Cross Stitch Finishes This Week

Hello Everyone! Instead of sharing the few WIPs I worked on this week, I have several finishes, including a little quilty finish.

I took the time over the weekend to fully finish the strawberries. They all turned out really cute.

The larger pin pillow is Strawberry Faire by October House Fiber Arts. This was a stitch along with Helen D. (YouTube). She just shared her finish in her most recent video. I stitched mine on 36 ct Winter Moon by Zweigart, 1 over 2. I added the strip of Fig Tree Fabric and a little rick rack to finish it. The model was stitched on 30 ct, but I wanted mine to be smaller. The pillow measures 5 3/4″ wide x 5 1/2″ high. It will be a nice size to go into my bowl of smalls in mid spring.

The two very small pillows are from the Lori Holt Stitch Card M. These turned out super cute and are just around 2 1/2″ finished. They are stitched on 16 ct navy Aida, 2 over 2. I used the called for colors except on the border. I changed that to DMC 932 just because I was working on Bird and Berries and had that color out. You can find all of the Stitch Cards at Fat Quarter Shop. Of course the fabric border on both are from Lori’s collections.

My small colander is ready for my mid spring décor. I’ll start adding in the berries around the first part of May.

I almost forgot I had finished stitching Bird and Berries by Tapestry Barn. I had to run and take a picture of it while I was writing this post. I think this is a very pretty piece, using only two colors of DMC. It’s also stitched on 36 ct Winter Moon, but I stitched 2 over 2. If you look closely at the edges of the fabric, there is not much room to work with, (I was working with a scrap). I was originally going to make it into a small pillow, but I think it is too big for that and I don’t have enough room on the sides to frame it. If I have the right color of fabric, I think I’ll make a small zippered project bag. I had it sitting on top of the small mesh bag I was using and the idea popped into my head.

The final finish for the day is my tiny little pin pillow made from the Sewcialites Invigorate block by Joanna Figueroa. This turned out really sweet and I’ll use it with my small cross stitch pillows. The fabric details are in my previous post. You can find all the free Sewcialites patterns here at Fat Quarter Shop.

If you’ve been following along for several years, you know I like to make small projects. When I was participating in the Minis and More Parade monthly series, I made some of the above pin pillows in 2019 using the book “Pin Pals” by Carrie Nelson. If you are interested, you can read the details about them in this post, Pin Pal Parade.

I hope you all are starting to enjoy some spring weather. Our temperatures are still up and down. We’ve had low’s in the lower 20’s and when I was out yesterday, so many of the flowering tree blossoms were brown. Oh well, March can be harsh. I won’t be back until next Wednesday. The only sewing I’ve done recently has been to finish these pillows. We’re going out of town for a few days, so I don’t expect to get much done until next week. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Brenda

Two Quilty Finishes Plus a New Small Project

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my weekly quilting update. I didn’t have much to share last week although I had been quilting. This week I have finished the two quilts I’ve been working on. I also saw a blog post and was inspired to start something tiny and new!

This week I added the binding to Bouquet Mini by Sherri of A Quilting Life. The hexi flowers are made with a mini charm pack of Winter Lane Revisited by Kate and Birdie form Moda. I’ve had those for many years and slowly worked on the hexies over a few years, making one of the flowers every now and then. The taupe fabric is by Minick and Simpson and the pink sashing is by Eydita Sitar. The white background is Spotted by Zen Chic. I used a very small button hole stitch on my machine to applique the hexi flowers to the background fabric. The quilt is about 25″ x 25″, making it a nice size for a table topper.

The backing is Timeless Treasures Mix Basic. It was fun to free motion quilt this one on my Pfaff QE 4.0 with Aurifil 50 wt thread.

The next one wasn’t as much fun to quilt, but now that it’s finished, I like it better than I did as a top.

I finished Moda Blockheads 4 finally! I had basted it last November and it’s been waiting to be quilted. The reason it wasn’t fun to quilt was that it was hard to see to quilt the navy squares in the center of the quilt, which is what I started with. I was using a navy Aurifil 50 wt that was almost the same color as the fabric. On hindsight, it might have been easier to see if I had used a dark gray. After that it wasn’t so bad. On the smaller blocks in the center, I quilted diagonal lines and then a cross in the center. I did custom quilting in the larger blocks with some feathers and swirls.

