Meredith's 2024 Attempts (mabith)

Hello all, after a long absence. Much like the last year I was on LT (2020), I've still been struggling with crafting of all sorts. I miss it desperately, I need it, but it remains so emotionally wrapped up in my parents, both of whom have passed away now.

Making very niche cross-stitch projects for people has now come with the downside of being faced with a lot of things I'd made my dad when he died in 2023. Such a mix of memories, but also pieces I don't necessarily want to hold onto but are so personal to him no one else would want them either. Yet to orphan them to a thrift store also feels wrong.

I haven't taken a picture yet, but I did get another book done on my cross-stitch project of children's classics book spines last year. I stalled again when I got to another large stretch of single-color stitching (my least favorite). Whatever I do or don't get done craft-wise though, I'm happy to be back on LT and getting a peep at all your projects.

I have to prepare things to move this year, so I've been going through craft supplies ruthlessly and finding things I'd forgotten about. Among them, a set of novelty wooden cross-stitch plaques and photo frames and such, bought god knows how many years ago now. They're very annoying to stitch on, but here we are. I made this for a friend:



I used the border pattern that came with it, knowing I would never start if I tried to do one from scratch. Then I made the cat up myself.

Similarly I did this as a ornament for my Christmas tree. Hadn't had a tree for ages, saw a small kitschy fake tree that would have made my parents laugh and bought it. Most of my ornaments are family ones, very delicate vintage glass things and not quite enough to cover the tree. So I'll stitch a few things to add on.



I think it was actually supposed to be a necklace, but it's rather large for that! I have two other round ornament pieces I'll do as well. It's a nice break in rests between going through all the craft supplies and such.

It's nice to see you back, Meredith. And my deepest sympathies to you. I can understand that emotional pull of not wanting to let go of projects that remind us of our parents. I have a crocheted bedspread that my mother made that was large squares with three-dimensional roses in the center of each block. It's not my style (at all), it has a large coffee (I assume) stain in one section, and yet I cannot get rid of it. Even though she's been gone for 20 years. I keep saying I need to at least try to get the stain out. We moved 7 years ago and I still held on to it.

>3 mabith: - I love this little ornament. When we moved 7 years ago, I had to ruthlessly go through craft item and some of the decisions were hard. I should probably look at those things I brought and haven't touched in 7 years and get rid of some more.

Welcome back, Meredith. I'm so sorry for your loss. Like Betty, I have experienced that emotional pull. My mom was a quilter and left behind many, many beautiful pieces. I kept a couple of them for myself, even though my relationship with her was quite fraught and we were pretty much estranged until her final few years. They are stored away in a box and I rarely look at them, but still can't imagine letting them go.

I hope you're able to get back into crafting this year, at least a little bit.

Welcome back, Meredith! We're so happy to have you here in whatever capacity you're able.

Hi Meredith. So sorry you've had to go through losing both your parents. Even though it's really tough still, I hope that one day crafting will be easier for you again.

Your ornaments are adorable!

I am sorry to hear of your loss. I have pillow cases my mother embroidered and because of her, I do embrodery also. Take care.

I know some cross stitchers have taken some designs they've done or found in thrift stores and made them into project bags. That may be an idea of a way you can make those things you stitched for your dad useful to you. The ones I've seen are the zippered kind with fabric backings and lining, but I know some people also do a more traditional tote. You may be able to get some inspiration from the comments on Deborah Harry's ETSY shop that show the purchased item although she doesn't currently have any bags posted for sale. (The shop name is DeborahHarrys.) I think she also has a Facebook page.

Adding my sympathies on your losses, Meredith.

Your recent small finishes are lovely. Also, do I spy a tortie cat in >3 mabith:?

Welcome back, Meredith... I'm so sorry about your parents. May their memories be a blessing and comfort to you. I also hope you'll have the time and energy to get back to your crafting... I find it feeds my soul and calms my heart.

One of the things that frustrates me about grief impacting my crafting is that my main work (cross-stitch and knitting) aren't something my parents did or taught me (or even that I learned in childhood), so the difficulty caught me off guard. They were always so happy when we were doing anything creative and really invested and genuinely curious about my projects and designs (I largely design all my cross-stitch pieces myself). We all have people who think what we do is neat, but that true, strong investment is more unique. It just always seemed so cruel that the hobby that saved my life in a lot of ways was suddenly made so difficult.

>4 dudes22: It really is so difficult with those kind of heirlooms. It feels too hard to part with it but sometimes also difficult to know it's just in a box... I am waffling on the craft supplies about shoving them at my sister and her kids but I have a feeling she would say yes and then want to essentially store them with me permanently.

>5 lauralkeet: I wonder if these items help tether us a bit, to the actual person, the actual relationship vs how society tells us we're supposed to feel at specific deaths. My relationship with my dad was complicated (he was not emotionally mature enough to build real relationships with his adult children), and sometimes I think without the physical items it would be easy to slide into a false sense of him and our history.

