Showing posts with label Lima Beans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lima Beans. Show all posts

Monday, September 23, 2013

Lima Beans Finished!


The other day I was reading back in my blog, and I was chagrined to see that it was back in June that I was starting to hint that this project was almost finished. I guess not! But, now it's finally done.

I started out thinking that this would be an easy, tv watching project, but it was not nearly as forgiving as I expected. Even when counting was not an issue on the large flat areas, I still had to give it my full attention in order to make neat stitches on the 18 ct aida and cover the fabric as much as possible.

In the end it was just sheer persistence to finish it. I would strip 6 strands of the black brown floss each day, sew until they were gone, and then put it away again. Now I think I will do the same thing with all the metallic gold on Celtic Spring,* which has been stuck for a while too. I have too many cross stitch projects on the go, so I am determined to finish some of them! Anyway, it is nice to have this one done. :)


*Holy moly, I see I haven't posted on Celtic Spring since last November!!! But, I do want to finish the dratted gold in the hem before I show it again...

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Lima Beans Update

Lima Beans? Update?? I know, the beginning of this project was buried in another post, so it is unlikely anyone remembers it. But, it has been coming along this week:


This is the first of four seed packet patterns from June Grigg that I bought in the early 90s and am finally getting around to.  The stitching is on 18 ct aida, and the texture and coverage are really nice.  I remember now that the texture is what attracted me to the projects in the first place, when I saw the samples in June's booth so long ago. I wish you could all feel it through your screens!

Other than some cross stitch and a few more stars, I've mainly been waffling about some design ideas this past week.  I've been over to Fabricland three days in a row now.  Yesterday I had finished my shopping and was driving out the driveway, when I had another idea and turned around to go back again! Most of my plans have been for the RVQG BOM, but today I cracked and bought some Christmas fabric too.  It's hard to say no to $5 per metre! And we need new Christmas placemats...

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Cross Stitch Without a Frame

I am so, so far behind with my blog posts!  I have been busy but disorganized.  Now, though, I am going to start catching up!

I have been going through a cross stitch phase again recently.  Celtic Spring kind of ground to a halt around late February when I filled up my 11" x 17" Q Snap frame and debated the best way to proceed from there.  Up until a week ago it looked like this:


In the past I would have done a large project like this on a scroll frame.  However, when I discovered Q Snap frames I swore I would never go back to scroll frames.  Scroll frames are so heavy, and I am constantly either banging my arm or catching the thread on the knobs.  With my dodgy back I have to lean back in my chair, so I can't use a seat or floor frame comfortably.  This project does fit into a 17" x 20" Q Snap frame, but the frame was so big I couldn't fit my arm around it!  So as an interim measure I put it into this 11" x 17" frame which was easier to manage.

Once I started using the metallic gold thread and I realized how important it was to maintain the crinkles in the thread, I started to worry about what would happen to the gold thread when I had to move the frame over the already stitched areas of the work.  I thought about doing a test patch, but I never got around to it.  While I was dithering about that I decided to work on something easier:


This may well be the first cross stitch pattern I ever bought.  I bought it back in the mid 1990s from June Grigg herself.  She and her husband had come all the way up from Atlanta to Toronto to have a booth at the Creative Sewing & Needlework Festival, which is now called the Creativ Festival.  I remember because they were both very nice.  It seems to me that the festival used to be more fun back then, with a wider range of vendors.  It was before Christmas, and I think it was held in the old Automotive Building at the Ex.  The whole place was strung with white fairy lights above the vendor stalls.  My friend and I went up to the mezzanine where you could look out over the lights and the entire festival - it was quite a sight!

These patterns have always been reasonably high on my cross stitch bucket list, but when I had another look at the leaflet last fall I worried that the large flat areas of colour might be too boring.  Then I realized that sometimes easy is a good thing, so I went ahead and bought the materials.  Another tv project!  I put it into a small Q Snap frame.

What I discovered, though, was that stitching the 18 count aida actually took more concentration than I wanted to give it.  For some reason, when I did my Kittens project on 18 count last fall I didn't notice the concentration needed to make the stitches, probably because I was already concentrating a lot on the counting.  The whole thing was feeling awkward, and I was remembering how much easier my redwork became when I took it out of the hoop, so I took the plunge.


The very dark brown and the green parts here are cross stitches, and the mahogany on the left and pale yellow and green on the right are half cross stitches.  I did the half crosses entirely from the top of the fabric, going down and up in one motion.  With the cross stitches I found it was better to still do stab stitches even with the fabric in hand.  When you look at the mahogany part especially you can see that the stitches are not too even.  However, it is so much faster that I will probably continue that way!  With the cross stitches you cannot see the difference at all between the stitches worked on the frame and the stitches worked in hand.

I have gone on for long enough now, so I'll show you how this worked on the linen evenweave of Celtic Spring tomorrow!


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