Lambie slippers for Easter

On Tuesday, I saw that the Yarn Harlot had made little lambie slippers for her niece and nephew for Easter.  My niece is Greek Orthodox, so she celebrates Easter today, and l decided that she needed adorable lambie slippers for Easter, too.  Never mind that the Yarn Harlot lives in Canada and here it is already eighty degrees and humid.   These were quick and fun to knit and l think they came out pretty cute.

Cross-stitch Roses

This is one of my loooooong term UFOs.  I started it in high school.  I was kind of on an embroidered pillowcase kick, because I was using a set of pillowcases that my mom had embroidered with her grandmother's help when she was in high school.  I decided to embroider some pillowcases and started two sets, including this printed cross-stitch rose set. The first case is finished except for some stem-stitching, but in the 10+ years it's been in storage, it's gotten some pretty bad brown stains.  I don't want to wash it before it's done for fear of washing off the pattern, so I'm just going to finish it and hope it washes clean.  This is probably my most depressing UFO.

I couldn't face all the stem-stitching, so I started the cross-stitching on the second pillowcase.  I like cross-stitching a lot more than stem-stitching, plus the brown discoloration isn't anywhere near as bad as it is on the first one.  Also, I'm going to run out of the green thread soon, so I might as well stretch that out until I get to the craft store again.

Pincushion finished!

I finished my cross-stitch pincushion kit last week.  The embroidery went pretty fast, and then I washed it with Eucalan, pressed it, trimmed the corners, serged around the edge, and and then tried to stitch it around the pincushion form.  The fabric was still too big - it covered the hole on the form where the pincushion base screws in, so I took it off, trimmed it more aggressively, re-serged, re-pressed, and stitched and stretched it around the form. 

I think it's cute!

What I've been working on lately

 My Fickle Nickel quilt - almost done and being donated to the church auction the first weekend in November.  Robert has taken to calling this the "girl vomit quilt" and is thrilled that he won't have to have it permanently in the house.

 A new pair of socks - the pattern is Business Casual.  This is turning out to be a very easy but still interesting project.  It's good for working on when I'm out and about.  I could definitely see myself making another pair of these.

An Eva Rosenstand cross-stitch pincushion kit that my mom found with some of her and my old UFOs.  I'm enjoying this one a lot, too.

Embroidered tablecloth finished!

 Last weekend I finished the oldest UFO on my list.  My aunt started this tablecloth in 1960, when she was pregnant with my cousin.  She used to do a lot of incredibly beautiful embroidery - she was even a pattern tester/sample maker for Eva Rosenstand, a large Danish embroidery company!

Aunt Inge never finished the tablecloth.  In Summer 2011, I was visited her and she gave it to me to finish.  Her vision isn't as good as it used to be and she is no longer able to do embroidery, but she wanted the tablecloth finished.  I promised that I would finish it, and it's been slow progress, but it is now done! 

It fits our dining table - but I'm not sure we'll ever use it for actual dining.  I wouldn't want to stain it.  We'll probably use it for display only.  It has eight lovely matching napkins. 

Tablecloth progress, plus FNSI this week

I've been slowly working my way across my Aunt Inge's tablecloth.  I can get three little squares done in a 45-minute episode of the West Wing.  If you look carefully at the right side of the photo, you can see the center crease, so it looks like I'm almost halfway done.  I counted the squares, though, and I've done 57 and have 95 to go.  So not quite half way. 

I'm looking forward to the Friday Night Sew-In this week, hosted over at Handmade by Heidi.  I think I'm going to do the next pattern iteration of my giraffe shorts.  The fabric I've got for this version is lavender with little white polka dots, and I think it's really cute so I'm hoping they turn out well enough to actually use them (and of course I can't wait to get to do the real giraffe version!)

Jake & Jamie's pillowcases

Our friend (and Robert's officemate) Jake got married to the lovely Jamie on New Year's Eve. I embroidered these pillowcases for them as a wedding gift. Since I couldn't be at the wedding, I was hoping to finish them in time to send them to the wedding with Robert, but that didn't happen, so we gave them to Jake and Jamie when they came over for dinner the other night.

I cross-stitched the edge using waste canvas to see where to put the stitches. I had never used waste canvas before, but it wasn't too bad. I think it would be better suited to a smaller design, since it was kind of difficult to pull the threads out after I was done stitching. It would have been a real problem if this design didn't have so much negative space.
Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out. The only issue is that the holes from the brown basting stitches didn't close all the way up when I washed the pillowcases at the very end ... but I'm hoping that they will with time.

A false start on the tablecloth

I pulled out my heirloom tablecloth last week to start finishing it (Yes, this means I finished my super-secret embroidery project, but I haven't wrapped up or given the gift yet, so I'm not posting about it yet). I somehow managed to find online instructions for the little squares - turns out they're called eye stitch.

I made one little square, but it is not quite right. It's the one on the upper right in this photo. It's too bulky and the hole is not big enough. It was pretty difficult to get the threads to line up right while I was sewing it. So my conclusion is that I'm using the wrong thread. My aunt told me that she was using DMC thread, so I bought white no. 5 perle cotton. Now I'm thinking I need no. 8, so it's back to the store before I can get going on it again.

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Heirloom tablecloth

My Aunt Inge, who lives in Denmark, is an incredibly accomplished embroiderer. She used to be a sample-embroiderer for a large and well-known Danish embroidery store, and she has made many baby gifts, wall-hangings, and even needle-pointed upholstery for an antique chair that she and my uncle have!

When my dad and I were visiting with her and my uncle Joergen this past July, I was working on a cross-stitch project, and they started to show me many of the things she had made for their house. Inge showed me this table-cloth she started many many years ago when she was expecting her older daughter (who is now herself a grandmother). It had languished, nearly finished, in her cabinet for at least the last 20 years, and she couldn't finish it because her eyesight is no longer good enough.

Since none of her daughters or granddaughters do much hand-work, Inge gave me the table-cloth and the eight (finished) matching napkins, on the condition that I finish it.

The only part left to finish is the little squares inside the little boxes in the large center motif. Here you can see the ones that are done:
There is also a small stretch of hemming to be done, but that is mostly finished. The hem has a nice little decorative zig-zag.

So on Friday I went and bought some more white thread. Luckily it is DMC thread, so even so many years later I can still get more. As soon as I am finished with my super-secret time-sensitive cross-stitch project, I will finish the table-cloth!