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.