@steiconi Love Mt. Catsmere! I can’t wait to read your post.
@marionberries I love seeing it all complete! So pretty.
I have been working on my offering all afternoon. I have figured out how to use last month’s offering as a base that I can add on to so I will have a final product in Dec. I’m sure some months will really have me stretching my creative juices to make that happen, but Feb really worked out. Can’t wait to share; just a little more stitching to go.
For my February offering, I spent the afternoon stitching up my combined love of mountains and quilting by making this sashing border to go around January’s puffin “block.” My goal is to use the prompts in a way so that I would have a finished product and not just random stitched pieces. In this case, I’d probably end up with a wall hanging! (I hope it is okay to offer new stitchings that are added on to older months sampler style, if not, I still love this!) I am currently working on a quilt with a similar design as my mountain/quilting sashing! I designed the mountains myself. I had considered doing a 6x6 square with mountains, but liked the idea of making a pieced sashing better. I had considered adding mountains to the top and bottom, but decided I liked this design better.
I’m curious for March’s prompt and how I can make it work for this project!
My favorite part of prompts and themes is making them my bi… er, putting a personal spin on them.
I really loved those patterns when you posted them…fruits and veggies are always nice to use in kitchen accessories…looking good!
They’re great! I need to get started on mine too. I need to find the right towels for them first.
Marionberries, I love those snap peas! Can’t wait to see the finished ones!
Here’s my Feb offering. I was going to do sea creatures (that I love), but last minute needed a decent Valentine for my significant otter. Thus, I stitched up one of our favorite Catana Comics images and colored it (with prismacolor pencils) to match us and our couch.
I didn’t have the right hoop for it so I taped it to some thin cardboard. Still not sure if I’ll do something else with it. Probably not a frame, maybe some contrasting matte or fabric behind the edges?
I gave it to my partner Sunday, and he said “where’re the pets?” 
So sweet! Even sans pets. 
This is adorable!
I absolutely love everyone’s spin on the theme this month. It makes me happy seeing so much love and amazing stitching.
I dashed red wine all over this embroidery! And everywhere else.
I did get the stain out finally, but the design is gone, I’ll have to re-iron on. But, I did decide to take out my progress so far, I don’t like how the back is looking and use a different stitch. So maybe it was meant to be.
I started my project earlier this week, not sure if I will finish it in time, but the center is done now!
My love of stitching, especially cross stitch, started with my love of old samplers. I’ve always been a history fan and my mother took me to living history museums since I was very young. My dad was a breeder of a several old breeds of chickens so he supplied several museums with chickens of the historically correct breeds for that time period, and he’d often get free tickets. What I loved to see most of all in those museums were the textile arts. The samplers, the lace, the clothing. Very often they were just a small part of the exhibition, maybe displayed on a wall somewhere, but I was fascinated. My local library had an old book on old Dutch sampler motifs and I checked that book out dozens of times.
Samplers are the thing I love. And this heart pattern is particularly appropriate. I’ve had this pattern for years, it’s from a DMC series. I’ve stitched two samplers from this series already. All in all I think this is my 5th or 6th classic sampler. On top of that I’ve also stitched several modern or primitive-style samplers. My very first one was a linen on linen sampler I worked on when I was around 17 and it’s also one of the first projects I remember posting on Deadster. I don’t think many people were interested in oldfashioned samplers back then (2007-ish?) so I don’t think I posted all of my samplers.
You know what the worst part is? None of them are framed. A sampler deserves a proper frame. And I’ve never really come across any frames that are appropriate for my samplers, I think I want custom frames. I’ve never gotten around to having them framed but that’s on my to-do list for this year.
I think single color cross stitch is so beautiful but requires patience and love of the stitching!
Your sampler is lovely and your story is as well…you know have a place to show off your talent and passion of them!
I’m a fairly fast stitcher, I think I started this about a week ago. Not having to change colours really does speed things up, and both the letters and the hearts are very easy patterns to stitch.
Love your new one @marionberries! I want to get my set done before summer.
I’ve had drama with these new dish towels, crooked iron-ons, spilt wine, do-overs. But these designs are easy, so it hasn’t taken much time.
But I’ve learned a few things. I tend to use the back stitch (stem stitch?) for straight lines. It looks nice on the front, but is rather heavy on the back:
So I pulled out my embroidery book and discovered the double straight stitch. Did I ever learn this? Did I just forget?
See the difference. it looks pretty much the same on front as on back and is much neater. And goes fast too. I need to work on my consistency, but who doesn’t?
I like learning new things.
My mom used to call this the sewing machine stitch! Lovely work…I was sorry to hear about the peas but the tomatoes are looking good!
Wow! What a difference!
I know it as Holbein stitch, but whatever it’s called, it looks great!
If not for the knots, it would be hard to tell which was the back and which was the front! Nicely stitched!
And grandmotherly.
