Happy New Year!

I am off for the rest of the week, so since the farm still has no internet connection, I wish all of you a happy new year and the best of stitching plans in 2015!  I'll update my progress from the 2015 Crazy Challenge on Monday(ish), so will be catching up at 5 days or so at once. 

Happy stitching everyone!

2015 Stitching Goals: More and More SALs

Well, I had the epiphany today that it's actually getting pretty close to 2015 now, so I better finish up my 2015 goals series of posts.  So rather than do an introduction post for all of these, I'm going to put them all in one post (so I can actually focus on stitching things for them, haha).

So in addition to the 2015 Flower of the Month SAL I'm hosting, the Crazy January Challenge, and BAP Attack's Turtle Trot, here's what I have planned for the new year.

Daffycat has plans to continue her Totally Useless SAL (TUSAL) into the new year.  I've already emptied my ort jar in anticipation of starting that one.   She hasn't posted (as of this writing) the new info for 2015 yet, but this is the link to her 2014 post explaining this SAL. 

Heather from Stitching Lotus is doing her Smalls SAL again this year.  I think this will be kind of like the MMMM I did in October and November, so I'm excited for this one.  I know I will be able to work on smalls for every month of this year, it will just be a question of finishing them or not...

Measi is hosting WIPocalypse again this year.  This is a very low key SAL that is essentially all about sharing your stitching goals and progress for the year.  It will go along very nicely with Turtle Trot this year I expect.

Mel from Epic Stitching is hosting her Stitch from Stash challenge again.  This year, it will be divided into two parts.  The idea is to spend $25 (or your equivalent currency) or less on stitching stash supplies per month.   When I first heard about this back in May, I was kind of like "who is crazy enough to sign up for something like that?".  And then I spent all summer stashing wayyyyy too much, so I signed up so that I could try to keep control of it next year.  With the cut in pay that came from moving out here to Mississippi, my budget is much, much tighter than it used to be, so I will have to think careful about each and every stitchy purchase I make from now on. 

And last but not least is the D.E.S.I.G.N. of the Month, which stands for Designer Everybody Should Instantly Get to Notice. This is a series of posts that will be done by participants throughout the year showing off a current WIP from a different designer each month, with a series of reoccurring questions answered about said design/designer each month.  The idea is to introduce everyone to new designers we may not have run into/tried on our own that we think others should try (or stay away from I suppose).  I'm super excited about this one; I'm already brainstorm ideas on what to feature. 

Phew!  That's a lot.  Think I bit off more than I can chew?  Maybe so, guess we'll just have to see.

2015 Stitching Goals: Turtle Trot 2015

Well, after seeing all these posts this year labelled "turtle trot" I of course had to find out what they are.  Which leads me to yet another 2015 stitching goals post.

Turtle Trot is a year long SAL hosted by Claudette of BAP Attack.  The idea is that you pick 10 projects (or so) to work on throughout the year, and to post before/after progress pics each month so that everyone can help cheer on your progress.  The rules can be found on the 2015 signups page if you want to join me in signing up to participate. 

I believe we post progress on the 10th of each month, so I will have another post about this coming up in a couple weeks that will have actual pictures.  But since many of my TT pieces I haven't started yet, this post will be pretty boring.

As of right now, I have chosen these for my Turtle Trot 2015 projects:

1. Halloween Quaker
2. Tree Frog Trio
3. Gift of Christmas
4. Britannia Pillow
5. Gingerbread Houses SAL
6. Purple Paisley
7. Polka Dot Bouquet
8. Merry and Bright Banner
9. Reindeer Square
10. Polar Bear Square

So, with that, come back to see progress pics and my "official" starting post on the 10th!

December 2014 TUSAL

I'm a little behind (well, closer to a week actually) in posting a picture of my orts for Daffycat's Totally Useless SAL this month.  I managed to get a cold on Christmas Eve, so needless to say, I haven't been doing much the past few days.  Bleh...

Anyway, here is my last picture of the ort jar for the year.  I've emptied it out and have started collecting for the new year.  Still mostly Christmas colors, as you can see by the over abundance of red everywhere still.  But hey, there's some purple peeking out there too.  Actually, the colors in this photo turned out a little wonky anyway, since there wasn't really any good lighting to be had last night.  Oh well. 

I haven't been stitching much lately either, between being sick and getting ready for the Crazy 2015 challenge next month.  But come January 1st, hopefully there will be much stitchy goodness to be done!

