Smalls Wrap Up

Checking in for only the seventh (possibly sixth) time this year, I present my last Smalls SAL of 2015. This is Ewe & Eye & Friends Button Basket from the April 1999 edition of Cross Stitch and Needlework. I started this in January as part of Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge. You can see what it looked like when I picked it up again here. (That's right--untouched for eleven months!)

I used unbleached linen and the called-for Anchor floss. (I always get the Anchor floss for the Ewe & Eye designs; there's something different in the quality of the floss that I like for their designs.) Happily, I found all the buttons in my button jar. No idea where they came from or how old they might be but I am pleased with how they look.

I will be back soon with a review of my (pathetic) 2015 stitching and thoughts about stitching in 2016. Until then!

Reaping the Harvest

I was going to try to catch up on last week's posts: do the Alphabet Club post, review my monthly goals, etc. But I was avoiding blogging. I wasn't feeling it. So I stitched and thought and decided just to move on. Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions. (And trust, the "C" post I had been working on was crap. You don't need more of that in your life.)

I finished a piece for the dude. This is the one I had brought to Tennessee to work on in secret, but left the black floss at home.

This is a Subversive Cross Stitch pattern. The reference is to a McSweeney's piece. If you don't know it, you owe it to yourself to read it. Of course if the language bothers you or you decorate with gourds, you'll probably be offended. The dude wasn't; he laughed for ages at this. And on the first day of fall, he told me it was decorative gourd season. Seriously, it was published in 2009, and he's still laughing at it.

Discerning viewers will realize that I cocked it up. I totally misaligned the gourds. I have no idea how I did it or why I didn't notice until I was done. But that's what Just Another Button Company makes buttons for.

I'm going to go back to the Shepherds Bush stockings and complete those so I can do the finishing work in November. And if I finish before the end of the month, I'll choose one of the autumnal patterns in the WIP basket to work on.

Still More Fabric Flowers

Judging from your comments, yesterday's flowers were a huge winner! Most comments this month. So far...

Last night I went up to the craft room to start my new fabric flower. It was one I remember my mom making back in the day. Only, I had the wrong gauge wire for the project. Quick! To Pinterest! What can I make, right now?

I found this little tutorial on a new-so fabric flower (hot glue!) that appeared on Scattered Thoughts of a Craft Mom. She used these flowers as accents on a variety of projects. Fabric, buttons, hot glue...I had everything I needed!

I cut my circles (using framelits and my Big Shot) and heated up the glue gun. I started folding, but...wait...that doesn't look like a flower...(I actually like this one, and I'm going to find a way to use my little flower bud.)

Let's try this again. The folds are right, but with this busy fabric, you just can't tell.

Now that's better. Cute even. Now to find projects in need of little button flower accents.

I've gone off to the craft store for the right wire. Fingers crossed! (If you're tired of fabric flowers, sit tight. I made a run to the bead store and I've got some funky new things on the way!)
(I also purchased the eight items I needed to enter Joann's "Create with 8" contest. And I need to get that up on their site pronto.)

Strawberry Pins Forever

Thank you for all your compliments on my good looks and my crafting talent. I feel so undeserving of your praise. Probably because my mother spent so much time being critical when I was growing up. Wait...let me get another glass of wine.

So anyhoodle. I was poking around the craft room yesterday looking for a kit or small stitching project that I could whip up so that those of you who are just trolling for cross-stitch content might stop and look for a second. And I came across the Just Another Button Company pincushion kit I bought. I've only bought one even though I think they are all adorable. I've actually restrained myself. I guess when I see that kit, I see a pile--a BIG pile--of money burning. Not any more*...

Sorry for the gruesome picture. The weather here today is shitastic.

I did get a little grumpy when I was making this; I won't lie. They said I should pin that calyx in place before I stitched it, but I'm so awesome, I thought I could hold it in place. (Really, I'm so lazy I couldn't go up a flight a stairs to get pins.) After pulling out my stitches for the third time, I went and got the pins. Utterly defeated! But, it looks pretty good, doesn't it?

*Is it wrong that unfinished it's burning money, but finished it's a pincushion?

Month O' Craft: Day One

I thought I'd ease myself into this undertaking  with a quick gluing project. I saw these cute button magnets on Bursts of Creativity, possibly via One Pretty Thing. I also got to play with buttons. I emptied out my jars. (And since I am still in an organizing mood, I took all the safety pins that had ended up in this jar and put them in their proper place.)

Then I started gluing. I did a red, white, and blue set. The magnets I bought were one inch in diameter, which I hadn't thought much about until I tried to put the blue star button as the bottom button (the one in the lower left). I could have painted the magnet, but that seems like it would have really complicated this project! So I ended up with blue-on-blue, but I think it works. (Wish I had had a giant white button.)

These are my tropical version. My choices are limited, since most of my buttons are from my mother's clothes. (When they moved, she gave me all those stray buttons that accompany your clothes--the ones that come in little plastic bags in case you lose one.) They're drying in these photos or I'd show you how well they look on my fridge. Day one complete!

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Or, more like, tell someone to do it and eventually someone will.

There have been a lot of rumblings in the stitching blogosphere about "selfish stitching." Always one to entice people to the dark side (really, my sister almost bought me these jammies for Christmas), I've been encouraging people in the comments. "More selfish stitching in 2008," says I. "Someone should make a button." I think I only had to mention it twice. Lo, Annemarie has made a "Selfish Stitching" button.

Of course, I just joined a Birthday exchange. And Michelle invited me to SAL with her on Emerald Mermaid, which I am stitching for my mother (she asked) for her 65th birthday (4/2009--she's no dummy). So, yeah, besides those things, more selfish stitching in 2008.