Tiny Town Nativity

I finished a second Tiny Town by Heart in Hand Needleart.  This one is called Tiny Town Nativity.

As usual, I had to "go rogue" and make a few changes to make it my own.  Unlike other Tiny Town patterns where each element of the town shares equal importance, I wanted to make the characters of Mary, Joseph and the baby become the focus.  I changed the colors of their robes to be brighter, so they didn't blend in with the other elements.  I also filled in the background of the stable with a pale yellow to help make it stand out.

One other change I made was to replace the camel with a donkey, which seemed more fitting to the story.  I always imagined the camels didn't arrive until the 3 Kings showed up.

Kind of unexpected to do a Christmas scene in June, but then again, last June I was working on a pattern with four nutcrackers.  I don't think I ever made a post showing the finished nutcrackers, so I'll include one here. 

      

Last Christmas, I inserted the nutcracker stitch into a photo frame and put them on the mantel with my other nutcrackers.  Must get a better photo next year.

I expect to get back to some quilty projects eventually.....

20,000 stitches later...

I just couldn't put this one down after I finished the first 6 blocks as shown in my last post.  I was having too much fun.  Here are all 12 blocks:

I had a little fun tweaking and experimenting with the designs in the bottom 3 squares.  I substituted these quilt inspired designs:

I also substituted one column of flowers with a design I saw in a vintage cross stitch that was hanging in an antique shop.  The vintage floral row looked like this:

I chose to make mine all the same color:

The last change I made was to add a black cat to the bottom left corner.  The cat pattern is by Melisa Vandergriff of Pinker N Punkin Quilting and I just think it's adorable.

Next step, of course, is to get it framed.  I really enjoyed this pattern.  It had fun, bright colors, easy-to-follow geometric patterns, and room to play.

Current Crossings

Last fall I went to a local quilt show that had a very large yard sale along with the display of quilts.  There was all manner of quilty and crafty items including a good selection of cross stitch.  I was lucky enough find a copy of Lori Holt's "Flea Market Flowers", including some floss for just $1.00.  

The pattern appealed to me because the layout was kind of like a quilt pattern. I began stitching it in late October and by the new year I had it about half done:

In all honesty, after a while it became just a little tedious making the same flower over and over again with little variation.  I felt like it would be nice to take a little break and work on something else for a bit.  That is when I found "A Little Crazy" by Carolyn Manning Designs. 

Again, there was a quilty inspiration to it that I liked. And seriously, who could resist a pattern that called for a color palette like this?

The plan was to do just one block a month and then return to  stitching on Flea Market Flowers.  So  I stitched the first block:

It was really enjoyable.  The stripes and checks were nice to work on because it didn't involve so much time referring to the pattern.  Next thing I knew, I was stitching up the second block, and then the third, and then the 4th, 5th and sixth!

My one block a month plan is now completed through June!  I don't normally like a lot of backstitching but even that part of this is fun.  Look at some of the little flower details that come to life with some backstitches:

I think I better get back to Flea Market Flowers before I get too carried away....

 

Sea Side crossing

I have a new finish to share.  Since we now live closer to the ocean, I was inspired to work on an ocean themed project.  I decided on SeaSide Tiny Town by Heart in Hand.

I got off to a slow start because I couldn't pick an Aida cloth that would show off the many white areas like the clouds and the lighthouse.  After 3 tries, I eventually tried tea dying my own Aida cloth to get enough contrast.

Here is how it turned out:

 Then I finished it by making  a pillow:

I also finished this whimsical little garden scene called "Saltbox Fairy Village" by Petal Pusher:

Crazy Quilt Cross Stitch

I have been doing more cross stitching than quilting lately.  I do have a few finishes, but I'll post them later when I get better photos.  For now, I'm starting on a new monthly project that caught my attention                                 

It's a pattern by Carolyn Manning called "A Little Crazy".  It was a monthly stitch-along back in 2018.  I'm planning on trying to do one block a month as my own monthly challenge.   

I have accumulated a nice little stash of DMC floss over the past year, and I thought for sure I would have most of the colors already on hand.

But...when I sat down and looked at the pattern, I realized that I only had 7 of the 32 floss colors that the pattern calls for.  What a wonderful excuse to head to my local craft store and pick out new colors!  I can't be the only one who loves to stand in front of the DMC display and imagine all the possibilities!

And, I had a "20% off all regular price" coupon to boot!  