Free Pattern Friday: January Carnations

Hope everyone had a great Christmas yesterday.  Today's free cross stitch pattern is being posted in anticipation of the start of the 2015 Flower of the Month SAL I'm hosting next year.  For anyone who is interested in joining, all the rules and details can be found here. 

January's pattern is for some lovely pink carnations.  I've started kitting this one up already, and love all the shades of pink and green in it.  Unfortunately I can't seem to find any 20 count fabric locally (I had planned to make magnets out of these) so I am going to have to rethink my plans for these patterns.  Hmmm...

Head over to the EMS Designs website to download January's free cross stitch pattern, and join our SAL if you're interested.  Look for February's pattern to be posted in a couple weeks.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you and your family for those of you who celebrate. Here's wishing you lots of wonderful stitching in the coming year!

 

Free Pattern Friday: Christmas Madonna

Since today is the last Friday before Christmas, I have something very Christmas-y for today's free cross stitch pattern.  For me, Christmas is a very fun time with lots of great secular traditions, but in the end it is ultimately also a celebration of God's greatest gift to mankind, the birth of Jesus Christ.  I know not everyone feels the same way about celebrating Christmas as I do, and that's okay, but for me it's something very important.

I really wanted to find a Christ centered pattern I could share for this Friday, and had a hard time finding one that I liked.  But eventually I stumbled upon this Madonna and Child pattern in the shape of an ornament.  It was originally published in 1994 by Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum.  It looks great stitched on cloth and framed, but I've also seen it stitched on perforated paper as an actual ornament too and it is just as beautiful.

Head over to the Madonna and Child page on the designers website to download the PDF of this free cross stitch pattern.  And in the meantime, I hope all of you have a happy, safe, beautiful Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year).

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

2015 Stitching Goals, Part 1: Cross Stitch Crazy Challenge

As it goes closer and closer to the holidays (and right after that, the end of the year) I find myself signing up for more and more stitching projects and goals next year.  So I thought it might be fun to do a series of posts over the next few weeks about each one. 

First up is the 2015 Cross Stitch Crazy Challenge.  I believe this started out as a Yahoo group, but I've since found the group on Facebook.  The idea is to start 15 new projects for the first 15 days of January, and then work on those projects throughout the year.  The project has evolved in several different directions for the participants over the years, but that's the basic idea. 

This year, there's also a spinoff group called Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge 2015.  This was started in the memory of Debbie, a cross stitch blogger who passed away earlier this year.  People in this group plan on working on either 31 different projects (one for each day in January) or 59 projects (one for each day in both January and Februrary). 

Well, I've decided to do the Ulimate Crazy Challenge, but I'm going for the lesser level of 31 projects.  I'm also including a few ongoing WIP projects instead of just 31 new starts, and a lot of my projects are smalls too. 

So after making and changing my plans over the last few months on my challenge page (and then changing them again), I think I finally have it worked out to these projects.  Of course, they're subject to change as January actually comes around too.  :)

My 31 projects include (in no particular order):

Four WIPs
1.  Halloween Quaker
2.  Tree Frog Trio kit
3.  Silent Night kit
4.  Gift of Christmas

Six Mill Hill mini kits for Christmas presents next year
5.  Stars and Stripes
6.  Love Potion #9
7.  Coin Purse
8.  Autumn Wreath
9.  Winter Bunnies
10.  Cookies for Santa

Two Stitch-A-Long projects
11.  Gingerbread Houses Facebook SAL
12.  January Carnations from the Flower of the Month SAL

Six Charity Stitching squares
13.  Rainbow Mandala
14.  Perfume
15.  Horse Yin Yange
16.  Singing Owl
17.  Ladybug
18.  Sparrow on Vine

Three new Christmas projects
19.  Reindeer Square
20.  Polar Bear Square
21.  Merry and Bright Banner

Four potential Christmas presents
22.  Purple Paisley
23.  Polka Dot Bouquet
24.  Britannia Pillow
25.  Cat Lady Kit

Six My Little Pony magnets
26.  Rainbow Dash
27.  Rarity
28.  Twilight Sparkle
29.  Pinkie Pie
30.  Apple Jack
31.  Fluttershy


And, as you can see from my Challenge page, I have 25 backup projects in case any of these don't work out for me.  We'll see what happens come January!  Of course in the meantime, I have lots of kitting up to do.  I got a few done already, and it's wayyyyyy more work to organize out 27 new projects (31 - 4 WIPs) than I thought it would be!

