Monday, November 25, 2019

A wolf and a felt bear


Doesn't that title sound like it could be the start of a joke? A wolf an a felt bear walked in to a bar... lol!

Anyhoo, cross stitching has taken a bit of a back seat since I have a deadline for the felt stocking that I'm making. I have worked a bit on Winter's Lace though, and have some more of the wolf emerging.....


....he has some eyes now, so doesn't look like some sort of  crazy zombie wolf anymore! I have broken the cardinal rule of stitching though, and haven't been taking my stitching out of the q-snaps......I'm such a rebel (or maybe in all honesty, that should just be 'lazy stitcher'!)


I'm slowly getting there!

Since Christmas is fast approaching, my main focus has been to get on with the felt stocking for sweet baby R's first Christmas. After my first problems with the printed design not matching up, sadly things haven't gotten any better. I cut out the bear which was one of the printed pieces of felt and lined it up with the lines indicated on the blue background.....only to find that it didn't match with the lines on the snowman ......


....line it up matching the lines on the right hand side and you're left with the line showing on the left hand side...


Of course, these lines should be hidden when you stitch each piece. What to do? Re-draw the piece so that it fits and buy some felt to make a new bear, or jiggle the poorly fitting one to make it fit and try to disguise the faults with some sequins and beads?  I haven't quite decided what to do. All I can say is, so much for this being a quick and easy project! 

Fingers crossed that next week's update will be a it better with a lot more to show.

Hope you are having better luck with your stitching projects than I am!

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

Monday, November 18, 2019

Felt, sequins and a new wolf!

It's a typical November day here....cold and raining, which means terrible for getting good pictures as the light is so poor. On the flip side, it's the perfect weather to stay inside and stitch :)

I managed to get a bit of the felt stocking done while I was waiting for the replacement felt from Design Works. They were true to their word and sent out the felt really quickly. I cannot fault them for their speed.......but (you knew there was going to be a 'but' there, didn't you?!!) when the replacement piece arrived, it too was the wrong size.  I decided just to get some tracing paper and make a new template for the piece so that I could get on with making this stocking in time for Christmas. This is the bottom part....I still have to make the template for the top....



The seed beads and sequins are fiddly, but oh so pretty!

I emailed Design Works and explained to them about the fabric being the wrong size again, and told them that I was able to make a template and use the new piece of felt etc, etc and that I was emailing them just so they knew about the fault with their kit. Their response didn't address this point at all. Kind of disappointing. 

I also managed to get a few stitches (and I do mean a few stitches) in Winter's Lace. .......



....now we can see the start of another wolf. I keep thinking that this design isn't stitching up very quickly.....guess it's because I keep working on other things :) Ah well.....there's no rush to get this finished, whereas there is a rush to get the stocking done as Christmas will soon be upon us!


Until next time.....happy stitching!


Rhona


Monday, November 11, 2019

Another felt stocking!

I couldn't resist buying (yet another!) felt stocking kit! I can see why some people become obsessed with them and collect the different designs available....they are addictive!

Those of you who are long time followers may remember that I have done a few of these felt stockings over the years....









...wow....even more than I remembered! So the first three pictures were ones I made for my daughter and her two room-mates at university. I bought the three kits and thought that I would have them stitched up in no time....little did I know how much work went into making each kit! Nieces, nephews and even my son-in-law were gifted these stockings over the years.  Now the owner of the very top pictured stocking has become a Mum, so it seemed fitting that I make her beautiful baby girl a stocking of her own. I wanted something that would kind of match her Mum's stocking and when I saw this in my local craft store, I just had to buy it....


Doesn't it look cute? I thought the blues in the design matched the blues in the original stocking.

It doesn't look as complicated as some of the other ones that I have made and I was really looking forward to starting this new project. The other stockings that I have made were all made by Bucilla , this one is by Design Works. But.....what a disappointment this kit is.....only some of the design is printed on the felt whereas the Bucilla kit had everything printed out. The main body of the stocking is printed  but the smaller pieces are not. I ended up tracing the design so that I could  figure out how to transfer the design onto the smaller pieces of felt (FYI freezer paper does the trick!).....



Here's the diagram of what's in the kit for each piece that you have to cut out...


So this kit is going to take much longer to make! So, the main parts of the stocking have the areas printed on the felt, so you basically just snip and stitch....luckily I didn't snip and stitch because I discovered this.....


The printed pieces don't match up! The white felt is too short.....9mm short! There's no way to disguise that big a difference. I sent an email to Design Works to let them know of this mistake in their kit and to see if they had any suggestions of what to do and they replied within the hour. So I can't complain about the speed of their customer service. They have promised to send me another piece of the white felt that, fingers crossed, will be marked correctly and I can then get back to making the stocking. 

Hoping your week is going better than mine! A big thank you to everyone who pops along and reads this blog, your comments are much appreciated.

Until next time....happy stitching!


Rhona

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

The wolf has a body!

It's a typical November day here...dull and dreary....and terrible light to take pictures! 

I haven't done much stitching this week....sometimes life gets in the way of stitching time, but I have made some progress on those wolves in the design 'Winters lace'. This is where I was last time I worked on it....


....and this is my progress so far...


....we have a body and some snow in the foreground!


The light is kind of poor today for taking pictures, the blues in this piece are much brighter than they are showing up.

So, to sum up a very short post today....progress is progress even if it's not very much to see!  :)

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona