Hugs & Kisses came into my possession kind of a weird way. It was never mine to finish solo, but it’s going to end up being that way. This one has a little bit of a story…
In 2009-2011, I, along with a few other stitchers, formed a bi-weekly cross stitching gathering at the Warwick Public Library in Warwick, RI. We were a small group, but it was relaxed and friendly… and all seemed good. We went to our first mutual retreat together in 2010 at Stitcher’s Hideaway, went to Celebration of Needlework, and all seemed to be going great.
And then in the autumn of 2011… it fell apart suddenly. I’m still not quite sure what happened, honestly, but it’s many years in the past now. I moved on, had Max, fell into another group of stitchers, and life has moved on.
Before everything fell apart – one of the other stitchers and I had an idea to do a round robin back and forth… just the two of us, and then gift this piece to another stitcher. I provided the fabric – a remainder cut off of my Mirabilia Round Robin from the year before. She provided the floss, converting the called for colors to DMC. She kicked it off, did some of the stitching, and then passed it on to me to work on.
And it’s been with me ever since.
Hugs & Kisses as of September 1, 2023, stitched 2 over 2 on 28 ct unknown Silkweaver cashel linen with DMC recommended substitution.
This is my third Blue Ribbon Designs project, and I have found that I enjoy stitching the frames, then filling them in. My estranged friend did a large amount of the top four squares, and most of the rest has been me. I’m planning on continuing squares from here on, then filling them in once I have all of the frames completed.
I don’t have a specific timeline for this one. Since it will move pretty fast once I get the frames done, maybe I’ll put this on my MAGIC (My Annual Good Intentions Contract) for the Tudor Rose Sampler Guild next year.
Since I’m delayed posting this one, here’s what I accomplished between Go Fish on Semi Sane Stitchers and WIPGO over my retreat weekend at Stitch New England. 🙂
Hugs & Kisses as of October 15, 2023 – stitched 2 over 2 on 28 ct unknown Silkweaver cashel linen with recommended DMC conversion.
After I finished Witches Wheel last year, I realized I had no Halloween-themed cross stitch going. How on earth did that happen? It’s my favorite holiday of the year! I quickly resolved that issue by joining the Black Needle Society’s #13StitchesofHalloween stitch-a-long last October, tossing several new Halloween charts into the mix.
Blessed Be by Plum Pudding Needleart
One of the pieces I found that I really loved was this simple little sampler with one of the most common of Pagan phrases, Blessed Be. Cute, autumn-ey, and just easy to stitch. Exactly what I was looking for!
I started it on October 2, 2022. It got a bit of work for the SAL, but then fell into the background as other projects took over my time. It sadly did not get much work on it last year, and it’s been stuck since then. Thankfully WIPGO and the Semi Sane Stitcher game Go Fish should help me get this moving a bit!
Blessed Be as of September 1, 2023 – stitched 1 over 2 on 36 count unknown linen from Fortnight Fabrics with charted threads
I’m using an ornament cut I received in one of my monthly club ships from Fortnight Fabric last year – they sent three cuts perfect for ornaments and super small pieces (9×13 inches… ish) every month. My choice was 36 count linen. It’s a soft neutral with hints of light pumpkin orange in it. Perfect for an autumn piece.
Since I’m doing this post late and backdating it, I’ll show the progress I made thanks to the Semi Sane Stitchers Go Fish game. B was called multiple times. 🙂
Blessed Be as of October 1, 2023 – stitched 1 over 2 on 36 ct linen with charted threads
Much more established now! 🙂 I’d thought to push this one to a finish this year, but I think it will become a goal for 2024. A nice finish to complete before the autumn season!
In the last several years, a popular stitch-a-long trend has been to do a “temperature thing.” I’ve seen them in cross stitching, knitting, and crocheting – and I’m sure they’re done across other craft and art forms as well. I decided to join the bandwagon in 2021 with a pretty tree from Stitchin’ Mommy on Etsy:
Temperature Tree by Stitchin’ Mommy. (picture is from my black and white working copy, sorry!)
