Tag: dmc floss

Fox And Rabbit MSAL
cross stitch · Fox and Rabbit · Hand Dyed Fabrics · mystery sampler

Fox And Rabbit MSAL

My Time Stitching12 Comments

Hello my blogging friends! It is snowing where I am, so I have now had to accept that Winter is definitely here, even though the calendar says it is Fall. It is beautiful, looking out from my craft room window. And I am happy that I don’t have anywhere to go. I am also thankful not to be on the west side of my state or in Buffalo, New York right now. I think that is where they are getting blasted with a lot of snow and snow so hard that visibility is almost nil.

So I wanted to talk a little about the Fox & Rabbit Mystery Stitch A Long. First I have to say that this company is so awesome. They have been giving us FREE Mystery SAL’s for the last 6 years! The first one was in 2017 and that was my very first sampler that I ever stitched. I loved every minute of that stitch. It hangs in my craft room so I can see it whenever I am in my happy place 🙂

The Samplers from 2017-2021 are available for purchase on the Fox & Rabbit website. The current 2022 MSAL is available for FREE at least until the end of the year. So if you are interested in stitching the 2022 sampler, you can still download all of the sections through November for FREE and the December section will be available December 1. With these samplers, you choose the fabric and the threads you want to stitch with. It can be whatever you want it to be. I have stitched all but 2 of the samplers and they are well written and so beautiful. You can join their facebook group and see all of the beautiful fabrics and threads chosen by so many people from around the world. I can’t say enough how thankful I am for this company and their generosity with their beautiful designs.

As you know, I have been stitching on the 2022 MSAL even though I procrastinated when it first came out in January. I am so happy that I decided to add this project to my list this year and am over the moon happy that I was able to get it all caught up a couple of months ago. Which brings me to where I am now with the project.

This section was actually stitched sideways on my scroll frame and I was worried that my DMC variegated floss would not look nice, but I love the way it turned out. I did manipulate the colors where I wanted, like in the vase. I purposely made the vase and leaves darker, with the thought that I wanted the flower more red.

This is my finished piece so far. It is a very large piece, too. And I am so happy with how it has turned out. So now I wait to see what December will bring to finish off this gorgeous design. Many thanks again to Brendan at Fox & Rabbit for this beautiful and generous design. For the details; the fabric is 16ct Aida Winter Wishes from Fabrics By Stephanie. The floss is DMC 115 for most of the project with DMC 902 for backstitching the letters.

So that is what I have been up to. For now I will leave you with a picture of the view out my craft room window and wonder what are you stitching on?

Happy Stitching!

Ginny

New Floss Organization
Floss · organization

New Floss Organization

My Time Stitching13 Comments

I know, I know. I just reorganized my floss a couple of months ago. Well, I went a step further. Remember I re wound all of my floss from cardboard bobbins to acrylic bobbins?

Acrylic Bobbins

Well, I kept seeing posts on Facebook about a cute little cabinet that people were putting their bobbins into. For some reason I thought the cabinet was something that was available in the UK. So I decided to google the Bisley Cabinet. And wow! It is available at the Container Store! A place I LOVE to shop at but had not been in a long while. So, last week hubby and I jumped in the car and drove the 30 minutes to the nearest Container Store. And this is what I picked up.

Pink Bisley Cabinet

Of course it had to be pink. But it does come in several other colors. I had also seen that GWStitchinDepot makes acrylic dividers for the Bisley drawers. Well, I just knew this was better than the boxes that I had them in and so I ordered them. They arrived yesterday.

Acrylic Dividers

The acrylic dividers came in long and short strips with grooves cut into them and were super easy to put together.

Each drawer now has 30 sections where I can add my acrylic bobbins. This system can be used for anything, though.

Acrylic Bobbins added to the divided sections

I put 5 bobbins in each section, even though a lot of my bobbins are empty due to so much floss being in projects that are already in progress. While the drawers look so awesome with all the beautiful bobbins, I can’t wait until all bobbins are filled.

I just love my new system. If you are interested in any of the acrylic bobbins or dividers or other acrylic options, they are available from GWStitchinDepot on Etsy. She does a fantastic job and they are well made. If you have questions, you can message her through Etsy and she is quick to respond and super sweet.

