Bright Dinosaurs

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Heather

I won’t go into my love for all things PlanetJune again. All I will say is that she sure makes super cute dinosaur patterns.

Plesiosaurus from PlanetJune

Example one: a lovely blue Plesiosaurus, crocheted from Bernat Satin in colour Teal. Nessie never looked so cute.

Stegosaurus from PlanetJune

Example two: a bright orange Stegosaurus. Bernat Satin again, this time in Sunset. He might not last long in the wild, but he sure is adorable.

These guys are now on their way to a lady in Kentucky. Hopefully her little man will love them.

4 Comments | Posted in Crochet | Tagged , ,

Kitchen Blessings Border

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Heather

Seemingly endless stitching in a semi-solid silk. Not exactly my favourite type of stitch. And that is exactly why my re-colour (and re-charted border) of Enchanting Lair’s Kitchen Blessings is languishing. But, I dusted it off the other night, and I am now more than halfway around the outer border.

Kitchen Blessings by Enchanting Lair (WIP)

And a beauty shot of my stitching. It may not be the neatest stitching in the world, but it brings me joy.

And since I’m talking about Enchanting Lair, I would be remiss if I didn’t let you know that Laura is having a sale. All of her fabric is currently 20% off. I’m on a stash diet, but I dearly wish I could take advantage of that sale. There are a few colours that would be perfect for some projects in my stash. Why don’t you head over there and buy something while you think of me. 😉

1 Comment | Posted in Cross Stitch | Tagged ,

Feeling Blue-ish

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Heather

I know that those of you who do needlework are familiar with over-dyed and hand-dyed threads. There is a whole set of people out there trying their hand at dying various fibres in a multiplicity of colours (with varying degrees of success, I might add). And, I’m sure it comes as no surprise, that this is a huge trend in the knitting/crochet yarn world as well.

I’m lucky enough to have a few lovely skeins of hand-dyed yarn. There aren’t many dyers out there that do non-wooly. And, unfortunately, a lot of the dye kits that are available don’t work well with cotton or bamboo fibres, so, I hadn’t bothered to give dyeing a try.

That is, until I got this yarn:

That’s one of two skeins of Panda Cotton in colour 0406 Caribbean Blue. Definitely not my colour. And, to make them even better, both had tea stains on them.

So, I broke out a package of dark grey Rit Dye, boiled up some water, crossed my fingers, and in the end I got this:

Fabulous and much more my sort of colour.The yarn has an almost ragg effect too it, since the elastic in the yarn took the dye differently and is now black.

I don’t know that I will try dyeing yarn again. But, then again, if I end up with more yarn that I don’t really like, at least I know I can do something interesting with it.

3 Comments | Posted in Crafts |

Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Heather

May your life be full of love today and every day. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Comments Off on Happy Valentine’s Day | Posted in Site News |

15 Choices for 15-Sided

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Heather

Bead, beads, beads. I had the worst time picking out beads for the 15-sided biscornu. I must have tired at least 15 different colours.

Here’s what I ended up with:

The beads are Mill Hill Magnifica colour 10020 (Royal Amethyst). The DMC colours are 208 and 209, the over-dyed is Needle Necessities 1481 Mystique, and fabric is Enchanting Lair’s Ametrine.

I love the beads. They give the piece so much life. The silver beads I tried just looks flat and lifeless. Weird how that worked out. I thought that purple beads would be too much purple, but that isn’t the case at all.

If you’d like to stitch this 15-sided biscornu too, head over to Kathrin’s blog and download the charts. We are up to square eight so far.

1 Comment | Posted in Cross Stitch | Tagged

February Socks

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Heather

I cheated a little with my February socks. My original plan was to make Pirate Danger (Raverly link, membership required). But, I didn’t have the yarn caked, and well, I was too lazy to get out the swift and ball winder. You know how it is.

So, instead of letting good old Random.org pick my February socks, I picked out the pair I most wanted to make.

Kai-Mei by Cookie A.

Kai-Mei from Cookie A.’s book Sock Innovation. You may remember that I made a pair of these in October last year, using a dark, bright purple yarn called Maizy. Those went to live with a lovely lady in Texas. These lovely socks (knit in my favourite Panda Cotton, in colour 9800 Painted Iris) will be staying right here and adorning my feet.

They were very quick to make. I cast on 8pm on the 3rd, and they were all done before 6pm on the 10th. My notes from the October pair were very helpful, keeping me on track.

I’m not sure if I will ever knit these for a third time, but I sure do like them.

4 Comments | Posted in Knitting | Tagged , ,

12 Days Torture

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Heather

One of my goals this year is to stitch Joan Elliott’s 12 Days of Christmas for my mom. It is a big piece, and I do have a lot on my plate this year (and I would absolutely love to add more,  like Chatelaine’s new Chinese Mandala Garden), but I was pretty confident I could manage it.

And then I opened up the kit. (I bought the kit because the chart is $12+$5US shipping, and the kit was $24CAN. I changed out the aida for linen.)

The chart is tiny! The symbols are cramped in their little grid squares, so much so that some of them look like they run into the grid lines. And, just to make things fabulous, the printing isn’t particularly dark. And that means blowing it up with my scanner/computer makes it just look like a photocopy of a photocopy. Blech.

I have, however, made a little bit  of progress.

12 Days of Christmas (Day 1 WIP) by Joan Elliott

There is a good ending (or middle) to this story. I contacted Design Works, and they are sending me an enlarged chart. Hopefully that will make stitching this design the pleasure it should be.

2 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch | Tagged , ,