Tag: Holly berry pixie

Finish One, Start Another and My Blogaversary
Bella Filipina Designs · cross stitch · Cross Stitch Patterns · Fabric · Hand Dyed Fabrics · patterns

Finish One, Start Another and My Blogaversary

My Time Stitching28 Comments

Hello my blogging friends! How are you doing? The sun is partially out today, making my craft room bright. The perfect place to type out my post today.

So let’s start with my Blogaversary! Tomorrow will be my 11 year blogaversary! I truly cannot believe that it has been 11 years since I started this little ole’ blog of mine. I originally started this blog as a place to document my crafting and share with others. I can’t tell you how much joy it has brought me and how many wonderful people I have met. I appreciate each and every one of you that has stopped by to take a look at what I have been up to. I have enjoyed reading all of your wonderful comments as well. So for the next 6 days I will be having a giveaway. Each day I will post a picture of a giveaway and a code word for you to leave in your comment. On March 31, 2023 I will post the winners of all of the giveaways. I will post more at the end of the post. Now let’s get to my finish!

I have strictly worked on Holly Berry Pixie the last few weeks. This is where I was the last time I posted.

I finished all of the stitching and was so excited to start beading that I forgot to take a picture before the beading started.

So many beautiful, sparkly beads! I beaded the top portion while on my scroll frame. Then I switched to a large Qsnap.

When adding my beads, I use a thread that matches the color of the bead. If the beads are clear, then I use a thread that matches my fabric. I put a half stitch to attach my beads, from lower left, through the bead and down through the top right. This way my beads sit at an angle. It is not the only way to attach beads, but my preferred method. Putting a full cross stitch through the bead will attach the bead sitting straight up and down. Whichever way you want your beads to lay is totally up to you. The tray I use to hold my beads is a Tacky Bob. The name has changed to Tacky Bill. Not sure why, but the ones that I have are Tacky Bob’s. It looks like a small CD case with adhesive foam on both sides of the inside. I have always beaded with these and love them.

A picture of my stitchy spot. She is looking so beautiful! Almost done with this beauty!

And she is finished!! Sorry for the dark image. I had so much difficulty getting a good picture of her and the fabric. I am so happy with how she turned out. I will be looking for a framer this year to get her framed before the holidays. Now for all the details: She is Holly Berry Pixie from Bella Filipina Designs. Fabric is 16ct Aida, a One of A Kind from Fantasy Dyed Fabrics (she is no longer dying) and she is stitched as charted.

Once I finished Holly Berry, I immediately started a new project that has been ready for the last month.

This one is not my style of stitching, but it was a request from my oldest son. And when a child requests a cross stitch for his gaming room, you ask excitedly “what would you like?” He chose this design from an Etsy designer, Rack & Pinion. So I immediately purchased the PDF, went stash diving into my fabrics and pulled all of the threads. Everything was all ready to go. Here is my small start.

I am stitching this on 16ct Aida Everything Else from Mystic Fabrics. It is more of a cream color, not white like it looks in the photo. I will admit that this project is a little boring. I am not used to stitching just blocks of color. My son is in no hurry for it, so I can see myself doing other things in between stitching on this. Like some smaller projects. I have fallen down the hole of the Flosstube world and have seen so many smaller designs that I want to do. Well, I will be honest, I want to start all of the things!! But that would be a lot of WIP’s so I am restraining myself…for now. More about the flosstube world in another post, but how do you feel about flosstubes? Have you watched any? What are your favorites?

Now to that giveaway. Again, tomorrow is my 11 year blogaversary. So fun! I want to share some of things that make me happy. Bella Filipina has quickly become one of my very favorite cross stitch designers. So how about one of his beautiful designs?

This one is a beauty and she is in my stash to stitch someday. So if you would like a chance to win this pattern, put the word Reina in your comment on this post. I will choose a winner next Friday.

So that is what I have been up to. What are you creating?

Happy Stitching!

Ginny

Sunday Stitching
Bella Filipina Designs · cross stitch · Hand Dyed Fabrics · Knitted Shawl · Knitting · Pixie · yarn

Sunday Stitching

My Time Stitching13 Comments

Happy Sunday, my blogging friends. We had a snowstorm on Friday with a dumping of 10″ of the heavy white stuff. There was Thundersnow and lightning and white out conditions. The sun came out on Saturday and quite a bit of it has melted. Today was just an easy Sunday inside, doing a little laundry and some stitching.

I spent quite a bit of time stitching on Holly Berry Pixie. The designer is Bella Filipina Designs and I am stitching her on a one of a kind 16ct Aida from Fantasy Dyed Fabrics (she is no longer dying fabric). When I last posted about her, I had her skirt done and the berries at the bottom.

Since then I have added many stitches.

Look at that beautiful face! I have added some back stitching and more of the ribbons along the sides.

I have so enjoyed seeing this sweet pixie come to life. The colors are so bright and vibrant. And this is where I left her today.