You can see the quilting a little better here. I quilted a feathered border which was fun to quilt. The fabrics are all Bonnie and Camille from my collection.

I finished the quilt just in time to take it to Sky Meadows SP just on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Park is located in a beautiful valley near Paris, VA. It was a pretty and warm day after days of high wind and cold temperatures. We took about a four mile hike with half of it being in the meadow and the other half in the woods hiking up to the top of the ridge and back down.

My new start was inspired by Joanna of Fig Tree Quilts. It was her turn for the Sewcialites 2 QAL sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop. This is a free Block of the Week that is getting ready to wrap up.

The Invigorate Block was designed by Joanna and the pattern gives directions for making it in three sizes. After reading Joanna’s blog post for the block, I felt inspired (challenged) to make a small pin cushion like she did using the 3″ block. And because it was Joanna’s block, I had to use Fig Tree Fabric. The fabrics are from Strawberry Fields Revisied (yellow), Ella and Ollie (coral and taupe) and Chantilly(background). I need to add the borders in the background fabric before using the green stripe from Ella and Ollie as the pillow back. This will be a nice addition to my small pin pillow collection.

I never did get to any of my Block of the Months blocks this week. We were out two afternoons and I was out two mornings. I do plan on starting those this week. My new Cinnamon Splendor blocks should be arriving soon.

I hope you all have a great week and that you get some good sewing and stitching time in. Thanks for stopping by.

Brenda

WIP Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Hello Everyone! This post will be brief today. I only have a few things to share. I didn’t write a quilting post this week, because I didn’t have much to share there either although I have been free motion quilting. I should have some things finished by the weekend though. My stitching this week has consisted of Lori Holt’s Stitch Card designs and Land That I Love.

I finished both of the strawberry cards from Set M from Lori’s Stitch Cards. These are less than 2 1/2″ since I stitched them on 16 ct Navy Aida. I’m going to finish these as little pillows, but I don’t know if I’ll make them slightly larger by adding fabric to the outside or not.

If you recall last week, I told you I was going to finish the border on Land That I Love by Teresa Kogut. Did it meet? NO! I was off by half a stitch on the length. Fortunately it was on the right side border and I only had to take out about three inches. The mistake occurred when I started a new thread. However, it was easy to remove the half stitches. Once I finished the border, I wanted to move on to something new so I started the strawberries. From this point, I’m going to continue to work my down the left border and start on the left side house.

Now that the stitch cards are finished, I’m going back to the Blackbird Design piece and the Bird and Berries piece. I would like to get one of them finished this week.

I hope you all have a great rest of your week and thanks so much for stopping by.

Brenda

WIP Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Hello Everyone and welcome to works in progress Wednesday. We’ve had a few warm days, but we are going back to more normal temperatures by the weekend. I almost have all my spring decorating finished. I just want to add a few more finishing touches. Of course, as I get a few new cross stitch pieces finished, I’ll be displaying those, too.

On Saturday, I was a little restless and didn’t want to work on anything I had going on, cross stitch or quilting. I looked at my cross stitch list of things I wanted to stitch this spring and pulled out Set M of Lori Holt’s stitch cards. I was in the mood for something a little different, so I chose the Navy 16 ct Aida. For now, the plan is to stitch the the top and bottom left designs with the strawberries. I’ll be using the called for DMC except I changed the yellow to DMC 725. These are small to start with on 14 ct Aida finishing at 2 1/2″ square so they will be slightly smaller than that. You can find Lori’s Stitch cards at Fat Quarter Shop.

I haven’t started them yet because at the same time, I decided to do a section from the Spring Time design by Crocette a gogo.

I stitched the watering can that’s in the top left corner.

As you can see, I changed the colors of the can and tulips. I started to stitch a border around it but it was too close so I ripped it out. Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll finish it in the round. If I do, I won’t add a border. It’s stitched on 28 ct cream evenweave, 2 over 2. I thought it would look nice with the two strawberry pieces from the stitch cards.

I stitched the top center house in 2021. Marula has some very cute designs and has just released a few new market designs. You should check out her shop.

