Our Family

Welcome to my site! I use this blog to post my progress on the cross stitch and knitting projects that I am working on. You can find out more about me, check out more details about my projects, or check out a random post. You can also subscribe to my RSS Feed to receive updates as I post them. You can also contact me if you have any suggestions, questions, or random thoughts. Have a look around and feel free to come back often.

It has been a while since I have posted any new pictures.

Part of the reason for this is that I haven’t really had anything to show. Summer activities have made knitting and cross stitching rare activities for me.

Another reason for this is the problem that I have had working on this piece. I have to confess that I only stitched it for three hours.All that is left to stitch are some fiddly butterflies, flowers, interlocking hearts, and the gold border. However, the thought of stitching another butterfly with blending filament covering the wings was just more than I could take. (The fact that it took three hours to stitch the small rose and butterfly body up by the words is a testament to the agony I felt.) So I decided to cheat on the rotation and hope that the next time it comes around I will be in a better mood to work on it.

At the time I didn’t want to publicly admit my failure. Even now I feel pangs of guilt for abandoning this project.

As I work on this piece I am beginning to think that I am getting close to finishing it. There are a few cross stitches left and then all that remains is a lot of backstitching and ribbon embroidery. It will be a relief to actually finish this piece because I loathe the feel of the fabric so much that stitching becomes a chore.

The other part of stitching that has been difficult for me is that most of the design is comprised of small blocks of color. When you have to change floss after every five stitches, the process becomes tedious. I also tend to run out of places where I can run threads under stitches in the back, which makes things start to look quite messy.

In spite of my complaints and whining, I like how this is looking. I will be especially excited to try my hand at ribbon embroidery. Hopefully in the end it will look good enough to pass as the gift that I intend it to be.

A lot of the work that I have done on this piece is invisible. That is because I had to cover the butterflies in the bottom right with blending filamet. I have found that stitching with floss and filament at the same time pretty much covers up the filament and negates the desired effect. So I first stitch using floss only and then I restitch with blending filament only over the top leg of the cross. This makes things nice and sparkly and is worth the extra time needed to cover ground twice.

I am feeling like I am starting the beginning of the end of this piece. This excites me as I will be glad when it is finished.

This piece will eventually have the family pedigree chart graced with some silk ribbon embroidery. I bought this as a kit, but I didn’t want to stitch it on the Aida that it came with. So I bought a piece of linen for it. For some reason I have come to loathe the material I chose. I don’t like the way it feels. This has made working on this piece a real chore. I plan on eventually giving it to my parents, otherwise I would have thrown it out a long time ago. As it is, I grit my teeth and work on it every time it comes up in the rotation.