The Return of Free Pattern Fridays!

My poor little neglected blog.  Long story short, although my stitching has continued (mostly) for the past couple years, I've not been as good posting progress.  Although I recently started an Instagram account, which I'm hoping my get me to share that stuff more often.

Anyway, I was thinking it was high time to bring back Free Pattern Fridays.  I probably won't be posting every Friday, but I think it's a worthy goal to try and tackle at least some Fridays.  :)

So for today's pattern I have this adorable American Flag sampler from Jean Farish Needleworks.  I know the 4th of July was yesterday, but I love patriotic patterns all year round.  And you can always get a head start on next year after all.

You can download this cute free cross stitch pattern in PDF format from Jean Farish's blog. 

Happy stitching!





Patterns are free and available at the time of posting.  Unfortunately sometimes post are removed or moved, which may make the links in this post no longer viable. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.  Please let me know if you see a problem with something I've posted so I can update it.  Thank you!

My Stitching Prodigies

Hello from the other side of a move. 

Well, sort of.  We're in temporary digs while we look for something more permanent.  Which means most of my stuff is staying packed for now.  Including most of my stitchy stuff.  It's a bit of a Catch 22, because having to repack everything when it comes time to move again would be really stressful, but without my stitchy stuff I'm having trouble finding a stress-releasing activity...

Anyway!

My brother and sister-in-law stopped through town to help us move for a few weeks and once we had a bit of free time he was able to update me on his stitching progress:

Not bad for a beginner!  Excuse the terrible quality of the photo, I took this with my phone and it's not a good picture even once it's touched up a bit. 

And although my sister-in-law already knew the cross stitch basics, I did get her started on a Soda Stitch pattern, which gave me the opportunity to walk her through how to do backstitch:

I just love my little stitching prodigies.  :)

Did you know cross stitch runs in families?

I suppose an update is long past due.

I actually don't have any of my own work to share today (I'm working on a gift, so it's a secret!), but I do have something to share:

Ta-da!

But this isn't my stitching, it's my brother's. 

My brother broke his ankle in early May, which followed with emergency surgery and several weeks of complete bed rest.  One day when I was chatting with him on Facebook Messenger to see how he was doing (he was pretty bored) we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: You need a project to help with the boredom. You should take up cross stitch. It's good therapy. 
Him: Meh.
Me: No really. I even have a pattern you'd like. Want me to show you?
Him: Sure. (you can tell he's thinking "yeah, right")
*I show him a picture of the pattern*
Him: Actually that's pretty cool.

Fast forward one day:

Him: So are you going to send me the stuff to do this thing or what? Cuz I want to get started.

Luckily I had already kitted up this particular pattern with the inention of starting it myself one day, so I pulled it out and was all ready to send it on the way to him when he informed me in no uncertain terms that he also wanted to be fully kitted out with a needle minder, qsnap, and grime guard.

Well, how can a sister say no to that?

Fast forward to a month later, and now I'm getting phone calls asking what happens when you miss a stitch, how to count not from the center, wanting to just have a day off work so he can work on his WIP, etc. etc.  Welcome another stitcher to the family.  :)  I think I may have gotten him hooked. 

A Basket of Bunnies

Hey everyone,

I've been gone for quite awhile, and I know that I said in my last post I would try to update more often.  December got really crazy with us having my soon to be sister-in-law come visit for Christmas, and I got sick with a cold at Christmas and then with flu and another cold in January, and things just got away from me.

The truth is, I've kind of been intimated by my own blogging goals, which made it even easier to just keep putting the updates off.  Despite not blogging, I have been stitching and keeping photo progress too, I just have been too intimated to come back and post here.

For the Crazy January challenge this year, I did 31 starts of those little free kits that come with the cross stitch magazines.  I have a lot hanging around and I figured it was time for me to do something about them.  But when I thought about coming on here to post my progress, it just seemed like more of a chore than anything else.  And then more and more progress has happened since then, and it only complicated things further.

So I've decided, it's time for a fresh start.  I'm not going to worry so much about showing each and every one of my past progress photos, but instead focus on sharing more current stitching (that frankly I'm more excited about.  The CJC projects I picked felt more tedious than anything else by the end of January).

The World of Charity Stitch group I'm a part of on Facebook recently did a Bunny themed challenge.  And looking through my patterns apparently the only thing I have more of than bunny charts is cat charts.  So I started 4 different squares (and planned to do many more!  But ran out of time...).  So my recent stitching is full of bunnies.

Here's the beginning of Woodland Bunny by Lucie Heaton:

I literally started this stitching and got this far while having a 100+ degree fever as a result of the flu!  Next is a cute little springtime themed bunny from Durene Jones:

The bonus thing is that this bunny also has several daffodils in it, which are one of my favorite flowers.  Next up is a Winter Bunny chart by Ursula Michael:

The other two bunnies were very stylized/cartoony, so I felt like this realistic bunny was a nice change.