I made good progress on Bird and Berries by Tapestry Barn. I need to finish the lower right corner and stitch the bird. I’m stitching on 36 ct Winter Moon by Zweigart, 2 over 2.

I also worked on Wild Flower Guide by Blackbird Designs from the book “A Heart Remembers”. I think it’s pretty on the 32 ct Star Sapphire by Wilchelt. I’m stitching it 1 over 2.

Last Week, I showed you my stopping place on Teresa Kogut’s Land That I Love. I’ve made good progress on it as my morning stitch. I started out working on the left side border and stitched the two flowers and leaves, then decided to stitch to the bottom. I needed just a little bit of a new strand to finish the corner, so I stitched over a little bit more.

When I worked on it the next morning, I decided I would finish up the vine in the border. This is only my second sampler and the first one (the Peace on Earth Sampler) didn’t have a connecting border. I want to make sure the border meets up before I start stitching anything in the middle. I think I saw the Colorado Cross Stitcher talk about this: I’m only doing a half stitch in the border until I know they meet. I’ve just turned the right corner. When I stitch again, I’ll start at the top and make my way down the right side. I’ve been trying to be very careful but if they don’t meet, I hope the problem will be with the half stitches!

That’s it for today. I’ll be continuing to work on these pieces unless something else catches my eye. It might also be time to do some needle work market shopping that took place last weekend. I hope you’ve had a chance to see some of the new releases, there are lots of pretty ones to chose from. Have a great rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.

Brenda

Sew and Flip Corners Information

Hello Everyone and welcome. This has been “spring cleaning” week. Since my husband does all the vacuuming (lucky me!), he likes to move the furniture off the area rugs to vacuum under them once a year. I helped him with that one day, then another day, we emptied the closets so he could vacuum the carpet and baseboards in those. While everything was out of my closet I dusted and tidied the shelves, too. No matter how careful you are, things still become disarrayed. I have also spent some time removing winter décor and starting to add in spring. That’s still an on going process. Every year I like to mix things up, so when I figure out where I want the quilts, other smaller things will follow.

I did have time to free motion quilt this week. I finished quilting Mini Bouquet. Overall, simple quilting, but the texture was so pretty in the morning light. I also started quilting Moda Blockheads 4. I won’t bind Mini Bouquet until I finish quilting Moda Blockheads, then do both at the same time.

Last week, I shared the story of cutting the small squares wrong for a charity baby quilt. I spent some time this week working on an information page for working with Sew and Flip Corners on a square.

Examples of Flying Geese Units

Most of you are probably familiar with this method when you make flying geese units. It seems that most of the time, the sew and flip method is used with rectangles. In this case, the small square would be cut to the size of the width of the rectangle. For example: if the unfinished rectangle was 2 1/2″ wide by 4 1/2″ long, you would cut a 2 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ square for the small squares.

You can also use rectangle sew and flip units when you want to make a zig zag border as pictured above. Quilt designers use this method all the time.

O and X Blocks for Baby Quilt

When working with squares, you are usually trying to create a new shape using the sew and flip corner units. An example would be the X and O pictured above, but also heart shapes and even different star shapes. If you are familiar with Lori Holt’s pieced pictorial blocks, this method is used all the time. You can also use the sew and flip method in a square in a square block instead of cutting triangles. The formula I’m going to give you will work for those, too.

Now you may ask, why do I need to know the math? The answer is you may want to change the size of a block that is in a pattern or venture out and create your own design. For me, I wanted to use a 5″ square. That meant that the finished size of the unit is 4 1/2″. Without really thinking about it, I divided 5 by 2 and came up with 2 1/2, but I didn’t use the finished size. I do know better than that!

One important thing to remember when designing a block or resizing, always work with the finished size, then add the seam allowance to get the cut size.

So here’s the formula for working with squares when you want to create a diagonal seam that goes through the half way point on two adjacent sides:

(Finished size of large square / 2) + .5 = small square size to cut

I created a one page PDF that you can download and have in your reference library. It does assume that you have knowledge of how to make Sew and Flip Corners. Use the button below to access the Information Page if your device does not show the PDF file below it.