Free Pattern Friday (Part 2): Festive Cheer Owl

So now onto my regularly schedule free cross stitch pattern post for this Friday.  Today's pick is a cute and quick little design you can easily stitch up for a card or ornament if you're looking for a last minute gift.

I don't know why, but I am really into owls lately.  Which is good for me right now, because along with foxes apparently they are the new "in" thing.  So when I saw this cute little festive owl with a Santa hat for Christmas, I knew I had to share it.  This lovely design was designed by the talented Holly over at the Holly's Hobbies blog.

Head over to the site to get the PDF chart for this free cross stitch pattern.  If anyone stitches this up, leave me a link, I'd love to see it!

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday: A Christmas Carol

So I actually have something else planned for this week's Free Pattern Friday, but since I just found a super cool free cross stitch pattern that is only available for a limited time, I'm going to post two today (lucky you!). 

The UK cross stitching magazine Cross Stitch Collection is having a 12 Days of Christmas celebration.  They're going to do a bunch of giveaways for the next 12 days, and today is the first day.  They're giving away this large Victorian Christmas Carol chart by Maria Diaz for Day 1, but it's only available to download until this coming Monday.  So head over to their blog ASAP to get the download link. 

And keep your eye out for another free cross stitch pattern post later today!

Happy stitching!

Animal Print Mittens: New Start and Progress 12.9.14

I recently discovered something that is both good and bad for my stitching progress: stitching for charity.  I've recently joined two groups that use squares stitched and donated from members to sew up quilts for disadvantaged/sick children and seniors.  I just love the idea of my stitching going to a good cause!  Not that stitching for friends/family isn't a good cause (LOL).

This is a project for one of those groups, World of Charity Stitching.   We are using a free cross stitch mitten pattern with lots of different motifs using the same shape.  I actually wasn't signed up for this project originally because the deadline was shortly after I joined the group, but they posted a couple weeks ago that they needed more squares to finish the quilt, so here I went. 

Since so many of the free patterns had been done already, even though duplicates are allowed I decided to create my own patterns.  There's a cute cow print one that's already been done, so I figured to go along with that we needed something leopard print.  And of course I picked pink leopard print.  :)  Here's the progress so far:

Not much to look at yet.  When I asked my brother what he thought, he said my cloth looked like it had cancer.  Gee, thanks.

I'm still trying to finish up a few Christmas presents left over from MMMM, so I haven't been working too hard on this one yet.  Which in some ways is bad because I only have until the end of the year to finish!  I'm going to be doing a giraffe print after this one is done if I can manage it. 

Anyway, I've signed up for several other charity projects, so you'll probably see several of those popping up here in the next few weeks, especially with the Ultimate Crazy 2015 Challenge coming up next month. 

Free Pattern Friday: Sweet Treats

Today is the first Friday in December, so it's onto Christmas themed free cross stitch patterns!

My mother's birthday is the first part of December, so I always end up thinking about Christmas baking way before the actual holiday.  I've always loved to bake since I was a little girl, so when I saw this pattern in a cross stitching magazine awhile back I fell in love with it.  The good news is, when poking around looking for patterns I realized that it's actually posted for free on the publisher's website, so you can stitch this piece even if you don't have the back issue it was published it.

This is intended as a front piece for a baking set, but with some modification I plan on framing it or making a cushion out of it when it (finally) gets added to my very large WIP pile.

Head over to the Cross-stitching.com website to download this cute free cross stitch pattern for yourself.  You'll need to sign up for an account to download it; just advance warning.  

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Reverting Back to Blogger Profile

Just wanted to give any readers who are following me using Google+ a heads up, that I'm reverting back to my old Blogger profile.  This is mainly because I don't have many followers on Google+ and my stats seemed to have dropped significantly since enabling it this summer.  Also, it bugs me that I cannot receive replies to my comments with the Google+ platform. 

Perhaps some day in the future I will enable it again, but for now, it's gone.  You can still +1 my pages/posts using the buttons at the bottom of each post if you would like to share my posts that way. 

Thanks for the continued support everyone!