Each limb of the tree is a month, starting on the bottom left. Each leaf represents a day. The stitcher determines whether they’ll be doing the high temperature, an average, a low, etc. There are suggested colors and temperature bands for each color in the pattern. Since it’s so customizable, I created my own bands based off their suggestions, but just used floss colors that I happened to have sitting around in my stash.
The tree trunk and branches took me much longer than I expected to finish, but I’m now working on the leaves. It’s going to be so pretty when it’s done! I added the heart “carving” in the tree for my initials and the year.
Temperature Tree as of July 30, 2023. Stitched 2 over 2 on 32 ct Dreamin’ Lugana from Silkweaver (old stock) with DMC.
As of now I have all of January and about half of February 2021 noted. I am doing high temperatures for each day, according to Weather Underground’s closest station to my location. I like using this site because historical temperatures are super easy to find, and I can sort the view by a week at a time – easy to stitch! 🙂
Since Providence’s temperatures vary widely and I wanted to have a very colorful tree, here’s my color code, if you’re in need of customizing your own color-coded temperature pattern. As I’m an American, I’m working in Fahrenheit, so the Celsius conversions may look a little weird in this chart. Some colors were skeins that had missing labels (perfect for this type of project!):
DMC Color
Temperature (F)
Temperature (C)
839
Tree
Tree
815
96+
36 and above
3721
92-95
33 to 35
Mystery burnt orange (920?)
88-91
31 to 32
922
84-87
29 to 30
3824
80-83
27 to 28
3855
76-79
25 to 26
728
72-75
22 to 24
783
68-71
20 to 21
832
64-67
18 to 19
734
60-63
16 to 17
469
56-59
13 to 15
988
52-55
11 to 12
368
48-51
9 to 10
3815
44-47
7 to 8
890
40-43
4 to 6
3809
36-39
2 to 3
3768
32-35
0 to 1
340
28-31
-2 to -1
Mystery purple
24-27
-4 to -3
792
23 and below
-5 and below
I am working on this project for the Stitch-a-Long SAL (SAL SAL) in August for both WIPocalypse and the Stitch All The Things versions, plus Semi Sane’s Wheel of WIPs, so I’m really hoping this will be an August finish!
Noby (orange) and his littermate Elly (black) many years ago in their younger adult days
The rollercoaster that I’d mentioned in my January 16th post continued through last weekend, and so I’m now behind in updating what’s been going on in my stitchy life. Along with Carol’s passing, we had to say goodbye to the last of our original band of (pre-Max) cats, Noby, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on Saturday at the ripe old age of 17. It wasn’t unexpected – he had been quite ill for a long time, and we’d been avoiding facing reality over the holidays. I’m glad he’s no longer suffering and that he’s able to run free with his sister and the extended cat family we had. I miss him though – even his annoying, gross habit of sneezing right in my face.
Work has been kinda busy lately too – the usual uptick of meeting preparations seems to be coming about a month earlier than normal. It’s not a bad thing, but I felt like I was caught a little flat-footed the past couple weeks. I made some good headway to get back on track early this week though – so all good there.
With the emotional and work weirdness, my stitching hasn’t been quite as productive the last couple weeks. I’m still quite happy with what I accomplished, though!
Apache Wedding Blessing by Kooler Designs as of January 21, 2023. Stitched 2 over 2 on antique white linen with charted DMC.
I completed both of my remaining WIPGO goals for January in the last two weeks of the month – two days of backstitching on Apache Wedding Blessing, and two days on Mute But Not Silent.
For Apache Wedding Blessing, I focused on the top left corner of the piece – outlining that upper feather and then running the straight line outlines for a couple of the poles. I’m happy with two nights of progress. I may bring this with me to Stitcher’s Hideaway later this month to get a bit more basic backstitching in on the poles on the other side. I would estimate I’m about one third through the backstitching at this point, and then I have a little more tension cleanup work on the left hand side where I originally pulled a bit too tightly. I’ll be fixing that side by simply running a tent stitch over my existing stitches to fatten them up a little bit.
Mute But Not Silent by Amy Mitten as of January 23, 2023 – stitched one over two on 32 ct Lambswool linen with charted silk floss.