And last up because I was sick of brown and white, I found a blue bunny from an old Carolyn Shores Wright leaflet called Snugglebunnies:

So that's mostly what I've been working on recently.  I'll try to do better about posting pictures of my progress.   I did also make some progress on two other things, but since they are presents I better wait to show pictures until after they have been gifted.

Happy stitching everyone!

Long Overdue Update (Picture Heavy)

Well, my last post here was apparently 3 months ago to the day.  Yikes.  I knew it had been a long time but hadn't realized it had been that long.  I've still been stitching over the last few months, but I kind of fell off the bandwagon with my Olympic stitching in my last update, so I just hadn't been coming back on the computer to actually post an update.  So here's a rundown of what I've been working on in the meantime...

First off, I did finish the Believe part of Lizzie Kate's Living with Charm series from the LK Round Robin I was in.  Here's how that one looked when it was finished:

Next up was the last round for the Lizzie Kate RR before getting my own project back.  I stitched the bottom of this pattern from the 3 Little Words series:

I don't know what kind of evenweave this project had, but it was a joy to stitch on.  So thick and creamy, if you can describe fabric that way.  My qsnap loved it too.

So after I sent this one on I got my project back.  Unfortunately my original project got lost somewhere in Canadian customs, by my fellow RR stitchers pitched together to get replacement fabric and threads.  It was a tiny bit disappointing getting it back, just because although the project hadn't been replaced, I couldn't help thinking it wasn't actually my project.  It still has several sections to complete before it's done, but I had to put it away for a bit because it just makes me a little sad to look at right now.

I also got some stitching done on my Etsy Round Robin projects.  The first one after the darling Disney project I showed last time was a block from the Spooky Halloween Sampler by Frosted Pumpkin:

I had actually stitched one block of this already in the Frosted Pumpkin RR I did last year, so it was nice to do a different part of it this time.  I did L is for Lollipop this time.

The next round in the Etsy RR I've actually lost photos of that project somewhere, so I don't have anything to show you.  It was a part of a subversive cross stitch called Welcome to My Hood, I think by Granny Panties?  It honestly wasn't my favorite thing to work on, so I'm actually not too torn up about losing the pictures, haha.

The next round project was another Halloween piece, this one is by Satsuma Street.

I did the two E blocks and the candy corn.  I have to say I've loved the couple of Satsuma Street patterns I've worked on, although this one gave me a bunch of trouble.  I had to frog and restitch the border twice, and the big E on the bottom once.  My scissors definitely got a workout on this one.

That brings me up to my current project for the Etsy RR.  This is my progress so far on Sewing Room by Soda Stitch:

I have to say I've admired Soda Stitch's patterns for a long time and I even have a couple in my stash (2 I think?) but I have never actually done one yet.  I am loving this one so far though. I can tell this is a project where the back stitch will really make a difference though.

In addition to my round robin stitching, I have also stitched quite a bit more on Welcome Home than you last saw it:

Pretty much almost done except the roof and backstitch.  I've put it away for now though because I'm hitting Christmas present panic mode and need to focus on those projects over the next couple weeks.

I also started on a project that I am calling Summer Bouquet, from a Lucie Heaton booklet that came with one of the UK cross stitch magazines.  I got pretty far on it just a couple colors left to fill in:

Unfortunately I had a major accident and spilled applesauce all over this project.  Again, had to put it away for awhile because I can't look at it after that.  I'm pretty sure it will be okay because I just used DMC threads, but I haven't tried to deep clean it yet.

So that's what's been going on around here stitching-wise.  Hopefully it won't be so long before my next update!

Olympic Stitching Part 2

Part 2 of my Olympic Stitching hasn't gone quite as well as part 1, but here is what I managed to do.  You can see my progress of Part 1 here.

Day Six
Stitchlympics: New Start Marathon
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with specialty stitches

I had planned and planned and planned for the new start marathon event of Stitchlympics, but I didn't realize that it was on a weekday instead of a weekend.  Shucks.  Going to work really puts a dent in my stitching time, LOL.  In order to count as a new start, you had to put in at least 50 stitches.  I only managed two projects in the time I had after work.  The start of a Margaret Sherry Christmas card:

And the beginning of my next Lizzie Kate Round Robin piece (Believe from Living with Charm series):

I also put a few stitches into a 3rd project, but didn't quite manage 50 stitches before I crashed and had to go to bed.  This was also what I was going to count as my specialty stitches (the piece had Smyrna crosses), but since I didn't get that far, I got a nil on the Maynia challenge.  Forgot to take a picture of what I did manage to do, so I'll have to share that one later.


Day Seven
Stitchlympics: Specialty stitches
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with green in it

Didn't do any stitching this day.  :(


Day Eight
Stitchlympics: Wind bobbins for 10 minutes
Summer Olympic Challenge: Triathlon, stitch on 3 pieces

I don't usually use bobbins to store my floss at the moment, so I was out for this challenge.  And this day was also a non-stitching day (had a date instead).


