Valentine’s Biscornu Exchange

I love participating in exchanges, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, so when a Valentine’s Biscornu exchange was arrange at CrossStitchForum I was obviously in. The sending date was at the beginning of February, and since I have receive mine and my recipient has received hers I can now show them off 🙂

Here is the lovely biscornu I received from Rachebabes. I love the tassels on it, it’s definitely something I’m gonna try on my February biscornu.

My biscornu went all the way to California and to Rowlesgirl. It wasn’t actually the biscornu I had planned on sending, I was stitching on a different one and suddenly realized I’d made a massive counting mistake, I just couldn’t face unpicking and it was too big a mistake to incorporate. So I started a new one, completely my own design, even trying out some specialty stitches like Rhodes hearts and satin stitch diamond. I’m really pleased with it and hope Rowlesgirl liked it as well.
I stitched it on my own hand dyed 16 count aida, using a few different variegated floss, I think (so forgetful) the letters are in a Dragonfloss shade, Rhodes hearts and satin stitch in a Anchor Variegated and cross stitched hearts in Pomme de Pin Pimprenelle. The buttons were ones I picked up in Bangkok last year. Really don’t get to use them enough.

January Biscornu and Christmas Ornament finished

Another couple of finishes, my biscornu and Christmas ornament for January. As I mentioned before the ornament will not be finished ‘finished’ for a few months, I plan on having a finishing day once I have a few more stitched up.

The biscornu is a Faby Reilly freebie design. I stitched it on some of the 16-count zweigart cream gold flecked aida I got for the wedding project, I’m amazed I still have some left although there isn’t much now. For floss I used two different DMC colour variations, and a blue Madeira silk. I also used some Gütermann Beads (9/0-9904) at the end of the flakes and around the edge. It took an awful long time to bead the edge, but it think it was worth it. Predicable I’ll be doing a Valentine’s themed biscornu for February, just have to decide on a design now. I have done one, but it’s for an exchange.

My Christmas ornament was a freebie by The Sampler Girl, it’s called Christmas Eve Flight and can be found on her blog. I stitched it on 32-count flax Belfast linen, using Weeks Dye Works – Chestnut for the reindeer, Dragonfloss – Blood Ruby for the text and 2 DMC Colour Variations for the snowflakes.

The Wedding by Lavender and Lace – Completed and Framed

While browsing another blog I can upon another finish of this and realised I’d forgotten to post the framed picture. So sorry, but I promise you will not have to wait any longer

The full view, have to say taking pictures without getting a reflection in the glass was hard

And a bit of a closer look at the frame, just love this

The Wedding by Lavender and Lace – Take 2

I promised you wouldn’t have to wait too long. And one day is really no time at all.

I must admit I wasn’t as good at taking pictures once I got to this stage, it was too much fun to just keep stitching.

So here is our first picture. Only a little bit more done since the last update.

A closer look at the area that I worked on.

And then, suddenly so much more work done.

This is my favorite part of the dress, I just love the shading on the dress.

And then I decided we need to add some color to the mix. Look at the pretty flowers

Still not made a decision on the ribbons though, at this point the contenders were antique mauve and antique violet.

Some more of the off-white filled on, almost complete now and yet no decision on the ribbons

And finally, dress completely cross stitched, including ribbon. The winner was [drumroll] Antique Violet.

Pretty, pretty ribbons.

Bouquet still needs a bit of backstitch

Elsewhere the bride’s hair was finally finished as well, after many changes I finally went with shades of brown. And you can see a little of the veil here.

Then it was on to the dreaded DMC Light Effects, first up is the border.

It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and it looks great on the fabric

From the border it was straight on to the letters, isn’t the ‘U’ amazing?

Sorry did you want to see all the letters? Here you go then.

And the more personal information, the alphabet is from another wedding sampler which was in Cross Stitch Collection (I think).

The bouquet finally got it’s backstitch

Finishing touches have now been added, backstitching on the bride and groom and the beads.