I hope to get the first block done before January ends, but we'll see.  I'm currently working on "Flea Market Flowers" by Lori Holt.  I'm about halfway done, but sometimes it's fun to switch gears for a little bit.

Tiny Nine Patch Update

Back in January, I started making Tiny Nine Patch blocks as part of a challenge issued on Instagram.  The details are in this blog post..  

I went cruising along, making my 10 blocks a week and posting them on Instagram, all along trying to figure out my ultimate goal for this quilt.  I decided that I wanted to make a rectangular quilt that would fit over the back of my recliner chair.  I came up with a preliminary design using Electric Quilt software.

This particular layout requires 122 nine patch blocks, so by week 13 I had all the blocks I needed with a few extras for good measure.

I have chosen a tone on tone beige print for my background fabric:

And I have a box of extra squares that I cut along the way to use in the border.

For the time being, I am taking a break from any more machine sewing because we are moving and I have had to pack up my sewing room.  The Tiny Nine Patch project will probably be the first in line to start working on  in the new space.

For now, it's been small projects like cross stitch that have been keeping me busy.  Wish me luck on the move.  It's been an eye opening experience to realize just how much "sewing stuff" I have accumulated over the years.

Crosses and Flosses

Progress continues on my Saltbox calendar series inspired by Melisa Vandergriff at Pinker 'n Punkin Quilting and Stitching.  

The next design I worked on was to represent July.  To start, I chose as my background a tie-dye looking printed Aida cloth that reminded me of Summer's blue skies and green grass.  

I wanted to go patriotic for July 4th, so I looked through Melisa's many patriotic designs and combined a few elements together. (You can check out her roundup of patriotic designs here. ) For the house, I started with "Candy Corn House", and then included a mashup of a couple of her stacked barn animals from her Christmas designs , then I tossed in a flag and a few fireworks to come up with this pattern for July:

As fun as it is to play puzzle maker with a variety of stitch patterns, it can be a bit of a challenge to make it all fit together.  So, for my next house in the series, I pretty much followed Melisa's pattern directly for my February block, aptly named "A Cold Winter's Day".  ( I did have to break down and add a few hearts for Valentine's Day, and I moved the snowman up in front of the house so he didn't get lost in the "February" label at the bottom). Here is February's stitch:

In between the Saltbox stitches, I continued working on my Nutcracker project.  I have 2 of the four nutcrackers finished, and today's slow stitching will be to continue working on number 3.  (There are 4 in all.)

Linking up to Slow Stitching Sunday at   Kathy's Quilts.

More Crossing than Quilting at Quilt Crossing

I've finished my eighth Saltbox house for my Calendar series:

This one is called "Winter Saltbox" and is another design by Melisa Vandergriff at Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching.  I stitched the pattern as designed in the called for colors with the exception of the "January" that I added to the bottom.  Only four more months to go.

In the meantime, I began thinking about what my next project would be and I came across this adorable Nutcracker pattern by Vitaliya Mishchuk on Etsy:

I just adore nutcrackers at Christmas time, and I think this looks like a fun one to stitch. It will finish at about 8 X 12", and I hope to have it done by Christmas of this year.  

 As I have said in the past, I haven't had much luck finding Aida fabric locally that isn't either white or off white.    I finally located a needlework shop about an hour's drive from me so I made a field trip.  The shop owner helped me find a nice shade of what she called "sage green" to use as my background.

It's surprising to me how much orange is used for a Christmas project.  Here is the "floss toss" for the first nutcracker on the left:

And here is what I have completed stitching so far.

 

I plan to work on one nutcracker at a time, in between finishing my last 4 saltbox houses.  It seems that after a long break, I have re-entered my "Cross Stitch Era".  I was going through an old sewing box and found a few floss bobbins from back-in-the-day.  They used to be a lot bigger than the ones I use now:

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

Still stitching

The itch to stitch has certainly been a thing over here at my house.  Since my last post, I have finished three more months of little houses for my cross stitch calendar.   All the patterns are designed by Melisa Vandergriff on her blog,   Pinker n Punkin' Quilting and Stitching. 

The first was my September block:

The pattern for this house was "the Ole' Crow Saltbox".  ""Where are the crows? you might ask.  Well, I'm not a big fan of the noisy black birds so I chose to edit them out and replace them with a few swirling leaves.  The Aida cloth I used for the background on this one was a slightly mottled beige color which I have also seen called "Fiddler's Cloth".