>6 scaifea: >7 PawsforThought: >8 mnleona: Thank you so much

>9 thornton37814: That's an interesting idea! I hadn't thought about that. One does always need more project bags.

>11 PlatinumWarlock: That's exactly it, feeds the soul and calms the heart. I wouldn't have gotten through so many years early in my illness without knitting and then especially cross-stitch. A structure to the days, small achievable goals, an almost meditative practice, and a sense of productivity - all so valuable!

>10 MickyFine: Ha, yes, this is my sweet Ixnay. She's mostly blind, extremely opinionated, and tries to live on my lap.



My beloved elderly cat died in 2020, and I got Ixnay in 2021. She's been an absolute godsend. I waited a long time for the 'right' cat to appear, and felt strongly she was the one. My first cat as a child was a tortoiseshell, so it felt a bit like coming full circle.

>13 mabith: Oh, my! She's gorgerous!

My sympathies on your losses. Grief is a weird bugaboo.

>13 mabith: Ixnay looks an absolute sweetheart.

That is a very beautiful cat! I love torties.

Who doesn't love a beautiful tortoiseshell cat? Barney (one of my three) says hello to Ixnay!

>14 PawsforThought: >16 MickyFine: >17 lauralkeet: >18 thornton37814: She is certainly a beauty, if a bit of a demon (by which I mostly mean she's just a stereotypical cat). She's not used to the stitching yet, and turned around several times today to pounce on my hand, but it's better than last year when I dropped a 10"x10" q-snap on her at least once a day...

>15 lesmel: It certainly is! Really gives you every emotion under the sun all mixed up together.

I stitched another little ornament, which is supposed to be an embroidery floss bobbin, and have many regrets about not just using black for the backstitching. However, trying to unpick ANYTHING from these wooden forms is a nightmare. I regret not using a darker color in the background as well. I colored the backstitching around the white parts with pen and called it Good Enough. If I bugged with it in 10 months when I'm putting up a Christmas tree I can always scrap it then. I'm going to put an old needle diagonally across the 'thread' section, which will add to it, I think.

I'm determined to use up the bits in these novelty kits, at least to get me back to stitching every day. I've completely lost my stitching callous but hope it will come back quickly.

Another rainbow, because I couldn't think of anything else to do and didn't like the patterns the kit come with. Now I have no idea what picture to put in the frame! I feel like it needs a silly picture.



I have another larger frame in this set, two tiny tiny hoops, and greeting card. I probably won't do the greeting card, that seems like a nightmare and then will the recipient keep it? Will it get messed up in the mail?

Today I also spent a full hour weaving in ends on two dozen hats I knit years ago. My sister will hopefully come up on Saturday and I'll see if she wants any of them (she has three kids and I haven't made any of them hats in a long time). After that I'll try to shove them off on people in my book club. Wish I'd done it in time for our February meeting, hopefully it's still cold in March!

>22 mabith: Two dozen hats?! Wow. If you run out of friends to give them to, you might find a local charity that will take them. There's one in my town that serves "precariously housed" teens and young adults, and others who provide clothing to those in need. Sometimes they only accept knitted items made with acrylic yarns, not wool (due to allergies) but it might be worth a check.

Oh yeah, I'll definitely be looking into donating whatever is left.

Hats are my comfort knit (they're mostly quite simple ones, though there are a few nice cable knits), especially if there's a soccer tournament since I can largely knit them without looking at the piece and do prefer to keep the hands busy.

My friend knits and crochets hats for Knots of Love, although they are rather particular about what yarns you can use, I think.

I love the rainbow frame!!

>26 scaifea: Thanks!

The hat problem was solved. My sister was up to hang out during my niece's girl scout activity, and she wanted a lot. Her church has some sort of program she thought would want whatever she didn't take, so she just took the whole bag. I don't have to think about it anymore and that's the main thing!

I'm not going to start back on this project until I'm done with the next little one at least, but when I do get back to serious stitching this is what I'll continue working on:


The in-progess book is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and there will be one more book on the left side (Little Women). The pattern is my design (but all based on actual editions), and I am idiot, because I absolutely hate stitching large, single-color fills and yet I thought I should make this.

I still find The Secret Garden spine so frustrating. I wanted to have gold for the floral backstitch but I didn't test the colors ahead of time and none of the golds were dark enough to show up well. I should have just done all of that in the same dark green as the text but got frustrated and rushed the decision. It's stitched on top of full stitches (single thread, it's 18 or 22 count fabric, I forget which now), so incredibly difficult to unpick anything. Unpicking a couple different golds in the beginning was mildly traumatic.

>27 mabith: That's great news! Easy for you, and valuable to others, win win.

>28 mabith: I love book spine samplers like that, even more so because this is your own design. How did you choose the books?

>28 mabith: - Oh - I remember when you were working on this. I admired it so much that you had made up the design yourself.

>28 mabith: That is absolutely gorgeous work, Meredith. I'm so impressed you designed it yourself (I do not have that talent).

