Wedding Stitches

A close friend of mine recently got married to another good friend.  I've known her since she was born (we were at the same church) - she's about 10 years younger than me and has always been like a little sister.  Him I did Little Theatre with for a number of years with all the usual shenanigans.

Their wedding was beautiful - such love and celebration.  They're both committed Christians which gave the whole ceremony a loving feel - lots of thanksgiving and worship intermingled throughout.

As a wedding gift, I cross-stitched "Tandem Wedding", a pattern from an old issue of the World of Cross Stitch magazine.  It's one I've stitched before when another friend got married in 2010.  This time I changed the colours to suit their wedding theme - rather than strong pinks and blues throughout, I changed them to soft greens and peach.  I also changed the colour of the groom's hair to match.

Tandem Wedding, stitched in 2015

 The first time I stitched this pattern, I changed the colour of the hearts to match that friend's theme, and used metallic threads to add some extra sparkle.

Stitched in 2010

I've put together a bit of a time-lapse video of the stitch as it progressed.  I had 8 days to stitch and frame the gift, so was doing a bit of a count-down on Instagram as I went.  It's the first time I've done one of these so I hope it works!

Otherwise it'll just have to be the still version

The only other time I have stitched a wedding present for a friend (not too many of my close friends have gotten married (or I just haven't been invited)) was in 2011 when another close Theatre friend got married.  I'd loved this pattern for years, so was very excited to finally have a reason to stitch it.  The classic style of this really suited my friend and her husband and was the perfect pattern.

To Have and To Hold - Verachtert
Stitched in 2011

Do you stitch wedding presents for friends?  How do you choose the right pattern to stitch, given the plethora of wedding cross-stitch patterns available?

Happy Stitching!

Merry Christmas and a free pattern!

Merry Christmas everyone.  May your day be filled with love, laughter, friendship, family, food and fun.  And the chance for some stitching and geeking.

We're having a very Whovian Christmas this year.  We made a Tardis gingerbread house (seen here), my mother (Ozzy Pip) received Season 8 of Doctor Who, my brother got a Tardis mug, and I received a Doctor Who calendar, Tardis-coloured table-runner and set of coasters my mother made, and an actual Tardis!  I asked for a shoe rack, and received this:

It's a Tardis Shoe Cupboard.  How cool?!
More pictures to come soon.

Now we are sitting around in the air conditioning with very fully bellies, watching "Into The Dalek".  What better way to spend Christmas Day?  Okay, watching the Christmas Special would be preferable, but Australia doesn't get that until tomorrow.

While you sit around with full bellies and fight the urge to sleep, why not stitch this Doctor Who Christmas decoration?

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Stitching!

- Fangirl Stitches

It's beginning to look even more like Christmas

There's only 3 days to go until Christams.  A little hard to believe it is so close already.

Time to fill you in on my latest holiday stitching and other make-your-own decorations.

First there is the Christmas Alphabet Cross Stitch.  I had a lot of fun coming up with this pattern - trying to find words for each letter that were a) Christmassy, b) relatively Christian, and c) not snow related!  Q was the hardest.  In fact, this was the only 'Q' word I could find.  If you can think of any others, let me know!  The pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.

My friend saw a picture of Ninja Turtle Christmas decorations and decided we should make some for my tree.  So we did.  They were surprisingly easy to make - baubles, ribbon, googly eyes and glue.

Turtles in a half-shell, Christmas power!

Then we were on a roll and wanted to see if we could make any other Christmas baubles.  Minion family anyone?  We even managed to find denim print duct-tape which worked perfectly.

Minion Baubles

Minions, Ninja Turtles, and a cat on the tree.

We have to work out how to make the Death Star next.  I think that may be a bit more complicated...

Our minister then sent us a picture of a TARDIS gingerbread house she had found on Facebook and challenged Ozzy Pip and I to make our own.

This is the picture we were sent.  The instructions to make it are here.

For some reason when we first followed the link we wound up here so used this was the recipe and instructions we used instead.  This is what we ended up with.  Not bad for a first effort, but I don't think we're giving up our day jobs any time soon!

Boo was the closest we could come to an alien invader.

Time for some flashback Christmas stitching.  I love this cross stitch design.  I found it in a pattern book at the library and originally planned on stitching it for my mother, but it took longer than expected so I ended up keeping it for myself!  It's hung in my parents' house every Christmas since I finished it, but this year Mum returned it to me to hang in my own house.

The name of the book this came from has been lost
to the winds of time, but it's a gorgeous pattern.

I've also uploaded a couple more geeky Christmas cards to the Etsy Store.  There is the Cel-e-brate Dalek Christmas card:

 

and the Pikachu Holiday card:

Two more days till Santa comes!

Happy stitching everyone,

- Fangirl Stitches

Finished Projects, Framing, and Gift Giving

What does your UFO (Un-Finished-Object)/WIP (Work-In-Progress) pile look like?

Mine isn't too bad.  I tend to have a couple of projects on the go – a larger one and then a couple of smaller ones I can work on when I need a break from the larger one.  So I don’t throw it out the window!  I do have a large pile of “want to stitch” projects which grows larger by the day.

No.  Instead of a WIP/UFO pile, I have an FO pile – Finished-Object.  Stitching projects that I have finished but then done nothing with.  A pile of projects waiting to be framed, or turned into cushions/banners/something, or stuck onto cards, or just given away.

A couple of weeks ago I decided enough was enough.  That’s one of the good thing about moving house, and having limited storage space – I rediscovered all of my FOs and had nowhere to put them.  I'm now on a mission to get them framed or displayed.

Some of the stitches I've finally mounted on cards this week

The age-old question is of course how to display them?  Do you go for the standard frame or something different?  A wall hanging or other useful object, like a cushion or box cover?  Options are limited when you've already finished the project – you can’t turn a large project into a shirt emblem or a small project into a large wall hanging.  Some projects are easy – they’re designed as bookmarks or cards, and I've (finally!) managed to finish these off.  For a lot of my other FOs this time I've gone the standard frame or the stretched canvas.  I love the look professional framing, with the matting and wide frame, but that can get very expensive!  I have a few projects I’d love to get professionally framed eventually, but in the meantime I've done them myself.  It’s actually not that hard to frame your own projects, or stretch them over canvas (a new skill!), and I'm impressed with the way they've come up.  Keep an eye out for the next blog where I’ll share my framing tips with you.

Some frames, hoops and stretched canvas

I even managed to get some hung

I now have a pile of FFOs – Finished-Framed-Objects (I made that one up – anyone have a better idea?).   But then the question becomes what to do with them?  I don’t have enough wall space to display them all (and doubt I ever will!).  I've always been hesitant to give away finished projects though.  Not because I've fallen in love with them (although that is occasionally the case), but because I never think other people will appreciate them.  I never think they are good enough, or the right style/look for other people.

I'm getting better at it. My parents and brothers have received numerous stitchy gifts, as have a couple of good friends.  When I moved overseas a couple of years ago, I gave away a number of old projects to the girls in my bible-study group, which they all loved.  And whenever I've stitched something specific for someone, they've always been very appreciative of it and loved it – wedding and baby samplers especially.

Turns out, people do realise and value how much time and effort goes into these projects, and they are impressed by the skill of cross-stitching – this old fashioned art still has a place in the modern world!  It’s my attitude that needs to change – I need to have more faith in myself and my stitching abilities.

I think I've got presents and cards sorted for the next little while.

Happy Stitching!!