Filed under: ANG Stitch of the Month, 2010
Thanks to the Dec 26th snowstorm, I finished this in 2010! I love the finishing touch with the beads & how they bevel up just a tad.
There has been great discussions lately about what part of the piece folks prefer: starting, middle, or end. Each has good & bad points but I lean towards preferring starting. I love the designing & planning of threads. Many times I’m so anxious to get to the next piece that I don’t get the just completed piece finished (put in a frame, etc). Hopefully, we’ll be able to shovel out soon & go purchase a frame – don’t know where to put it yet!
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter
This was a Christmas present to my brother, John in 2007. It is Judy Dubrow’s Octagon Square Creation & was a project in Sept 2006 for our Mainline Stitchers ANG Chapter. I added the outer wide border to fill in the opening of the box. It looked manly enough for my brother & functional. It can hold whatever he wanted!
And, our Christmas Tree for 2010. This year I’ve got my needlepoint ornaments on it that I’ve blogged about over the last few days. Each year I select different ornaments. Merry Christmas everyone!!
Filed under: Christmas Ornaments, Early Needlepoint, Melita's Other Completed Pieces
These were made by my Grandma (Mom’s side), Mom, & myself. No doubt there are more at my mother’s house but that’ll be for another time.
Grandma did this on plastic canvas (a little worn):
Grandma tried her hand at all sorts of crafts, including painting:
She was a great seamstress (sewed dance costumes for my mother & later for my mother’s dance pupils). These are cute felt mittens with a hair clip inside to grab something.
My Mom made these for everyone at my sister Anita’s wedding as favors.
I made these a kid – probably when I was in my teens.
And, this was an original design for my Pocono friend, Dottie.
Filed under: Christmas Ornaments, Early Needlepoint, Melita's Other Completed Pieces
These are some more cross stitch ornaments, 8 to the set. I finished off them myself by cutting the dowels, glueing the ribbon hangers, & applying felt backings. Believe it or not, I actually made the set of 8 for my mother, my sister (& her husband), my brother (& his wife), my husband’s mother, my husband’s sister (& husband), 2 girlfriends, & myself – 64 ornaments in total! Can’ just make one set – no!
Text
Filed under: Christmas Ornaments
These are some hand-crafted ornaments. The first 3 are from my days in ceramics. I just love them. As I recall, I was the slowest painter. Everyone cranked out pieces like nothing & there I was plodding along. But, I was very meticulous! The last 3 are from unknown persons that I must have picked up in craft shows. Of those, the first 2 are on plastic canvas (quite large count by the looks of it). They are also wonderful. I love the mouse at the foot of the clock. The last is tatting or crocheting (not sure of the difference as I do not do either of those techniques).
I followed the design for these are small round ornaments except that I added beads where I didn’t do cross stitching. They are from a Leisure Arts Leaflet (#197) dated 1981. I still have a nice stash of beads from this period of stitching which will come in handy for the finishing touch in the ANG Stitch of the Month (SOTM) Mystery Project 2010!
The frames are from AC Moore & easy to finish off. The large one is 3&1/2″ diameter.
These are smaller at about 2&1/2″ diameter.
I place the set of 4 small ones on my lamp shades (2 on the pair). I have so many ornaments & a small tree that I’ll place them anywhere!
Filed under: Christmas Ornaments, Early Needlepoint, Melita's Other Completed Pieces
These were mainly cross stitch kits but I didn’t save any information on them.
Faced with 2010 running out of days, I decided to use straight stitches on the inner portion of the border. Initially, I stitched them at an angle like the outer border but it was too heavy-looking compared to the open black area (you’ll have to take my word for it because the picture really didn’t show it well enough to post). So, I slept on it, ripped it out, & switched directions to minimize the effect of stitching in that area. The threads kind of fill in the shaft between the canvas threads making the white stitches less prominent. And, it worked up quickly so I can get to the last border!!
Quite by several accidents, I find myself really liking this variation on the SOTM. I used a different color family for this portion of the outer border by accident than I think the directions called for. And, instead of stitching both inner & outer portions, I completed the outer portion first. The outer portion used even less couching than called for by alternating every other row – worked out perfectly: 4 in the longest thread, 3 in the next smaller, then 2, leaving 1 small cross stitch in the corners. I like how it looks in the darker thread with white showing through.
Filed under: Melita's Pinsation's Designs
I placed a photo of this piece on the front of my Christmas cards for 2007. I drew out the design with the pin in mind so that the figures would look like part of the scene. It is another Pinsations original design & stitch selection. The pin can be removed, worn, & replaced. It is a pin that I’ve had since I was a kid.
I used the Jacquard stitch for the night sky using a black Snow thread & a Kreinik. The ground snow was Nobuko using a white Snow thread. The trees are just random straight stitches using boucle thread. The 2 trees on the right have been decorated with Bullions. And, trees are topped with a simple star in a thin Kreinik. Stitches are from Stitches for Effect by Suzanne Howren & Beth Robertson. It’s not large (5&1/2″ x 4″).
Melitastitches4fun's Blog 