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top of 40 card

Life Begins at 40!

CraftyK Leave a comment

Oh where to start with this one! It was stitched quickly, but the card making was one problem after another. This one was quite improvised due to extreme time constraints. When a birthday lands on a Sunday I lose a day. My goal is to have it arrive via mail on Saturday. Luckily it is only going a few blocks away (I think).

40 in progress

This card is going to a former co-worker of mine. We took walks pretty much daily for several months. During those walks I learned she was turning 40 this year. After acquiring several new cross stitch books this year I came across this pattern and decided that it would be the 50th card for the year. While it’s more like 45th in order of birthdays, this one brought me to a total of 50 cards to be made in 2019.

backstitching 40

Since this person shares a birthday with my brother the pressure was on to get them both done in time. And a mad rush to the post office to get them out on time! This pattern had backstitching which slowed down progress a bit.

The stitching and interfacing fabric went just fine for this one, it was the actual card part when things fell apart. Remember, a bit rushed on time for this one.

This person is super positive and bright. Even if things are going terribly, she’ll have a smile on her face and do whatever it is that needs doing. So a bright yellow paper for the card base what what I chose. This card is a 4.25×5.5, minus a little due to measuring errors.

angled view from bottom of 40 card

The butterfly paper was supposed to be a frame, but I didn’t measure correctly and cut too much fabric off the pattern. I was very glad to have the yellow base. Creating a floating cross stitch in the middle wasn’t so bad, unexpected, but it works. First time for everything!

I entered the wrong numbers in the design space for the Cricut, so the ‘s’ on ‘roses’ was cut off by time I was done trimming it back to fit the actual card base. As I was laying the frame on using double sided tape the paper bubbled up. I’m assuming in my rush to finish everything lots of things went wrong, but the card is bright and exciting to look at, which is all that matters.

Stitching

Started: October 21st
Finished: October 23rd

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full front of Life Begins at 40! 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

just books

Fight Back with Books

CraftyK Leave a comment

As I got older at family gatherings I would have an aunt come talk to me about books. Mostly of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre. At the time that was also of interest to me, now I tend towards other types of books. This particular aunt also works within the public library system. I’m not sure if she is a regular librarian because I feel that she does a lot more than help people find their next read.

After doing so many single color patterns lately it was nice to continue on this bright colors theme. Like the last card, books are the theme.

the supplies laid out

When I came across the Books pattern on Dailycrossstitch.com I thought it would be the perfect front to her birthday card.

This design is stitched on 18 count Aida. Even with measuring I cut this one really close to the edges. I thought I had enough space, but I was stitching right up to the taped edges. Trying not to sew the tape into it. After doing that I realized maybe for the next one I should make sure to leave plenty of breathing room.

weird top-side view

The pattern was pretty easy to complete. The letters went really fast. Even on 18 count the card ended up being a 5×7. Width-wise it would have run to or even off the edges of my normal invitation sized cards. I was trying to keep the cards small it just hasn’t worked out that way for all of them.

For the frame, my original thought was to go dark. I picked out a few wallpaper pieces that I thought might work, but wasn’t happy with any of them. Then I started looking through my cardstock and found a blue one that made the stitching pop more than I expected. I went back to the wallpaper and found this green patterned paper that was funky and worked with the two thin green books in the picture.

 

standing up front view

The Cricut was how I cut the cardstock for the card and the frame around the cross stitch.

I also tried to stabilize the piece by using the interfacing fabric I learned about for the last card to see if I could keep this from stretching and bubbling so much. I think it may have worked since I had to try multiple times to line up the design where I wanted it within the opening.

I wasn’t able to do my normal pulling until it sort of fit, which is probably the cause of the bubbles. The “lite” interfacing fabric is still very flexible, I just can’t pull and tug on the fabric like I used to, which is a good thing.

 

Stitching

Started: March 10th
Finished: March 22nd

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the close up