I hope you didn’t seriously think that I would stop at just one Halloween ornament from the Prairie Schooler chart, because I didn’t LOL. Here’s another cutie, this must be the friendliest ghost in the Halloween world. He sure was a joy to stitch.

Every morning in Denmark, I’d work on my cross stitch projects. I don’t know about you, but whenever I am working on a technique, I find it very soothing and relaxing to do some cross stitch only projects. Cross stitching is something I know, something I can do almost without looking. Or maybe better said, I “feel” it when I do something wrong.

Trying to learn Hedebo was challenging, lots of stitches I had not done before and while I loved doing it, I surely appreciated my cross stitch project.

At the school where I stayed in Denmark, I started out with this piece of Hedebo. It was not very complicated, but the preparation work takes up a lot of time. I think that’s the same with any kind of technique where you cut threads. You just have to make sure the threads in the fabric are secured and that is not a quick job. But it was a lot of fun to do.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that I hadn’t cut away the threads yet. They are still on the backside of this piece. The threads are gone now and I need to come up with a way of finishing. I might just get a binder with all sorts of examples.

You already know that I am on a Halloween kick this year. I have hunted down some more Halloween designs that are just begging to be stitched. One of them is the new Halloween book by Blackbird Designs. Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 6 but 13 stockings to choose from. Be still my heart. They are all in typical BBD style and it will definitely be a hard choice to decide which one I will do. This seems to me a perfect “stitch on the plane” project. It’s not too big, not too many colors (well, depending on which one I will choose) and I might even be able to finish this before I am back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another project that I am sorely tempted by is “Witches Stitch Too” by Homespun Elegance. It uses a little more colors but I think it is a perfect example of how Halloween and humor go together.

And finally, there is this sweet and quick design by Val’s Stuff that I think is just too cute. Of course it helps that there is a cat in the design.

This would make a great addition to my stack of Halloween ornaments. And it would be a change from all the Prairie Schooler stitching I have done lately. Again, this is a perfect plane project, small and not very complicated. I cannot imagine sitting on a plane and having to deal with queen stitches, cutting threads or other complicated matters.

Which one is your favorite?

As always when I go away, I spend more time picking out which projects to bring than gathering my clothes. I have this general feeling of optimisme, that I can stitch for more hours than I can count and that I will be able to stitch a multitude of projects. Or as one of the ladies in my group in Denmark said: I’m a time-optimist.

As we got the new Prairie Schooler charts in just before I left, I simply knew I had to take the Halloween chart with me. I just LOVE these charts. And another bonus is that there weren’t so many colors so I figured it would make for great vacation stitching.

At my first stop in Germany on my way to Denmark, I was able to put in the final stitches on Meow. I guess you know that I didn’t speed stitch this cutie, but had a head start at home LOL. It was so rewarding to stitch this, with the few colors, it doesn’t require too much concentration and the end result is very satisfying.

I plan on finishing this one just as the leaflet tells you to do.

One of my new starts this summer is this wonderful design by Carriage House Samplings. It’s called Spot the Horse and I just love him. As you can see, Spot is almost stitched, but there is quite a bit of work left to be done. I am using some 36 count Birds of a Feather linen I found in my linen drawer and the colors just go so well with this fabric. It is an uncomplicated design, fairly large parts in one color and that’s just what I wanted.

He’s currently in the stables, resting from his adventures, but I know he will be out soon. I told myself I can only have one CHS project going and as I am really looking forward to Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow, I’d better hurry up and get Spot done quickly.

In August I spent 10 days in the lovely country of Denmark to learn all I could about Hedebo. Hedebo is a Danish technique that started in the late 1700’s. There are different techniques within Hedebo which makes it a great technique to learn. You can start easy and work your way up to needle lace.

In order to learn this myself, I spent a couple of days in a suburb of Copenhagen. You see, Hedebo originated in the region Koge, Roskilde and Greve, all places very close to Copenhagen. The musea in these places have wonderful pieces of Hedebo. Definitely worth a visit, though you might want to park your companions someplace else if they are not interested in needlework.