Sew and Flip Information Page

Sew and Flip Square Unit FormulaDownload

After creating the diagrams, I thought I would see if anyone else had posted about the math formula for the sew and flip corners. I did find one at Scrapish.com. My diagrams assume a basic knowledge of sewing the flipped corners. The post at Scrapish walks you through the method using pictures. Wanda also has a post on using the Sew and Flip method for making Square in a Square block. The square in a square unit is often used in the center of star blocks.

Another great resource to save is from Julie, The Crafty Quilter. If you would prefer to use rulers on your Sew and Flip Corners, Julie has a great post on using specialty rulers. She goes into detail on the Sew and Flip method and shows the technique using three different specialty rulers. I have the Creative Grids Folded Corner Clipper and only used it to make binding. I didn’t know how to use it for sewing corners. I’m going to be using the ruler on the X and O Baby quilt to see how accurate I can be.

Even if you are an experienced quilter, I hope you found this post helpful. Let me know in the comments if you found this useful or have any questions.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today. I hope you have a great start to your week.

Brenda

WIP Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Hello Everyone and welcome to Works In Progress Wednesday. It’s March 1st already! January went by at normal speed, but somehow we flew through February. I got a lot accomplished in February, though, both stitching and quilting. I have a couple of fully finished objects (FFOs) this week, a finish, another new start, a WIP and I brought one out of hibernation.

I finally framed Winter Rose Manor by With Thy Needle and Thread. It’s so pretty and I’ve been enjoying having it out this last week of February. I finally found and inexpensive 12″ x 12″ frame at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago. The frame is brown, not black. I did not use the glass that came with the frame because this will not stay out all year unless I put it on a shelf in my sewing studio. It’s mounted on a piece of foam core and has one layer of batting under it. This time I used applique pins to pin it in place instead of lacing. You can find the details about the stitched piece here.

I also FFO’d Tulip House by Pinker N Punkin Quilting and posted it on Instagram for a finish for Winter Cross Stitch Camp.

I finished Strawberry Faire by October House Fiber Arts. I was stitching along with Helen, @eastcoast.crafter for the #strawberryfairsal on IG. I pulled out this older Fig Tree fabric that I’m going to sew on the bottom and make a small pin pillow. The stripe is also a Fig Tree fabric from a layer cake I haven’t used yet. This is very sweet and I used all the called for floss except for Weeks Moonglow. I changed it for DMC 3348 ( the light green in the bottom border). I stitched it on 36 ct Winter Moon by Zweigart, 1 over 2.

I got all the way across the top of Mighty Acorn by Blackbird Designs. This is a good stopping place so I’m moving on to a new morning stitch. I plan to pull it out occasionally to work on it. I’m stitching on 40 ct Cream and Sugar by Fiber On a Whim, 1 over 2 using the called for floss.

I told you I was really enjoying working on a Blackbird Design, so I thought I would start another one. This is Wild Flower Guide from the book “A Heart Remembers”. It’s a small and will be about 5.5″ square. And get this, I’m stitching 1 over 2 on 32 ct Star Sapphire by Wichelt. If you’ve followed along for a while, you know I like more coverage on my pieces. I started with 2 strands of floss, but thought it looked very thick. So I tried one strand and liked it. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been stitching so much on 36 and 40 ct, but I hope I’ll still like it as I continue on. I wanted to stitch it on 32 ct (the model is stitched on 30 ct), but I’m getting a little tired of tan so I picked this light green to change things up a little.

I pulled Land That I Love by Teresa Kogut out on Monday as my new morning stitch. The picture above shows where I left it in July. I’ve only added two strands of thread, so I’ll wait to show progress on it next week. I would really like to finish sometime early in June so I can get it framed by July.

Here is the whole sampler. I still have a lot left to go!

I don’t plan on starting anything new this week, just continuing on with the current WIPs. I did finish quilting one my smaller quilts and hope to start on another one that needs quilting. I’ll share those on Sunday.

Thanks for taking the time to check in on my progress from week to week. Until next time, have a great week.

Brenda

New Quilt Project

Hello Everyone and welcome back! As I’m writing this post on Saturday, I’m watching it snow a little. We are just getting a few snow showers, but it’s more than what we’ve had most of the winter. Thursday was 80 degrees and we had a very pleasant day having lunch with my parents and then shopping a little in Fredericksburg. It was almost hot walking around. The weather for February has seemed more like March with the large differences in temperatures every few days. I hope this doesn’t mean that we will have a hot summer. Anyway, on to quilting.

This week I spent a good amount of sewing time cutting out fabric. I cut out a total of nine blocks (three different designs) for the Cinnamon Splendor Quilt. I’ll start sewing them next week some time.

I also cut fabric for a new quilt I designed using the “Love You” layer cake by Sandy Gervais.

Baby Hugs by The Quilting Nook

It’s a simple X’s and O’s quilt and will go together very quickly. I’m thinking about writing a PDF pattern for it.

I’ve sewed the corners onto two blocks, but haven’t sewn the blocks together yet. Almost every piece of fabric in this collection is directional. I’m going to have to lay out each block and number each unit as I sew the corners on. If I was using non-directional fabric, I could stack up a bunch of squares and sew the corners on without worrying about it.

I might have gotten further along if I hadn’t miss cut 120 of the gray squares. I had worked out the measurements one day, but cut the next. For some reason, I thought I needed to cut them smaller. Well, the original size was wrong, too! I only cut a couple of test squares for that size. I design in Electric Quilt 8, but it doesn’t know how to give you the measurements for flip and sew units. For a design like this, it gives the measurement for the square so you can cut in half for triangles. So I took some time looking at the block in EQ8, and figuring out the size of the square to cut. I’ve done plenty of flip and sew units, but this is a half size and the unit also finishes at 4.5″, so not a normal size. Some time this week, I’m planning on writing a tutorial for the math involved with different flip and sew methods. Since I want to create some diagrams, it will take a few days to produce them.

I plan to start quilting a few things this week, so that should be fun. I also will try to fully finish a few cross stitch pieces, too.

I hope you all have a great week ahead. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Brenda

WIP Wednesday and All the New Starts, February 21, 2023

Hello Everyone and welcome to WIP Wednesday! Today I have all the new starts from the past two weeks. I also have one finish at the end.

Let’s start with a Blackbird Designs start, Mighty Acorn from the book “Winds of Autumn”. It’s been a while since I’ve worked on a Blackbird Designs piece and I don’t know why, but they are a joy to stitch (even though I’ve had to rip a few things out). I am stitching it with all the called for colors except one. I was finally able to get a piece of Fiber On a Whim’s Cream and Sugar and I can see why it sells out so quickly. It’s a very nice creamy color and is perfect for this design. This is a 40 ct and I am stitching 1 over 2. I started it about two weeks ago and it has been my morning stitch. Even though I’ll keep it out to stitch on occasionally, I will start a new morning stitch the first of March.

My second new start is Bird and Berries by Tapestry Barn. I also started this one within the last two weeks. I’m stitching it on 36 Winter Moon from Zweigert, 2 over 2 using the two called for DMCs. This has been a nice stitch, too and I’m almost halfway finished. I’ll be starting the bird soon. There are a lot of cute stitches in her shop.

Image from Tapestry Barn Etsy Shop

The model was stitched on 28 count and finished into a nice size pillow. Mine will be much smaller and I don’t know how I’ll finish it yet.

I started Strawberry Faire last week as a stitch along with Helen D (@eastcoast.crafter) on Instagram, #strawberryfairesal. I’m stitching it on 36 ct Winter Moon with the called for hand dyed flosses, 1 over 2. I debated whether to stitch it with two strands or one strand on the 36ct. I went with one because of the density of the large strawberry. I hope it will work out okay. You can see the difference in the coverage between this one and Bird and Berries above. They are both stitched on the same fabric. The fabric has a definite yellow tone and one of the flosses gets lost on it. I have a couple of DMCs to try to see which is better. I have a Lori Holt Stitch Card that has a strawberry and spring charts on it. I think I’ll stitch those in similar colors and will have a nice display for my kitchen island this spring.

