There’s no planet B

The company I work for has a big push for sustainability. When I received issue 337 of The World of Cross Stitch (WOXS) and saw this pattern, I just had to make it. We have a sustainability liaison between our company and the parent company, based in Australia. I think this stitch will be a great for her desk or at home.

The pattern is supposed to be stitched on 28 count, but I don’t have that on hand, so I used 14 count instead. The satin stitching is when I think 28 count would have been helpful.

The colors are inspired by the pattern. I used leftovers from other projects. From what I can tell I actually had 2 shades of green mixed on one bobbin. I also ran out of blue and transitioned to another blue I had on hand. Can you tell from the picture?

I was able to find a frame that fit the finished piece perfectly at a local thrift store. I painted it black using paints I already had on hand.

I even taped the leftovers to the back so there was no waste. This was a fun pattern and small break from the giant full coverage projects I have going.

Stitching

Started: November 17, 2023

Finished: January 8, 2024

Stitching time: 25 hours 45 minutes

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Teddy bear

Birthday twins in the family are becoming more common. Not just the actual twins, nope, these are the new people marrying in and having babies. There’s just under 60 people in the family and there are 365 days a year. We have at least 5 overlapping birthdays already of non-twins. That just seems so crazy to me!

Anyway, this card didn’t take too terribly long to stitch. I actually outlined the letters as I went since I wanted the thin parts to be thicker, so two threads across the board on that one.

The bear I wanted to show a before/after of the stitching vs stitching with backstitching .

Here’s my wonderful cell phone photo of the bear before I got out the black thread for it. It’s always fun to see the before and after on these and the difference it makes.

The assembly of the card didn’t go as I’d hoped. It was a bit like the Hippo I made earlier this year. The paper is the thinner I guess regular printer paper weight and doesn’t handle being cut and taped down over the fabric very well.

It seems to go ok until the bottom and I get a bubble that turns into a pronounced crease. Other than that I like how this card turned out.

Stitching

Started: July 16th
Finished: July 20th

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Otter Love

The newest addition to the family by marriage loves otters…and Harry Potter. While Harry Potter is great, a little harder to come by cross stitch patterns. And for some reason I remember her otter love before HP.

I went searching for an otter pattern on Etsy and ended up with one from dailycrossstitch.com that is pretty adorable.

There are lots of browns in this pattern, with pops of color with the pink and blue. It’s a very easy pattern to work which is good when you need to move through them quickly.

This card ended up using a few new things I have learned about over the past year. First is the super new interfacing fabric that I think I mention every post now. The next is embossing powder for stamping.

The fun curves of this pattern lent itself to being one that is cut out and mounted. Since it doesn’t take up the full space I also decided to pull out some stamps. Then I read that the ink was the kind you can emboss with…and found I had bought powder called “Tinsel”. Knowing that Iris has mailed just glitter in an envelope before I couldn’t help but add some to the card.

I haven’t figured out how to “clean up” the powder before running the heat gun over it making everything permanent. So this attempt looks messy to me along with some areas being heavier on the glitter than others. Overall it’s a cute card that came together nicely.

Stitching

Started: April 21st
Finished: April 29th

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