>29 lauralkeet: The choosing was a bit of a combination of books I particularly like, and other classics that had good spine designs for this purpose. I actually own that edition of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, not a book I loved personally but one my great-grandmother read it as a child, then read it to my grandmother who then read it to my mother so when I saw a lovely edition I had to buy it. I actually did a cross-stitch of that book cover as well:


>30 dudes22: Thanks!

>31 MickyFine: Thanks! It's partly I'm a miser, so designing my own stuff is a great option (plus with a fair few of my pieces it's taking common antique motifs and just pairing them amusing quotes). Though I do think I'm pretty good at taking a regular illustration or design and cross-stitchizing it.

So happy to see that you are back working on the "spine" project.

I nearly finished this other wooden frame and then ran out of floss, despite picking one that was a full skein. It's so annoying having to use three strands. It's one of the newer colors which my craft store still doesn't have in their bins, meaning I had to order it online and pay $3.50 shipping. Very frustrating.

I do like the colors a lot though. They're a bit more saturated than they show in this picture (at least on my screens).

This is the only big thing I stitched last year, and I thought I'd post it now to encourage myself.

I stitched similar pieces for my sister's two older kids (now 15 and nearly 13), and she was very impatient for this. As if I'd leave out the youngest, being a youngest child myself who did not get the same amount of handmade things as my siblings since by then the hippie craft circle in our area and our mom were too busy. However, I wasn't in a rush about it, and finishing it when he was four seemed plenty good to me (clearly I'd spoiled my sister with all the crafting for the older two).

The pattern is from Celtic Cross-Stitch by Mike Vickery. My sister literally looked through the letter patterns when she was deciding on names so she got a good letter that would look nice with the other two... I would do the date differently now, but felt it was important to use the same format as the other two pieces, especially since who knows if the kids will ever want these for their own homes.

>28 mabith: I'm loving the book spines! Your other pieces are nice too.

Made a little coaster with some of my lovely hand-dyed silk floss. I was a little obsessed with this dyer for a bit, but then I've hardly used them because you can't risk running out mid dye lot on a larger project and just general hoarding instinct.

The pattern is from Repertoire des Motifs, and of course I managed to trap a cat hair in there even after trying to be careful about it.



I don't love these coaster forms (and I don't actually use coasters much), but I have them so might as well use them. I'm working on a second one today.

>36 thornton37814: Thanks!

All of your stitching is amazing, but I just keep going back to look at that Celtic one. Gorgeous!!

Thanks, Amber! I do love that book of patterns. Though I'm a bit sad that the M isn't particularly interesting!

Another coaster, pattern doodled up by me. Might be a mistake doing these with silk before I go back to the book spines, as the fill I'll be doing is with a single strand of floss. The silk is lovely to stitch with, and knots easy to undo. Trying to undo a knot in a single strange of cotton though...

I haven't seen coasters like that in years. Were these in your stash? or did you find some recently?

Lori, I bought a few eight or nine years ago. I can't remember if I found them on eBay or Etsy or in a thrift store, but definitely not in a New Items shop. Taking a quick look at eBay, there are quite a few available there. This one is the best deal - six coasters for $16.

There are individual ones on 123stitch.com, actually, but they're $6 EACH.

>44 thornton37814: It might be a gift idea at some point.

Definitely good for that!

I've finished this frame, and I think I'll look for a photo of my previous cat to put in it.



I did a little cross-stitch ornament as well but the plastic frame doesn't click together properly and I'd already trimmed the piece way down so it's not good for anything else. Quite frustrating! I threw all of it away in a fit of pique.

I did get back to my book spines, and have been toiling away on the solid green fill. I'm about a quarter through the 2300 stitches it will need...

Now I've developed a sore right wrist for some unknown reason (it started when I hadn't done much on the book spine piece, so shouldn't be that). I don't know if I did something in my sleep or what. It's not improved at all since it started, but given my own chronic pain conditions it's not unusual for some minor issue to take far longer to go away. It's not totally preventing the stitching, but it's an annoyance.

I've been doing some designing again, and came up with some mix tape patterns. I'll reward myself with stitching one after I'm done with the current book spine.



Colors aren't really set yet, so some of these are placeholders.

>46 mabith: I'm sure it will look great with your cat's photo. I have a photo of my previous cat in my office at work. It's in a cat frame I was gifted.

>47 mabith: Those are lovely! What program do you use for designing?

>48 thornton37814: It's always nice to still see their faces around. I had a calendar of pictures printed of mine, as I had a deal for one of those online printing sites and it was the cheapest way to get a wide variety of pictures I could then cut out.

>49 MickyFine: I use a mix of things. When I'm working from an existing image I use a free photoshop-like program (gimp), so that I can let the graph paper layer be semi-transparent. That's how I used to design everything but it's not ideal for easily moving things around. Then I found an old DMC Cross Stitch Pattern Designer program, so once I have elements done in Gimp I copy them over to that where I can easily move things around, more easily add backstitching, etc... If I'm just using existing motifs I only use the DMC program. It doesn't love Windows 10 though (usable, but cranky), so I tried to switch to WinStitch which it turned out I really don't like. I also couldn't easily export anything in the manner I was accustomed to. I used to have a shop selling patterns on Etsy, so it was important to have better files for customers for the more complicated patterns.