Just a few more berries and then filling in of all the sparkles and draping strands of blue Kreinik, which I may need another spool of. I am not sure I started with a partial spool or not, but I don’t think I will have enough left for the amount of strands I need to stitch. And then I can get onto the beading. Lots of beautiful, sparkly beads. I will pick this up again tonight and maybe get my berries finished. I like to do most of my cross stitch at night. A habit I fell into after I had my children and while they were growing up. I like to spend my morning knitting with my coffee and I do have a new knitting project.

I recently purchased this yarn cake from The Yarn Garden. The Head Gardner there, Lindsay, talked about this yarn on her Feature Friday video a little over a week ago. If you are looking for something to do on Friday mornings, her facebook videos are great and I always learn something from her. You can find her videos on her facebook page The Yarn Garden. Her live videos are on Friday from 11:00 am to noon ET. Anyway, she talked about Wonderland Yarns doing a year long series with their Garden Club Blossoms called Ocean. Each month will include a Blossom Cake, a pattern and a stitch marker. This cake is the February cake and the color is called Great Barrier Reef Anemones. It came with a hat pattern that is cute, but I didn’t feel like making a hat. So I spent a lot of time on Ravelry looking for a shawl or cowl pattern that would work with this yarn. I wasn’t coming up with anything and sought the help of a friend. She came up with a couple of great ideas and I decided on the 22 Little Clouds pattern by Martina Behm. It is a free pattern on Ravelry and I think it is more of a shawlette, a smaller shawl.

I got started right away and couldn’t help but notice that my nails matched my knitting again. I like when that happens 😉 And here is where I left off this morning.

I am enjoying this knit and am really looking forward to seeing the color changes. I like knitting with this Mad Hatter Sport yarn. It is soft and knits up nicely. I did find a shop online that had 1 skein left of the January cake and I will show that one in a future post. Oh, I did forget to mention that each month comes with a post card with some beautiful artwork on one side and project tracking information on the other. Here is the February card.

So that is how I spent my Sunday. Doing what I love; Stitching. What did you work on today?

Happy Stitching,

Ginny

Holly Berry Pixie
Bella Filipina Designs · cross stitch · Fabric · Hand Dyed Fabrics · Pixie · WIP

Holly Berry Pixie

My Time Stitching20 Comments

Hello my blogging friends! January got away from me and I thought I had better make a post before February disappears! Though when February is over, I will be even closer to Spring. But I really cannot complain about this winter. Temps have been above normal for the most part and we have not gotten much snow. Yay!! I will take it! The days do seem to be going by so fast for me. Maybe that is why I hurt my back over the weekend. In too much of a hurry and twisted wrong. So, I have been taking it easy the last couple of days and getting in lots of knitting and cross stitching. Today I will share with you what I have been cross stitching on.

Let me introduce you to Holly Berry Pixie from Bella Filipina Designs.

I fell absolutely in love with this pattern when it was released in December. I could not get her in my hands fast enough! I ordered right away and then went stash diving to find the perfect fabric. And boy did I find the perfect fabric!

The fabric is more pink than this photo shows and I think it is very similar to the fabric shown in the design. It is 16ct aida from Fantasy Dyed Fabrics (the dyer is no longer dying fabric) and I think it has been in my stash just for this design.

My floss toss with the threads that I have on hand. I definitely think this fabric will work well with all of the threads. The pattern arrived on January 6, well before I expected and I started her right away. Well, after digging for a scroll frame first, LOL. So, yep, I have added another WIP to my pile. And I needed the break from the Fox & Rabbit Mystery SAL. I hope to finish this one so that it can be displayed on my wall, somewhere, for the Christmas holidays next year.

My start. I am loving every stitch of this one. I love seeing her come to life on the pink fabric.

The red just pops on the pink fabric. Her skirt is so cute!!

This is where I left her last night. I am loving this pattern so much. Even the berries 😉

So that is my first new start of 2023. I am hoping that I don’t get sucked into too many cross stitch starts this year as my pile is still driving me crazy. In fact, let me share my pile.

My Local Yarn Shop is doing a Bingo card to help knitters and crocheters get their yarny WIP’s February Finished Objects. The shop owner suggested gathering all of the WIP’s and putting them in a pile to see what we have. Since I am caught up on my knitting projects with just 2-current project and a travel project, and no crochet projects, I decided to pull out all of my cross stitch WIP’s. There is a blanket I had started that has to be abandoned because the fabric has yellowed 😦 And another project that was started that I probably won’t continue with. There is one more project that I will be adding for sure, but this is the pile. I would like to make good progress on all of these this year and maybe finish a few. My ultimate goal is to get back to one cross stitch project at a time. That is my ultimate goal every year, though, LOL Do you have a WIP pile? If so, how many? I’d love to hear about your WIP’s.

Happy Stitching!

Ginny