Melitastitches4fun's Blog

Heather, from my ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter, has been leading the chapter through the stitches used in Ro Pace’s, A Flower From Italy, Stitch of the Month in 2011.

Last month, she discussed the Chilly Hollow stitch. This is the original from ANG’s website:

Once I understood it, I decided to try alternating colors with each stitch rather than in each quadrant. Getting the stitches to lay nicely took 2 attempts.

I used red and white DMC Pearl #8 for the stitch and the cording and got a tighter cord this time. I used the Kreinik cord maker for each color but then twisted them together by hand. Bill was my vice again.

I held off posting this until the traditional start of the holiday season, the day after Thanksgiving!

At our October ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter meeting, Heather discussed the Waffle and Amadeus. I’d already made the Waffle into an ornament.

The Amadeus is only tricky where the two join together for the first 5 stitches in the North, South, East, and West. I have to pull the thread off to the side, find the hole, and then pull it taut.

I worked the Amadeus motif using Kreinik #12 Braid 421 Azalea and 5982 Forest Green with DMC #8 Blanc for the Alternating Continental background. A large gold bead filled in the center using a cross stitch through the bead to hold it upright without wobbling. The cording is DMC #5 666 red and 701 green (6 strands each).

A couple of people in my chapter wanted to see what I had learned from my finishing class. So, I brought everything to our October Stitch-in (wow-a month ago tomorrow). Most everything fits appropriately in my lovely A Place for Everything, a ByAnnie and by Linda bag. The tools are in another holder. I found my glue gun and brought it. I bought a Mighty Travel Iron by Dritz. My big iron is too big for these ornaments. A few bottled waters (Evian, which is easy to find, and Ocean, which we had in the fridge) are soft enough to use in the iron. The last time I bought a gallon of distilled water, it leaked. I got 1/8″ thick foam board from Ebay before learning that the Framing Dept at Michael’s have the thin boards. The 3/8″ board is out in the aisle. Thanks to Michael’s for their 40% off coupons, I got a nice price on Friskar’s nip scissors. Lots to bring.

I finished the Amadeus into a diamond. And, it was done in about 3 hours. I am getting faster.

I forgot I’d brought along a 3″, 4″, and 5″ circle template from mommymadethat (.com) for any rounds. Molly has some great templates (free) on her website. But, Nanda’s circle was very round. So, marking the shape with a pencil worked out fine.

The cording with Kreinik didn’t turn out nearly as tight as with the drill. I did sew it into place to reinforce the top at the loop and went around adding a couple of stitches to connect the cording to the front and back on each side.

No Black Friday shopping here. We’re busy at home cleaning, resting, decorating, resting, and more decorating over the course of today while listening to holiday music and will be all ready for Christmas!

Between needing the bars for the upcoming EGA Seminar, getting the proper color DMC for cording, and having a free day (thanks to a PGA golf tournament), I was able to do the finishing for the individual motif from Flowers of Italy by Ro Pace, an ANG Stitch of the Month from 2011.

Using the same colored DMC floss as the tent stitch to cinch the 2 sides together.

Heather is leading this piece starting in September. The original was done on Congress Cloth but I will do them on 18 count canvas. I’ll probably do four of them as a unit and the rest as individual ones.

The finishing of the waffle went faster than usual. I stitched 3 rows of tent stitch around the motif. I laced the sides down over a piece of Craf-tex (thanks to to surplus from Linda’s Boutique). I cut the corners a tad to decrease bulk.

I used Scotch Tape Runner, a double-sided tape to hold the backing in place on a second piece of Craf-tex.

The cording was a double cording of matching DMC Perle #3 (thanks to Nanda for picking it up for me).

Again, using the matching colored DMC floss I attached the cording. Perhaps using a thread I can see (as opposed to Sulky invisible thread) made things easier. Or, perhaps that both sides were together before attaching the cording helped decrease the complexity of stitching.

I was worried that the laid threads would get messed up with all that handling but a little careful adjustment fixed a couple of strands that were askew.

Thanks to a rain delay for the golf game, I will work on another ornament!