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Monday, August 29, 2016

Strawberry Stitches

A tutorial on Stitches on a Strawberry Pincushion Thingy.
What you will need.
A longish sharp needle.
Thread you like.
Sharp scissors.
Oh, and a thimble. I forgot about it till the end when I realized I didn't want to puncture my finger.  Imagine that.




Thread your needle using two strands of floss. Make a big knot.



Insert your needle at the top of the strawberry to one side of the seam. I am using my right hand so it is at the left of the seam. I'm taking pictures with my right hand and holding the berry with my left. Confusing enough yet? I try.


Depending on how big you want your X's go down some and put your needle in the fabric about 1/8 to 1/4 away from the seam and out the other side the same amount.  Pull the thread through.


Bring your needle back up and put it in the fabric lining it up with where you started and coming out a smidge below where the thread is coming out of the strawberry.


Go back down to make another X and put your needle in  1/8 to 1/4 inch from seam and come out the other side like you did before.


Pull thread through. It will look like this.


Go back up and put your needle in the previous hole of the last stitch. Bring the needle out right below where the thread is coming out of the strawberry like you did before.


Go down to make another X. 


Continue along. I"m watching X-Files right now.


Using the upper last stitch as your guide to put your needle in, it keeps your stitches looking even.




It goes pretty quickly once you get your rhythm. I can't decide which season of X-Files is my favorite. I own all of them on DVD and know all the episodes by title which scares my husband for some reason.
I made my stitches big, sometimes I make them little.


Getting towards the bottom. Keep going the same way until the last stitch. It changes then. Tooms is my favorite episode in season one.


Here is where it changes. At the end go further down below the thread nearer the tip of the berry.



Now when you go back up and put your needle in the bottom of the last stitch bring it out to the side of the last stitch as shown.



Put the needle in the berry horizontal to where the other side of the stitch is. Hope that makes sense. If not the picture should.



Bring your needle out at the end of the berry. Now you are going to begin to end the thread.



Take your thimble or anything you might have laying around and shove the needle back up into the berry and come out in the middle of the seam somewhere.




Like this.  I didn't like the reboot of the X-Files.



Put your needle back into the seam and bring it back down and out of the tip of the berry.
At the time, X-Files was the longest running sci-fi show ever, nine years. 
I'm full of useless trivia, and a huge geek.



Snip your thread close to the end.


YAY!


BAM!

You are done! Look at you! You have great looking Strawberry Stitches. 

And you learned a bunch of crap about X-Files you didn't know before.




Saturday, August 27, 2016

Brain Arguments and Two New Designs

I try to be in step with the seasons.

Really, I do. 

My brain tends to argue with me in the middle of the night.

It whispers.

Brain: "Hey, I have a really neat idea for a flag deal."

Me: "It's time to start designing for Halloween, the 4th of July is past."

Brain: "So."

Me: "Dude, you don't understand how this works. People expect certain things at appropriate times."

Brain: "When have you ever been appropriate?"

Me: "You have a point there."

Introducing My Brain Doesn't Understand Seasonal Designing

1776 Pennant & Embroidered Bell

~Gotta hand it to Brain, it's a good one~



Instructions for the Bell are included in the pattern.


Fun Stitches.


Lazy Daisy Stitches and French Knots are a beautiful combination.

The second new design is Checkerboard Sampler



I love the simplicity of this design.

You can buy both of these in my etsy store.

The 15% sale is still on till the 31st of August!

Use Summersend2016 coupon at checkout







Friday, August 19, 2016

Sale in my Etsy Store ~ 15% off Storewide!

Are you tired of summer?

Looking for a reason to stay indoors in the air conditioner?

I'll give you one!

I'm having an sale in my etsy store!


15% off storewide! 

WHAT?

Type in coupon code Summersend2016 at checkout.

The sale lasts from right now till August 31.

Tell your family to get their own dinner and sit and stitch while binge watching X-files on Netflix.

Here are some of the wonderful designs you will find in my shop!

Button Eyed Pumpkin Punch
Get started on your Fall Punching! Comes with Weavers Cloth!


Tiny Acorns ~ another fall favorite! Check out my finishing post on this one! http://deathbythread.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-finishing.html



Merry and Bright is a fun stitch for Christmas! X-files may have to be pushed aside. Slip in White Christmas for this one!


I love my 1582 Sampler. Sense and Sensibility would be a good watch for this one. 
Do you like my viewing recommendations? 


The Sewing House
I also have a finishing tutorial on this one!


Bird and Arrow
This is one of my personal favorites!
It was fun to design and a blast to stitch. I put the heart key around the birds neck as a tribute to my dad who was retiring from being a locksmith that year. Just a small thing only I would know, but now you do too!

Have fun shopping!





Thursday, August 11, 2016

Witchy Mother

 I had a request to do a witch cross stitch design.

So I did.

Her she is!

Witchy Mother


I like the wart with hair coming out of it on her nose.

GROSS.




The thought of doing a portrait of a witch with the word Mother underneath it cracked me up.

She has a couple of grey hairs too. Along with some bad green makeup. I love her.

I went and found a suitable ratty frame at Hobby Lobby before I even started the design.

I wanted her to fit in there perfectly.

You can find it in my etsy store!


Monday, August 8, 2016

Colonial Flag Sampler

I have a new sampler!

Colonial Flag Sampler 



I have a 'thing' for the colonial flag.

I love the round star field and then all the stripey goodness going on.  Betsy Ross was a fine designer of our nations flag.

You can find it here:




Tuesday, August 2, 2016

SEW Pincushion is in the HOUSE

SEW Pincushion
There is a link ~ up there.


I love how bright and fun this pincushion turned out to be.

There is a funny story behind that.

I was picking out the colors and I had everything chosen except for the words. I was thinking purple but wasn't sure so I threw in a dark brown.
I was running my color choices past a friend of mine and she liked everything. We got to the words color.  I handed her the dark brown. "What the hell is this?" she asked. "This is crap." 

I died laughing. 

I tossed her the bright purple.

She liked it.