Fully Finished Gallery SAL - February 2019

Rachel of Ten Hour Stitcher had the brilliant idea of hosting a fully-finished SAL to help us get all our old and new cross stitches fully finished. I hope to keep up with it, or at least finish one a month.

I did finish one project last month that I posted about and I have another fully finished project as of last night, plus one that's on its way to being finished.

First up is Joy from JCS Ornament issue 2018:

Very simple running stitch on felt for this one with a hanger.

Next is a gift for DD for Valentine's Day:

This is a free design by Barbara Ana that I found with Jo's link for the People's Choice SAL in February. I used GITD thread for the stars and moon and stash threads for the rest. Again, a simple felt finish and the cross stitch was wrapped around stiff cardboard first.

And for the one that's not quite fully finished, I attempted to do a canvas finish for Dog Lessons by Lizzie Kate. I still need to find some matching washi tape for this one as the stuff I had on hand doesn't match. 

And yes, I'm aware tape isn't the best idea, but I like how well this fits the frame and it's about the only way it will stay. So I'll find some dark brown I think and finish this off and frame it. It's an old canvas someone gave me for DD, but something she's not interested in hanging up, so I'm repurposing it. 

I hope you've all had good luck with your finishes this past month!

Happy Stitching and Finishing!

Tiffstitch

People's Choice SAL - February

I'm joining in the People's Choice SAL this month and hope to keep it up throughout this year. Jo of Serendipitous Stitching organizes this one as well and asks other stitchers what theme to have each month. February is hearts! 

It turns out I don't stitch all that many Valentines' things, but here is what I have:

I think this is a Bent Creek design, very fun, quick stitch for DD last year. 

Palko-lap's monthly calendar, again, very quick and easy. 

Abi Gurden designed this hear for the Stitch Specialists Group. I don't know if it's still going on, but this was my first ever tiny amount of hardanger. I was so new I had no idea how to wrap the leftover fabric, but I like the look of it. 

I stitched this several years ago, and although it's a Xmas theme, look, hearts!! 

Check out Jo's post and everyone else's to see all the different hearts out there to get some ideas for Valentine's Day stitching this year!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness 2019 - January Edition

I'm late to the game this year, and hopefully can do better as the year progresses. As you likely know, this is the brainchild of the extremely well-organized Jo of Serendipitous Stitching. Check out her post and see everyone's beautiful work and how they've managed to shoe horn in different ways to "gift" stitching.

I'll keep this a little brief to try and get my post up before the linky widget closes and hope to get a few more posts scheduled today to go over my 2019 plans. I've been working on them, just not talking too much about them yet.

A Kiss For A Snowman (DD)

I hope to get this one finished this year, the top left is pretty much complete and soon the entire left side stitching will be done.

Joy

This is the ornament selected for the JCS Ornament of the month group that Jo also organizes on Facebook. This was a fun little stitch, and just took a few nights to stitch and finish. I think it will be a gift, so I'm showing it off here. :)

Animal Parade

My New Year's start was this one, which will also be for DD. Can anyone guess what animal this is? :) Hint - they're all found in Africa.

And for knitting,

Little Boxy

I'm getting the hang of knitting in the round now, round and round it goes for 8 inches, so it will be a while. The pattern is by Joji Locatelli and the yarn is Hedgehog Fibres out of Ireland. DD's favourite colour is still purple.

Socks for DD

These are plain old tubes without a heel as I've read that by the time kids wear out the heel section, their feet have grown. Without having to fiddle with a heel made this on fairly quick and I'm a good way along on the second sock as well. 

I hope everyone has had a good year so far!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness - December Edition

It's the last GG of the year! Head to Jo's blog for all the other people who've managed to post every month, unlike me. :)

I have however been stitching as well as knitting. So I hope you enjoy all the photos.

Fishing

This one is so close to a finish! I need to get going and get it completed for my uncle. He had a bit of a heart scare this fall, so getting this finished ASAP is a must.

