Northern Lights Conversion

Here's my latest little finish: a "Northern Lights conversion" of this charming winter scene from the February 2020 issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. I knew I wanted an aurora effect, but I didn't know if there was a fabric available that would suit me, so I hunted around. I settled on PTP Monster Mash and happily, I got a piece that was usable for this project. Well, half of it was. The other half of the fabric had too much purple in it for the look I wanted. Hand-dyed fabric is a bit of a gamble at the best of times, and if you're wanting a specific effect in addition to color, good luck. My piece just happened to work. I know it's weird, but I love it.

As I often do, I not only changed colors to suit the fabric, I also did some editing. I left off the little bushes, and the birds, and the snowflakes. I wanted the fabric to do all the work so I just sort of streamlined the design. If you check out the "color conversions" tab at the top of the page, you'll notice that I am always "purple-izing" designs. (I know "empurple" is a word and "purple-ize" is not a word, but I like purple-ize better and now it's a word.) I think it's because blue is such a popular color--except with me--and it's easy to visualize blue-to-purple conversions. Anyway, here are my changes (all DMC):

B5200-->Blanc; 3822-->3821; 598-->28; 3810-->29; 164-->3364; 988-->3363;

987-->3362; 644-->3790; 642 & 640-->4145

Speaking of winter and winter stitching, it poured snow yesterday. It's been incredibly cold here lately (negative double-digit lows at night, negative daytime highs, 30-below wind chill), and when it's that cold, the snow is fine and dry like sand and sparkles like diamonds. But yesterday it was warm (30!) and the snow was chunky and fluffy and made everything look like it was coated in frosting. 

Last winter was underwhelming but this one is making up for it. We have had so much snow. The snow bank in our yard from clearing the driveway is so high Tiger Lily can't see the street from her window. In spite of what it looks like outside, I'm kicking off spring on March 1st! Who's with me?!

Bonus:

Aurora Webcam!  If the Northern Lights aren't visible when you check, try again later or on a different night. You'll eventually catch them. So enchanting.

How to Remove Ghost Stitches

I have no idea what these little holes that remain after stitches are removed are called, but I call them ghost stitches and I find them annoying. Happily, they are easily removed. With your fingernail, gently scratch the fabric up and down, and side to side, to move the fibers back into place. You usually only have to do this on the bottom side of your fabric, but sometimes a few scratches on the top side might be needed. The up and down scratches move the horizontal fibers and the side to side scratches move the vertical fibers.

Before:

After:

A very simple solution to a not-very-serious problem, but some readers may be new to stitching and you never know when sharing something you do as a matter of habit or instinct may be just what someone else needed. This is as true in life as it is in stitching, so always share your knowledge!

Winter Treasures

 

I love this little design. It's called Winter Treasures and it's available in this Etsy shop. This pretty scattering of seed pods, pine boughs, berries, and pinecones looks like you've just returned from a winter nature walk and emptied out your pockets. 

I'm stitching up a few small winter designs to freshen up my winter sewing room display, much as I did last year during my Summer of Halloween. I had realized I hadn't stitched Halloween in quite some time so I spent the summer adding some new finishes. Once I put Christmas things away, I like to have plenty of pretty winter things to look at to get me through the months til spring, and I needed some new additions. This one will work from December right through til spring.

Winter is Coming Mini Quaker

 

I've had this finished for a while and have had it propped up in my sewing room so I can observe it and decide how I feel about it. Oh my goodness, I had such a time trying to find a substitute for GAST Garden Gate. The skein used in the model is lovely and my (three!) skeins were... not. The color in the model (used for the vase, candlestick, bottom center motif, right border motif) is subtle shades of beige, blue, and olive. My skeins are the color of mud. I searched high and low for a substitute, tried several, and settled on GAST Fisherman's Wharf. It's darker than I wanted, but the other choices were too pale or too bright. They were prettier colors, but in the end, I went with the more subdued color as I thought it would blend better. 

I'm still not sure how I feel about this finish. I wanted to love it but that color not being quite right just bugs me. I may end up ripping it out and trying something else, but for now, I'm calling it a finish. 

This is the companion piece to Autumn is Coming Mini Quaker. Can Spring be far behind?

New Monthly Series!

 

I spent last year stitching a teapot per month and I've just started another year-long project with this new coffee and tea calendar series by Punochka. How cute are these?

Here's January:

And here's February:

These are pretty, quick-to-stitch little projects that are perfect for those days when you want to be sorta productive but don't want to dive into that WIP you're laboring over. They're charted for DMC so you're sure to have supplies on hand. I'm stitching mine on 32 ct. Vintage Country Mocha. I have no idea how I'll finish them; right now I'm just enjoying stitching them. And I'm caught up... yay, me!

Happy Stitching!

Freezing Fog

 

Ever seen freezing fog (rime ice)? I hadn't, until we moved to the frozen tundra. Pretty neat.

Stay cozy!

2020 Blog Book is Here!

 

Accomplished my annual January tradition: getting the previous year's blog posts made into a book. This is my post-Christmas gift to myself every year.

This is the service I use. The process is very user-friendly and I've never had a problem with either the website or the product. Their Facebook page regularly has very good discount codes, so if there isn't a current one, just wait a bit.