Makes me wonder if you did one for the mix tape in the film, Guardians of the Galaxy. I forgot what Starboard named it. lol.

>50 mabith: What kind of file formats did you use for customers? I occasionally design cross-stitch patterns that I'd like to share but I also haven't found a program I really like (I ended up on Excel last time) and wasn't sure what formats I should output to.

I love the cassettes and the book spines! I'm pretty sure that's the edition of Five Little Peppers I had growing up (Still have, according to LT, although who knows where it ended up after the last shelf reorder...)

>51 al.vick: Given the popularity of the Marvel movies, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pattern out there!

>52 melannen: I started out just using .jpgs and text files, since my patterns were pretty simple. When I needed to allow for symbols and was trying to be more professional I could use the DMC pattern design to copy an image of the pattern, put that in a text document and export the whole thing as a PDF for free with OpenOffice or LibreOffice. It's handy since you can get a really large high quality image of the pattern, make a lossless PDF, and then if the user is viewing the pattern on a screen (vs printing it out) they can zoom in up to 400% or more without any loss of image quality.

It's such a gorgeous copy of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I have that one myself and it's a small six inch tall hardback, probably printed in the early 1920s (it only has a copyright date inside, the original and 1909 but the paper doesn't seem right for 1909 to me and there's a gift inscription from 1925).

>52 melannen: I heard an aspiring designer asking an established designer about the software she used to create patterns and where she had the patterns printed when we were all stitching together at my LNS one day. I think PC Stitch, WinStitch, and MacStitch are the ones most used.

>47 mabith: What a fun project! Knowing myself, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from putting together the playlist for the tapes…

>55 PawsforThought: Ha, I've definitely made all these playlists at one time or another.

Well the Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm book spine is done and it really gave me trouble. We had a tornado and my power was out for a while which impacted the stitching, then I burned the pad of one of my main stitching fingers, then I ran out of thread.

Then, finally, the original light green was too dark to read well in backstitch. I tried a few things and went with using three strands of a much lighter color on the Rebecca, but I will probably redo it with two (as I used in the other text). This is a nighttime photo, and the rest of the text isn't as messy in person as it looks here (I often find this is the way with photographing blackwork and backstitch text). I'm so glad it's over. One spine left, though I will at least give myself a month before I start it. The end of this spine being frustrating is extra annoying in that it's my favorite novel in the piece, so surely it should have been nicer to me!

This has definitely become one of those pieces that I won't want to look at ever again when it's done! Just too many things I'd change on a second stitching.

Basically the second I finished Rebecca I got right to work on one of my cassette tape designs and it's going well.



It's not lost on me that these have quite a lot of single color fill as well (compared to my usual style), but it feels more manageable). My goal is to finish all the outlines and bits needing the pattern in front of me on this and a second tape in the next week.

Next Friday I'm going on a little trip with a friend, taking the train to a cute college town, largely just for the train journey. We'll be there two nights though (because Amtrak only runs three days a week in my city), so I'll have plenty of fills I can work on in the hotel (or in the train, but southern West Virginia into the Shenandoah valley is awfully scenic). My friend and I both have fatigue issues, so likely won't do a huge amount in the city we're going to, other than out for a meal or two and ice cream or some such if the weather is nice.

>58 mabith: southern West Virginia into the Shenandoah valley is awfully scenic
That should be a lovely train journey, Meredith. I live in Northern Virginia, not far from the Appalachian Trail and Harpers Ferry WV so I'm familiar with the landscape.

Laura, that's a great area! I know I'm biased, but even the interstate driving in West Virginia tends to be really lovely, weaving through the hills and largely free of any urban sprawl or awful new subdivisions etc... I am equal parts excited and nervous (since you never know what delays you might get on the train and unlike an airport there are fewer options).

Hoping for smooth travels for you!

Wishing you smooth travels and good energy levels. Have a great time!

Thanks, y'all! We're on the train and it's enjoyable.

I was going to bring my cassette tape piece but decided it would be too much of a pain to shove in a bag so I brought a ball of yarn to make a hat with.

Here's the current tape though. The brain magnetic tape part stands out more in person.

>63 mabith: It looks great!

Very cool!! I love the rainbow stripes.

I had a really lovely trip, but I'm excited to get pack to finishing the cassette project. I'm debating doing half-stitches for the black tape areas, but doing it on white 14 count is certainly a different effect than if this were 18 count fabric or a darker fabric generally. I might do a small section and see how I like it, then I can always go back over to make them full stitches.

Decided to be sensible about WIPs and finished off the hat I started knitting on my trip (I didn't do much on it then because I was nervous there would be a huge train delay and I'd need the solid knitting to calm myself down).

The colors would not capture remotely accurately, so I've edited this to be closer. The colors are all rich jewel tones in person but the green kept showing up extremely bright and much lighter in pictures. Lord knows what it's doing on other's screens.



