front angle of cake cat

I used the Cricut to cut out the frame, the paper is from a book of scrapbook paper I bought at one point. It turned out a lot nicer than I expected when I picked the paper.

Stitching

Started: September 13th
Finished: September 26th

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front of cake cat card

eye of peacock feather

A feather for your card

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This card is for my cousin’s wife. Last year my cousin got a card with a clown on it. Not a scary clown, just a silly one that had a Happy Birthday banner. Their daughter got her card this year the flamingo. Her mom loves all things peacocks, so I went on a search for a pattern for her card.

This pattern came from dailycrossstitch.com, it’s a bit on the artsy side, but you can still mostly tell it’s a peacock feather.

To be a little different I decided to pull out some rayon thread I have to stitch the middle purple and the darker green. This meant picking a different lighter green. The rayon I had was a true green color, not the turquoise usually associated with peacocks.

This cross stitch was mainly worked on in the car, lots of car travel lately which means getting better at working on this on the go.

I used a heavy scrapbooking paper that has some sparkle to it for the background and cut out the feather as best I could. Then using foam tape I mounted it to the purple background.

Stitching

Started: September 8th
Finished: September 12th

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full front of peacock feather card

close up of stitching

H is for Heinrich

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Remember the Lion for Liesel? This card is for her brother Heinrich.

Hippo start

These cards are a little different from my usual. I have a Precious Moments Alphabet book from the early 90s that has a cute image to go along with each letter. H is a “gender neutral” pattern with a hippo, the H is either in blue or pink depending on the sex of the person receiving it.

Hippo no backstitchUnlike many of the cross stitches I have worked on so far this year, this one required something called backstitching. I like to call it outlining as this makes more sense to most people.

Backstitching is done when you need more details in your pattern. As you can see this cross stitch looks a bit funny without any lines around the edges and even on the inside of the patter to bring out the details. It’s very 2 dimensional and not very clear without the details added.

Once the backstitching was completed It was time to add the interfacing to the back in hopes of keeping everything straight.

close up of glitter glue

I wanted to keep this card similar to Liesel’s and went with a blue paper for frame and blue glitter glue to finish it off. The blue paper I used is a bit on the thin side, almost like regular printer paper and less like a cardstock. It was from my collection of paper traditionally for scrapbooking. Because it was thinner and lighter I think that is why I had so much trouble with mounting anything well.

Full card standing

The cross stitch pulled up and to the right, not sure how it ended up stretch like that, but with the interfacing on it there’s not much to be done. I placed it in the frame as best I could and attempted to adhere it to the cardstock. This is when things really went wrong and the paper ended up bubbling creating the creases you see along the top and bottom corners on the right. These flaws make this a hand made project for sure.

Stitching

Started: March 22nd
Finished: March 31st

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Full front of Hippo card

Curious Cat

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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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