It's the Little Things

About midsummer, the kids decided that they wanted to learn how to cross stitch. Needless to say, I was beyond ecstatic and went about showing my 15 and 11 year old the wonders of stitching. Much to my surprise, it was my 11-year old son that completely wowed me with his desire to learn and his lovely skill. Granted, he has been knitting for over a year now, so it really shouldn't have surprised me much, but it did.

His first project was a Good Luck Horseshoe and the second the snail. Although adorable, we had no clue as to what to do with the little goodies. Until Garrett had a brilliant idea of making his new teachers bookmarks. As you can see, a couple cute little projects turned into a wonderful and cheery gift. Good work, G-Man!

My Latest Projects

To Accentuate or Not To Accentuate

I have totally fallen in love with Accentuate metallic thread! I have been working on my daughters birthday invitations for the last month and the chart calls for Kreinik threads and let me tell you, I CRINGED at the thought. I love the way it looks on the fabric, but I absolute HATE to sew with it. It gets caught up, it curls unmercifully, and it's always tangling. Not to mention that back stitching with it has its own nightmare page.

So when I was in one of my "not so favorite" cross stitch shops in town, I was beyond tickled when Linda told me about the Accentuate thread I was quite curious as to how it would hold up. It's a lot thinner than the Kreinik so I was a bit skeptical. I am not sure if you can tell the visual difference in the pictures, but holy cow! It is a HUGE difference!

Not only was the size of the actual thread a noticeable difference, stitching with it was a pure DREAM! It slides into needle easily, it comes in and out of the fabric beautifully a

nd the effect is BREATH TAKING! I even went out and bought some of their blending filament and oh dear Lord, I want to use it on EVERYTHING!

I am not sure if you can see the difference between the two, but in the picture I used the Kreinik thread for the border and then the Accenuate. The "orangier" of the two is the Kreinik. Although I LOVE

the color of the Kreinik, it took me twice as long to stitch as with the Accentuate. Since I have 39 of the little suckers to stitch, I think I will go with the Accentuate and deal with slight difference in color!

The Not-So-Much-Fun Projects

Have you ever had one of those projects that you look at it and think to yourself, "Oh, this looks so neat! I am going to stitch this sucker up"? Only to find out that 1) you hate the pattern 2) the colors are atrocious 3) you cut the fabric the wrong size...or the pattern recommended the wrong fabric size to fit in your hoop 4) it's taking you longer than expected primarily due to the fact the fabric is wonky!

As much as I would LOVE to trash the project, it's for a gift and my sweetie already picked out and I would hate to hurt his feelings by screaming, cutting the fabric into nine million pieces and burning it in the fire pit.

So my question is, what do YOU do with projects that you REALLY start to resent and loathe doing?

Happy Stitching!

Suzy

Having Fun With Cards

I am having an absolute ball making cards! They are quick, easy and you get to buy nifty accessories to jazz it up!

These I did up for my girlfriend in South Africa who recently had twins. I had planned on making 10 of them for her to us

e as baby announcements, but the little darlings came early and it takes about two weeks to get there. Needless to say, Marcia only received 4. Or should be! I don't think they have arrived yet.

The balloon card was a blast to make! I had seen the pattern in Cross Stitch Card Shop, but I haven't been able to find a copy of the magazine here in the States so my dear friend, Elspeth in

England, scanned it for me and emailed it over! I was BEYOND ecstatic and I couldn't help but whip it up for an English friend of mine. =) It seems totally appropriate it, doesn't it?

This card has turned into my absolute FAVORITE! My

girlfriend's birthday is tomorrow and I am torn on whether or not I am going to give it to her. I just LOVE the way it turned out!

Besides, the colors look GREAT in my Stitching Haven. The best part of this design was the fabric. I found it at Hobby Lobby and it has this great swoop in it and it went perfectly with the swoops in the dress. All else fails, I suppose I could make myself another one. =)

Aside from everything else, I am definitely going back to Hobby Lobby and buying some more the swoopy fabric. It will make a great background for some of the my other projects as well!

Happy Stitching!

Suzy