2015 Flower of the Month SAL

A couple weeks ago I had posted about the possibility of forming a SAL in the new year to stitch up the Flower of the Month mini charts done by EMS Designs.  I did get a few "maybes" in response to that post, so I'm going for it and forming a SAL.  Hopefully it won't just be a SAL of one... :)

So this is my own personal official sign up post for my participation in the SAL.  My goal right now is to start each new chart for each new month, although with all the other WIPs I'm planning for the Crazy January Challenge, I know I might not finish them within the month.  But progress is progress!

If you'd like to join the SAL, I have put up an official rules and sign up post in my header, or you can find the link here.  Oh, and there will be prizes for participants too. 

Hope to see some of my stitchy friends there!

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 4

Well, nothing like getting in by the skin of your teeth.  Today is the last day to check in for week 4 of MMMM hosted by Justine's Cross Stitch Blog for November.  Luckily I have some progress to report, even though this week has been CRAZY! We finally got moved into our new own actual place though, which was nice, but definitely cut into stitching time.

So I have the complete finish on Victorian Tree to show you:

And I finished beading Tropical Kitty and finishing into an ornament:

Just have to back it and it will be done.  I also finished Teton Santa's beading, but forgot to take a picture and since I am on a borrowed Wi-Fi connection at the moment (no internet at the new house for a couple weeks) I won't be able to upload this at the moment.

I still have 3 ornaments to finish beading (nuts!) which I was hoping to have done by the end of this month, but I should be able to get them done by Christmas at least!

Free Pattern Friday: Swirly Autumn

Hope everyone is recovering from Thanksgiving okay?  Today's free cross stitch pattern will be the last of the autumn themed ones before jumping into winter/Christmas.

So today being Black Friday, that makes me feel a little swirly, don't you?  I don't really know why, but something about this pattern just makes me happy.  Should be pretty quick to stitch up too, which is always a good thing this time of year.  :)

Head over to the Cross Stitch Happy blog to download the chart and key for this free cross stitch pattern.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Cross Stitch Group on Facebook

So, if you're a fan of Facebook cross stitch groups, or if you aren't currently but want to try it out, here's a heads up for you.  Ursula Michael, a designer probably most famous for her "word art" patterns, has a Facebook fan group that I love.  Anyway, if you're a fan of her work, check out the group and come join us.  As soon as we get 750 members, we'll be getting a new group-exclusive freebie chart...

November 2014 TUSAL

So, I'm a couple days late with this, but it's time for the TUSAL (that's Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long) November Update.  This SAL is hosted by Daffycat, and involves us posting pictures of our stitching ort jars once a month.

So here's my jar for November:

As you can see, not much increase from October.  I've decided I must be more thrifty with my thread, or do less stitching, or a combination of both from my fellow SALers, since my jar still looks pretty sad with 2 months of threads in there now.  Still full of Christmas colors too.

Well, here's onto another month of ort collecting!  Someone suggested putting them out in spring for birds to make colorful nests with.  Have any of you tried this before?

Ooh, look more designers....

Just a quick note to anyone who read my Cross Stitch for Charity post on Friday...

Added yesterday was a free chart from Nora Corbett, and next week's patterns will include freebies from Alessandra Adelaide and Joan Elliott.  In case you needed another reason to check the group out.  :)

If you missed the post, catch up here.

Free Pattern Friday: Fall Into Autumn

This week's free cross stitch pattern is nice and simple.

We're back to Fall/Autumn appreciation this week, but I wanted to take the time to share this pattern designed by Erica Michaels for Rainbow Gallery.  It's kind of beautiful in its simplicity, and because it's fairly easy to stitch, it should work up pretty quickly, which is great if you're busy prepping for Thanksgiving next week.  Another one my friend who loves Fall colors would love.

Since this is a Rainbow Gallery design, it uses a lot of their specialty fibers and threads in the key.  But you can always substitute your favorite floss for the specialty threads if needed.  By the way, if you ever need a DMC color family reference for making substitutions, Yarn Tree has a great reference for that.

Head over to Rainbow Gallery to view the PDF project sheet for this free cross stitch pattern.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday: Cross Stitch for Charity

So today is Friday, which means I will be posting a free cross stitch pattern today.  Well, I had already have a post planned for today, but I came across this set of free patterns that are only available for a limited time, so I wanted to share.

