Well Hello There!

I've just been cleaning up a storm and the apartment is neat for once so I invite all my friends to come over. That offer expires at about 3 p.m. when the kids get home and it becomes a disaster once more!

I have a lot of stitching to share so I'll jump right in.

First and foremost I finally finished and framed the Lost sampler I designed. It is stitched on Raw linen (for the life of me I cannot remember the count). I used Carrie's Creations threads with one plain DMC mixed in. The hardest part was the Dharma initiative symbol. It was very tricky to get the proportions correct but I am very happy with how it turned out. I also used a blend of two colors for the smoke monster to give it some nice visual texture. The border is a collection of simple backstitched names of characters from the show.


I framed it myself, but you could tell that-right? I actually reframed it after I took these pictures do the noticeable "bump" on the left of the border. For help in framing I absolutely have to give special thanks to Meari, one of the moderators of the i-love-cross-stitch group on yahoo. The framing tutorial on her site is probably the best I have ever seen. The frame itself was custom made by signedandnumbered. Insanely reasonable cost, lovely workmanship.

Well my little baby is now on its way to the U.K. to be part of the Mr. X Stitch display at the Stitch & Craft show in March. While I'm going nuts with the links I highly recommend checking out the Phat Quarter (a flikr group associated with the Mr. X Stitch site). The stuff you find on there will KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF.

Here is a table topper I stitched as a Christmas gift for my mom and step-dad. Dutch Garden Tabletopper from Dutch Treat Designs. It was fun to stitch and turned out lovely. One tip though: Don't enjoy a glass of red wine when working with white cotton thread, especially if you're like me and sometimes lick the thread to help thread the needle. Yeahhh, I had to pull out a little section because I made that mistake.


A second gift I made, this time for my father-in-law, is the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree symbol. Man oh man did this take me a lot longer than I thought it would. Large blocks of one color just kill me.

And finally for today I finished 'The Wrong Side of the Tracks' by Raise the Roof. Well a year ago I finished and I actually have the buttons to put on it but are they on? Haha, nope.