More Adorable Alpaca Faces

Rock Garden Alpacas New Collage

Finally, a picture of Roxy.  Such a sweetheart.  

How beautiful are Masquerade's eyes? I wonder what kind of children Roxy and Masquerade will create?

Ahhh the good life.... I just LOVE this picture. Zinnia and her mom, Ivy,  enjoying the sun and grass.

My Embroidered Vintage Birdhouse Ornament Picture

Several years ago I bought a couple of creative embroidery and stitchery patterns for making ornaments that I wanted to make into little pictures and have been trying to find some time to complete them.  I decided that with the beautiful Spring weather this would be the perfect time to work on some of them outside.

I decided to start with a Vintage Ornament #6 embroidered birdhouse ornament from Chickadee Hollow Designs as it was cute and looked relatively easy to complete.  The pattern included the design on pre-printed pre-colored fabric, as well as a basic embroidery stitches sheet and sheet of basic instructions for completing their ornaments.

I had decided ahead of time that I wanted to frame my ornament as a small picture instead of using it as an ornament.

The pattern included a basic instructions sheet which was a summary sheet for competing all of their ornaments and not specific to the vintage birdhouse ornament as well as a sheet showing basic embroidery stitches. It was left up to the user to choose which color floss to use and where and which embroidery stitch to use and where.

The instructions called for positioning the design over a piece of Warm-N-Natural batting and fastening this with small safety pins then embroidering the ornament. The pre-printed pre-colored fabric was fine except it was so small and the design so close to the edge that it was impossible to fit within any embroidery hoop.

My experience has always been that embroideries always come out better when stretched in an embroidery hoop so I chose to baste my to a standard felt square so that I could put in into a small square embroidery frame as shown in the pictures below:

When my embroidery piece was done I removed it from the embroidery square hoop and cut it along the brown dotted lines about 1/4" from the edge of the birdhouse outline as shown in the pictures below:

The instructions also said to finish the piece according to the finishing option of your choice. I decided to blanket stitch my ornament to one layer of quilt batting and a back piece of felt as shown in the pictures below:

Using the embroidered birdhouse as a guide I cut out a piece of batting and a piece of felt for the backing and then layered them as shown in the picture below:

I had decided to use red floss to blanket stitch around the edges of my vintage birdhouse ornament and like how it turned out as shown in the picture below:

As mentioned previously I was going to put my finished vintage birdhouse ornament in a small picture frame and had decided to use decorative paper as a background for my picture. The choice was between an evergreen colored background or a bright red colored background. I chose the bright red colored background as shown in the picture below:

I had chosen a cream colored wood frame for my finished piece as I thought it really complimented the color of the pre-printed fabric and was thrilled with the way my Vintage Birdhouse Ornament turned out.

It took me 10 hours to complete this picture including the framing and was thrilled with the way it turned out. I hope you like it as much as I do. 

How Can You Not LOVE These Faces

The "dollies" just LOVE their alpaca cousins.  How could they not? Just look at their faces!

My Haunted Library - Mill Hill Buttons & Bows Cross-Stitch

One of my all time favorite holidays is Halloween. I think it's the large number of creatures that you can make for this one holiday that draws me to it. So, of course, I was drawn to some of the Haunted Library Cross Stitch Kit from Mill Hill.

Like the other Mill Hill - Buttons & Beads Series patterns I had bought the  Haunted Library kit included the pattern, embroidery thread, perforated paper, beads, ghost button, 2 needles and instructions.

The Haunted Library pattern uses full counted cross-stitch and outline stitching as well as beads and buttons for emphasis and depth. The pattern also calls for certain areas of the perforated paper to be left untouched as the background. In this case they were leaving sections of the dark blue perforated paper background untouched.

I, once again, decided to frame my finished cross-stitch picture in a 5" by 5" white shadow box frame that is 1 1/2" deep and can stand on it's own (like the picture at the top of this post) or with its back picture stand (like the picture above) as I've been really happy with the way all my other cross-stitch shadowbox pictures have come out.

I also decided to once again utilize the rectangular wood frame jig that my darling husband built for me(pictured above) that I could tape the edges of my perforated paper to. The wood frame jig is a rectangular embroidery hoop of sorts, but without bending the perforated  paper. He had made it out of 1/2" x 1" pine wood strips with an adjustable center strip that I used for this 5 x 5 square design.

I had learned from previous mistakes that I needed to draw diagonal lines to locate the exact center of the perforated paper as in the last perforated paper cross-stitch picture I had done was slightly off center by a few holes which caused a problem with inserting the needles in the holes along one of the edges of my frame. So, I drew a diagonal line across each corner to get the center point of the perforated paper.

