Tag: cross stitch bags

Good Bye 2024, Happy 2025!
Bella Filipina Designs · cross stitch · Fabric · Hand Dyed Fabrics · knitted scarves · Shannon Christine · yarn

Good Bye 2024, Happy 2025!

My Time Stitching5 Comments

Hello my blogging friends! How have you been? I have missed you so much! It’s been a while and 2024 is over! I can’t say that it was all bad, but I am happy to welcome in 2025. My biggest highs of 2024 came near the end. In October my husband and I celebrated our 40th anniversary. We chose to spend it at the zoo with our kids. It was there that our youngest son and his wife told us that they were expecting their first child. We are going to be first time Grandparents in June 2025. We are over the moon. We had a wonderful day, being all together at the zoo. And about a week before Christmas, we found out the baby is a girl! We can’t wait to meet our Granddaughter this summer ❤ And just a fair warning, there will be even more pink things to come 😉

So how were your holidays? What have you been crafting on? Did you finish all of the projects that you wanted to in 2024? I am happy with what I finished in 2024 except for 1 project. I will talk about that in the knitting part of my post. Even though I haven’t been posting, I have been crafting and I plan on sharing the things I have worked on in future posts.

I do have a new word for 2025 and that is PATIENCE. I definitely need to have more patience in my life with what I am crafting on, what I need to get to, with healing, learning new things, and with myself. Something I am definitely going to work on this year.

So let’s get to what you are really here for…My Stitching. What am I stitching on?

I have pulled out the Black Water Sirens SAL from Bella Filipina Designs. This SAL started on October 31, right in the middle of the fabric with a Treasure Chest.

I am stitching this on 16ct Aida Epically Evil Fairy Godmother from Those Missing Stitches. It only took me a few days to get this Treasure Chest stitched up, minus the beads which I will add at the end of the SAL. After finishing this first part, I stitched on other projects and couldn’t wait to get back to this one. On Christmas day I pulled it out again to get stitching on part 2. And this is where it is as of last night.

Part 4 came out on December 30, so I have some catching up to do. But I am so happy to be stitching on this one again. It is going to be amazing. My fabric is actually green and not yellow like in the photo above.

Yesterday I picked up a couple of pieces that I had put in for framing. This one I put in for framing in early December. When I brought it home, it began puckering more and more.

The frame I originally chose was not deep enough for the spacers and the beads and the ribbon on the headband were pressed up against the glass. I took it back and had to pick a different frame. Picking a frame takes me so long. And this time was even more difficult because I thought I had already chosen the perfect frame.

The first frame I chose is a frame that I often go right to. I love this frame and didn’t know if I could find another one that I really loved. But I did find one that I thought would be a good fit and when I picked her up yesterday, I knew it was the right one.

I love how it looks; like a shadow box with the deeper frame space and the extra spacers. I love it! The pattern is The Frog Princess from Brooke’s Books Publishing. The fabric is 16ct Aida Friendship Greene from Fabrics by Steph. Eventually I want to stitch all of the Princess dresses from Brooke’s Books Publishing and maybe this frame will be perfect for all of them.

The second piece I had put in for framing is Winter Snowfall.

I finished stitching this piece back in February of 2022 and was so happy to finally put it in for framing. I did have a difficult choice though. Picking the perfect frame is so hard! But I did make a decision and this is what I chose.

It is really is so beautiful. The frame really picks up the gold beads in person. So immediately after taking this photo, the Christmas picture was pulled down from the wall and this one put up in my dining room. It is the space that I am always changing out my framed pieces. Right now my dining room is decorated in a pink and white winter theme, so this piece is perfect!

Again, the pattern is Winter Snowfall by Shannon Christine Designs. It is stitched on 16ct Aida Valyrian Steel from Fabrics by Steph. There is a companion piece to this that I would love to stitch some day.

The last stitch I have to show you today is a knitted piece.