It's just an acrylic that was on sale at some point, but I like the colors a lot. Generally I love single ply yarns but this is looser (and more slippery) than most I work with, so it was a bit of a nightmare.

It looks great!

Oh gosh, I love those colors.

>68 MickyFine: Thanks!

>69 scaifea: They're so nice in person, really peacock feather tones. It's Loops and Threads Facets in Seaglass (strange name to pick given that sea glass is usually quite pale).

>63 mabith: That brings back memories. Maybe I should lend you a pencil so you can rewind it when it gets stuck.

Ha, I do still have a walkman sitting around, Lori! You just never know... It came in handy 10 years ago when I was listening to a book on tape from the library and my little cd/cassette player broke suddenly. Of course, I think the library finally got rid of all their tapes, but still.

Speaking of, she's finished!



I was going to take a nice daylight picture today (vs night time with Ott light), but alas it's very dark and rainy today. I'm pretty happy with it, though I've made some minor changes to the pattern.

Forget if I said already, but I've made a smaller version of each cassette pattern as well now, and I'm going to stitch one of those next (the mom's favorites one, I think). Obviously I must make another mom's favorites mix first to work to occasionally.

So cool! I love it. And thanks for the yarn info! Not that I need the temptation...

>73 mabith: It looks so good!

Thanks, y'all!

In the final stretch for the second tape now. After the lower lightest blue section it's just the yellow background and text to do. I think the yellow will work as half-stitches, but even if it doesn't, not too much more to go.

I will say I'm greatly displeased with this recently bought roll of monaco. It's my favorite fabric but this was starched to hell and back (it definitely wasn't previous), making it hard on my skin and the floss. I'll be quite annoyed if I have to start washing it before stitching every time.



The color on my computer monitor is quite a bit darker than in person or on my phone. Always a good reminder to try to buy fabrics and fibers in person vs over this distrustful device.

>77 mabith: Looking so great, Meredith!

Finished up the mix tape and actually got a picture of sunlight so the colors are pretty accurate on my laptop.



I do like the proportions of this smaller pattern better on the small pattern but it does compromise the fonts on some of the designs.

I was antsy so I immediately started back on the book spine piece. My plan is to fill in the yellow square (goes down to the two dark green lines) and then do something else.



The trouble is, I designed a quick quote pattern and now I already don't want to do any more fill stitching! We shall persevere though.

This spine is only so large because I wanted to preserve the original font on the title and then LM Alcott could also only be so small. I believe originally I did try it with the narrowest possible letters on Alcott and didn't like the look of it so just said fuck it. Past me was a fool, present me also for not trying the alteration again before I started the stitching.

I finished the yellow block on Little Women and didn't really feel like I needed a break yet but took one anyway. It didn't end up stopping me for long since it only took a few hours to finished.



It's esentially a quote from For Real by Alexis Hall, who has fast became a favorite fun but emotionally punchy author. Provided a good opportunity to use some of my lovely hand-dyed silk floss.

>81 mabith: That looks lovely! Those hand-dyed fibers are beautiful.

Thanks Micky! It was my favorite dyer for a time, though she's not selling anymore. I'm really struggling with the hoard vs use urge.

Lots of progress! I can't tell if I'm ready for a break or want to push ahead and just get this done (and don't want to deal with getting another project set up).

Sticking with half-stitches on the blue fill, so had to go do the center detail backstitch that goes in the same direction before filling those areas.

Had a horrible moment where I set it down flat on the couch for a second and my cat came up and tried to use it as a scratching pad! I'm not sure I've ever been so angry at an animal before (and knowing my cat, I'm quite sure it was specifically because she's annoyed at how much of my attention has been going to the piece).

Another quick project. Back to some very niche references. This is from a 1955 Pogo strip by Walt Kelly. One of his characters, a PT Barnum type, talks in circus sign writing and my dad used to quote this line at us a lot.



Not 100% satisfied with my rendering of the font for 'display' but it would have needed to be larger, so you know. Necessary compromise. I am particularly happy with the rendering of the S and A. Here's the original:

>84 mabith: The book spines are looking good!

Thanks, Lori!

She's done!! The blue is a little darker in person vs how it's showing on my computer monitor (very similar to the color of the cloth on my edition of Mistress Masham's Repose.



It's such a relief. I was going to wash and iron the piece before posting the full picture but it doesn't seem like I'll get to that any time soon, so here's a rough picture of the full piece.



While there are numerous things I'd do differently if I were stitching it again, I'm quite pleased with how I managed to translate the original book spines into cross-stitch and backstitch.

Here are the originals in a slightly different order:

Congratulations! I love all the details, they are perfect replicas of the original spines.

I've liked this project ever since you started it. I love the finish!

What a nice job. How will you frame it?

Thanks, y'all!

Leona, perhaps unfortunately, I won't frame it. I'm not good at doing proper needlework framing and it seems a shame to do a sub-par job on something I spent SO many hours on. Plus, I don't want to look at it and the things I'd change on it again, so it wouldn't go up on my walls anyway! I might see if my sister wants it, or maybe the library.