There is a group on Facebook called Cross Stitch for Charity.  In exchange for donating to the current cause the group is supporting, themed free cross stitch patterns are posted on the group page for members to download for a limited time.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, right now through December 5 (?) the group is raising funds for Toys for Tots.  Right now there are 7 charts posted for you to download in exchange for donating any amount to the charity.  Designers include Passione Ricomo, Primitive Hare, Lesley Teare, and many more.  As you can see from this photo, they are super cute patterns (and this isn't all of the patterns posted yet either). 

So if you'd like to get some free patterns and help a great cause in return, here's what you do.

1. You must have a Facebook account
2. Like the Cross Stitch for Charity page
3. Join the Cross Stitch for Charity group page
4. Donate to the cause using the link in the pinned post at the top of the group
5. Download your favorite charts in the group Files tab

These charts will only be available for a couple more weeks I think, so if you are interested in any of them, definitely head over there ASAP.

Come back later today for another Free Pattern Friday post (my regularly scheduled one).

Happy stitching!

Anyone interested in forming a SAL?

I came across a pattern of the month project in my search for freebie patterns, and for some reason, I thought they would make a fun SAL for the new year, one where everybody actually works on the same/similar projects.  So I am posting it here in the hopes I might get someone to join me. 

It's the flower of the month series put out by EMS Cross Stitch Designs a few years ago.  There are 12 square flower designs, one representing each month.  Here's what all 12 will look like when finished:

The charts are fairly simple (no fractional stitches), and they are free, so you would just have to source your fabric and floss.

I was thinking starting one each month throughout 2015.  We can check in with our progress and cheer each other on throughout the year.  Finishing, of course, in 2015 is optional (since that seems to be a problem for me lately, LOL :)

So anyway, would anyone be interested in joining me in my little stitching adventure?  If I can get at least one buddy to stitch along with, then I think I'll give it a go. 

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 3

So, it's a little early for a normal MMMM update, but since this week looks like it might be really busy, I figured I would do an update today anyway, and maybe a supplemental one later in the week if I can wrangle it.

I'm still busy on those Christmas gifts, so today's update is from the western beading front.  I did start on beading Teton Santa, and have got about halfway done on the amber beads:

This is definitely going faster than Victorian Tree so far, although I think that might partly be because the petite seed beads are supposed to have full crosses and regular seed beads only have half crosses, and so far, I've only done regular beads.

Then since a certain person wasn't home during the weekend, I took the oppertunity to switch out Teton Santa for Be Merry in my WIP list of the day, so I could get started on that.  Here's the progress so far:

That's actually only one kind of bead left, can you believe it?  Of course, that one bead takes up all those spaces in the lettering, so it will probably take awhile.

So now, it's back to beading!  I still have to finish these two, Provencal Rooster, Tropical Kitty, and Hot Stuff before Christmas.  My goal is to get them stitched by the end of the month at least, so I can focus on finishing them up into ornaments in December.  Which, we're moving again (at least only across town this time) so things will be crazy for the first part of December anyway.

Free Pattern Friday: Give Thanks Napkin

This week's free cross stitch pattern is actually a straight Thanksgiving design.  But I'm posting it a few weeks earlier, so you can actually use the design this year (if you stitch fast!).

I first came across this turkey Thanksgiving design by Joan Elliott in a back issue of Cross Stitch and Needlework magazine.  It was part of a 3 piece set, but the napkin design was my favorite of the three.  So when I came across the pattern for free from the Herrschners website, I knew I needed to share it with you all.  As much as I liked the pattern from the magazine, pattern copyright is an issue I deeply respect, so I couldn't share it unless it had been offered by the publisher for free.  Which it is right now at least, and it makes me very happy. I just love Joan Elliott's designs!

Head over to Herrschners to download the PDF of this free cross stitch pattern and spice up your Thanksgiving table a bit (pun not intended).

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 2

MMMM is a SAL created by Pull The Other Thread and taken over hosting for November by Justine's Cross Stitch. 

So this week, the big news is....

I have a finish!!!!!

Victorian Tree is done, done, done.  Okay, well, I need to do the actual finishing up into an ornament still (backing it and adding a string) but other than that, the stitching is all done.

The coloring is a little weird in the photo (the light was wonky yesterday) but you get the general idea.

My first time beading any project, and I think it went okay.  I don't think I'll be winning any technique prizes any time soon, but there you go.  So now I'm off to work on Teton Santa, which will be the next beading project.  Hopefully that one will bead up a lot quicker, since there won't be so many random placement of assorted beads (they're more colorblocked).

