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Hocus Pocus cross stitch card

CraftyK Leave a comment

It’s been a few years since I bought the Halloween Special Edition of Just Cross Stitch magazine. This year’s inspiration buy was because of someone I recently got to know a bit better. We worked together at my day job until she left to start her crafting venture Uniquely Crafted.

Now that you have checked out her awesomeness, here is the card I made for her. The pattern came from the 2021 Halloween issue of Just Cross Stitch. She likes coffee and Hocus Pocus so this was perfect!

The original pattern was to be stitched on 28 count and would end up a little larger than a 5×7. I stitched this on 18 count to make it just under 5×7 to fit on a card.

The designer of this pattern did a great job with the colors for the word coffee. As someone I showed the finished piece to said, “very nice ombré.” It’s not variegated thread, it’s 4 colors. I barely had any left of one of the colors and managed to ration it just enough to have just a little leftover.

Since I changed the count this was supposed to be on the spiderwebs were extremely challenging to stitch. Lots of odd counting and trying to make new holes in the middle of things. They look awesome, but not fun when you go changing things around from what was intended.

Besides taking much longer to stitch than expected this was a fun project to make. For the inside of the card I added some pumpkin paper to bring some color to the card.

Stitching

Started: September 1

Finished: October 3

Stitching time: 19 hours 15 minutes

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birghter card text

You Are Sunshine

CraftyK Leave a comment

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 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

top down angle of fairy in rain with flower umbrella

A Fairy in the Rain

CraftyK Leave a comment

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

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