Under a Copper Moon Finish & Holiday Patches

I last told you about this piece on June 29.

I have finished all the stitching!

The mountain is a piece of batik fabric. Toni gave us the mountain pattern and we placed in on our piece of fabric to decide which part of it to use. 

It was a lot of fun! It will fit in nicely with my other southwest stitching as soon as I can get them framed! We had a GREAT framer here who had a wonderful eye for color, used anti glare art glass and was very reasonably priced. Sadly he retired. But I enjoy my retirement. So,  I can't be too mad and wish him not to have a fun retirement.

So I now need a new project to stitch. I have been attempting to reduce my UFO (UnFinished Object) stash, so next up is Holiday Patches. It was a project I started in 2015 with my Night Canvas Group when I was with Foothills EGA. The Canvas group met at my house once a week.

The original project had fabric included, but the designer ran out of it, so we had to choose our own. We then had a list of threads and were to choose what would go with the fabric. Lucky for me,  I had fabric that worked with the original threads, so I did not have to figure out any substitutions. It is on 15"x16" stretcher bars.

Sometimes when I pull out one of these UFOs, I find a nice surprise. This time it is the cute snowman needle minder! 

This brings me to an odd trend I noticed. I started this UFO reduction with Yei-bi-chei, it had a second canvas (the mask) we had to applique onto the bigger canvas. So did Della Robia Santa with the garland and Under a Copper Moon with the moon.

Under a Copper Moon has fabric attached, just like Holiday Patches. Will this trend continue?? 

Happy Stitching!

Just a Short Public Service Announcment

I recently ordered some Kreinik braid online from one of my favorite local needlework stores (LNS) and it came in a white spool. I was wondering if this could be a counterfeit, like sometimes happens with hair products? Bottle looks the same except part of the cap is a different color.

So, when I was on the phone with a needlwork shop about something else, I asked her about it. She told me that the spool supplier for Kreinik ran out of black and only had white. So white it is!!

Bottom line:  if you happen upon a white spool of Kreinik, no fear it is the real thing!!

You can go back to stitching now.

Paper Crafting Supply Storage Idea

 Hello:

Today I am going to talk a little bit about paper crafting supply storage. I have quite a few punches. These are made of metal and very heavy. I used to store them in shoe boxes on a bottom shelf. A bottom shelf since they are so heavy. I weighed the box with the most punches and it was over 10 lbs. 

Well, I am getting tired of bending over and lifting those boxes. My husband has a Craftsman Tool cart, and I know the drawers can handle some weight, so,  I did some research and purchased a cart from my local ACE Hardware. They even assembled it and loaded it into our vehicle for us!

It snugs away in a corner of my studio and is well hidden by the doors.

I have punches in two of the drawers. 

Each drawer can handle 100 lbs (which is why I weighed the shoe box).

One of the thinner drawers handles my score board and other items.

The thinner drawer on the top handles all my Sizzix Big Shot items. 

I have a Fiskars rotary cutter (for thick items) and my supply bag I take to club on top of the cart.

The bottom drawer is nice and deep and holds my regular Sizzix Big Shot and my Sizzix Big Shot Plus.

This is great since it cleared desk space and it feels more open now. Also give me more room when I sew.

It is on wheels, but the they lock, so it stays in place. There is also a removeable handle on one side. 

So far it has been GREAT! My score board and cutter used to share the same drawer in another cabinet. Now my cutter is in there all by itself and I no longer have to move it to get to my score board.

That is all from here!

I Have a Dilemma & A Heart for Hospice UPDATE

UPDATE TO DILEMMA:

My friend Laurel did the Southwest Sampler and gave me the rest of her ball of #8 pearl cotton. I then found someone else with a partial ball and it should be enough!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was not aware until recently that anchor no longer makes pearl cotton for the U.S. market. This apparently has been the case for a number of years. Where have I been??

I was in need of some to finish off this Heart for Hospice heart. I had used thread from my stash and never thought I would need to worry about an Anchor thread.

I started out with some watercolor in my stash called Havana and worked from there choosing a purple and an ecru # 5 pearl cotton and some purple Kreinik braid. Well you can see in the photo there is a bit of green, that is where I ran out of the #5 Anchor Pearl cotton. I also needed some other pearl, so I went to a shop that told me they don't carry it. Then I called a shop in Denver and she told me the same thing, BUT she told me why. This was nice, since it saved me calling more shops or driving 50 - 60 miles one way to a shop.

So I was able to make it work by using some green from my stash and then I changed the Kreinik to a blue to pull the two together. Now I just have to remember which chapter was doing this (it was pre-covid) and turn it in!

But my biggest dilemma is my dire need for a ball of #8 Anchor Pearl Cotton in color 337. I have been collecting the threads for Margaret Bendig's Southwest Sampler from 2008 Needlepoint Now. I have found everything except the #8 pearl. There are three colors and DMC makes an almost perfect match for all of them, except they do not make DMC #3778 in pearl, only floss. The closest DMC in pearl cotton is #352 and that is WAY TOO PINK.

So, I am on a hunt for a ball of #8 Anchor pearl color 337. I am also working on other possible work arounds. I have a friend who did this piece and she gave me the rest of her ball of cotton. I also looked at her piece and it looks like this thread is only used on one area, but it is the border and this piece is 15"x16". I would hate to run out near the end! I thought about using three strands of floss instead, but the border stitch uses two of the #8 pearls. So it would not look good to do one half pearl and the other floss. I suppose I could try floss for both? So much easier if they still sold pearl here in the U.S.

I learned years ago, that if you buy a chart that uses special threads to get those right away because dye lots change or they stop making the thread. I never thought that would have been true for Anchor Pearl Cotton!

Happy Stitching!

Della Robia Santa is a Standup!

 I decided to make Della Robia Santa into a stand up myself.  I think I did a fine job!

I used four layers of foam core, wrapping two layers with fabric and two with the stitching. I padded the stitching side. I used archival red line tape and stainless steel pins. I also cut and covered a strip of foam core to serve as the base so it would not fall over! Before I covered the base, I used my sewing machine to sew my initials and the date on the fabric since these were not on the stitched piece.

I then used redline tape and secured the front to the back and covered the seam with some red grosgrain ribbon and some fancy gold and white ribbon.

I used the two ribbons to make a flat bow and then I secured it down in the center with a fancy stitch counter I had on hand. I have a pin cushion with stitch counters I have collected from seminars, chapter events and gifts from friends. I do not really use them as stitch counters, they just add pretty to the pin cushion. I had two of these that looked like Christmas and so I used one for my Santa.

As a follow up to my last post about this Santa, I used Kreinik #4 braid in color 32 for the background. It is stitched with Father B's Background stitch.

Finally my little helper:

Happy Stitching!!