OMG, the beads. All 420 of them

I actually loved putting them in

Here it is, completely stitched

And for your viewing pleasure, the backside. I’d rather proud of how neat it is.

Now there aren’t many pictures left, just of the piece framed in fact. However my mean streak is shining through again and you’ll get to see these some other time. Don’t worry it won’t be too long.

The Wedding by Lavender and Lace

Finally it’s time for the unveiling of my secret wedding project. I managed to finish and frame it in time for the wedding, and Tom and Helena seemed very happy with it. I had a few ups and down while stitching it, mostly because of the various changes I’d made with the colors, so really I can only blame myself for this one.

Now as you all know I can be cruel, and today is no exception. So yes, you will get to see the whole project, but you’ll be following it every step of the way as well.

As you have by now figure out I stitched The Wedding by Lavender and Lace. Here is a picture of the original, using the charted colors and recommended fabric (sorry for the poor quality, this is the picture from the Lavender and Lace website).

As you will see I made a lot of changes to the original, the main one being the color of the dress. The original is white, but Helena’s wedding colors were off-white, gold and brown, so I started with off-white as the base color for for the dress and used the DMC color family list to help me choose the matching shades. The DMC shade card would no doubt have been better as an aide, but since I had all the shades myself the colour family list worked just as well. Other changes included the hair colors, ribbon colors and completely dropping the bride’s maid. I should also mention that it was stitched on 16-count Zweigart Lurex aida, cream with. gold flecks. Ok, here we go.

Most of my cross stitch projects to date have been started from the middle of the chart, but with ‘The Wedding’ I decided to start from a corner since I had gridded the fabric anyway.
This was the first picture I took of my progress. Because I was stitching in a hoop I tried to complete sections, color by color.

Here a few of the other shades are done

Depending on the light it was quite golden looking, especially when the off white was filled in.

Once the top part of the dress was done I started on the bottom part, some procedure as before, color by color.

I love the way it just adds on the texture, showing the folds on the dress.

I thought filling in the off-white would be a real chore, but because everything else was filled in I could just stitch without counting, at least until I got to the bottom.

Some more filled in

Most of that bottom section done

I will leave you now with a full picture of the progress up till then. Don’t worry, you shouldn’t have to wait for the next section for very long.

June ATCs

Yeah, I realise it’s September, but my June ATCs with the Cross Stitch ATC’s facebook group have not been without problems. In fact both the ones I sent disappeared and I had to make new ones, this is starting to become a regular occurrence which is why I temporarily stopped signing up for exchanges, I’ll do them again when we get back to the UK.

Anyways, the themes for June was FIFA/Wimbledon and the letter ‘N’, and here are my contributions.

FIFA

Stitched on white and navy 14-count aida with DMC threads, stitched from my own chart

Letter ‘N’

Stitched on 16 count white aida coloured with a blue crayon. The frame is stitched with Polstitches Dragonfloss Sea Witch, the N with Polstitches Dragonfloss Fireworks and the needle in DMC Light Effects (can’t remember which of the golds I used). If you want to stitch it yourself the design can be found here

I’m looking forward to joining in with ATCs again in October, when we are back in the UK, as they are so much fun to do. And quick!

Mini Biscornu Exchange

In June we had a Mini Biscornu exchange on Crossstitchforum, the size was set as 4×4 cm for each half and they were to be used as scissor fobs. I received mine very quickly (and I’ve just realized I haven’t put any pictures up of it, but I’ll remedy that soon) and it was beautiful. Unfortunately the one I sent off went walkabout and I made a replacement one. The replacement finally made it’s way to the recipient this week so now I can show you all pictures.

Here it is in my hand, so small (not my hand obviously)

View from the side

And the bottom,with all the exchange details

The scissor design is adapted from a freebie design I found, just had to make it a little smaller. And it’s stitched on 16 count aida, hand dyed with Dylon Flamingo pink using a varigated DMC cotton (the colour number escapes me for the moment) for the scissors.