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Gifts I Made – New York Cross Stitches

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My mother in law loves New York City, so last year I decided to make her a cross stitch of the Statue of Liberty for Christmas. I chose colors that were very similar and while I loved how it looked, I hated working on it and wasn't going to finish in time for Christmas. So I switched to a different gift idea and put it aside for a year. I revived the project and finished it for this Christmas. I ended up winging it because I had miscounted quite a few areas of the pattern. I'm really happy with how it turned out, I like it a lot. I also made another New York ... Read More

&Stitches Swap – What I Got!

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I am not a huge fan of Chicago. I love that I live close enough to go to events there, but I hate traveling there. And so when I was emailing Carina about the swap and places, I made sure to give her other options. For our honeymoon Josh and I flew to San Francisco and then drove down to LA. We loved San Francisco and have visited one other time since then. So while I left it open if Carina wanted to go in a completely different direction, I did suggest SF as an option for the swap piece. Carina went above and beyond and created this amazing piece of the Golden ... Read More

Handmade Christmas – Purplework Name

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Here's the next in the series of Christmas gifts I made and one that I'm really happy with the result of. I made this during the &Stitches colorwork challenge and I absolutely loved working on it. I have always worked on 14ct. Aida, and this was my first foray into using 18ct. I used a slightly darker purple for the outline and then a lighter shade for the actual blackwork. I was torn between using different patterns or keeping the same one. I wanted to experiment and use different patterns, but I worried it wouldn't work because of the letters being joined on the ... Read More

A Christmas Present Update

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I've been stitching as fast as I can making Christmas presents, and I feel like I'm doing pretty good, all things considered. It's barely December and I have four completed projects and two more in progress. I've been using the opportunity to experiment and try out some new techniques. I tried some blackwork, or more accurately, purplework. I'm currently working on an embroidery that's totally out of my comfort zone, but I am having a blast. I have a very clear picture in my head of how I want this to turn out, and I'm using totally nontraditional methods to make it ... Read More

Blackwork in Purple – Purplework!

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I feel like I've been so productive lately, but I've been making Christmas presents so I can't show them off. But I wanted to show a sneak peak of my current project. Over at &Stitches, they declared November the month of color. They gave the challenge to create a blackwork piece, in color. I had seen blackwork before, and while I found it impressive, I was never really interested in doing it myself. Changing the black thread to a color makes such a big difference, it feels so much more fun and modern. Teresa from Daisies for Violet made an incredible color ... Read More