First Time for Everything

Well I have done a few small cross stitch projects during the year and I have been wondering what to do with them. So taking some inspiration from all you lovely people I decided to finish some as hanging ornaments.

 But I wanted to give it a bit of a twist and make them into scented sachets that look pretty and smell lovely.

So I had to stitch the back material in such as way that whoever gets them can change out the scented sachet if they like.

Here is the result without the filling. I think they turned out great:

Front 1

Back 1

Front 2

Back 2

So then I needed some muslin bags and a scented filling. I had a look online and muslin bags were fairly expensive but a metre of muslin was super cheap on EBay so I bought it and made my own bags:

Muslin Bags

Then I was finding it difficult to find dried lavender that wasn't a crazy price, alas no luck. However I did find instructions on making sachet filling with lavender oil and rice online HERE.

I decided to give it a go and here is my scented rice and my muslin bags all filled

Rice and oil mix

The Experiment.

But then I thought: what if the oil gets onto my lovely ornaments they end up with big oily stains so in the above picture I have one bag on a piece of AIDA and the other on a piece of cotton. I will leave them over night and see if the oil gets on the material. Also over night the oil should dry out fairly well and just leave the scented rice in its place.

I think the next time though I would put interfacing on the reverse of the stitching just to keep it safe, but we live and learn.

This is my first attempt at anything like this as normally I would frame the things I make. What do you think?

IHSW small progress on small projects

Well I didn't get a lot of hermitting done this weekend either. I always seem to manage to schedule things for the weekend of IHSW and don't get time to do much. One of these months I am going to free the whole weekend, turn off my phone and hermit properly.

Anyway I did mange to get a few stitches into some gift projects. The first is on of the Martha Diaz florals I have been working on I want to get this and the 4th one done as soon as I can.

Third Floral Mini Progress - Ultimate Maria Diaz Collection - Floral

The second is the Daisy type floral I was working one. If you read my previous post I was asking my readers their thoughts on which colour scheme to go with. Everyone said 2 was their preference so I went with that one, as I really like it as well, however the lightest pink still looks off so I think I will have to have another go at that. Anyway here it is:

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Gerbera

I am delighted to see that some others have joined in for YOTA. I am really looking forward to seeing what you are all working on in the New Year. I will sort out a link badge that you can put on your blog if you like before we start off in Jan.

I need your help

Well if you read yesterday's post you will know I have been having a little bit of a problem with the floral cross stitch I am trying to do for Christmas. I frogged all the DMC, pulled out my Anchor and tried again and lo and behold it looked pretty much the same, which is to say not at all like the picture.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. However I persevered and decided I would change the colours completely from the key list. I have done two sets of colours and would love to hear what your thoughts are. Which do you think looks better?

Choice 1:

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Gerbera

Choice 2:

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Gerbera

Please do let me know what you think. This would be the first time I have ever deviated from a pattern, so really need some thoughts from other stitchers.

Absolutely no time

Hey again all. I'm sorry I have been missing and that I have now neglected to do two Gift MAL's I had one all planned out, it was a stitching one but it all went wrong and I think I am going to have to try and restart.

Want to see anyway? Ok. The plan was the stitch the following three pieces, they are patterns from a magazine, I can't remember right now which one. The thread key has the Anchor numbers, then the DMC, then the Maderia. Since I have a full set of DMC that is the one I went with. The one I have worked on is the first one below.

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Gerbera

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Gerbera

Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Stargazer Lily
Flowers in Focus - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 190 - Anemone

However the colours don't look right at all. As you can see it does not look like the image. I am guessing that the original was stitched using Anchor. I have a chunk of the colours for these ones in Anchor so I may fish them out and see how they look in comparison with the DMC. The plan was to stitch the three and frame them together in a long frame.

I have had very little time for pretty much anything lately. Work and college have been crazy and a member of my family was very sick in hospital so that is why I have been missing and not updating any crafty stuff. I hope you all can forgive me :)

Also a reminder, anyone interested in joining in on my UFO SAL (Unfinished Object Stitch A Long) for 2013, don't forget to sign up in the YOTA tab at the top of this blog. For all those who have projects that are not stitching projects but might be knitting, quilting, whatever, and want some help motivating yourself to finish, please also feel free to join. I would love to see what you are all working on.

I just love IHSW Monday

I know that may sound a little strange, but I really love checking out all the crafty, stitchy blogs after IHSW. I really like seeing all the wonderful progress. This time around it is especially nice because I got no time to do anything myself so I'm getting my stitching fix through all of you.

My Plum Brandy has started to turn a beautiful deep red colour and at the moment I am shaking it every day. I didn't include the recipe in my MAL post and I felt bad about not being able to share it with you all, so I went online and found a recipe for it. This recipe is slightly different to the one I am using but it should work just as well, just click: HERE. I hope you guys liked this idea, I find it is a useful present to give to adults (only) who are difficult to buy for.

Unfortunately my entire weekend was taken up with study so I don't have anything to show you, though I will try and get another late MAL up in the next couple of days. I think it will be a cross stitching progress one so keep a look out :) Also don't forget to have a look at what the others have made at Tangled Threads and Tiki Stitches for some great ideas on some Christmas makes.

