I have been super busy lately, packing up my home for an interstate move. I do not enjoy moving, but I'm looking forward to the next adventure. Not having much time for stitching has been particularly difficult and packing up all of my sewing stuff has not been very much fun, either. Knowing that I won't have an address for a little while and that I will be living with precious few stitching resources made me wonder what I would do. I decided to get one of Krista's work bags, but she was out of stock for a little while. I've got one on the way now, but I had to scratch that itch. I'm not exactly patient. So here's what I made: And here's her backside: She fits quite a few hand sewing tools, threads, etc. I had already stowed all of my fabric in storage, so I got a fabric pack from Brooklyn Haberdashery and made the Modern Japanese Rice Pouch. She's handy and compact and will be a good little travel companion. I had packed my sewing machines, so I made her entirely by hand. Every seam, every patch, every everything. And no thimble! ouch As I was packing up the house, I noticed that the cushions that have been on my bed for more years than I care to admit had sprouted holes in the corners. I remember buying the fabrics for them when I was just out of law school and very broke. I no kidding skipped lunch for weeks to buy these fabrics, which are like old friends. I took the cushions apart, washed the fabric scraps and decided to make another project bag. It's still in progress, but I'm glad that I was able to rescue the fabric and re-use it. This will be the exterior of the workbag, made just like the one above, just a little bigger. I'll post a photo when it's complete, but I'm just thrilled to have saved my fabrics - all from Japan, and some of them are handmade. A couple of the pieces came from BH as well. They're the newer, darker indigo fabrics and I think they blended well with my old friends. Never worry, though, I have an Avlea workbag on the way, but I will need several little bags of goodies to work through while I'm without my work space, machines, fabric stash, etc. I just needed some on-the-go storage for my projects in the meantime. Once I get the workbags complete and the packing is all done, I can get back to stitching my "regular" stuff again. I saved several Avlea kits to work on while the house sells and we look for our next home.

When I first saw this design, it evoked a mid-century holiday vibe for me. Something about the shapes of the cypress trees and the flowers reminded me of my Grandmother's glass Christmas ornaments. She painstakingly stitched them with fishing line to the valances in her living room every year for the holidays, so they would be visible from the outside. She had made the most wonderful draperies from bark cloth that had a distinct mid-century design, and her ornaments accented her living room so perfectly. This design made me feel like I was back in her cozy living room, admiring her handiwork, munching cookies with my grandparents. <sigh> When The Man saw the completed piece, he declared "it looks like Christmas!" Since he had never seen Grandma's house at Christmas, I thought hmmmmm, I wonder if anyone else thinks this? Anyhooooo, I thought it was the perfect thing to stitch for the holidays, and The Man chose this lovely light blue Kona cotton which is odd, because Grandma had used this same color throughout her home. It seems as if this is everyone's favorite color! I love this so much, it's going to be Christmas every day at our house. And here she is with a couple of her friends:

I just got the last one in the mail - love the way they bling out my mobile stitching studio!

After stitching the entire outside border of my Etruscan Diamonds Square, it was time for the whole thing to meet up at the bottom right corner. I was on the 80th X in the border, and here's what happened: I counted it all just fine - it met perfectly! Now for an adult beverage. Disaster averted. This part always makes me nervous.