This is the Lothian Scarf I finished for my husband. I had hoped to get it finished before Christmas, but that didn’t happen. I finished it a few days after. It still needs blocking and I will take a better picture of the pattern in it then. The pattern is a free pattern on Ravelry by Home of Cords. I couldn’t get the edge stitches to be tight so I changed them to garter stitch. The pattern is charted on a graph and was very easy to follow. It was a really relaxing knit. The yarn is from Passions Yarns. It is their Baby Weight Fingering in the color Go Your Own Way. It is 70% Bably Alpaca and 30% Silk so it is really soft and was easy to knit with. Hubby picked this yarn out when we went to a Fiber Fest in October.

So that is all I have to share with you today. I hope that your holidays were wonderful and that your 2025 will be filled with Love, good health, happiness and of course, lots of stitching. Tell me in the comments what you have been crafting on. I want to hear all about it.

Happy Stitching!

Ginny

I Started A New SAL and Project Bags
cross stitch · Fabric · Hand Dyed Fabrics · Mermaids · Mystery Stitch A Long · Project Bags · Stitch A Long · Tiny Modernist

I Started A New SAL and Project Bags

My Time Stitching10 Comments

Hello blogging friends! Spring still has not arrived where I am. Severe weather is in order for today, so I am getting my blogging done early.

In a previous post I told you a little about a new SAL that I signed up for.

The Ocean Pearl Series by Tiny Modernist. The word Ocean grabbed me as well as the cute little mermaid. I showed you that I found fabric in my stash (Bonus!!) and ordered the threads. The fabric is 16ct Aida in color Cascade by Fabrics By Stephanie. I am using the dyed flosses from Classic Colorworks and Weeks Dye Works as well as 3 DMC colors as recommended.

The first section came out on April 1 and I was so excited to get started.

So I was stitching on this project and the hanging threads were driving me crazy. So I pulled out some of my extra clear bobbins from GWStitchinDepot and my label printer.

I don’t think I can be a floss drop stitcher. I know that there is not much floss on Classic Color Works cards, but I don’t like working with them hanging and having to put the floss back through the hole. I am a bobbin girl and I love these clear bobbins that I had purchased a while ago. I had put some CCW threads and Waterlilies threads on these bobbins before, so I already had a file saved in my PT Touch. So all I had to do was open the file, change the text for each color and print them out. I did have to trim them a little so they would fit at the top of my bobbin.

Ahhh. This is so much better! Now I can continue stitching. This is where I am at with Ocean Pearl.

Just look at that cute little seahorse and those little fish! This is a cutesy pattern, but I am really liking it. And I do like stitching with Classic Color Works threads and Weeks Dye Works threads. There is something about stitching one X at a time that feels different, but fun. And of course, a cute mermaid bag for a cute mermaid project. I’m not sure if I showed that bag before or not. These are my favorite project bags from @clevergirldesignsco. She does a beautiful job on her construction and choosing fabrics. At the end of 2022 my husband bought me another year of bags. One a month for a year, but I let Kristine know that she can do them anytime and the last couple of years she has been doing 2 or 3 at a time.

These are my November and December bags plus an added bonus of an extra mermaid tail zipper pull or knitting progress marker. These bags have the vinyl fronts which I LOVE. That way I don’t have to unzip the bag to see what is inside. I have many of these bags and love that I can just flip through them.

Here are my January, February and March bags. This is the front of the bags with the vinyl fronts.

This is the back of the bags. I never have any idea what my bags will look like. They are all a surprise when I get them. But I know they will be beautiful and very well made. Kristine has a knack for putting prints with prints that look amazing together. All of my bags have projects in them. The yellow bag on the right contains my Rainbow Dice project because the colors are so similar.

I recently purchased some pink bins to hold all of my project bags. The other pink bin on the shelf above holds all of my leftover yarn from projects. It is full.

All of my project bags have a kitted project in them. And as you can see in the left bin, I still have to replace some of those little plastic bags with pretty Clevergirl bags. I think by the end of the year I will make that goal.

So that is what I have been up to. How do you store your kitted projects?

Happy Stitching!

ginny