I’m Dumb When I’m Tired

I mean, really, why else didn’t I think to check the punchneedle packaging for threading instructions? Duh! 😆

So, I did a bit of punchneedling today. First, I checked the make sure I had needle threading instructions, then I placed an order with The Silver Needle for 4 different punchneedle patterns. Some come with the pattern already printed on cloth, some of them are just the pattern. Good thing I already have some weavers cloth, so I didn’t need any of that for the patterns that are coming.

With that settled, I went stash diving, looking for something to punch. 😉 What I came up with was the first (and only) design that I needle punched – Star of Wonder by Homespun Elegance. While it was originally a pattern printed directly on cloth, which I already used, there was a diagram to show which colors to use in which areas that I was able to use as a pattern. Here’s the final result:


I think it looks better than my first attempt:


Not knowing what I was doing the first time around, I used two different sizes of needles (1-strand and 3-strand) for the design, which cause portions of the design to be at two different depths and thicknesses, which didn’t turn out as well. I think that this time, you can actually tell that it’s a sheep on the hillside (or at least some sort of animal).

So, there you go. The most interesting part of my day today. I’ll leave you with photos of what I bought for future projects:








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Threading a Punchneedle

I’ve been trying to catch up on my blog reading today, in the midst of doing work from home. It’s supposed to be a vacation day for me, as the company I work for gave us today and tomorrow off of the Fourth of July holiday, but a service request for a problem that we’ve had logged with a large-software-company-that-shall-remain-nameless for over a month finally got escalated this week and apparently they didn’t have off today, so they’ve been hounding me like crazy all day. I haven’t seen as much activity on this request in the entire month+ that it’s been open as I’ve seen in the past two days since it was escalated. Holy cow!

Anyway, it catching up on blogs, I saw that someone sent someone (my memory is like a steel sieve) an exchange that included a scissors fob done in punchneedle. Which reminds me that I’d like to try that craft again, since I bought two needles at the final CATS festival in Hershey and tried my first piece that weekend. I enjoyed it, but I don’t remember how to thread a punchneedle now! Can anyone either tell me how to do it, or point me in the direction of some instructions? I haven’t bothered to Google it yet because I’m apparently feeling lazy. A video would be the best, actually. That and some recommendations for punchneedle designs/designers would be great. My mind isn’t working too well tonight, having a headache and all. We’ll just blame it on that. 😉

Posted in Crafting, Stitching | 1 Comment

Inventory Reduction Sale at OSL!

Now that I’m finally feeling like myself, it’s time to get down to business. I need to make room for new stock, so it’s out with the old and in with the new!

One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies is going to be having an inventory reduction sale the week of July 20th, with 20% off of your entire order, including both in stock and out of stock items. Check out the One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies home page for more details.

Be the first to get our newsflashes by subscribing to our RSS feed! Just look for the Syndicate section in the lower left corner of the website for our feed information.

While you’re there, please take a moment to vote in our latest poll. We’re looking to see what level of Beyond Cross Stitch kits from The Victoria Sampler you’d like to see us carry first.

Posted in Shop Talk | 1 Comment

Giraffe Pillow and 3D Cards

I have pictures to share today. Woohoo! 🙂

First up are the 3D Kirigami cards that I was talking about, though I’m not sure how much they really fit into the realm of Kirigami except that you cut paper and there are some minor folds involved to get the design to pop out from the paper.

Ballerina:


Oriental Dragon:


Dragon: (I just whipped this up yesterday)


Just as a reminder for anyone who wants to give it a try, this is the site where I found these patterns.

Second are my progress pictures on a pillow that I started some time ago. I bought a total of 4 of these kits to go with some of our furniture and haven’t really made any progress until I picked it up again this weekend. It’s supposed to be done with full cross stitches, but I decided that half stitches are enough. I can’t see actually doing full crosses with the weight of this yarn and the half stitches cover fairly well, so I’ll leave it at that.