I should also mention this is my first finish of the year.  Yikes.... : /

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 1

Well, you may be wondering if MMMM concluded at the end of October, why you're seeing another post for it.  The original SAL hosted by Pull The Other Thread did conclude at the end of October, but Justine of Justine's Cross Stitch blog has taken over hosting for November.  So that gives me another chance to finish up those minis I worked on all last month!  Which is good, because they're all Christmas presents anyway...

So here's my latest progress.  I didn't really get much done this week, mostly because I joined a book club last minute a few days before the meeting, so I was attempting to read the 500 page book before that happened Thursday night (I didn't make it, by the way, in case anyone was wondering.  But I tried. :)

All the main stitching on Teton Santa has been done:

And all I have left for stitches on Victorian Tree is to finish filling in the red background.  Sheesh, I never knew background could be so tedious!

So after that's done, it's onto beading, beading, beading (and a little backstitch) for my 6 Mill Hill projects.

Free Pattern Friday: Autumn is Here

This week's free cross stitch pattern really is moving on from Halloween designs this time, I promise.

Although it's been autumn for awhile, I usually don't start to think about it until after Halloween.  September has always been either school or still too summery for me in California, and then October of course is Halloween.  So it isn't until after we get through the costumes and the candy that I start to think of fall leaves and autumn.  This pattern is a great little reminder that "Autumn is Here".  I know one of my friends would love this pattern because it uses all those fall colors that she loves.  

This free cross stitch pattern was designed by The Snowflower Diaries.  Head over to the blog to save the pattern and key.  

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday: Li'l Pumpkins

Happy Halloween everyone!

So are you sick of Halloween themed free cross stitch patterns yet?  

Well, if you are, this week is a bit of a break (sort of).  And if you're not, well then this pattern can be easily adapted to be a Halloween pattern.  This week's pattern is called Li'l Pumpkins and was designed by Erynne from Stitcheree!  It's a nice general fall pattern.

Just head over to Erynne's blog to download this free cross stitch pattern.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 5 (Final Week)

It's weird to be at the last week of MMMM. First of all, like, where did October go? And secondly, I feel like I just got the hang of doing this mini thing.  Yes, there is technically 1 more day in October, and there's a possibility I might get more done between now and then, but just in case, I figured I better post my last official update today just in case. 

I am really, really close to a finish on Teton Santa.  Just his head left to finish.  Well, and then there's the beading of course, but that will be for later. 

Also coming along well on Victorian Tree.  Really need to finish this one soon as it's for an exchange and I need to send it off in a couple weeks.  So I guess the new experience of beading will happen with this one first.  Obviously I didn't finish the beading on my other MH kits yet either, which was one of my goals for this month, but I'm at least happy that I motivated myself to do as much stitching as I did. 

I think I need to resign myself to the fact that I don't stitch as quickly as I think I do.  :)

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 4

So I'm a little later with this than my intended Thursday update but, well, let's just say it's been a really, really rough week.  In fact, if it weren't for stitching during my lunch hour, I would have no progress to show this week whatsoever.  But thankfully I do have some progress, so here we go. 

Teton Santa is moving along.  Got a little more done on his coat and arm.  The areas I have left involve lots of switching of colors, so I imagine progress will slow down on this quite a bit. 

I also started the last of the Mill Hill ornament kits I NEED to get done by this year, Victorian Tree.  I started this shortly before my last update, but hadn't taken a picture of the like 15 stitches I had started at that point. 

The tree on this one is actually being a bit of a challenge, because the three greens are quite mixed up, it's hard for me as a cross country stitcher to get a rhythm going.  I had to break out some markers and mark what stitches I've made, which is unusual for me, especially with a small piece.  But now that the tree is pretty much done, the background will hopefully go much faster.  Going on a road trip on Saturday, so might get some stitching done on the way up if the sun comes up at a decent time, but it will be too dark on the way home to do anything.

Obviously there is only one week left in the SAL, and I still haven't completed the beading on the other ornament kits I have finished the stitching on.  Bother.  But I will get it done in time for Christmas!  I don't have a choice really... 

So once Teton and Victorian are done with stitching, it will be beading, beading, beading, and then backing, cutting, hanging, and sewing.  And then when that's done, I'll either attempt to start on the kits that I didn't have to get done this year (but would be nice to finish) or I'll try to finish the nativity project I have going for a friend.  It kind of fell by the wayside when I realized I might not get it done before Christmas, but if I work really hard on it, I might get it done in time, guess we'll see. 