Another new start that you haven’t seen is also my finish! This is Tulip House by Melisa at Pinker N Punkin Quilting. I changed most of the colors! Melisa’s house was yellow, but I wanted a pretty blue house for spring. I think the only color that is the same is the brown on the bird. I’m not going to list the colors here, but if you are interested in them, send me an email and I’ll give them to you. I thought I was stitching on a cream 32 ct evenweave, but after I was about half way through, I just thought it looked too big. I counted the stitches and it’s a 28 ct evenweave. If you looked at Melisa’s house, she had a basket of two large tulips below the grass, but it wouldn’t fit on the small scrap of fabric I was using. I had an odd piece of fabric sticking out to the side of the house, and tried to stitch the basket on that. After stitching part of it, I realized it wouldn’t fit there either. If I want something quick to stitch, I’ll try to find another scrap of fabric to stitch the basket on. I’m stitching this for Colorado Cross Stitcher’s Winter Cross Stitch Camp on Instagram. I’ll be finishing it as a small pillow.

I’ll continue to stitch these smalls until they are finished. I’m also itching to start something that is a little larger than these small pieces I’ve been stitching. I have a list of things I wanted to start during the first three months of the year. I’ll start with that and see if there is something that catches my interest, if not, I have plenty of Blackbird Designs to work with.

We are expecting temperatures tomorrow in the 70’s, then be back down in the 40’s by the weekend. This February has been quite different than last year where we had snow on the ground for most of the month. Has your weather been crazy, too? I hope you have a great rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.

Brenda

Lots of Quilt Blocks This Week

Hello Everyone and welcome to the weekly quilting update. I’ve had some great sewing time this week and have caught up on all the Block of the Months (BOMs) I’m doing. We also went on a nice hike on a warm Wednesday afternoon. Even though we were in the Shenandoah NP, I didn’t take any pictures because it was a true walk in the woods. We parked just outside the park at a nearby gap, then hiked straight up for about half a mile, then got on the Appalachian Trail. We hiked until we were about a mile from the Skyline Drive, then turned back. We were hiking along a ridgeline, but were far enough from the edge so that there were no views. It was a good hike of 6.7 miles for a warm February day.

This week I have been catching up with the Fig Tree Cinnamon Splendor Mystery and The Stars My Way BOMs.

These are the blocks from Month 2 and 3 of Cinnamon Splendor. I already shared the smaller “Twirl” blocks, but I still had two more of those to do and then six other blocks. Joanna’s piecing instructions are always good, but she does have you cut triangles sometimes instead of using the sew and flip method. That means that you have to be very careful with the bias edges. Also, I usually will make my flying geese slightly larger, then trim them to size. I couldn’t do that for the top left block because I wasn’t sure how much extra fabric I could use. You get fabric with each month, but you need to save your cuts for future blocks. Let’s just say there was some fudging going on as I was piecing the flying geese units together.

I got a message earlier this week that Month 4 would arrive on Friday which was one of the reasons to get these made. I actually got the package on Thursday, but didn’t open it until I had the blocks finished on Friday. It feels so good to be caught up!

I also made the February blocks for the Stars My Way quilts I’m doing with my local quilt group. You saw the top left block and the tree center earlier. This week, I made the top right block for the Blue and Tan Stars quilt and the Twinkle Lights block for the Christmas Stars. I’m using blocks from Lori Holt’s Vintage Christmas book for the centers on this quilt.

Last week, I had decided to use Moda Grunge for the star points for the Christmas Star blocks, but hadn’t decided what to use in the background. This week a lightbulb went off and I thought about the different dot fabrics that I have. I’ll be using these and added in a black Grunge too. That’s what’s on the tree. I have just enough to use in three blocks. The other color of Grunge will be the dark green with the lights, a pretty aqua and a red dot grunge. Time will tell if I made the right decision in using the black, but some of the center pieces will have black in them.

This week I plan on cutting out the fabric for the X’s and O’s Baby Quilt and if I get to it, the new blocks for the Cinnamon Splendor quilt. I also have a few quilts to quilt, so I may get started on those.

I hope you have a good productive week and if you have President’s Day off, I hope you enjoy that extra weekend day. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Brenda

A Cross Stitch Finish Parade

Hello Everyone and welcome to a cross stitch finish parade today. The finishes that you will see today are those that involve some kind of sewing. I have some projects still in progress that involve framing and mounting. Since I have finished stitching so many pieces recently, this past week has also been a week of starts. Next week, I’ll share the new starts.