On Mute But Not Silent, I decided to focus on the first of the two large H’s. While a good chunk of the work was double running stitch outlining the outside, I did also add some cross stitches in the center of the structure of the H to give it a bit more dimension. I still need to add a four-sided stitch into the center of each of those circles, and then that H is complete… and I can move on to the next one. These Dutch-style letters are quite ornate! And they don’t match each other – the stitches are put in different configurations, so I need to count almost the entire time.
Even though this is a “murder mystery” piece, I do know what the entire piece looks like. I posted it here on my WIPGO Week 4 post. The mystery will be linking the individual motifs to the storyline so they make sense. Definitely a fun way to stitch a piece – and have a little extra “if you know, you know” behind it on the wall.
Fruit of Plenty by Modern Folk Embrodiery as of January 21, 2023. Stitched 1 over 2 on 40 ct Toasted Almond linen with DMC 800 and 840.
With my WIPGO stitching completed, I decided to pull out a couple pieces that were yelling at me to get some work done and threw them into the option pit for Semi Sane’s “Choose My WIP” challenge.
The first was Fruit of Plenty from Modern Folk Embroidery. I managed to get a little over 1,000 stitches in on this one in about a week of puttering. I’m very happy with the progress. And it will get more in February since it’s a featured WIPGO piece!
I outlined the entire cartouche you see centered here, plus filled in some of the blue at the top of it (where the “2” is shaded in). For February I’m going to try to finish up this section, which represented the February block in 2021. It’s super-intense stitching, so I do not expect to keep up with this throughout 2023. But I’m going to push it as far as I can this year. My goal was a modest three months completion. I should make that just fine.
Temperature Tree by Stitchin’ Mommy. Stitched 2 over 2 on 32 ct “Dreamin'” Lugana by Silkweaver with customized DMC.
For the final week of Choose My WIP, I stitched on the 2021 Temperature Tree by Stitchin’ Mommy. I have had a heck of a time overcoming the tree trunks on this one. Not sure why I’m struggling so muich – but I just have hit one of those ruts. I’m sure once I get that final trunk in, this piece will move a lot faster as I stitch in the individual leaves. I’m very happy to have added three limbs onto the tree – just a little more to go! About one and a half limbs!
This piece will definitely get finished this year. I already have a couple of other temperature projects waiting on the wings that I’d like to start – but I won’t until this one gets done. The heart you see is custom. This piece didn’t have a year or initials added in as part of the design, so I decided I’d carve my initials and the two-digit year right into the tree. I’d waffled whether I would change this to 2022 or… since it’s now 2023, the current year. I decided to leave it as a 2021 piece. I already have found a couple other fabulous temperature record pieces that I’ll work for the most recent years.
I will post my WIPGO Week 5 piece tomorrow, even though it’s not Wednesday. For now I need to head to bed… it’s been a long day and I’m wiped out!
If you want to see what else I worked on in January, my weekly updates are here and here.
The past seven days have been a heck of a rollercoaster here in Measi Land. I celebrated my 48th turn around the sun on Wednesday with a wonderfully relaxing day off. Then it quickly turned sad, as one of my Stitching Sisters of New England friends, Carol, passed away early Saturday morning. She was older – I refuse to go down the “elderly” road – and had been looking frail over the last few months, but it still came as a shock. So my brain and emotions are all over the place. My stitching circle has had a very rough couple of years between members dealing with cancer, heart attacks, other hospital-related illnesses, two Sisters’ deaths, and the losses of loved ones. Somehow, though, we just keep moving, reminding ourselves to hold each other a little closer in our hearts. I’ve been a bit more distant from the group as a whole lately as I work through some personal emotional/mental stuff. This is my reminder to stop hiding, even when everything in my brain wants me to.
I’d planned on making a WIP Parade FlossTube this weekend, but it’s just not the right time. Sometime soon – once I take a little breath about everything.
(deep breath)
So… despite that rockiness, it was a pretty good stitching week.
