Tale of a Shooting Star…

Okay, has anyone ever blocked a cross stitch project when finished? Due to the amount of pull that I had to do on my mystery sampler in order to get any sort of effect with the coil filling on that heavy Monaco fabric, the fabric is very distorted around that section and I need to pull it straight before I can finish it as a bellpull. Does anyone have instructions for how to block fabric? I don’t know what I’m doing or if I even have the materials needed to do so?

Help! Please. 🙂

Another ambitious list this month. We’ll see what I can manage. 🙂

• Finish model
• Finish SBEBB Melanie’s Exchange
• Finish SBEBB Eight Corner Pillow (Biscornu) Exchange
• Stitch my Round Robin piece
• Work on VSCyberstitchers July Exchange Gift
• Work on Dragonfly Stitches Needlebook
• Restart Victoria Sampler – Spring Banner
• Start Dragonfly Stitches Biscornu SAL
• Start Chatelaine – Stitching Leporello

Looking through this month’s goals, I have to say that I didn’t do too badly. Yay me! 🙂

• Finish Laura’s Quilt Square
• Finish Alchemy Stitchcraft – Mystery Sampler SAL
• 🙁 Work on VSCyberstitchers July Exchange Gift
• Start SBEBB Melanie’s Exchange Gift
• Start SBEBB Eight Corner Pillow/Biscornu Exchange Gift
• 🙁 Restart Victoria Sampler – Spring Banner

Finally! 😀 I’m only two months behind the SAL, but the stitching is complete. Okay, almost complete. I still have to add a couple of beads, but I need to wash and block the piece first and I didn’t want to do that with the beads on.

I did two scans. One against a black background so that you could see the hardanger sections and the pulled sections more clearly and one against a white background so that you can see the colors more clearly. I did not follow the design exactly. In the top section, I chose to stitch Algerian eyes instead of cutting out the four small squares and doing a spoke filling. In the top hardanger section, I chose my own fillings instead of those charted.

This piece was stitched on 28 count Glass Blue Monaco fabric, using DMC flosses, white DMC pearl cottons in #8 and #12 and Caron Waterlilies overdyed silk in Moonglow. The design is by Christine Wilkins of Alchemy Stitchcraft and was presented in six parts as a mystery sampler for the members of her Yahoo! group. I purposefully chose colors that were close in color to the fabric so that the overall effect is very subtle. It looks better in person. 😉

Since I showed you examples of the charts to be used in my Round Robin piece, I thought I would hastily put together an example of what I’m thinking for the layout:

The round robin details would then be stitched in the center portion, with names, the year, etc. I have even thought about how I’m going to finish it. I’m going to do a wallhanging. If I decide to do a decorative border of some type, I might extend the decoration out to make it a square, but right now, I’m thinking of leaving it as is and finishing it as a diamond shaped wallhanging. I would use some heavy interfacing and probably some thin wood strips across the back of the piece to brace it and keep it from sagging.

This is the first round robin in which I have ever participated, so it should be fun! 😀

with this pattern that I’m stitching for the SBEBB eight-sided pincushion (biscornu) exchange! Obviously, I still can’t show any photos, but I should easily have the top of the cushion completed this weekend. In fact, I may finish it tonight, if I don’t force myself to work on something else for a bit. 🙂

Tomorrow morning will be dedicated to working the hardanger sections of the Alchemy Stitchcraft mystery band sampler. I’m determined to complete that project this weekend so that it’s off of my plate and into the pile for finishing.

The overdyed threads and beads for my RR arrived today, meaning that I can now do a quick toss onto the fabric that I think I’m going to use. I’m 99% positive that I’m going to use a color called China Pearl in Jobelan for it. It’s an off-white, pale gray kind of color that should help the silver metallic accents and white floss stand out in the designs where they are used. Now I’m just waiting on the charms to arrive from The Sweetheart Tree, but those don’t even have to arrive before I mail the RR out, since I can always attach them afterwards (which I may opt to do anyway, since the charms are the most expensive part of the whole piece. The charts I’m using are from an eBay win of old pattern cards from The Sweetheart Tree (hence the charm purchases from them). I searched the web and found a website that had still had some of the old photos, so here are 4 of the 7 charts that will be offered for this RR (click photo for a larger view):

If the toss on the China Pearl fabric looks okay, then I will probably start stitching my contribution (I’m torn between the top two designs, but leaning towards the top left one) while I’m figuring out how to mark off the areas for the other 3 participants (Cathy, Catherine and Sylvie). I’ve figured out the layout (four hearts facing into the center, with stitching in the center to note the year and participants), but I’m not sure if I want a border or not. At this point, I’m leaning towards no extra border of any sort, but just marking either the bottom stitch of each heart so that everyone has a starting point or outline a stitch or two around where each heart will be, or both.

Enough babbling, back to the stitching!