Free Pattern Friday: Hoppy Halloween

I'm super excited about finding today's free cross stitch pattern, because it's a little different than normal.

I bet you're probably used to seeing "hoppy" in lieu of "happy" mostly with Easter.  You know, with rabbits and all.  Here's a Hoppy Halloween design.  But rather than rabbits, this design from Brooke's Books features two frogs, both dressed up for the Halloween season.  Very fun!

Available from the Brooke's Books website, this PDF free cross stitch pattern can be found here.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

October TUSAL Update

So, Daffycat has this SAL over at her blog that she calls the Totally Useless SAL.  The idea is to collect your orts (those pieces of thread you gather while stitching) in a jar and post a picture at the new moon every month.  This has been going on for a couple years or so, but since I just found out about it, well, better late than never, right? 

I just started collecting my orts this month, so my jar is pretty sad.  But I'll add onto it each month and see where it ends up.  These are all leftovers from my MMMM stitching this month, so pretty much all Christmas colors. 

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 3

Time for another MMMM update! And since I finally had some free time on my hands this week, with permission from a few of the participants I was able to put together this nifty banner to highlight the SAL.  If you're new to my blog and haven't heard of MMMM yet, click on the banner above to take you to the hosting blog, Pull The Other Thread, for full detail.

Anyway, this is kind of a late post, but better late than never I guess.  I still made it before the week was up at least!  After having a pretty productive week last week, I haven't made too much progress this past week.

I finished the basic cross stitching on Be Merry, now it's just waiting for backstitching and beads:

I also made a bit more progress on Teton Santa's shorts and mittens:

I also picked up Victorian Tree tonight, so that's the last project I'm hoping to finish by the end of the month(ish).  I don't have a picture of that yet since I've only put a few stitches in, but at least I'm on my way.

Free Pattern Friday: Treats

Welcome to another free cross stitch pattern Friday!

So I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of my favorite things about Halloween is candy corn.  So when I saw this pattern it totally piqued my interest.  The original designs uses perforated paper to make a label for a candy jar (which in the picture happens to be filled with candy corn :)  You could easily substitute regular Aida or evenweave fabric for the perforated paper if you would prefer.  And I love the decorated letters for the label.

The project details for this free cross stitch pattern can be obtained at the Tokens and Trifles website.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday: Haunted House

Here's a great Halloween free cross stitch pattern for those of you who like a challenge.

This pattern is larger than many of those I've been featuring lately, and it uses both specialty threads from Kreinik and a few specialty techniques like couching.  But the finished project will be perfect if you're looking for something different from the "cutesy" patterns I've been posting lately.

This free cross stitch pattern is available for download in PDF format from the Kreinik website.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Mega Mini Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 2

It's time for Mega Mini Month Madness update #2.  I think I will change my update day from Wednesday to Thursday, since I realized yesterday that Wednesday are my long days... and that usually means I don't have time to blog.

Thanks to conference on Saturday and Sunday last week, I had a pretty productive week of stitching.  In fact, it might be the the most productive week I have all month...

So nothing is "finished" yet, but I did finish all of the stitching on Mill Hill's Hot Stuff for my first mini project of the week:

Then I have made quite a bit of progress on Teton Santa, my largest mini for this challenge:

And I have made a little bit more progress on Be Merry:

Unfortunately I have had to frog quite a bit on this one.  :-/  For some reason, I just can't quite seem to count right.  Hopefully I will have better luck next week.  

So for my goals for the month, they have now been updated to:

1. Finish the beading Tropical Kitty, Provence Rooster, and Hot Stuff
2. Finish stitching Teton Santa and Be Merry (then bead thereafter)
3. Start the last project I 100% must get done before Christmas: Victorian Tree

Until next week!

Be Merry: New Start and Progress Update 10.7.14

Wow, I seem to be posting a lot lately.  Hmmm, don't know if I'll be able to sustain that all throughout this month, or if I'm just lucky on time at the moment.  Also, when you're doing mini projects I find I have to post progress pictures quick, lest they get finished and I have no in-between photos to share.  But in progress pics are cool.  :)

Here's the start of the second-to-last Mill Hill kit I have to get done this year for ornaments for family for Christmas.  I of course have like 13 more kits to do for friends and family period, but I have resigned myself to the fact that if they do not get done this year, that will be okay.