For now (hopefully after I give it a wash and press to sort out some of the distorted areas), it will go in a large artists portfolio with most of the rest of my stitchings. Eventually maybe I'll try to get a table at some crafts fair and sell the unframed work, because I do have absolute heaps of it, the portfolio is huge and almost full. I only have six or seven of my pieces up in my house, partly because I have a lot of other art and bookcases taking up space but also I just see the mistakes.

I'm still on the stitching, finished this quote from the TV show, The Good Place. Looking forward to getting worried calls from my aunts after I put it on Instagram...



I had wanted to do a corner on Jenga tower and make the typography more exciting, but I could not get the lines to work in cross-stitch and wasn't satisfied with blackwork attempts. Maybe I'll do a free embroidery one at some later date.

A professor friend asked me to design this pattern for her to stitch and put in her office a few years ago and I finally decided to stitch it myself.

If you're curious these are the flags represented from left to right, starting on the top:
transgender, intersex, gender fluid, agender, gender queer, non-binary
bisexual, pansexual, lesbian and gay men flags (sharing the A), asexual, aromantic.

There is overlap, on the top line especially, and I know people can get a bit eye-rolly about it, but for folks who have just found their place, just named this part of themselves, and have found a whole flag representing this very personal individual feeling, giving them a community to draw from, it's very powerful to see a particular more niche flag that you identify with. For the young especially, why NOT make them feel comfortable and seen and more safe than they otherwise would. You can't discount giving another person a sense of comfort where they often feel danger or at least anxiety.

It baffles me that people get so judgemental about something which a) doesn't impact them in the slightest b) hurts no one and c) gives comfort, often to the most vulnerable around us. I would say most people go through a journey of becoming less and less into specific labels as they feel more confident just being themselves (and more accepted), but these labels and flags are often initially just a complete joy and this should be celebrated.

This one is going to a friend's husband who is a therapist in a practice aimed at giving LGBTQ folks in eastern Kentucky a practice where most or all of the therapists are LGBTQ themselves. I had already promised it to him but then my SIL (another college professor) has requested one for her office so I'll have to stitch it again which I'm slightly annoyed by, but you know, it feels important.

And now something less full of 'the current state of affairs is depressing' vibes.

I had to change the C90 font from the original version because I spaced out while stitching and didn't allow the spaces for it in the blue lines above. I love the font (not my design) for the Best Songs bit and it feels properly handwriting-ish.

>94 mabith: Great work on the stitching and well done you for helping to ensure people know there is a safe space for them.

I like the safe space design. Nice.

>94 mabith: I love this and not just the needlework, but the thoughts you shared so eloquently.

Thanks, y'all!

I grappled a lot with the idea of safety, especially with the current backlash happening, while stitching it. There's a good quote from Welcome to Night Vale that was on my mind:
"Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?"

I started this whilst restlessly waiting for some specialty threads I ordered for a scarab design. It's a hard mental health/grief time for me right now. Starting with May we've got Mother's Day, my dad's birthday, Father's Day, then my Mom's birthday which is also when she was first showing any symptoms of something being wrong (we found out exactly what in August and she died in September, so it's just a shit time).

Some years ago I bought a lot of vintage embroidered handkerchiefs (some handmade, some machine, like this one), potentially for doing feminist quotes on and making a bit of an art quilt out of, which I then never did. So this felt like a bit of a mindfulness exercise. It is very messy, I stubbornly kept refusing to turn on my craft lamp because it's already too hot, which did not help. Served it's purpose though.

The floss is Caron Waterlillies in Appalachia.

Beetle from an Egyptian motif. The green, gold, and red are VERY shiny Kreinik metallics, but that's hard to capture in a still picture. I was going to do some of the blending filament in blue over parts of the blue section but it felt like it would just end up looking messy.

I've not actually used their blending filaments on cross-stitch before, only on knitting. I did use some over the grey stitches surrounding the wings, which you can see in places and it was a bit of a nightmare.

nice beetle!

All of your recent pieces look so great! What's up next?

Thanks!

>103 MickyFine: I'm halfway through the second Safe Space piece for my sister-in-law now, but after that I'm not sure what I'll start. I might go back to a large tablecloth I've worked on in fits and starts for years. Feels silly to cover myself with it in the summer, but as soon as it's regularly under 70 degrees in my house my cat will want to be on my lap 24/7, which won't allow for working on it.

This is one of the corner sections. Dragging it out, I thought I'd only done two of them but actually the third is nearly done as well:



There are also four of these sections in the middle of it as well, so loads to go.



I really love the design but at some point I also started feeling like "Why am I doing this?" I could never use it as a tablecloth (or would need a clear plastic cover) because I would spill stuff on it immediately. I also don't really think of my nieces or nephews will want it as an heirloom piece (no predicting I guess). I badly need to hem it as well before I work on it again, and I'll have to check if I have thread in a suitable color (definitely don't want contrast stitching given my struggle with straight lines).