First up today is Wintertide Cardinal by Artful Offerings. It’s stitched on 36 ct Snowday linen from Luminous Fiber Arts, 2 over 2. I substituted the following flosses (called for with substitution): GA Tomato with CCW Licorice Red, GA Geranium with DMC 3328, GA Picket Fence with DMC B5200, GA Bayberry with Weeks Hunter (leaf stems) and Weeks Emerald (leaves). I finished by adding the fabric border, then used fusible fleece and a backing fabric. I stitched in the seam line and around the edge to hold the pieces together. I added a hanging sleeve to the back so it can hang on this 8″ Ackfeld hanger.

Next is Flea Market Flowers by Lori Holt. If you recall, last week I asked about the fabrics for the borders. Thank you to everyone who gave your opinion. It was about half and half for the blue flowers or the plaid. As you can see, I took out the dark blue altogether (it’s on the back) and used this green. I like this one so much better and went with the blue flower because of the green inner border. I did the same finishing style as Wintertide Cardinal except I added a binding instead of no binding.

Flea Market is stitched on 40 ct Soft Porcelain by Luminous Fiber Arts, 1 over 2. I do love Misty’s fabrics but they are very soft. I had a hard time keeping the stitched border straight as I was finishing it. I used fusible fleece and tried very hard to keep it straight as I was pressing it to the linen. From a distance, it’s not that noticeable and I think this is a very lovely spring and summer piece. I changed a few of the colors, but the one that stands out is the change from DMC 322 (a medium blue) to DMC 930 (darker blue). In fact, I ripped out the 322 in several of the flowers and replaced it with 930. Right now, it’s sitting across from my sewing machine where I spend a lot of time and can really enjoy it.

The next group of finishes are by Jeannine Mcgowan of the Blue Flower. These are her Seasons of the Heart, first published in the 2022 editions of Punch Needle and Primitive Stitcher Magazine. From left to right they are Spring, Winter and Summer. I have not stitched fall yet, but plan to this summer. Spring (left) is stitched on 40 ct Brown Sugar by Fiber On a Whim (FOAW) using all the called for DMCs. Winter is in the middle stitched on 40 ct Stone by FOAW and Summer is stitched on 40 ct Lt Mocha by Zweigert. I did substitute a couple of the DMC’s on this one; 356 with 3328 and 918 with 816. Those are the pinks and reds. The called for flosses were more brown than I wanted. These are all stitched with 1 strand over 2 threads. I fused Pellon SF101 to the back of the stitched piece and finished them as a simple pillow using fiber fill to stuff them. I though about adding trim, but with the stitched border, I didn’t think they needed it.

The last finishes for today are the two pieces from First Frost by Hands On Design. I really love how these turned out. Cathy had them finished as snow men, so I wanted to honor her finish a little by finishing them as stand up pillows. I added the fabric to the bottom, then added the Lady Dots rick rack before cutting out the stitched piece and the back together. I used one of my free motion quilting rulers to get the nice arch on top of the the Deer piece and used a circle template to curve the edges on the Row design. To get the flattish bottom, I used the box corner method from bag making on the bottom. I stuffed these with fiber fill also. I thought about adding some crushed walnut shells to the bottom, but since they stood up without it, I went without. I hand sewed bakers twine onto the Deer. It gives it a nice finished look, but wasn’t as thick as I wanted. On the Row piece, I added store bought cording and hand sewed that on, too. I tucked the ends into the seam on the bottom as I was sewing up the pillow.

First Frost is stitched on 32 ct White linen. It’s the Artist Brand from Hobby Lobby made by Zweigert. It’s stitched with the called for DMCs, 2 over 2. They were quick to stitch and I’ll love adding these to my winter décor.

Last week, I told you I needed some mat board to complete a few of my finishes. I did buy a couple of sheets at Hobby Lobby. What I need to finish with those will be a little more time consuming because I will lace or pin the stitched pieces to the mat board or foam core. I think I’ll get back to those in a couple of weeks. I have some sewing to get finished and I designed a new baby quilt on Sunday that I want to get started for charity. And I need to work on taxes (uggg). I try to have our part finished by the end of February because my nice CPA sister handles the rest for us.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks so much for stopping by to see what I’ve been up to each week.

Brenda