Below are a few pictures I took of ancient Hedebo pieces. As with a lot of needlework, not everything has been saved over the years and as most Hedebo was worked on linens that were actually used, some of it must have vanished because of wear and tear. There will be more pictures, just be aware, I have a simple camera so the flash is sometimes quite prominent LOL.

For those interested, we are offering a class in Hedebo, starting with Tallesyning, which is the counted version of Hedebo. Think of beautiful, geometrical bands in satin stitches. You can do the class at home, there will be an English translation of the Dutch instruction. Email me at info at dehandwerkboetiek dot nl if you’d like to get more information.

Thank you for the welcome back comments, it sure is good to be back. I hope to be able to post more in the coming weeks. After all, I still have those pictures of my summer stitching and my needles haven’t been idle ever since.

For as long as I can remember since I entered the internet stitching world, I have loved the Prairie Schooler designs. Every year I stitched one or two of them. In anticipation of the new designs, I decided to stitch the free graph on the website before it would be gone. Though these designs are not big, they do take a while to stitch as you cover most of your fabric.

But they are such a joy to stitch. No matter how much I love using handdyed and silk threads, I love it that PS still uses good old DMC. Which I convert to Venus threads, but never mind that. And 32 count Lambswool linen is a must have in my stash. Occassionally I will change the linen, but they always look best on 32 count Lambswool with 2 strands of floss. Maybe that is why I like her designs so much, in this constantly changing world, it is nice to have a few solid rocks in your life.

So here is “Rain”, it’s gone from the website now, but there is an adorable snowman in its place. Grab it while you can and when you have a few hours left, just start it. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

Now I have to decide how to finish it. In the back of my mind is the idea to make a small scrapbook album that will hold about 5-6 of these smaller PS designs. Who knows .

It turnt out that I took an unexpected leave of blogging this summer. For some reason I couldn’t get myself to update the blog and decided to let it rest till I felt like blogging again. And here I am.

As I didn’t have to blog, I spent quite a few hours stitching this summer. I finished some older projects, worked on some current projects and unavoidably I started a few other projects. There will be definitely stitching pictures for quite some days to come.

So let’s start with a new project, I am happy to say, I started and finsihed it this summer. It’s one of the designs in the Acufactum book Sommerland and of course it is a house. Have you ever wondered why you are fascinated by a shape or object? For me it’s houses, I can look at houses all day. The way they are decorated, the way they are built, the way they are fitting in the landscape (or not). I know quite a few customers told me that they noticed that I seem to favor designs that have houses on them. I admit, I’m guilty.

Anyway, when I had to select a design from the book, I couldn’t resist stitching this house. I love the colors, so bright and cheerful, so full of summer. And stitching with the Vaupel & Heilenbeck threads was pure joy. You can use one strand on 32 count and it covers beautifully. Here’s a picture of how the house looks without the French knots and backstitches.

I have done the knots and the backstitches, but have no picture yet, so that’ll have to wait till another day.

It may sound strange but 70 little squares, 31 numbers and 31 motifs take a while to stitch. Quite a while to be precies. How long I don’t know yet, I just know that by stitching one outline border every day, won’t make me reach my deadline. I need to somehow speed up the process otherwise I won’t have my little pillows ready by September. They are great fun to stitch, especially the motifs. The snowman for day 6 was a lot of fun.  The wreath for day 5 was a bit tricky, with the changes of color and the 3/4 stitches.

As you can see I haven’t made that much progress since my last post about this project, but I’m getting there.

Every year around July 4th, I’m getting a bit anxious. I see all this beautiful patriotic stitching, beautifully decked tables, lots of red white and blue and I tell myself that next year I need to have a 4th of July stitched piece as well. Luckily, that doesn’t last long as my stitching list is long enough as it is, but the feeling lingers.

So this year, I decided to join the festivities and make myself a 4th of July breakfast. Here’s my contribution to red, white and blue.

Miss Murphy moped around and said that technically speaking it wasn’t red, white and blue, but red, vanilla and blue. I told her if she wanted to get her canned cat food (a bit treat to her) she’d better shut up .

And since I don’t have much stitching to show, here are two pics of the shop’s windows.

and the other side

I had to take these at an angle, otherwise the only thing you’d see would be yours truly in the windows.