Day Nine
Stitchlympics: Go For Gold: Stitch with something sparkly
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with red in it

This was Saturday, so I finally got some progress to report!  For the sparkle challenge, I pulled out the materials to start Brooke's Books Annie the Autumn Witch, and started on her hat brim because it's all Kreinik #8 braid.  It was my first time working with a Kreinik braid and it went much easier than I thought it would!  I managed to get the whole hat brim done:

I wish you could see it in person, the color is actually a combo of orange, purple, and black that's so nice and Halloween-y and it doesn't come out in the picture at all.

I also started a ladybug design that is a Durene Jones freebie called Love Bug for my red piece.  Don't know what I'll do with this when it's finished yet.

The red was the only color I could find in my stash on short notice (the rest are likely all kitted up with something else, so I just did a good chunk of the red outline around the ladybug's spots).


Day Ten
Stitchlympics: Stitch with beads
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with animals in it (especially horses if possible)

I had planned on pulling out a Mill Hill project for beading day, but by the time it actually rolled around I didn't have any that were ready for beads yet.  So I decided to focus on my Lizzie Kate project instead while watching a movie:

After the movie was over, I didn't really feel like switching projects, so I compromised on the animal piece by stitching while watching The Incredible Dr. Pol, which at least is a show full of animals.  Got almost done with the word "believe" before I stopped for the night.

So that brings me up to tonight.  We have company coming off so I'm fairly certain I won't be meeting tonight's challenges.  But we'll have to see.

How is everyone else's stitching go?

Olympic Stitching Part 1

Hello readers!

We're several days into the Olympics, so I've been working hard on my Stitchlympics and  Summer Olympic Challenge pieces.

Apologies in advance for some of the photos.  For some reason my phone has been taking really bad pictures lately.

Day 1 was the Opening Ceremonies.  The Stitchlympics challenge was to count your stitches while watching the opening ceremonies (or equivalent time).  I happened to DVR the ceremonies (yay for fast forwarding through commercials and the Parade of Nations!) so we actually watched a couple finals from American Ninja Warrior while I stitched on my Disney piece for the Round Robin (BTW, Linda I know you asked for the name of the pattern/designer, I'm trying to find out for you!).  I was able to stitch 213 stitches and finish off Aladdin's hair:

The Stitch Maynia Summer Olympic Challenge was to stitch on something blue (for the blue in the Olympic Rings).  Not a lot of blue available in my Disney project, so after finishing Aladdin's hair I also started a new project I'm calling Welcome Home.  That's where the rest of my 200+stitches came from. This will be a square for World of Charity Stitching:

Not much to look at yet, just some blue highlights.  With only two colors and very minimal backstitch, it should stitch up pretty quick though.

Day 2 of Stitchlympics was a 15 minute stitching "sprint" to see how much you could stitch in 15 minutes.  To maximize my chances I decided I should stitch on a single color block, so I chose to start the orange of Lady's face from the Disney project:

51 stitches after 15 minutes.  Not bad.  :)  The Stitch Maynia challenge for Day 2 was to stitch on something with an international theme.  I only had about 15 minutes to stitch on Saturday because we had company over so I decided to fudge and also count the Disney project for that one as well.  Hey, the characters are from international locations, right?

Day 3 of Stitchlympics was a 3 hour stitching marathon.  I pulled out the Disney project again and finished up Lady and started on Ariel's hair:

There's a lot of hair!  The other challenge for this day was to stitch on something with yellow (again for olympic rings).  Sadly I failed at this one.  I just didn't feel like pulling out any other projects because I wanted to focus on the Disney piece.  Oh well, I did stitch orange on Lady; that's in the yellow family, right?

Day 4 of Stitchlympics was another "sprint" stitch, this time a 30 minute sprint "relay".  I managed 101 stitches on Ariel and almost finished her in my 30 minutes:

The Maynia challenge for Day 4 was to stitch something with water in it, so I stretched a bit again and figured my Ariel mermaid counted for a water challenge.  So after the 30 minutes was up for Stitchlympics I finished up the last little bits of Ariel and completed her:

Since I was so close to finishing my part of this piece completely, I decided to spend a few extra minutes for the single stitches I'd been kind of leaving until the last minute (eyebrows, cheeks, etc).  Would you believe it took about 30 minutes to put in about 20 stitches?  Gah, I hate changing colors.  But it made a difference.  Here's what my part looked like when all finished:

Day 5 was yesterday which was left handed stitching for Stitchlympics and a piece with black in it for Stitch Maynia.  Sadly I had a flare up of pain in my left elbow which made stitching difficult, so I don't have any progress to report for that.  So my brother and I and a friend went to see Suicide Squad instead.  :)  But it's feeling a bit better today, so I'm hopefully I'll have something to share for Day 6.

Here's wishing you all lots of stitchy progress!  I plan on making much more as I keep watching over the next couple weeks.