Now another reason to continue to work on getting those WIP’s finished; getting all of my acrylic bobbins filled and into their new home in the Bisley.

Acrylic Bobbins
Floss · Storage

Acrylic Bobbins

My Time Stitching4 Comments

A couple of months ago I saw a post in a Facebook group about Acrylic Bobbins. Wow! I loved how sleek and smooth they looked. Someone was making them and selling them on Etsy. This same seller was selling a complete set of vinyl labels with all the DMC #’s. I am a sucker for reorganizing and storage. So I had to go check it out. After chatting with the Seller, I had to order! I couldn’t wait for them to arrive. And when they did, I went right to work. I added the labels to the new acrylic bobbins and spent 2 days unwinding my flosses from the paper and cardboard bobbins and winding them onto the new bobbins.

New Acrylic Bobbins

Just at look at how awesome those bobbins are looking! It was so fun and relaxing winding a skein of each of the colors that are not being used and putting them in the perfect box. When I received my set of bobbins, they arrived in this case:

Full set of Acrylic Bobbins

I was able to find more of these boxes at a local Menards store. I believe that they are available on Amazon. But isn’t everything? LOL. I think that my entire set will fill 3 of these boxes. I tried to leave adequate room for the empty bobbins, but I could end up using a 4th box.

My New Bobbin Storage

I love how these bobbins look in their boxes and they will look even better some day when I can get the empty bobbins filled. I have 11 or 12 projects in the works with floss in each of them that will eventually make their way onto the empty bobbins. I went back and forth trying to decide if I wanted to wind new flosses onto the empty bobbins, or try to use the 150 floss that are already in projects. I decided to eventually move the existing flosses over to the new bobbins. That means I have to get working on those WIP’s and get them done! Here is my small box of flosses I used for Mermaid Perfume.

Perfect Bobbins

I love that the numbers on the bobbins are at top of the bobbin rather than on the side as they were on my paper bobbins. The bobbins on the right have Caron Waterlilies on them. I even tried making my own labels with my brother printer. They will work for now, but the ink is not as crisp as with my purchased labels. If you are interested in these bobbins, the seller is GWStitchinDepot on Etsy. These bobbins are well made and look awesome! She has different quantities available and you can get the bobbins with the hole in the top or without. She also has the labels. If you purchase the labels, I do recommend the dental tool she sells for picking the labels off of the label sheet. I am so happy to know that I won’t need to purchase paper bobbins ever again.

How do you store your threads?

Floss · Storage

My Floss Storage

My Time Stitching42 Comments

I was pulling threads for my next project and realized that I never shared where I store my skeins of floss.  DMC cabinet

I think that Hubby ordered this for me back in 1998.  It is a limited edition DMC floss cabinet.  I have number 1386 of 2000 made in 1999.  I remember it took a long time to get as they were ordered in advance and made after ordering.  It’s in my living room, so it is a little scratched up from 2 boys and their toys over the years.  But I love it!  I have patterns to stitch panels for the doors that will have my initials on them.  I just haven’t gotten to yet.  I’ve liked the wood doors for years, and only this last year dug out the patterns to do in the near future.  Here is what it looks like when I open the doors:

dmc cabinet open

It has 13 drawers and the first 12 drawers are numbered with dmc floss numbers. The drawers have sections in the front and back for the floss.

close of dmc cabinet drawers

dmc drawer

Whenever I need floss for a project, I usually check my boxes of bobbins first and then pull the threads that I need from here.  I make a list of what is empty and the next time I go to Joannes or Michaels I pick up the colors and replace them.  I have noticed that some of my floss skeins are really old and a slightly different color than a newer skein.  I hope I pay attention to this when I want to use those colors on a project and make sure that I don’t use them together.  I love my floss cabinet.  It’s so fun to open a drawer and see all the beautiful colors.  The bottom drawer is my “junk drawer” of the cabinet.  It’s full of black and white floss and duplicate skeins.  I also store all of my needles, small scissors and some varigated floss in there.  Where do you store you embroidery floss?

DMC logo plate