DD's birthday sign

DD is very into space right now and loving a new graphic novel series, The Catstronauts. She says she wants to be an astronaut and likes to play "aliens" with her best friend at school. So I stitched her a sign for her room that has lots of outer space stuff with the letters in B5200 outlined in Kreinik #4 on black and Kreinik #4 and #8 for the other bits, lunar rover, alien, planets, telescope, etc. It was not easy. I also used a lot of GITD Kreinik thread to make it super awesome. :D

Painted Stones Cowl for DH's father's wife (it's complicated)

This is such an easy, fun knit. It's pretty quick to knit up, the yarn is lovely and it's really comfortable as well. The recipient seemed to really like it and I hope will get a lot of use out of it.

Tube socks for DD

I didn't use a pattern, just stitched 2 tubes with no heels for her. I used Regia 8ply so she has some slightly warmer socks. I decided on no heel after hearing how some people prefer this for kids because they're growing so fast. This way the socks should last a few years and just become shorter as her feet grow.

Teacher hats

I knit these hats in one evening. They call for size 15 US needles and super bulky yarn. I added pom-poms, but forgot photos with the pom-poms. Black for the red hat and kind of a cream with black flecks for the blue/purple hat. These were knit with the Perky Little Hat pattern and were very quicky and easy with Lion brand Hometown USA and Lion Brand Tweed (held double).

Socks for Dad

These were knit for my dad's birthday with Regia 8ply as well. I love this yarn. DK means it knits up very fast and I finished these in a week or less. It's a very easy pattern, just used some info from Lion Brand mens socks pattern to make these. I used the scraps from these and DH's socks to make a pair for myself as well. 

That's what I've been up to! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

2018 Advent Calendar Blog Hop

Ack! I'm a little late getting this up, and I apologize!

This blog hop, as many this year, is hosted by the indefatigable Jo! Check out everyone else's posts and get more information through her blog.

This is a little free motif I finished last year. I think it's from The Drawn Thread.

Our question this year was about our favourite Christmas Carol. It's something that has changed over the years, and different versions of songs are some I might love or hate. I think at this moment in time, my favourite Christmas song is The 12 Days of Christmas as sung by the Muppets and John Denver. If you've never experienced this, I hope this link works:

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Tiffstitch

Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop

Hi everyone and welcome to the Hallowe'en Blog Hop! Hosted as always by the multi-talented Jo of Serendipitous Stitching, here is your letter:

And your next blog is: La Coeur Celtique! Find your next letter to solve Jo's clue. 

For my Halloween stitching, I'd like to share an update for Boo House. I finally got some time to get this one out and stitched on a bit before Halloween this year. 

Here's where it was:

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness - October Edition

Hello, long time no post! Hope everyone is doing well. Life and work has been pretty busy the last couple months, so there has been a lot less posting than usual, and usual wasn't very much the previous months either. :)

I have been knitting and *shock* stitching, and I have one great big finish to show off! I'm so happy this one is now complete.

AAN Spider Banner

I received the 32ct opalescent fabric as a gift several years ago and love how it looks! Most of this was stitched with WDW, one of my favourite threads to use and the bottom purple was Soie Cristale, which is so lovely and smooth as well. She is done! Now I must figure out a way to finish. Something bell-pull style would work I think.

A Kiss for a Snowman got a little more done:

And on to knitting! I did a fair bit of this as well the past couple months. 

New pair of mitts, first time ever made them in-the-round (on circular needles)

Finished those pink rainbow socks:

A cowl for my co-worker

Socks for DH in thicker weight, and I knitted these 2 at a time! It was so much easier to make sure they were identical. Defnitely want to do this all the time now. 

Started another mitten for a charity mitten tree:

And finished my first toy with safety eyes for a friend's 3 year old that is addicted to Octonauts, as is my daughter. 

The meerkat is part of an ongoing joke the local yarn store is running and I forgot to get a photo without it of just the Narwhal. :) 

And that is it I think! I will do my best to at least post GG for the rest of the year, and hope to get more into cross stitch now that the weather is cooling. We even had snow today! 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstith