Gramas Touch a Heart Progress ...

This is the progress I made on "Gramas Touch a Heart" last nite! It's starting to really come along! Can't wait to get this finished so I can mail it to my Grama! :~)

Gramas Touch a Heart Progress ...

Here is my progress so far on "Gramas Touch a Heart"

Using Cross Stitch with Other Hobbies & Crafts

As much as I LOVE to cross stitch, I also have other hobbies/obsessions that I do which includes sewing, scrapbooking, occasionally crocheting, and painting plastercrafts. With my sewing I have started a small business where I design & make custom holiday stockings, blankets & patchwork placemat sets. My business is called Forever Treasured Keepsakes. When I make the holiday stockings, if people want them personalized, I cross stitch the names on the stockings, which I think looks really good! I thought I would share some of the stockings with the cross stitched names on them for you all to see. Let me know what you think!

Round Robin

Recently I have had the opportunity to participate in a cross stitch Round Robin. For those of you that don't know what a round robin is, I'll explain how this particular Round Robin works. Some may work differently. With this Round Robin, there are four stitchers participating. We each have selected a theme that we want our piece to entail. One lady chose Faeries, another chose Angels, another chose Frogs, and I chose Bunnies. Then we each prepared a piece of aida by gridding the sections that each person will stitch on. We stitched a design in one of the sections for our chosen theme. Then we mail our piece off to the next person. They stitch a design that matches the new piece that we just received in the mail. For example, my theme is Bunnies, so the person I mailed my piece to will stitch a Bunnie themed design in one of the gridded areas on my aida fabric. Then she will mail my piece to the next person and they will do the same & so on until the piece is mailed back to me all finished! With the theme I chose, I am planning on framing & hanging the finished piece in my daughter's room. One of her favorite animals is Bunnies. And her favorite color is pink. The design that I stitched on my piece is one that I found in a book I have. However, the original design was much too small & I wanted to make it much more personal for my daughter. I changed the pattern quite a bit, making it larger and changing some of the colors & tweaking the design to work the way I wanted it to. Here are pictures of my gridded aida fabric & the design that I stitched. This was my very first Round Robin that I have participated in and so far I have found it to be quite fun!!! I definitely plan on participating in others in the future! Another great thing about this Round Robin, is that the finished piece will have four different stitched designs that have all been stitched in different countries of the world!!! How cool is that!!!

Gramas Touch a Heart Progress ...

This is a 5x7 sized kit that I am making for my Grama ~ I am changing the pattern to read "Gramas" instead of Grandparents ~ this is a birthday gift for her ~ I just started working on this so there isn't much progress as of yet ~ but it should be a pretty quick to stitch pattern ~ I just think that handprints are so cute! I just had to get this one & make it for my Grama ~ I'm sure she's going to love it!

A Few Quick Stitch Pieces That I Stitched ...

I have been working on a few quick stitch projects lately. Here are pictures of them. I had to stitch Marvin the Martian for my little brother. Marvin is his favorite character. And the Cross Stitch Diva coasters I made for a few friends of mine that also do a lot of stitching. The picture taken of the Cross Stitch Diva on black aida came out a little dark. But the actual coaster looks really nice. The other two coasters were stitched on white aida & cream aida. They were all fun to make. I sent them in the mail as surprises to everyone & haven't heard yet if they like them or not. We shall see!!! :~)