Having just received a nastygram from our HOA for putting up outdoor Halloween decorations a couple of days too early, The Man decided we should also deck out the living room with paraphernalia related to his favorite holiday. I know this isn't Avlea sanctioned stitching, but thought it was fun anyhow. This is the sort of thing I used to do before I decided to invest my stitching energy in things that are useful. I believe these are both designs by Jody Rice (Satsuma Street) that I stitched when we first all went into lockdown. I hadn't stitched anything in decades, so these were a fun way to get back into stitching and they kept me from going stark raving mad about not being able to do "normal" things. The only change I made to the one with the cats was to add a gold buckle (metallic floss) to the mama kitty's hat. I even ordered the exact linen and all the flosses that were suggested by the designer. The one on the right suffers from not using one single color of floss that was specified, changing the color of the linen, and making several small design changes. I used neon polyester floss (which seems like it shouldn't even be legal), but I really liked the effect of it on the very old and odd purple-ish linen I had that was super stiff and crispy and didn't seem to want to go with anything. This proved to me that I could use ugly linen and weird floss and still have a good time. I also taught myself how to frame needlework, which is a lot harder than I imagined it would be. So that felt like a win. Here'a another piece from my Jody Rice period. I had some crispy crazy orange linen on hand and flosses that were not even close to the ones used in the chart. But it was lockdown time, and there was no going out and getting stuff. So it got stitched like this. This was specifically requested by The Man. It's called "The Queen that Was." I had dragged him into a needlework shop when things opened up again and he found the chart, gave me the LOOK, and declared that I should stitch her for him. In front of a buncha ladies that totally egged him on. Yes, he did that. You may not be able to see this on your monitor, but she has a gold crown and a gold tooth. I completely changed the colors so I could use up some overdyed flosses I had on hand. The Man chose the linen and the frame. I think of this design as appropriate for Halloween, but he likes to drag her about year round and perch her anywhere that reminds him to laugh. He seems to like her quite a bit. And I like to hear him laugh. If anyone has any Halloween stitching projects, I'd love to see what you made.

This lovely bit kit has been in my queue for quite a while, winking at me to finish her. I finally got her out and completed the stitching and am now embarking on finishing. Here she is: You'll notice that I added a little extra border at the top and bottom of the design. I can't seem to follow directions, ever. The reason for the border is that I needed just a smidge more design area to cover the top of a box I have planned for her. She's going to sit on my night table and wake me up every morning sometime soon. I'll post photos of the finished box once she's all done. For now, here's her back side.

I've been itching to share this for a while now, so here is the queen of all cushions in my house! I'm going to post a few pics in the order I stitched this wonderful project, so that you can see how I avoided making a buncha counting mistakes and needless frogging, and how I let other mistakes go and learned to love them. First, I stitched the diamonds. I started at the upper left corner of the design and worked the diamonds one at a time: For me, it was super important to check each diamond as I went, to make sure everything lined up as I stitched. It was helpful for me to count the little gold motifs on each side of the diamond, and then to make sure that the points of each diamond met where they were supposed to. This part was quite meditative, and it seemed to me that I was setting the stage for the colors and the "fun part" to commence. I realize that brown and gold are colors, but I take delight in colors that are bright and happy. The diamond lattice seems to provide a groundwork for the pretty flowers. A word of advice - the diamond lattice framework is not where you want any counting mistakes. Also, this was the first time I worked with the Mikini cloth and IT'S LIKE BUTTAH. So soft and lovely to work with! After the entire diamond framework was in place, I started stitching the beautiful floral motifs in each diamond. This was good for me to do it this way so that I was sure the entire design lined up properly before filling it in. I will admit to a bit of stress while I fussed over whether the lower right corner would line up properly, which it did. I think I celebrated with a shot of Fireball and a "woo hoo" when that part came together. For this stage of stitching, I only stitched the central floral motifs. I was super anxious to get the colors in place and they were SO pretty. It may appear that this part involved a lot of counting, but it really didn't take much. After the first motif was in place, I could simply look at what I had just stitched and copy that in the next diamond, By the time I got the first couple down, I had pretty much memorized the design. I say "pretty much" because I did make a counting error here that became a "design feature." If you look carefully at the outermost blue centers of the two motifs above, you'll notice that there's a difference between the red flower and the blue one. Rather than removing all of that stitching, I elected to make the same error on purpose on every other floral motif. So, after the first one, it was intentional, which made me feel better about it. After all of the floral motifs were in place, I did notice another couple of counting errors in several of the petals. I'm looking at YOU, blue flowers. Rather than doing damage to the work, I elected to retain the oddball petals as a "design feature" and told myself they're charming. The quality of the stitching was pretty good, so if you can find the design feature petals, good for you! After stitching the central floral motifs, I went back and stitched the little filler motifs around each one. That part was quite meditative and went fairly quickly. Plus, it was fun to admire all of the pretty colors I had just laid down. And that's my stitching story for the wonderful new Avlea design! You can see the finished cushion in Krista's shop. I must say, I totally want that fabulous blue velvet chair she found to go with all of her fancy embroideries. In any case, I absolutely love my cushion. I think I can live with it happily for the rest of my life. I'm dreaming of a pile of heirloom cushions on my bed, Greek-style! I've already ordered the Nisyros Leaves kit. Go forth and make fabulous cushions! This design was a joy to stitch.

