Won a GiveAway - Behind Stitching My Sampler.

Oh My Gosh! I won a giveaway! How awesome are these candy apple charms?!?!:





They're from the GUURRRL blog. FULL of goodness! She is a boutique sewer for Oliver and S (Childrens clothing pattern designer I am in love with.) and is WAY talented! So many adorable things in her Etsy shop. Looks like she has giveaways pretty often so click on over and enter. I'm bookmarking her crayon roll tutorial and adding it to my project list!



In other news - I am behind on the Stitchalong. Hopefully I can catch up and be on track to finish this week.



Here is the sampler so far.




You can see I started to stitch the Y and stopped to take the picture. Last night I abandoned the Y and decided to stitch the X. I couldn't think of anything really interesting to do with X that I could pull off.





With all this stitching lately, I had decided it was time to step away from the sewing machine and try crafting without needle and thread. Then this weekend, one of my lovely neighbors brought me a big bag FULL of old children's patterns.






See my helper carrying the bag? It's full of patterns. I picked out a couple and it would be rude not to use them, right?! Just being a good neighbor! (And yeah, that's a Popover Dress Delilah is wearing.)

Later Skaters!

Jan

StitchAlong - The Letter J

J is for JELLYFISH!



This stitchalong has been so much fun. This hand embroidery stuff is outside of my comfort zone. I never would have done this if it weren't a project put together in such a cool way. It's been neat to see other talented women's embroidery and I have discovered some groovy new blogs to follow through the project. Click over to the 39 squares blog and check it out!

K is for Kite! Stitchingalong

Still stitching along with some talented blogger babes! If you want to see some awesome creative embroidery, check out the 39 squares blog here.


Here is my K for Kite. Now as I am looking at this, this morning, I think I may have to add some grass at the bottom. I think it could use that bit more color. What do you think?

In other news, I have followed the free Popover Dress pattern from Oliver and S and I lurve it! I will post pics soon. Now that I have somehow managed to follow two of their patterns (the other was the Lazy Days Skirt -- easiest toddler skirt ever) I am going to purchase and try some of their other, a little more complicated patterns. I have been very intimidated about following patterns but these from Oliver and S have been so easy to follow and so clear.

Now I just need some warm weather so I can have my model wear the Popover Dress to show you.

T for Teapot.

T is for Teapot. Not that crazy about this one. I think the letter looks unfinished? I may have to go back and play with this square. And brush off that hair in the picture too!

S is for SNAKE

Still stitching - here is the letter S. I rather like this little guy.

P is for Purple Paint

Still stitchingalong, but I missed a few days. That's ok, because my plan is to sew 30 squares and the stitchalong is for 39 days, so I have some leeway. I need it!

Anyway, here is P Purple Paint.

StitchAlong Square OWL

The letter O.

My husband says this one is his favorite.

H is for HAT!

Hanging in there on the stitchalong! H is for HAT!

As soon as I figure out how to get more time into my days, I will post stuff other than these squares!!

M is for MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Who would have thought finding the time to stitch one little square each day would be so hard?! Despite the time challenge, this is SO much fun.

Anyway, here's the M:

I am very happy with how this turned out. I watched the videos on the stitchalong home page and tried a new stitch for the outline. One of these days I will try my hand at my very first french knot. I am SUCH a rookie at this. The other women are blowing me away with their awesome stitching.

Sooo...if you are talented woman from the stitchalong who came in here ---- if you have any suggestions for my letters please post them. I got the idea for a kite for k from the stitchalong, and think an ice cream for i might be good (if I can pull it off) but I could use some HELP!!

In other news....I finished my entry into the $5 dollar store Spring Decor challenge. I took a bunch of pictures and hope to post my tutorial this week. On March 25th (the day of the challenge) I must remember to link the post to enter the contest. I am so excited to see what people come up with! How will I ever have the time to look at all the entries!?!

Square SIX - GREEN means GO!

Here is square 6 for the Stitchalong:


(For those not in the know, there's a group of us stitching one little 1 inch square each day and posting our results daily. I am a total novice. If you check out the other ladies samplers, you are sure to be blown away! Check them out here)


Now, you tell me, should I add an exclamation point after the o? for Go! Just not sure.


I will try to make it by the store to purchase actual embroidery needles and floss. I have NEVER embroidered before. I had floss on hand from using it with wool felt to make Delilah stuff. The 6 strand skein kind. And with my teeny regular old needles, I haven't been able to do anything but two strands thick. For my future letters I could use some better supplies.


That also means I may go BACK over the borders of some of my already finished squares with the thicker threads. Maybe. We'll see.

Square 5 and FIX

Square number 5 is here for the StitchAlong!






I'm pretty happy with this one. I used a teeny scrap of wool felt.


And...I was NOT happy with my B before. I hadn't planned ahead and just had this plain orange B. I added some stitches last night, and, ta-dah!









Thanks to the other lovely samplers being created, I now have some good ideas for my other letters.



Coming soon -- more tote bags, my $5 dollar store craft challenge, a TShirt turned toddler dress, and a collection of felt food!

Three Squares for Stitchalong

I found the cord! That means it's time to reveal my little squares for the stitch-along. Unfortunately, my point and shoot camera is not great with close-ups. So I think the pictures don't reveal some of the prettiness of the small handstitches. But it may also disguise some of my wonky stitches so I guess that's a wash! (Check out the stitchingalong blog progress HERE)






I wish I had planned better and the B would have had a bird. I sewed the C first, and had intended on filling it in, but then like the way it looked as an outline so left it as is. I may go back and embellish that a bit later. I'm also thinking of adding a button to the B square.




I decided on the theme "alphabet" for a few reasons. First, I think when this is finished I will use the embroidered piece for some kind of decoration for Delilah (pillow? framed?). And the alphabet seemed like a good choice for toddler decor. Second, some of the pressure is off to think of a different subject every day. 26 blocks already decided! I plan on embroidering a total of 30, so 4 squares will be "random". Which brings me to the third reason, if I commit to 30 squares, and the project lasts 39 days, then if I miss a day here and there I will still finish on time!




It appears that most participants are doing a square for every year of their age. I'm doing 30. Let's just say that I would have to do more than 30 if I were using my age, and leave it at that!




From the time I saw the post about the project, to being home and starting, there was no time to shop. So I rummaged around for fabric to use. Other ladies appear to be using very organic/vintage looking pretty stuff. My options using plain fabric were limited. My stash is full of patterns! So I ended up using a plain white cotton craft fabric. My concern is how the tails and knots will show through from the other side. But I'll worry about that later.

And now I have done a few squares, I realize my simple theme provides me with a new challenge. How do I make each square unique, pretty, interesting? I think I have to learn some new stitches! I am happy to take suggestions!

Embroidery Challenge

Yesterday I saw this cute post about a challenge to embroider one little square each day. Here's a link today's little square, day 2. http://39squares.blogspot.com/2010/03/square-two.html

I don't have any mad skillz when it comes to hand embroidery. I like it, but I don't know any "fancy" stitches. Perhaps participating in this challenge will inspire me to try and learn a few!

So - last night, already a day behind, I drew out my squares and started stitching. It took me a while to start, I wanted a "theme" rather than haphazardly trying different pictures because without mad skillz, I figure at least a cohesive theme might help my finished piece look nice.

I picked a theme, and stitched. I took a few photos. BUT, this morning I can't find my cord to download the pics from my camera!
Hopefully I will find it tonight, and will reveal my first few squares.

((Now, off to fix the pics in my blog that disappeared. I've been using tinypic and some of my pics have gone! ))