Although this one design is mostly red, for some reason I decided to start with green, so it's not much to look at yet.  Each one of those letters will be checkerboard with beads/not beads, so it's going to be a lot of work on this one I think.

Perhaps a new progress pic for this one to come Thursday in my Mini Mega Month Madness SAL update this week.

Teton Santa: Progress Update 10.6.14

As I mentioned in Saturday's post, I moved back onto Teton Santa for my Sunday conference stitching agenda.  So here's the progress I've made since last time:

Luckily this isn't turning out to be nearly as big as I thought it would be, so I no longer feel a little "iffy" about labeling it a mini for the Mega Mini Month Madness Challenge.  And it's also good that it's working up so fast, although that might change once I'm done with the fairly monochromatic goat and on to the multicolor/multibeaded Santa.  I'll be posting my progress since Sunday later on this week for the challenge.

Hot Stuff: New Start and Progress 10.4.14

So true to my Mega Mini Month Madness Challenge, I dutifully started a new mini project on Wednesday, since it was October 1st.  This one is a kit from Mill Hill called Hot Stuff, and I put down my Quaker project to work on it.

This week is the general conference broadcast for our church, which I love conference weekend because I can usually get a good amount of stitching done while I'm listening to the speakers (I'm not brave enough to stitch in church, but I'll do it when I'm siting at home on my couch).  So although I'd only worked on the piece for about 40 minutes total since Wednesday, I managed to get a good chunk done.  Here's where I'm at after the Saturday morning 2 hour session:

I managed to finish it completely except the beading during the afternoon session, so pictures of that to come later.  Now I'm moving back on to Teton Santa for tomorrow I think, which although it's bigger than this project, I'm still counting as a mini because I will eventually be making it into an ornament.

Free Pattern Friday: Best Witches

Here's to the first Friday of October!  Let's celebrate with another Halloween free cross stitch pattern.

Today's pick comes from the wonderful designer Barbara Ana.  Continuing with the witch theme from last week, this design is called "Best Witches", which is perfert for me, since as an English major, I love puns.  :)  Barbara also has some other super cute Halloween designs available for purchase from your favorite needlework shops, so definitely check those out if you like this design.  One of them, Ice Scream, is currently on my 123stitch wish list.  I so want to get to that someday...

But in the meantime, if you're budget is limited like mine at the moment, you can head over to Cyberstitchers to download this free cross stitch pattern in PDF or two other formats.

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Mega Mini Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 1

So lately I find myself splitting my stitching time between actually stitching, looking for new patterns (as if I need more, right?), and reading/joining SALs (that’s Stitch-A-Long for any of you who might be uninitiated :)

Well, I was poking around the other day when looking for new patterns, and I stumbled across a Mega Mini Month Madness SAL hosted by Pull The Other Thread.

Christmas is sneaking up on me fast, and I am going to need to hurry if I’m going to finish my ornament projects for my family by then. So I think this may be a challenge that will be perfect for me. So those are my main goals for this month. I will post my progress (hopefully) at least once a week, in order to fulfil the requirements for the SAL. So my plans for right now are:

1. Finish the beading on the cat and rooster kits I finished stitching in August
2. Finish stitching/beading Teton Santa
3. Start the last three projects I absolutely, 100% must get done before Christmas: Victorian Tree, Hot Stuff, and Be Merry (pictures to come later)

We’ll see how far I get...

If you’d like to join along, the official signups are unfortunately closed, but you can hang out at Pull The Other Thread to check out all the fun and comment with your own progress too.

Free Pattern Friday: Witches Hat

It's Friday, so it's time for another free cross stitch pattern.  We're going to continue with the Halloween theme for awhile, so let's get to today's pick.

I tend to like cutesy rather than scary Halloween patterns.  For me, Halloween is a purely secular holiday, and I don't mind talking about things like witches, ghosts, and vampires because it's all in pure fun for me.  So today's pattern features this cute little black cat hiding underneath a purple witches hat.  This pattern comes from the Sullivans Floss website, so it uses Sullivans floss, but if you would like a DMC/Sullivans conversion chart, there's one available on Cyberstitchers.  

This free cross stitch pattern is available as a zipped file (PDF) from the Autumn Collection at Sullivans Project Central.  

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.