This little blue and white bit of goodness wanted to be in the cushion club. So here she is: The kit came with two blues, but I added three more to my cushion because I wanted to better blend the floss colors with the fabric I had selected to use for the cushion cover. And here she is in the wild: I have a little corner in our bedroom where I like to sit and stitch. I also made the sewing box and the footstool. It's a pretty comfy place to relax with a project and the natural light is good.

As I was stitching the Star of Chios, I wondered what I should do with it. Usually, I have a plan. After making my Avlea embroidery box, which I obsessively planned, I wanted to make a project exactly from the chart, with all of the exact colors, finished exactly like the example. Well, that didn't happen. Here's the embroidery, prior to finishing: And here she is from behind: For some reason, I decided to stitch the gold border all the way around the perimeter of the central motif and left off the little floral motifs. I keep thinking of Kermit the Frog singing "it isn't easy being green!" I'm not a green person if there's much yellow in it. I prefer my greens on the blue side. So I minimized the green. I could have changed it had I not resolved to stitch everything as mandated, but by the time I realized the green wasn't "my" green, I thought it would do more harm than good to change it. The little frog singing in my head couldn't convince me to rip out stitches that were just fine. I wanted a fat little pillow for impromptu naps or to nuzzle in the small of the back. This embroidery is on the small side, so it seemed like a good choice to make an otherwise obligatory pillow somewhat fancy. And we like fat pillows in our house, so I keep a bunch of extra pillow stuffing around to plump up the kinda wimpy pillows they sell at the not so great chain fabric store which will remain without a name. So I got one of those skinny pillow inserts and fattened it up. Here she is, in all of her plump happiness: I think she'll make a nice companion, and she's already making friends with her big sister Olivine.

I've been blabbing about this project for a while now and am happy to have completed it late last night. I wanted to make a special box with needlework on the box top. And, being somewhat of a minimalist, I wanted to veer off into something over the top - something covered with flowers and giving off a Grand Millennial vibe. I was thinking of my Grandmother's tea cup collection when I made this. Here's the finished box: From a slightly different angle: This project took a little bit of practice (over a dozen other boxes leading up to this one) and quite a bit of puzzle solving. First, I had to land on the correct dimensions for the box. This one is just the right size to lay a chart on the bottom (yay, no folding!) and a decent sized embroidery hoop fits inside as well. Then I had to find the right embroidery design that would fit within the dimension of the top of the box. It only took a tiny bit of math to make this design work, and I was quite happy because Calliope's Meadow is Just. So. Pretty. While I was working the embroidery, I scoured through my (admittedly massive) fabric stash and found a border print I liked for this project. It's an RJR reproduction print that must have been in my stash for, I dunno, twenty years? I'm always surprised about the things I find in there. The border of this fabric has little yellow flowers, which provided the inspiration to add the yellow flowers to the embroidery. The sides of the box are the same height as the border design on the fabric. The rest of the fabric covers the interior of the box. Getting the border to align properly on the sides was a bit fussy. I elected to leave the border in place for the inside of the box lid. And, of course, being the super Avlea fan girl that I am, I had to find a way to incorporate a bit of that velvet ribbon that we all love so much. So it became a pull tab for the top. Adding the embroidery to the top was the last step and so utterly nerve wracking, my heart was pounding! Yes, that is a GALLON of Elmer's Glue-All. It takes a lot of glue for a good box. Back to the top - if you've ever framed needlework, you're familiar with the joys (ughmmm, not exactly) of centering the work. I cut some thin book board, covered it with very thin quilt batting and used archival double stick tape to affix the batting over the edge to the back side of the board, cutting away the corners to reduce bulk. Then I fiddled around with my calculator and a ruler to center the needlework over the batting-covered board. I used Wonder Clips to keep it in place while I tacked the mitered corners. Then I glued the edges of the groundcloth to the back of the board so it wouldn't shift. The idea of mixing glue and needlework is highly stressful, but I took some deep breaths and told myself I could do it. Then I glued this piece to the top of the otherwise finished box and used masking tape to hold it in place while the glue dried. This project was a really fun puzzle to solve and, while it isn't perfect, nothing handmade is ever perfect. While I was working through the box puzzle, I created another puzzle of sorts and started working on my accessories. My first one is a needle book, that was taken directly from the same design. I shorted the box top by 4 flowers, but got them all back here. Here's the front: I have a little collection of vintage buttons and couldn't resist this little blue flower button from the 30's. I love the way it takes the piece back in time. Here's the back: Here it is, all opened up: And here's the inside: There's plenty of room in my box for everything, and I'm already filling it up with things that I love. I could hardly wait for the glue to dry.