Don't forget if you want to join in, just click the tab above. Have a great day all :)

Gift MAL

My gift MAL is late, so this is my MAL from 5th October. This is a strange one and I haven't tried it before so I have no idea how it will turn out.

This is plum brandy. The recipe is from the book The Perfect Christmas. This takes 3 months to make and I know I am leaving it a bit late but hopefully it will be ready in 10 weeks instead of 12. I will try it in 10 weeks and see how it tastes, if it seems like it needs a bit more time I will give it to family members and tell them it will be a little late.

So here it is the Kilner jar:

Plum Brandy

Last year I made Christmas Spirit from this book, which is a Vodka based drink which takes about 4 weeks and it was really nice and everyone I gave it to loved it. I am planning to make some of the Christmas Spirit again this year. I will be putting this into some nice fancy bottles like these ones with a nice label and festive ribbon with the ingredients on it:

And here is the book and my plum brandy together:

Still here

Hey all. Sorry I have been missing for a while now. I am hoping to catch up with some posting, including the gift MAL, in the next few days. I have been keeping up with all your blogs and have been trying to comment when I can.

Thank you all for your comments on my last post, I have to admit that everything is indeed not ok, but will muddle through.

Unfortunately I won't have time to participate in the IHSW this weekend. I have a lot of stuff to try and catch up with so my crafting in general has been suffering.

I hope everyone is good, and I looking at all your wondering stitching has been making me want to work on my own so much. Please do check out Chic Crafting for a great idea on making a bath puff giftie from crochet. I think this is such a lovely idea. I am hoping to do some experiments with soap in the next little while and this would make a lovely addition to some handmade bath products so keep an eye out for those.

Have a great day everyone and see you all soon :)

To let you know

I will not be blogging for a couple of days. I know that gift MAL day was Friday and I haven't posted anything. I promise I will in a few days. Something has come up and I need to deal with that at the minute. I hope you all can be patient with me and I will be back as soon as I can.

Thanks.

I'm so super excited

Well guys this is the first of our Gift MAL (Make A-long). In an attempt to 1. get myself moving on my Christmas and other giftie makes, 2. get some inspiration and 3. hopefully give others inspiration, I have set up this Make A Long. There is a tab at the top of this page which has links to the other blogs involved, so make sure you visit them and see what they are up to as well.

I decided I would make a start on some of my Christmas cards - that's not a gift I hear you say. However a lot of time and effort can go into a card that looks just right, sometimes more than actually goes into some gift. Therefore my cards are usually just as important a feature. Getting the colours just right, getting the layout perfect, making backgrounds, putting it together just to realise something doesn't quite fit. Cards can be extremely individual as they are all put together by the person who made them rather than following a particular recipe.

Here he is all finished:

This Santa is from a set of Joanna Sheen's Giordano set of unmounted stamps called Our Family. The website can be found HERE. He was stamped on a cream piece of card in a sepia coloured ink. I decided not to colour him as I liked the rustic look of just the brown ink.

Next I made a background to mat this guy on, after much testing and dismissing of other backing papers. This was done using a gloss card and applying Adirondack inks, colours: Current, Latte, Ginger and Pearl as well as some blending solution using a blending tool to do so. I simply applied the colours to the tool and dabbed them all over the piece of card.

I then used Spellbinders, Shapeabilities dies - Parisian Accent- (also available at Joanna Sheen), with a golden brown card stock and cut two corners and a border. I layered the Santa image onto the inked background and put the two corners on the top and bottom right.

I put a piece of distressed script paper off centre on a 5" square cream card using double sided tape.

I then mounted my Santa topper to the right side of the card using double sided foam sticky pads and put the Shapeabilities border down the left of the card.

Here again is the finished result:

I love him. I think his little puppy and the birds around him are just so cute. I really hope you all enjoyed this first Gift MAL. I can't wait to see some of the others ideas. Any suggestions or comments are very welcome and if you wish to join in just visit the top tab for instructions.


Have a great day :)

I am going to give it a go - sure why not right?

I am going to set up a Gift MAL - Make-a-long. I need some Christmas gift ideas people and I think this could be a nice way for all those super crafty and talented people out there to share some gift ideas. Also I think it will help to actually get me to make a move on getting some gifties together in general.
So here is how it will work.

The first and third Friday of each month will be MAL post days until Christmas, then will probably reduce to just once a month.

Anyone interested in participating can do a post about their created pieces, sharing the item they made and maybe some instructions on how they created it.

It can be ANYTHING - cards, cross stitch, knitting, quilting whatever.

I will create a tab on this blog where people involved can link to their blogs so others can see what you are up to - I will do this as soon as I figure out how

I will also create a badge for this so that you all can post it on your blog and it will link back to the tab with all the blogs linked - when I can figure out how to that too :S

While I try and get those things set up please feel free to e-mail a link to your blog if you are interested and I will link them myself. E-mail: pulltheotherthread@gmail.com

Also I would love your feedback on this so please feel free to comment or e-mail me your thoughts.