Category Archives: Tree of Stitches

WIPocalypse – January 2015

Posted on by
Reply

My goals and projects for 2015:

I hope to get some more stitching done this year than I have before. One goal is to actually finish something, something I haven’t done in a long time, or at least make some proper progress on my projects. I have made a separate page, WIPs 2015, with the projects that I hope to work on this year, and any new projects will be added to the page. I figured out how to get the page to automatically display the most recent picture I have posted, so hopefully it will always show my current progress on all of my WIPs. I will be making posts throughout the year with an update on what I have been working on lately, but I thought it would be nice to have a page with the progress on all my projects.

Here is a list of the projects I hope to work on this year, and a progress picture for the ones I have started:

  1. Bee’s Needleworks – Tree of Stitches
    Progress 2014-10-18
  2. Blackwork Journey – Save the Stitches
  3. Châtelaine – Workshop 1
  4. Châtelaine – Workshop 2
  5. CloudsFactory – 2015 Zodiac Sampler
  6. The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery – 2015 Story Time Sampler
  7. The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery – Autumn Harvest Festival
    Autumn Harvest Festival - Progress - November 22, 2014
  8. The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery – Christmas Celebration Sampler
    Christmas Celebration - Progress - January 8, 2015
  9. Glendon Place – Baked Alaska
  10. HAED – Dona Gelsinger – Teddy Bear Tree
  11. HAED – Aimee Stewart – World Traveler Bookshelf (Large)
  12. InkCircles – Celebrate Diversity
  13. Nora Corbett – Bluebell Pixie
  14. Passione Ricamo – Under the Sea – Mystery SAL 04
    Under the Moonlight - Parts 1-6
  15. New cuffs for my bunad shirt

About me:

I am 28 years old (until January 10) and I live in Oslo, Norway. I have been cross stitching for as long as I can remember, but I have only recently discovered all the lovely patterns in the world. As I was not very interested in the Christmas kits on aida that are available here, my stitching has been on the shelf for a long time. Now that I have found other patterns I enjoy stitching a lot more and will hopefully stitch more in the future.

WIPocalypse – October 2014

Posted on by
Reply

I decided to join the WIPocalypse, both to motivate me to make blog posts and to keep stitching on my current WIPs. I currently have five WIPs that I am working on, and I have two really old kits that I pick up every now and then to make some progress on them.

My most recent start and the project I am actively working on is Autumn Harvest Festival from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I got to a point where it seemed like all of my projects were huge and complicated and I wanted something smaller and easier to stitch from time to time. I think these patterns are cute, and as I am not that into Halloween I liked that it was autumn themed, not Halloween themed. This is my current progress:

Autumn Harvest Festival - Progress - October 18, 2014

My next WIP is the Tree of Stitches from Bee’s Needleworks. I worked on it a lot in September, but then I got a lot of fun stuff in the mail and I wanted to work on something else. This is my current progress:

Progress 2014-10-18

My other WIPs are the three Passione Ricamo Mystery SALs. The first one was Fatum from 2012-2013. I like it a lot, except the writing on the bottom. I find the letters very dominating and I might try to remove them. I started late and got distracted when the next one came out. This is my current progress:

Fatum - Progress - October 18, 2014

The second mystery was Into the Deep from 2013. This was the first time I ever stitched on a coloured fabric and I am really liking it. I think the pattern is beautilful and I look forward to working on it again. This is my current progress:

Into the Deep - Progress - October 18, 2014

The final mystery from Passione Ricamo is the 20 Years Celebration. Again I am not sure about the writing, so I have put that off for a while to see how it looks. I like a lot of the Passione Ricamo designs and I think the design idea is pretty cool. Somehow the pattern represented in this pattern are not the ones on the top of my wishlist, so this might be the only way that I would stitch some of them. This is my current progress:

20 Years Anniversary - Progress - October 18, 2014

Finally I have one kit of Paddington Bear making cookies that I haven’t looked at in a long time. I think it is nearly finished, but it had metallic and it frustrated me at the time. Maybe I should try to get it finished soon. The other old kit is a Classic Winnie the Pooh Miniature kit from Designer Stitches of Tigger. I love the classic Pooh designs, and I have another one in my stash, but the fabric supplied is an Aida and the pattern has a lot of fractional stitches. This makes me give up after a while and find something else to stitch.

I also have some charts kitted up that I would like to start in the near future. These are Whacky Witches in Stitches and the 2014 Magical Creatures Calendar from CloudsFactory, Workshop 1 and Workshop 2 from Châtelaine Designs and the Christmas Celebration Sampler from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.

I am kitting up the new mystery from Passione Ricamo, Under the Moonlight, and it will be a priority when it starts. I have all the DMC and the fabric and special materials are ordered from the Crafty Kitten. I hope they arrive in time so that I can start this when the first part comes out.

Question of the month: Are you a Halloween or Christmas stitcher?

Halloween had become quite popular here in the last few years, but most people don’t decorate unless they have a party. Because of this I think stitching for Halloween is sort of pointless. If I displayed any Halloween stitching it wouldn’t be up for more than a couple of days. That said if I find pattern I like I might stitch it just for fun.

I have stitched some objects for Christmas, but I have become really picky and I rarely find anything I want to stitch. Again, if I find something I like I would probably get it. However I don’t feel like I have to stitch for holidays any specific time of the year, so I might stitch a Christmas pattern in July if I feel like it.

Tree of Stitches – September 12, 2014

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t want to wait any longer to start this and jumped in. I had quite a bit of leftover fabric from when I bought material for the Passione Ricamo 20 Years Celebration, so I cut off a piece for the Tree of Stitches. It is a 32 ct Permin linen in white.

At the beginning of the instructions it is states that “You will need to make sure you have enough of each colour, especially if you choose variegated threads” but there is no indication of how much you will actually need. I asked on the designer’s Yahoo Group “The Stitch Specialists” about the floss usage and got some useful answers, but for the most part they were not useful. The most common was “it depends on your stitching/your thread choice etc”. I know that the amount of floss used depends on the way you stitch but all I wanted was to know if I needed to buy more than one skein for the tree’s branches. As I couldn’t get any answer on the group I redrew the whole chart into PCStitch and looked at the floss usage. Based on this I bought 1 skein each of these Waterlilies: 66 Jade, 152 Mulberry and 189 Gingersnap. I also bought 1 card of Rainbow Galleries PB52 Lighter Green. This is a floss toss of all the materials.

Tree of Stitches - Floss Toss 1

The pattern also calls for beads, but I haven’t decided what I want to use yet.

I was really excited to start, so I jumped in and started on the tree’s trunk. I have never used variegated threads before so it took me a while to get comfortable with having to finish each stitch, so progress was a bit slow, but after three evenings it was finished.

Floss used: Waterlilies 189 Gingersnap cut into 1 yard lengths. I used 4 strands from one length and 2 strands of 1/2 length. This adds up to 10 strands of a 1/2 yard lengths.

Part 1 - Trunk

Part 1 - Trunk Detail

I was so excited to have finished the trunk that I jumped right into Part 2 – Smyrna Stitch. These were not very complicated, so I finished the first branch the same evening. I used 1 strand of 1 yard of Waterlilies 66 Jade to finish this branch. I am not sure about the coverage, but I will wait and see how the tree develops.

Part 2 - Whole tree

Part 2 - Detail

I have decided to skip Part 3 French knots for the moment and continue with Part 4 – Eyelets. I have never liked french knots so I want to procrastinate, and I think the placement will be easier when the second branch is in place.