I did a little bit of work on it before I snapped this before picture:


And then I was able to get a lot of work done on it yesterday:


I’m excited about the progress that I’m making, so I’m going to stick with this for as long as I’m having fun with it. I might actually finish it in a couple of weeks (or less), if I’m lucky. It would be nice to finish something again. 🙂

Posted in Crafting, Stitching | 12 Comments

We Live in a Beautiful World

Yeah, we do; yeah we do.

Sorry, that Coldplay song running through my head and now it’s running through my headphones. 😉

Anyway, it’s another beautiful day in the neighborhood. I so wish I didn’t have to be fighting with malfunctioning software right now. I could stand to be out on the boat. We played hooky yesterday (otherwise known as a rare vacation day) and went sailing. Of course, problems cropped up at work for both of us, but I was able to pass mine off onto someone else, while Terry actually had to come in and fix something. Ah, the life of the dedicated computer professional. Isn’t it lovely?

We had a bunch of company on the boat yesterday afternoon/evening. That was… um… interesting. 6 people don’t fit on the boat at one time. Anna is probably going to read this and fall off of her chair, as she’s been on the boat with the Dude and knows what it must have been like to have crammed another 2 people on board. Never again.

We were so out of our normal rhythm that poor Terry got hurt. He was trying to bring the sails down while having me turn the boat. Bad idea. The boom for the main sail came across the deck and knocked him over the side of the boat! Think Pirates of the Caribbean when Johnny Depp’s character wheels the boat around hard and knocks Orlando Bloom’s character so that he’s hanging over the water, hanging onto nothing but the boom. Terry didn’t end up in the water, but was hanging onto a pole and the lifelines. He’s pretty banged up, though he did his best to act like it was nothing at the time, to allay everyone’s fears. I feel bad for him. Just one of those things that wouldn’t normally happen, but I’ve learned the hard way that jamming a lot of people into any sort of vehicle can be a recipe for disaster. After all, that’s how I got into my first automobile accident as a teenager.

Heh-heh… automobile. Dong, where is my automobile? 😆

Anywhoooooooo. Not much going on here. I received my pearl cottons so that I can create the cording to finish off Barnabee’s Quest. Just as soon as I finish sewing on the velcro strips to hold it to the bellpull hardware. You sew both strips onto the back of the piece so that it wraps around the bellpull and then sticks to itself. A good technique to know for fixed bellpull hardware, since the only ones I’ve used so far either allowed you to slip the piece over the dowel and/or the finials could be removed to allow you to slip the piece onto the dowel. So, I’m used to just stitching a little pocket for the dowel, which wouldn’t work this time. Hopefully, Barnabee will ready for his debut as a finishing product sometime in the next week or so.

No more card crafting for now. I’m not totally tapped out of ideas, but I have nothing to do with them, so I’m going to send some to Barbara and the rest to my grandmother. I’ve also been working at learning and practicing Kirigami, though all I’ve done so far are two pop-up cards/sculptures. I’ll have to take pictures. One is of a ballerina on pink backing cardstock and the other is an oriental dragon. The ballerina will go to my psychiatrist, who has a special interest in ballet. The dragon is for me, especially because he took quite a while to cut out and was a good challenge for me. I just forgot to mount him on his backing paper before I popped him out, so it will be interesting to try to put on the backing after the fact. I may have to do him again!

I printed the patterns from this website, if anyone is interested. All you need is some white cardstock and a sharp Exacto (or other) knife. And I mean SHARP. I was working with a dull blade for the entire ballerina and part of the dragon and it was really hard on my hand to push so hard. When I finally changed out the blade, it was amazingly easy and I was able to finish up the dragon in no time afterwards. Duh to me. 😉

I’ve even almost picked up a needle. Okay, that’s a lie. I did pick up a very thick needle yesterday to do some plastic canvas work while on the boat. Remember the coasters I stitched last year? Well, I bought a matching tissue box cover at the same time. So, I started it yesterday, only to find out (much to my dismay) that they totally forgot one color of yarn – the gold that is used for the anchor. There are only 5 colors used, how do you manage to miss one? So, now I need to run out to ACMoore or WalMart or someplace and pick up some gold yarn, along with some more white cardstock so I can make more 3D cards. 😀

I also kitted up Just Nan’s Flower Girls WhimZi design that I bought for my work cubicle for the spring and summer months. I will put needle to fabric on that one soon, I think. I even ironed the fabric last night, so I’m ready to go whenever my mojo decides to pay me a visit.