Happy Stitching!

Hibernatin' (and a PSA!)

 

We're buried under a foot of snow! It started early Monday morning and snowed without a break until the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Snow day! Or two!

Cake was in order. Okay, cake is always in order, but, you know.

I had to share this with y'all. I made Mr. Wonderful a little low-carb cinnamon cake. At some point, while not under my supervision, he cut it himself. This is what we ended up with. I literally burst out laughing when I saw it. What a mess! (Yes, the top center piece is cut in two. He explained he was trying to correct a mistake, or something. I couldn't follow.) Too funny.

I've been spending a lot of time in my sewing room over the last week, re-organizing my threads, planning projects, and of course, stitching. What in the world could that picture above be? I'll share an update when I get a little further along. (Those colors though!)

I'm planning a March start for the gorgeous Huckleberry Farm by The Blue Flower. If anybody wants to stitch along with me you've got time to get your supplies!

PSA:

You've probably already heard that this year's Nashville Market has been cancelled due to the pandemic (booooo!). However, that doesn't mean we won't get to see all the new spring goodies from our favorite designers. There is an online wholesale market taking place 6-8 March where designers and retailers will come together as they normally do at Market. If you check out the Needlework Expo website you'll see links for Exhibitors and Buyers. Click the Exhibitors link to see if your favorite designer will be offering new goodies, and click the Buyers link to see if your favorite LNS or online shop will be buying. Usually new spring designs start to appear in mid-January and it looks like that's right on track. I'm already seeing new stuff. So don't worry, we're still going to have lots of lovely spring things to enjoy in a few weeks! Must. stitch. faster.

Happy Stitching!

Time for Tea is Finished!

 

This is Time for Tea by Bluebird Needleworks, stitched on 28 ct. Oaken from PTP using the recommended DMC threads. I chose to stitch mine in Russian, but the PDF has an English version included. I started this project last January and stitched one block per month and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's a closer look at the December block.

I love the soft colors of this design and am really happy with how it looks on the Oaken fabric.

Saturday Sampler: Winter Light Edition

If you've ever tried to photograph your needlework and achieve true fabric and thread color, you know how challenging it can be. May I recommend a blizzard for perfect lighting conditions? A blizzard provides ideal white light (white sky, white ground, white everything), so next time you need to do some stitchy photography, just dial one up.

This is my first finish of the year: Candy Cane Wishes by With Thy Needle & Thread, stitched on 28 ct. Mint linen. I used a Smyrna stitch (see my previous post) for the eyes and the holly berries, and GAST Picket Fence instead of the called-for Weeks Linen, and DMC 945 for his cheeks since it's only a few stitches. I also gave my snowman a happy little grin.

I've mentioned before that I'm slowly building my Cosmo stash. I'm so blessed to have a local quilt shop where I can just walk in and buy it (never had that before). Last spring I did a whole post about Cosmo threads and wrote about what I think is the major difference between Cosmo and DMC: the beautifully smooth, subtle transitions in color families. In that post, I had to use my Cosmo color card to illustrate my point, but I recently bought a nice handful of colors and can show you using full skeins. Look at how gorgeous! (Thank you, Mr. Blizzard.)

That post I linked also has some links to online shops that carry Cosmo threads, in case you now find yourself unable to go on unless you start your own collection. I know the feeling.

I also hit a post-Christmas sale at one of the Etsy shops where I have found very cute polymer clay needle minders.

Speaking of winter light, I have a new project ready to go on a lovely, sparkly, frosty fabric called Winter Winds. I think this is from Silkweaver, but I know nothing else about it, like whether it's still available. This is the only piece of Silkweaver fabric I own and I bought it at a shop in Virginia years and years ago. Yes, that's a biscuit counting pin. Biscuits are important.

I hit a snag with my Winter is Coming Quaker. One of the colors, GAST Garden Gate, is just not going to work. The color is used in the vase on the left border, the candlestick, the large center motif along the bottom, and the large motif on the right border. If you look closely at the pictures of the model, you can see the skein used has muted shades of grey-brown, beige, blue, and even a bit of olive. My skein is a flat, dark brown. I ordered additional skeins from two other shops, hoping to get a different dye lot, but nope. Flat, dark brown. Boooo. So I set to work trying to choose an alternative. Trying to choose colors online is the worst, but what can we do? I finally settled on GAST Fisherman's Wharf. In the photo below, the candlestick is stitched with GAST Garden Gate. You can see how dark it is, and how dark it would make the sampler. 

GAST Fisherman's Wharf has some brown, some blue, and some green, though more intense than what's used in the model. Will it work? No idea. I'll put in a couple of the smaller motifs and see what I think. I may have to take it out. Watch this space.

And finally, I made Tiger Lily a blanket fort, because blanket forts are awesome and honestly, why do we stop making them when we grow up? Now I want one.

That's the latest from the snowy Great Plains. Thank you to those who continue to offer kind words and prayers about my dad. He's still in a nursing facility and making progress, very slowly. He has also had his first dose of the vaccine, which is such a blessing in all of this. 

Happy Stitching, y'all!