ABCs of Parenting by Lizzie Kate – as of January 12, 2023 – stitched 2 over 2 on 28 count cream Monaco with customized DMC colors
I started the week with some work on my ABCs of Parenting by Lizzie Kate, which was the second of my four WIPGO pieces for the month. It also wound up being the focus piece for Week Two of “Choose My WIP” over on Semi-Sane Stitchers on Facebook. I featured it this past week with my “before” photo here. It stitches up pretty quickly, and I’m happy with my WIPGO progress on it. I may put this in as one of my monthly focuses later this year for WIPocalypse, because I could probably get it done easily if I just did a length or two per night on it.
Flying Lesson by Silver Creek Samplers as of January 14, 2023 – stitched 1 over 1 on 18 ct Hazelwood Aida from Fiber on a Whim with charted DMC threads
On Friday night I just felt like curling up with something fairly easy as Erich and I watched The Matrix Resurrections for the second time. I grabbed Flying Lesson by Silver Creek Samplers and threw some green and black stitches in to complete the header text and the very top of the witch hat. I fully expect to finish this piece for Halloween this year. Once I get that witch hat and the moon behind it completed, the rest of it will go super fast. Hopefully it comes up on an early WIPGO month and I can just devote a week to it or something. It may come up next week for Choose My WIP – it’s only down by one vote right now! Maybe I’ll toss it in the ring for Week 4 if it doesn’t win this week. I’d like to get that hat done so I can move on from black floss for a little while.
The Fruit of Plenty by Modern Folk Embroidery – as of January 14, 2023 – stitched 1 over 2 on 40 ct Antique Ivory linen from Silkweaver with DMC 800 and 840.
I’d originally planned on working on my 3rd WIPGO piece for Saturday and Sunday. After the news about Carol, though, I knew I needed a night to work on one of my pieces that she’d expressed a lot of interest in. Solid color stitching, some basic rows, and nothing complicated. It helped ground me and let me work through my thoughts, both happy and sad, as I stitched late into the night after everyone else was upstairs. On this piece, I added the light blue at the top (where you see the “2” outlined), carrying it down the right side of that brown-outlined triangle. This is the other piece that is currently up for Choose My WIP for week 3, winning by one. If it wins, I’ll be working the blue down to the right (to outline the “0”) to form the other side of the octagonal motif just to the left of my needle minder in this photo. For those familiar with how this stitch-a-long was divided in 2021, it’s the February portion. I have January’s complete and have moved down into April a bit to let that blue Assisi-style band flow naturally. I do plan on roughly stitching the piece generally in month-release order. Where it makes sense to skip around to form a motif across the month dividers, though – I’ll make the jump.
Apache Wedding Blessing as of January 15, 2023 – stitched 2 over 2 on Antique White linen with charted DMC threads
Finally yesterday I started on my WIPGO piece, although I have to admit I’m just not feeling it. It’s one of my oldest pieces and all I have to do is backstitching – a LOT of backstitching – and a bit of fill-in repair where my stitches were way too tight. This was my first piece ever attempted on linen, so my tension was way off in a few spots – and I think that is part of my mental block about getting it done. I’m just annoyed with my stitches in the top left where I first started. I need to add a stitch over the originals to fatten them up here and there, and they’ll look much better. I’ll be doing a bit more work on it tonight – backstitching, and then it will sleep for a while. One of these days I’ll just suck it up and push through the rest of it. For now? No. I’ll just do what my goal was for WIPGO, which was the entire point of my goals. Some of these pieces I won’t be feeling as much. That’s okay. WIPGO will let me at least touch them for a couple days so I can remind myself where I am on everything.
So what’s in store this week? Apache tonight to complete my WIPGO goal. Tomorrow night I’ll be joining Abi Bellastitch on her #StitchYourAlphabet SAL. She’s working ABC Hornbook by the Primitive Needle. I’ll be working Alphabet of Stitches by Morning Glory Needleworks, since I have that fully kitted and partially basted. Wednesday/Thursday/Friday will be Choose My WIP focus, which will lead me into the first 24 Hours of Cross Stitch Marathon next weekend and a batch of “whatever I want” chaos.
A busy week – both past and upcoming! Hope all of you have a good week – see you next weekend!
