Priceless Stitching

I think my Halloween Holiday Hoopla is one of my most special Halloween cross stitch pieces I have stitched up this season. Before I started stitching this design I hand dyed some Monaco fabric in a beautiful shade of green. It was in one of my project bags off to the side until I had time to work it into my WIP pile. A couple weeks later I was going through some emails and had one from Kirklands. The daily special was this simple, but cute wooden Halloween house for nearly 50% off. As soon as I saw the house I instantly knew I wanted to use it to display my Halloween Holiday Hoopla. I completely scratched all my previous ideas of fabric and displaying. I had a new idea! Since the piece is finished in a round shape I envisioned a beautiful fall full moon and the witch flying across it.  First, I dyed a new piece of fabric. I used a combination of orange and yellow Rit dye to create a shade that resembled a fall colored moon. After it baked and dried I then use a tiny bit of Charcoa...

This fall 3 tiered tray is now one of my favorite pieces of fall decor! I picked up this off white shabby chic tiered tray from Hobby Lobby. At the top of the 3 tiers is a rectangle chalkboard sign which is great for displaying small cross stitch pieces. It is also the perfect size for the small sized Chalk Full Harvest design by Hands on Design. This tiered tray isn't too big which makes it a nice sized piece to display on my kitchen island. I stitched the small Chalk Full Harvest design with all the materials that comes in the Fat Quarter Shop Chalk Full Club . The fabric is 14 count Chalkboard Black Aida and the threads are GAST Chalk, Classic Color Works Queen Bee, Bean Sprout, Trail Dust and Deep Fennel. All these colors coordinate beautifully! The only changes I made to the design was by adding Trail Dust cross stitches to the middle of each of the sunflowers. I just thought all the sunflowers needed a brown middle and I absolutely love it! After I was done stitching th...

I finished up Boo Chalk Full by Hands on Design just a few days ago. The Chalk Full series are inspired by Priscilla Blain's beautiful hand drawn chalk designs she changes through the seasons on a chalkboard in her home. Cathy Habermann from Hands on Design transformed them into fun cross stitch patterns. I am enrolled in the Fat Quarter Shop Chalk Full Club . Each time a new Chalk Full design is released I get a complete package from Fat Quarter Shop to stitch up each piece. The kit includes the chart, fabric and threads. The Boo design is the second in the series (blog post coming soon on the first design, Harvest, that I stitched up several weeks ago!) and so much fun to stitch! The kit came with Chalkboard Black 14 count Aida. I have really been enjoying stitching on this fabric and it is the perfect color to mimic a chalkboard. The floss colors included were Gentle Art Sampler Threads Chalk and the Classic Colorworks threads Pumpkin Harvest, Dublin Bay and Pea Pod. When ...

"I am so glad I live in a world  where there are Octobers." L.M. Montgomery Anne of Green Gables Happy October Kindred Stitchy Friends! I am so happy when October finally arrives. It means all things fall and our weather (usually) tries to start cooling off a tad bit (as much as it can for Oklahoma). It also means Christmas is even closer 😉 I am so blessed to have a Bosom Friend and it is a bonus her birthday is in October! This year I decided to make her a special gift. We both dearly love all things Anne of Green Gables so when I ran across this design, October Cottage, by Country Cottage Needleworks I thought it would be perfect! All I had to do is tweak the colors a bit to make it look more like the Anne of Green Gables cottage.  I stitched this piece on a hand dyed 28ct even weave with a coffee/tea dye method. I used the following Weeks Dye Works threads: Grapevine, Swiss Chocolate, Carrot and Sally's Sunshine. I also used the following DMC ...