I had also run into a slight problem with one of the perforated paper cross-stitch pictures I had previously created with the beads along the edge causing a problem when framing so this time I also drew squares on the perforated paper to show me where the 5" x 5" square was. Plus, I knew I wanted to square my picture so I needed to know where to end my stitching.

While the end results of this design were wonderful some things in the kit and in the instructions could be improved upon so I'd like to offer the following constructive suggestions:

The cross-stitch chart was in black and white as was the floss color code and symbol key. Both were easy to read and very clear. While I had no problem with the chart and keys I did have a problem with the way the DMC floss was presented. All of the floss was tied together in one big knot so you had to separate the floss pieces yourself, sort them, and try to interpret which color belonged to which floss # and symbol key on the color chart.  If you only have a few colors to deal with this isn't a problem. However, if you have several different colors of say gray to choose from that are close in color then interpreting the chart can be tricky. You may assign the wrong color to the wrong symbol if the colors are too closely aligned.

As I have done with other cross-stitch kits I've completed I had to design my own thread color sorter and symbol key. I took a piece of thin cardboard and cut a 1" x 9" long rectangular piece out to use as a thread sorter. I then punched 15 holes in my cardboard strip in which to tie each of the different colors. Just above the hole I wrote the DMC floss # and just below the hole I added the respective cross-stitch symbol. I then inserted the floss threads that went with that # and symbol through the hole and tied them in a loose knot. This kit could be much improved if a thread sorter with respective #'s and symbols was provided.

The beads were contained within two small Ziploc bags which was fine. However, when several different beads of similar color or size are included within the bags it can be very difficult to distinguish between the colors or between the petite and regular size beads.  Labeling the Ziploc bags as to which bead number they contained would enhance this kit and allow you to tie the bead # to the symbol number on the charts.

The pattern called for certain areas of the perforated paper to be left untouched as the background like the picture shown below:

However, I don't like seeing the different perforated sections in the background and opted instead to finish all of the background with a dark teal  blue DMC embroidery floss color that closely matched the color of the dark teal blue perforated paper and would be sewn as a half-cross stitch using two strands of the floss.   I had decided to square the edges of my picture and also decided to add two rows of the dark teal blue floss around all the edges to make sure the perforated paper would not be visible once my cross stitch picture was framed in its' shadowbox.

Instead of mounting my picture on foam as I had done with my previous cross-stitch I opted instead to mount my Haunted Library on hard chipboard.

My results with the totally finished background, square edges, and hard chipboard is shown below:

The kit had included a white ghost button that was cute so I decided to include it in my final design.

Despite the relatively small issues I had encountered with the kit I was thrilled with the way my Haunted Library Cross Stitch Kit turned out. There is a lot going on in a very small cross-stitch picture and it is amazing to see all the details.   The beading and stitching around the front door really creates a 3-dimensional effect for the doorway.

It took me 32  hours to complete this picture including the framing. As always, my comments are meant to be constructive to enable future purchasers to benefit from my experience and to enhance their ability to create a wonderful little cross-stitch design.

I've Taking My 2nd and 3rd Online Class At Artful Gathering! YIPPEE!!

I just loved the Artful Gathering e-class that I took last June. I had been wanting to take an e-class for years and just never had the time. Well, last year while perusing Pat Winter's "Crazy Quilt Gatherings" magazine for the umpteenth time   I saw a page on the "Artful Gathering 2012 - An Online Video Art Retreat" which was offering online classes in June 2012. This piqued my curiosity so I decided to check out their website.

While browsing through the Session One Workshops I saw several that I thought would be nice to take. And, I saw one that was being taught by Pat Winter, who is one of my all time favorite crazy quilt designers. So, when I saw that Pat and several other amazing artists that I know were teaching I decided "if not now - when" and signed-up for the workshops.

I made some wonderful friends and had such a wonderful time taking Pat's class I decided to take some classes in 2013. The problem was going to be which one - there are just so many astonishing artists teaching at Artful Gathering I knew it would be hard to choose.

Well, this year when I got the email on the available classes I knew it was going to be a hard decision. I wanted to take them all, but that wasn't going to happen. The problem was narrowing my list down to 1 or 2. It took me a week to decide on 2 classes - one for each session.

I decided to take Colleen Moody's "Briley The Birdie" class in the first session....

Briley The Birdie

A Vintage Tweetheart by Colleen Moody

and Judy Johnson's "Lovely Sea Maiden" in the second session....

Lovely Sea Maiden

A Needle Felting Adventure by Judy Johnson

The first session doesn't start until June 6th. I can hardly wait. Wish me luck. 

How Beautiful Is This

I just love my sister's wall art - especially the one you see above.  Isn't it beautiful?

Here's what my sister had to say about her wall art: My Mom loved the color blue, and like myself, loved flowers - her favorite being roses.  I wanted to create something in memory of her.  I think she would have really liked this!  I hope you do.

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