I have been trying to find some non-white Aida cloth to buy locally, but have not been successful. I even ordered some fabric online called "Old Beige" that looked about right, but when it arrived it was a fairly whitish cream color.   I finally decided to try to tea dye the white Aida that I had, and I was happy with the results:

You can see the before and after in the picture above.  Now I could tackle those wintry months using a background that would contrast with the snow.  I decided to do December's block first:

This one is called "Christmas Eve Saltbox" and was fun to stitch, although it was kind of funny to be working on a Christmas theme over the Easter weekend.  I'm so pleased with how the white snowflakes and snowman showed up against the tea-dyed background.  The interior windows are all dark because it's bedtime, but I made the top most window alight with gold to represent someone waiting up, hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa.

My third finish started with the pattern called "Autumn's Saltbox".

I chose it for the colored leaves, and the black cat.  I liked the pattern as it was, but I also liked many of the Autumn motifs that Melisa had designed for her "Autumn Stamp" sampler, so I made some changes to the left side to include the scarecrow and the basket of pumpkins.  I think it's amusing that two little crows are having a little chat right at the base of the "scary" old scarecrow, so I had to include them in this one.

I sure hope Melisa doesn't mind that I've let my imagination take over on her delightful designs.  I'm not sure which month I'll do next, but it will get started this weekend.

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

When is too much too much?

It was time to choose which  house to stitch next for the Calendar project that I'm making following Melisa of Pinker and Punkin's delightful little house patterns, I was torn between these two different ones:

Both photos copyright  by Melisa Vandergriff from her blog.

The one on the left is called "Strawberry Saltbox" and the one on the right is called "Ophelia Manor on Punkin Holler Lane".  Melisa has designed and generously shared an entire season's worth of stitcheries over on her blog Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching.  You really must go take a look for yourself. 

After having made 3 saltbox style houses for previous months, I was interested in trying out the Manor house on the right, but in order to represent the month of June, I wanted to surround it with strawberries instead of pumpkins.   So, I literally cut and pasted (well, taped) two patterns together to see if I could manage it.

While I was at it, I also switched out the two brown birds at the bottom of "Strawberry Manor" and used Melisa's bluebird's from her Spring Sampler.  (It seems that once I opened Pandora's Box and start making changes there was no stopping me!)

After a week of somewhat obsessive stitching as I raced to finish and see how this all turned out, I had this:

I absolutely loved seeing Ophelia Manor done in shades of aqua with the red shutters.  I probably should have quit while I was ahead, but it seemed off balance to me.   I felt that the bottom section with the birds was a little off center from the top half and that the strawberry over on the top right was hanging out too far.  

Again, I should have quit while I was ahead, but instead I decided to add a few little vines over on the left to help balance things out.

I could have stopped here, but no, I wanted to fill in that space above the right side of the house.  Melisa's pattern has a kind of sunshine-ey star to stitch there, but I knew the white would just get lost on my white background.  So I played around a bit, and came up with this filler:

Now....is there too much going on?  I feel like maybe it's overcrowded.  And, I hope Melisa doesn't  mind my playing Frankenstein.

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching

Tiny Nine Patch Challenge Update

Back in January, I decided to join the Tiny Nine Patch challenge, and I have been managing to keep up with making 10 blocks a week.  Here are the blocks I've made so far:

I began Week 1 with a plan to use primarily blue and white fabrics, with a touch of pink or maroon:

By week two, I had dipped my toes into the larger color pool, and added these;

For the following week, I brought out  the purples:

Week 4 is when I started to go a little crazy with the fussy cutting.  

The greens were next.  Notice the was still some fussy cutting going on:

The colors in this  batch reminded me of my spice cabinet.  There's even a little salt and pepper in the very top block:

Although it was the first weeks of Spring, these colors were decidedly Fall:

More attempts at fussy cutting the squares.  These results were not as splashy as the ones from Week 4:

These are the blocks for the current week.  I went back to my batch of squares that I had cut early on and decided to use them up.

I have cut  all the squares for weeks 10, 11 and 12, bringing me to a total of 120 blocks.  I might call it a quilt after that.  I'm shooting for a 9 X 13 layout which requires 117 blocks so I will have a couple of blocks to spare.  I haven't yet picked out a fabric for the alternating squares.  A few people have breezed ahead and have posted some really pretty quilts tops which have been very inspiring.