Ornament Club 2013
This past month I won a subscription to the 2013 Ornament Club sponsored by Stitching the Night Away. The club's focus is cross stitch and the patterns will include traditional and non-traditional styles. I'm looking forward to the challenge.
The pattern for January is a snowflake and we were given free reign to pick our color schemes. After looking at the pattern in black and white it reminded me of pine branches with pine cones at the tips so I chose to do mine in earthy colors.
I used Renaissance hand-dyed lamb's wool and 18 count Aida cloth. Here's the result:
I like to look at each project in retrospect to determine if I've learned anything helpful. In this project I did. Boy, did I ever!
I won't ever use lamb's wool for a cross stitch project again. Even though I kept my thread much shorter than I normally would, the wool didn't stand up to the constant streaming through the fabric. After several stitches the wool began to thin out. You can see some white between the stitches, which makes me a sad panda!
I also learned that sometimes stitching and engaging television programs don't mix. And by that I mean, concentrating on what's happening at Glen Bogle means missing a stitch, resulting in an entire section of the design being out of whack. I wound up picking out those stitches and redoing that section.
I also decided at one point to turn the pattern page so I could count the spaces better. I felt quite clever that I remembered to turn my hoop too. I didn't, however, remember to turn the stitching. *insert face-palm*
Ultimately I decided not to redo those stitches as the nap of the wool in those sections makes it difficult to tell they aren't uniform. I apologize heartily to the die-hard stitchers out there cringing at my funky branches.
So having learned a couple of things this time around I expect February's pattern will go much better. I hope to have some hand dyed Aida for future patterns too. Time to pay a visit to Kelly at Stitchn Momma on Etsy.
Club membership has closed for the year, but the patterns are available each month if you'd like to pick them up and stitch along; just visit the pattern page for details.
Happy stitching!
The pattern for January is a snowflake and we were given free reign to pick our color schemes. After looking at the pattern in black and white it reminded me of pine branches with pine cones at the tips so I chose to do mine in earthy colors.
I used Renaissance hand-dyed lamb's wool and 18 count Aida cloth. Here's the result:
I like to look at each project in retrospect to determine if I've learned anything helpful. In this project I did. Boy, did I ever!
I won't ever use lamb's wool for a cross stitch project again. Even though I kept my thread much shorter than I normally would, the wool didn't stand up to the constant streaming through the fabric. After several stitches the wool began to thin out. You can see some white between the stitches, which makes me a sad panda!
I also learned that sometimes stitching and engaging television programs don't mix. And by that I mean, concentrating on what's happening at Glen Bogle means missing a stitch, resulting in an entire section of the design being out of whack. I wound up picking out those stitches and redoing that section.
I also decided at one point to turn the pattern page so I could count the spaces better. I felt quite clever that I remembered to turn my hoop too. I didn't, however, remember to turn the stitching. *insert face-palm*
Ultimately I decided not to redo those stitches as the nap of the wool in those sections makes it difficult to tell they aren't uniform. I apologize heartily to the die-hard stitchers out there cringing at my funky branches.
So having learned a couple of things this time around I expect February's pattern will go much better. I hope to have some hand dyed Aida for future patterns too. Time to pay a visit to Kelly at Stitchn Momma on Etsy.
Club membership has closed for the year, but the patterns are available each month if you'd like to pick them up and stitch along; just visit the pattern page for details.
Happy stitching!