When Krista introduced Calliope's Meadow, I must have ordered the kit immediately. It's just so lovely, and I really liked the Arts & Crafts vibe of the design. It reminds me so much of wall stencils I've seen in historic Craftsman homes. It fascinates me how the traditional Greek embroideries seem to echo throughout time. Anyhow, I have a special project in mind, so I needed to make a few changes to the dimensions of the design and while I was at it, I added yellow flowers: The colors are what came with the kit, except for the yellow flowers, but those colors are in the Avlea palette: DMC 676 (the light gold) and DMC 832 (the golden olive backstitching). For my project, I needed a somewhat smaller design area, so I reduced the width by simply stitching 5 large carnations across in lieu of the 7 in the chart. I also needed to make it ever so slightly shorter, so I deleted two stitches (4 threads) between the outer border and the inner design area. I believe I started stitching this a week ago, so I'm hoping to finish in the next couple of weeks. I'm in no hurry, though, because this design is a pleasure to stitch!

I've had this in my queue for a little while and loved the design but the colors in the kit didn't quite fit in anywhere in my home. The Man picked a skein of floss out of my collection and declared it to be the perfect color. I elected to use the gray that came with the kit (DMC 317) and add his teal (DMC3809). To my eye, these were a little too close in value and I was worried the design would disappear and look muddy. So I added the turquoise color (DMC 959). Here's the result, along with The Man's favorite mermaid dish: I can just see him munching his favorite dinner and all of the sauce drippings that will result. But use your best stuff every day! Here's a bare naked shot of the front of the finished work: You can see a couple of visible fold lines that didn't come out in the first washing. Since I'm confident this will need washing on a regular basis, these will likely relax over time. If not, anyone rude enough to question this will just be told this is an ancient family heirloom that lay folded in a chest for many years until it was discovered and brought out into the daylight. That's a good fib, no? Here's a close up of the finish. More on that in a little bit: As you can see, there is a very tiny hem, not quite 3/8". I would not recommend doing this. Ever. Unfortunately, I made some sort of boo boo when calculating where to begin stitching and wound up with an edge that was much too close for comfort and didn't realize it until I was completely done stitching. I literally had to unpick the serging to use that bit in the hem. Imagine my swear box now - rich with quarters. I found my note of calculations and they were actually correct. But my placement was off. By nearly an inch. Ugh. If you look carefully at the back, the corners aren't exactly beautiful, but they're secure. Imagine trying to weave little nibs of thread back together and make an origami crane from the fan of frustration that resulted. I had to take it slow, get up when I got frustrated, and keep telling myself that this lesson in humility was somehow what I must have needed. And any fantasies I had about making a drawn thread masterpiece hem would just have to wait. Anyhow, the piece survived washing like a champ and the hem is really secure. I still aspire to be a hotshot hemmer, but that isn't likely to happen without a few more lessons in humility and patience and a few more coins in the swear box.