That tablecloth is beautiful! But I totally get the "what do I do with this when I'm done?" Is it too big for a TV stand or similar?

>105 MickyFine: Definitely too big for a TV stand, and also square so doesn't even fit my dining table. Though I'll be hoping to move this year so might have to get a smaller table anyway. I have been thinking about (shudder) a clear plastic cover.

>106 mabith: Embrace that grandma vibe, lol.

>107 MickyFine: I was definitely considering it anyway, since I have this fabulously kitschy vintage linen tablecloth that I also wish to use but fear spilling things on.

>108 mabith: Oh I love it! Reminds me of a deck of Dutch Blitz we have that has a similar design.

>108 mabith: There's an old Royal Doulton china pattern from the 1960s that has similar designs too.

What can we do with those things we fear using in case of misuse? It's a problem.

>104 mabith: Love this - can you drape it over something?

>107 MickyFine: Too funny

>109 MickyFine: It was too fun to resist, and it's SUCH nice linen.

>110 SassyLassy: With my cat draping it over anything definitely isn't an option. I imagine some day (assuming I ever finish it) some future thrift crafter will turn it into a sundress.

My stitching went on hold a bit as I've been stressing out over my house (and needing to get out of it but the difficulty of selling and moving into public housing given waiting lists and needing to make sure my various benefits aren't impacted). My closer brother and sister-in-law came down to help look into things and get some processes started (now there's a whole issue with should the house have been in the trust that was set up for the rest of the assets my mom left me). The entire thing is causing so much anxiety.

However, while going through craft supplies I found a piece I started many years ago but didn't finish. It's the Ink Circles pattern Cirques des Cercles, which looks like this:


This is how much I did:


The fabric is roughly 28 ct linen (it's not totally evenweave, there are slubby bits which I do like for making it look more antique), and I'm stitching over only one thread, so the stitches are teeny tiny. You also have to be so delicate while stitching because the thread easily slide to the wrong place under the warp or weft in a way it doesn't do if you're stitching over two like usual.

I've started the outline of the smaller circles above, in the same very dark to brighter red variegated thread I used for the circles in the picture above, and I'll continue to use a variety of warm tone variegated threads for the interior fills.

>108 mabith: That table cloth looks very similar to a lot of folkloric things over here. Kurbits (also called rosmålning) is what we call it.

Sorry to hear about you issues with your home and I hope it sorts itself out soon.
The circles pattern is gorgeous!

>112 mabith: That's beautiful, Meredith! I'm in awe of you doing 28 ct and stitching over one. That is some super fine work.

>113 PawsforThought: The 1950s/60s take on traditional folk designs is such a fun period.

>114 MickyFine: Mini-cross stitch can look gorgeous, but definitely tough on the eyes. Can't even think about touching it without my serious crafting light on. I think these stitches are even smaller than the piece I did to match some china some years ago. I had a 1930s cross-stitch style pattern (Queen Anne by Royal Winton), and had a set of tightly woven napkins I was putting designs on to make other china. An all-over pattern required an all-over napkin though. I love the effect, but I do feel I almost went blind.

>115 mabith: Beautiful work there as well!

I find 18 count aida is about my limit for size so I can't imagine how much squinting is required for your linen pieces.

What beautiful stitching. I love the folkore patterns.

I collected chintz teacups for a while, and I love how you've matched the pattern.

Your work is beautiful.
I understand about your hard times in those months. December and January are hard for me.
Take care.

>116 MickyFine: I do a fair bit on 18 and 22 ct fabrics, but 28 is definitely a bit much. I couldn't find my magnifier and had to buy another one.

>117 lauralkeet: Thanks!

>118 dudes22: Chintz is so glorious. I only have a few truly chintz teacups in my collection but they are favorites. It took years of ebay stalking to find that one in a price I could afford after seeing one in the Replacements showroom. Being a cross-stitcher I really felt I had to have it.

>119 mnleona: Thank you so much.

I've gotten another little section done on the Stupidly Small Stitches piece.



I'm debating if I want to use a different color thread on the two larger end sections, I will definitely use something different on those smaller sections.

I'd mirror the colors in the larger section, but that gold variegated is actually a bit too light for the fabric (it shows more contrast in photos than in person), so I don't really want to add more (and I don't love that very light to very dark orange one). I might be in an area near me today with a needlework shop, and if I am I'll go in and look at the variegated threads (it's too far a drive for me to do on my own due to my chronic pain making longer driving less safe).

nice work.

>121 mabith: Your work continues to be really gorgeous!

>122 al.vick: >123 MickyFine: Thanks!

I've reached a natural pausing point on the 'destroy my eyes' project, so I'll be taking a break from it for a while. I do think it would be nicer in one color (or one variegated floss), but since I'd already done that middle portion there's nothing to be done but lean into it.



I made a little blackwork gradient piece so I've started working on that in a nine color rainbow. I actually intended to start it with the purple in the middle, but the habit of starting with red for a rainbow is so ingrained I'd already stitched most of the middle before I realized.