Finally, I acquired some new stash yesterday. Shame on me! I was trying not to buy anything else for quite some time, but this one called out to me with a specific purpose. I won an eBay auction for Just Nan (can you tell I like her designs or something?)’s Sparkling Iris design, embellishments and the beautiful frame. Once finished, this will go to either my mother or grandmother, both of whom love irises!

That’s enough babbling from this little brook for now. Time to get back to the grind. 🙂

Posted in Life in General | 8 Comments

Last Cards (For Now, At Least)

I know y’all are probably getting sick of looking at card after card after card… After all, this used to partly be a stitching blog. I just have to get back into that stitching stuff.

This finishes up the latest package of blanks that I was into and should be the end of them. Should. 😉 Does anyone want any of these, since I have absolutely no use for them myself?




















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More Card Crafting?

What? Is this girl nuts, or what?

Honestly, all I’ve been doing lately is making cards and playing computer games. Yes, I have rediscovered the world of computer gaming. I finally installed and started playing a game called Dungeon Siege 2 that a friend of mine bought for my last birthday, or was it the one before that? Anyway, I have been very remiss in not at least trying it out. I’m starting to get a bit bored with it, so back to card crafting for me this week. I even stopped at Michael’s on Tuesday and bought some pretty printed papers, with which I have been having fun playing.

I haven’t touched a needle since I finished up Barnabee’s Quest, but have no fear – I did actually finish it into a bellpull, have half-attached the velcro and am waiting for the pearl cotton to arrive so that I can make and attach the cording. It came out quite nicely, even if I set the sewing speed to as low as the machine would actually go, to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. Too much time and effort was put into this piece to screw it up now! It blocked out pretty well, too, so the finishing really wasn’t so bad. I’ll take pictures when it is really completed and hanging on a wall. Oh yeah, where am I going to hang it? … 😆

So, here are the pictures of the cards I’ve made the past two nights. Two of them I really liked, so I made duplicates of them, the rest I could take or leave. I’m just playing around, really. Trying to get the hang of things.






































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One Last Card…

At least for now, as I have polished off one of the packs of notecard blanks that I had.





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More Card Crafting

I may be feeling short on words lately, but fortunately I have more photos to make up for it. 🙂 Here are three cards that I made yesterday. I was even able to incorporate some of my teabag folding that’s been laying around forever into the one. You can see that they got a bit plainer as I went along. I think the creative juices were drying up. I have one more to make that I actually want to use, so I’m hoping that I at least have one more design in me somewhere. That or I can find a photo online somewhere that sparks some creativity.









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Late Night Card Crafting

I’ve been talking to Von offline a little bit about card crafting, so I decided to stop in at Michaels on the way home from Dr. Steve this past Wednesday and see what they had. I walked away with $50 of clear stamps that were on clearance – 5 packages! I was quite excited to get such a deal and anxious to put them to work.

After getting home from sailing last night with a headache that I laid for a while to get rid of, I woke up with a little bit of energy to burn (from the Execedrin that I had taken) and decided to sit down and make a notecard to send to my grandmother, who just lost her dog. I ended up staying up until after 1:30 AM, making not just that notecard, but two Father’s Day cards, as well.









They’re not terribly sophisticated. Just what came out of my untrained head and would fit on these dinky 4.5″ x 5″ card sets that I have to work with. Unfortunately, I have packs and packs of these, so I would be more than willing make up some notecard sets to trade, sell or give away (or just the bases) to anyone who wants them. Let me know if you’re interested.

As for me, the bug is still biting me, so I think I’ll try to make up some additional ones today. 🙂

Posted in Crafting | 3 Comments