The Man has shown an interest in stitching, but his stuff was scattered around in different places. In my quest to make it as easy for him as possible, I gathered all of his stuff and measured it to see how much storage he needed. He's a seafaring soul, so I wanted his box to reflect that. Plus, I found some great things and I was dreaming about using them. Here's his Jellyfish Box: And here's a view of the inside all filled with his things: I made him a project bag and stashed his projects inside to keep them clean. It's a pretty simple bag, with French seams on the inside, hemmed at the top, with a snap to keep things from falling out. I wanted to make it large enough for a couple of projects, but just the right size to fit inside of the box. It's covered with sharks because he survived a great white shark attack when he was captaining and he's fascinated with them. It's always shark week at our house. He claimed my green floss ring, but I kept the Avlea thread cards for myself. I'm not completely insane. Yet. I found these great little tins (with jellyfish, no less), and lined them with magnetic adhesive sheets. I think I got the magnetic sheets on Amazon, and they're pretty slick if you want to magnetize something. They're about the size of a standard piece of paper, and you just cut them with the scissors that come with the sheets. Then you peel the plastic off of the back and stick them on. That way, he will be less likely to lose his needles because they won't fall out of the smaller tin. I shook it Dairy Queen style to make sure. The larger tin also has a magnetic sheet that I put inside of it, and there's enough room for his Avlea needleminder (yes, he has one!), a needle threader, a seam ripper, a stiletto, and a few wonder clips. The box is large enough for an embroidery hoop. I lined it with paper that reminded me of tide pools. There's plenty of room for charts and some more project supplies. It's about 12" long X 10" deep X 2 1/2" high. I'm still working on my technique, so his box is not perfect but it was really fun to make. I'm kinda sorry I gave it away. At least it's in my house, and I will definitely enjoy seeing him use it. And I will know where to look when my Avlea thread cards and needleminders mysteriously disappear.

After admiring Cindy Russell's work, I decided to try that fancy little edge that she does so well. It's really not difficult, and I wanted to share how to do it with everyone. Here's a close up photo of the edges. I'm not tackling drawn thread technique or mitered corners, because Krista already has a spiffy video that says it all. Here's how to do it: 1. Pull a single thread from each side of your work, where you want the outside edge of the work to be. For this, I counted 63 threads from the edge of the embroidery. 2. Find some pearl cotton to match your ground cloth as best you can. I used 30 ct linen, and DMC #8 pearl cotton (the kind that comes in little balls). 3. Starting in your first corner, backstitch in the gap you created when you pulled your thread. I backstitched over 3 threads. Don't pull your backstitching too tightly, the tension shouldn't pull the threads apart, but it should lie fairly flat. When you get to the next corner, terminate your backstitching and weave back through a few threads on the back side to secure. Do this on each edge. 4. Finger press your cloth to the back side of your work, so the backstitching is at the very outside edge of the fold. This may take a bit of patience. 5. The backstitching will form the little loops like magic! Then you can proceed to fold your fabric once more to form the hem and make the corners. I finger pressed the entire piece because I didn't want to iron in any skin oils, etc. into my work. When I finished, I pretty much doused the entire piece with Spray & Wash, let it sit for about half an hour, then washed it by hand. I use slightly warm water and dish soap. I like using dish soap because it cuts through any oils, etc. on the work. A textile artist suggested this to me a while back, specifically Dawn dish soap. It works great! 6. Then I rolled it in a towel to get the excess water out, and blocked it on my rotary mat. 7. After it was dry, I put it on my ironing board, FACE DOWN on a clean white bath towel. I sprayed it with filtered water until it was damp, then I pressed it with fairly high heat. The towel keeps your stitches from getting compressed so they look nice and plump. I never press needlework on the front side. To be clear, I didn't think of this myself. I tried to copy the fabulous Cindy Russell, who is the queen of hemming! I skipped the drawn thread work on the inside of the hem, though, because I wanted a super simple look for this piece.

I finally finished my Daphni. Not being one to do anything exactly as described, this piece is larger than the chart. It's the same size from top to bottom, but I had a large piece of linen, so I kept it going and made it longer. I love it as a table runner. It's stitched on 30ct linen, with the colors Krista prescribed. I wanted a simple hem, so I pulled a single thread around the perimeter and backstitched in the gap with some nice pearl cotton to give it a pretty edge. For those of you who (like me!) like to see the back of the work, here you go: And, finally, here's a close up of the mitered corner: This is such a wonderful design, with a decidedly mid-century flavor. I absolutely love the simplicity of it, and can imagine so many ways to use this. It's easy to make this one super neat on the back side, if you're change threads for each leaf. And you only have to count to five!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the new Avlea thread cards. And my new needleminder is fantastic - the magnet is really strong, and it's just the right size. When I started to put my flosses on the thread cards, I was struck by the beauty of the Avlea colors. When I placed my order I didn't realize there were so many cards - more than enough for a project. And you can write your color number on the back with a pencil - so Yay! This is a great way to keep everything handy and organized. And it's all so pretty.