It's the sort of thing I might stitch more than once though. I've already picked out a nice run of five greens for another one. There's diamond grid which will be added later and I'm debating on whether to do it in black or perhaps doing each band with a darker shade of the main design color.

The "destroy your eyes" piece is looking great! I totally get needing to take a break from it though.

The blackwork piece is also looking lovely. Are you doing a ROYGBIV rainbow for it?

>125 mabith: Love this piece and am thinking how it could be interpreted in rug hooking (not latch hooking).
Your stitching is so beautifully even.

>126 MickyFine: I was tempted to keep on with it, but it's been SO nice to stitch something where I don't need my crafting light even at night. It's ROYGBIV+, which some in-between colors (see next post).

>127 SassyLassy: Thanks! Rug hooking is so neat. I wish I could give it a go but physically it would just be too much for me I think.

Update showing all the colors and latticed side vs no lattice.

>129 mabith: - Very Nice! Very Interesting! These are the kinds of designs that appeal to me.

>129 mabith: So gorgeous!

Wow! That looks incredible! I like the look of both the latticed and unlatticed side.

>130 dudes22: I love that kind of design as well. I feel like it's the closest I can get to quilting (which is far more difficult for me physically but I so want to do). I've done a few large blackwork pieces based on traditional quilt blocks, so maybe I should make another of those.

And here she is all done!

>131 MickyFine: Thanks!

>132 PawsforThought: I think without the lattice the darker green doesn't fit with the more dense to less dense stitch pattern, so if I were doing one without the lattice I think I'd alter that band.

I didn't want to go back to my tiny stitches piece, so I knit a double-layer hat with some nice yarn I've been holding onto.







The darker yarn is Miss Babs which, when I bought this 8 or 9 years ago, had HUGE differences in dye lots, though that may have changed now. One skein of this same one bought a month apart the dark main color was dark purple and another it was very brown, no hint of purple, which I personally don't think is an acceptable difference - you've at least got to change the website picture if it turns out THAT different (both were in stock, neither made to order). With different dye lot issues I tend to think "more or less of the splatter colors, minor shade differences" not a completely different main color.

The blue and white is from The Lemonade Shop.

>135 mabith: I completely see what you mean.

>136 mabith: Oh, nice! I love that kind of yarn - I have several pairs of socks in that made by my grandma when she was alive and well. I think it works best on small items like socks and your hat.

I like it all!

Nice hat! Is that the Musselburgh pattern? A friend of mine has made several of those.

>137 PawsforThought: Yes, those kind of dyed yarns are just so lovely on a sock or hat, and I can't wear handknit socks so hats will always win here.

>138 dudes22: Thanks!

>139 lauralkeet: It's not, just a self-created pattern (really just two extremely basic hat patterns). A friend had posted a different double layer hat, and I've never made one so figured I would, and I like that kind of square decrease pattern best. It seemed like a great way to use two yarns I love but only end up with one object to keep track of.

You are doing so well. I stitched quite a bit the first part of the week, but I've dropped off this last part. Maybe I'll pick back up my needle and thread tomorrow. I've had a sinus headache that was almost to the point of migraine most of the day. I might possibly pick up something this evening, but I suspect I'm just going to read.

>141 thornton37814: Thanks! It's really been such a relief to be back to crafting. It's so vital. Headaches are so hard to deal with. I used to have chronic migraines and they can really make life so difficult.

I made another double layer hat, this time with two light bulky yarns so it's ridiculously thick. Hopefully I haven't invoked a particularly cold winter (a superwash wool and plain 100% wool)





First picture is another Lemonade Shop yarn, though like the one in the previous hat it's not a currently produced colorway. Colors are fairly off on my computer, the blues are very bright and saturated.

The second is my platonic ideal of handspun yarn when I first started knitting - two different single-ply colorways plied together. It's from a random homespinner who went to my aunt's church. My mom was visiting when she was practically giving away huge stocks of yarn and picked this up for me. I love it SO much and I've been hoarding my last ball of it. Having the superwash on the other side also means I can wear it more comfortably, as it's a semi-itchy wool.

I started a new cross-stitch piece, using a pattern someone commissioned from me a few years ago. It has a line from the longterm nuclear waste warning.



It is very silly, I know. I've seen some funny pieces with more of the warning done in the vein of 'in this house we...' type of artworks. The person commissioning it only wanted the first line though.

>143 mabith: The colors are nice!

>145 thornton37814: Nice bit of brightness for when it gets very cold anyway!

Love the hats. Winter is coming.

>143 mabith: Hopefully I haven't invoked a particularly cold winter

Au contraire - you've given yourself an insurance policy. Having a really warm hat insures you won't need it, sort of like carrying an umbrella so that it doesn't rain!

>147 mnleona: Thanks!

>148 SassyLassy: Ha, you might be right! Normally I wouldn't mind a very cold winter but my furnace got cranky towards the end of the last one (still working but the automatic turning on isn't really functioning), so I'd prefer it not be hideously cold. I keep my house very cool anyway, 60-63 due to my hot flashes and cost of heating, so I do often wear a hat inside.