Stitchin' it old school

Stitcher's Delight by Steotch - click me for the original link including a FREE PATTERN

Not quite what I mean, but seriously how amazing is that?
Pardon me while I go download that pattern and follow her Instagram...

So anyway, what I DO mean:

Back in the day when you were a wee bairn learning the home arts you would do a sampler which would teach different stitches and alphabets and often provide a reference for future work (lettering for monogramming personal items, for example).

Sampler stitched by Hanna McGinter at age 11
(1779-1867)

I have kind of a vague half recollection of doing something like that when I was very very young but when it comes down to it my embroidery repertoire has been pretty limited; a bunch of cross stitch, some simple crewel stitches, a hint of goldwork... basically I learn whatever I need to do the project in front of me.

I've been following Badasscrossstitch on Instagram for a while and apparently her recently completed  #YearofStitch project has been worming its way into my brain.

I tried Colonial Knots for the first time yesterday in my Box Of Delights project and realized that COLONIAL KNOTS RULE FRENCH KNOTS DROOL. I had to look at a couple of different tutorials to understand how to do them but once I did I was hooked. They're simple, neat, easy to tension properly, firm, and fairly symmetrical. As opposed to French knots which look like out-and-out mistakes half the time (for me anyway). I love the look of sweet little floral accents on ultra snarky cross stitch pieces a la PlasticLittleCovers but HATE French knots so I never bother.

Seriously, they're actually kind of fun, here's a good tutorial.

Heck, this makes me want to try candlewicking!

My next thought was of course "what other totally awesome and not suck stitches could I have been using all this time OMG WHO WAS RUNNING THAT STITCH A WEEK THING!?!?!?!". I'm a little sad I missed out on the unfolding week by week-ness of the original project but whatever, Imma do it anyway. I really like having these nice discreet pieces to work on in between my magnum opus H.A.E.D. pieces.

Someday I hope to do a similar sort of thing with the tutorials posted on Mary Corbet's Needle and Thread (aka the site that helped me fall in love with embroidery) or Sarah's Hand Embroidery at Rocksea.org (source of the tutorial above) but I think my entirely self imposed embroidery workload is insane enough as it is right now.

Monday Monday week 3 - Do All the Things!

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
For serious, read this blog.

Okay, so uh, what all did I do this week:

Love me, love the occasional Batman Bandage

Nail polish break went poorly so I finally re-polished Sunday. My nails were getting shorter and shorter and my cuticles longer and longer so it was high time. I am at the point where I can't file any further without removing flesh on several of my fingers because of the way my nailbeds attach underneath (that is literally as short as my pointer and middle fingers can get right now).

I used this FANTASTIC "Super Juiced" colour I recently picked up from ILNP mostly because my hair was going to stain whatever colour I used blue anyway so might as well go with it. My nails are nubby and my cuticles are a mess, but hey, at least the colour is sexypants.

Cannibalized a mood ring and a crappy old needle into a fingertip laying tool with the magic of pliers and E6000 glue and so far I'm pretty jazzed. It's butt ugly and I want to blunt the needle a bit more, but it's comfortable to wear and works like a charm. Thankfully (?) with the mind numbing amount of black background in the cross stitch project I've been focusing on this week I have had PLENTY of opportunity to practice with it .

Got into a discussion of floor stands and Qsnaps (a popular style of needlework frame) on a Facebook embroidery group Saturday and decided to try out the combination on my stand. I have an Edmunds Stitch Master Floorstand which is not the sexiest thing out there but for the price (half price with a Joannes coupon, in fact) it is pretty good for my purposes. It's a bit tippy but I have zip tied it to a box which lets me wedge it under the edge of my couch.

I used a shelved Supernatural themed Work in Progress (or WIP) to test it all out and figured while I was at it I might as well get some work done on it. All I had left was stupid annoying really effective backstitching so I had at until it was done. It's all stitched so I just need to wash and mount at this point. I think I want to try out a padded mount for this as I hate how glass looks over embroidery.

As a... break? (am I crazy? I'm starting to think I'm crazy) from cross stitching I decided to try a blackwork project so I spent much of Sunday getting the fabric prepared for that. I've decided to do the astonishingly free Box of Delights by Elizabeth Almond of Blackwork Journey ( <- link is the designer's own Pinterest page, in case anyone is worried about copyright. Her own page doesn't have such a nice spread of pics, but it is here).

I had originally tripped over her also astonishingly free Save the Stitches design first but having never done much (or really any) blackwork it is WAAAAY too rich for my blood. I like how this one is worked in perfectly reasonably sized little chunks.

It's the perfect project to use a silver 32 count linen I've been hoarding and this particularly lovely aqua I've been drawn to every time I open my floss box. I'm basing my piece more on the blue and white version but with a darker outline. The aqua will be the patterned part, the darker blue will be outline, and the coppery colour will be used in place of the metallic thread her original design calls for.
I did say this was supposed to be a break and metallic thread is not a "break".

Why yes, DIY grime guards ARE on my imminent to-do list, why do you ask?

I've got my fabric all mounted and prepped but... [EDIT]
I had a whole thing about being daunted by Holbein stitch here but then I woke up this morning to find out via Facebook that it's not designed for Holbein at all and is instead entirely worked in backstitch (woo, more backstitch!). Which tells you something about how well Elizabeth Almond supports her patterns as that wasn't even eight hours and she lives on a different continent.
This is, might I add again, a FREE PATTERN.

I'm in the process of kitting up another (considerably more detailed) David Bowie cross stitch but I have to pick a fabric and set up project cards so that'll be a little bit still.

I have some family stuff coming up this week and a major apartment layout overhaul planned so I'm not sure how much interesting stuff I'll get done in the coming weeks but fingers crossed I'll get some tinkering time.

New Project - Na na na na na na na na Bat Square! (phase 1)

My next project - Bats by Tantes Zolder

My husband and I are very keen on bats so the minute I saw this design I knew it would be ALL over my home. I plan to do several versions of this in different coordinating tone-on-tone colourways to be framed up as coordinating pieces.

This iteration of the same pattern done by SweetPeaStitching.blogspot.com

Phase 1 is all mounted up and gridded out in 18 ct oatmeal coloured Aida cloth to be stitched in a bronzey goldy olive green thread.

So far I also have a white on white and a black on black planned (and materials sourced) but I'd love to do some more contrasty versions too - cream thread on lilac fabric is one version I have in mind and I'd also love to do something on a natural or grey fabric with white polka dots.

I'm a leeeettle obsessed with that particular shade of green right now. I wish I could have found a closer fabric but there's not a lot of variation in Aida cloth 

The *only* thing holding me up from starting in at this point is a style question and I'm waiting for some other brains to chime in:

I know the prevailing cross stitch logic is to do the whole piece with the stitches in the same direction BUT since it is a reflected medallion sort of thing and very texture oriented I'm thinking it might look cool to stitch each repeat separately from the top down in the same direction so that each has its own sort of texture.

I think that makes sense, I hope that makes sense!

Is this just crazy enough to work... or just crazy?