I was originally looking for a denim shirt to deface….uh, I mean, enhance…but when I saw this one, vaguely reminiscent of an engineer’s hat, I knew I had found my blank canvas.

I swear it’s not that psychedelic in real life.  Methinks that fine striping, drapey fabric, and camera flashes don’t mix as nicely as I’d like them to.

That’s a little more true-to-life (look at the shirt, not the pocket).

I took the pocket off the shirt to stitch, then, using waste canvas and a sharp embroidery needle, I managed to get my design on almost straight and centered, before reattaching the pocket.

Thank heavens it fits.  There’s no way I could return it to the store now.

Go me!  Novel #8!  However – November was not a great month for crafting, and then boom, December rears its Christmas-baking-social-function-shop-and-wrap-and-sign-cards head.  Sorry; I’m attempting to rationalize here.  And I actually was able to craft one Christmas gift, although I wrapped it before I took a picture.  That will be forthcoming.  In the meantime, I have this:

It’s one of those lovely Mill Hill beaded kits, but my  goodness, was there ever a lot of white stitching!  I have the accompanying “Nice” kit in my stash, too, but may tackle that next year.  (Being naughty is more fun than being nice anyway, right?  Right!)  I backed the design with silver paper after I cut away the excess perforated paper, and presto!  Instant ornament!

For those who are curious, my new favourite holiday memory was formed just today: crowded in the workplace lunchroom with roughly 2/3 of the office, listening to one of our inspectors play his guitar and sing, and having an office sing-along to “Last Kiss”.  I wish I were making this up.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

After completing “Scaredy Cats” from the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue, I tackled “Witchy Kitty” by Brittercup Designs, and then turned it into a cute l’il pillow ornament.

I used plain old DMC threads instead of the fancy-pants overdyed ones recommended in the instructions, but I think it looks just as good.  The one thing I’m particularly proud of is using Kreinik glow-in-the-dark fine braid to do her potion; it makes the piece really pop.  I fashioned a corded hanger using the same colours I used in the design, and then….

….I backed it with some wicked cool fabric with glow-in-the-dark kitteh eyes on it before stuffing it.  I now have the better part of .3 metres of that stuff in my stash, and I’m going to have to find a project for the rest of it.

Happy Halloween!

(And now the Christmas stitching begins…!)

I did not have 30-count Peoria Purple in my stash as prescribed in the magazine, but lo, 14-count Lavender Whisper aida still lends a bit of colour.  I layered the finished piece on top of two pieces of stiff, sparkly felt, and slipped a loop of black ribbon in between the black and purple felt to make a hanger.  I also tweaked the “a”s and the “s” in “cats” to make them slightly less blocky, but that was just a personal choice.

It now hangs in the living room, teasing the living and breathing cats in the house to no end.

I substituted almond extract for the vanilla in the recipe since for some reason I have three bottles of the stuff in the cupboard, and found a lonely-looking lime in the fridge that seemed to be begging to be incorporated into the icing.  While almond-lime seems like – and is – an unusual combination, I thought the sweet and tangy might play off one another well, although my test audience remains uncertain of its status as the next power-combo.  It’s no peanut butter-chocolate, that’s for sure, but certainly not offensive, at any rate.  And I actually had enough icing left over for a 13th…what, too soon?  Okay…

While I realize that neither almonds nor limes are indigenous to the Land of the Living Skies, there’s also canola oil and wheat flour (101 varieties suitable for growth in Saskatchewan, according to the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation, which also lists lemons and oranges as viable crops but not limes), so I feel like it’s at least somewhat representative.  And I can’t say for sure whether my culinary toying affected the outcome of the game, but, well, Riders 27 – Bombers 7.

Which of course raises the question: can a blue and gold creation pull things the other way at next weekend’s Banjo Bowl?

It’s an Anchor kit, designed by Margaret Sherry (love her stuff!) called “Little Bundle”.  Much like the lovey-dovey Solo the Cat cross-stitch in the last post, this one is full of backstitch that starts and ends at funny places, and would have been easier on evenweave.  Despite that, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out; it really was an enjoyable stitch despite the vast areas of green and white.

Please excuse the rather dreary appearance; this is what happens when one waits until natural daylight is gone to take a picture.  Rest assured, the fabric and the diaper are white…ohhh, so much white…

It has yet to be washed and framed, but I’ll be holding off on that for just a little while.  When you hear the neighbours having a shouted conversation across the street: “Hey, Bill, how’s your water over there?”  “Brown!  Yours?”  “Yep!”, the prudent thing to do seems to be to wait for the municipal waterworks department to finish their water main repairs before attempting to soak what will hopefully be an heirloom piece.

After all that crazy backstitch, working on a perforated-paper ornament kit feels like some sort of dream…

It’s a Solo the Cat pattern by Anchor, found in an old issue of The World of Cross Stitching, and stitched with much cursing of backstitch.  This would definitely have been easier on evenweave.  It hasn’t been washed or framed yet, but that will come…in time.  I had picked Solo because he bears a slight resemblance to one of our cats (very slight – as in, they both have darker markings on a light body, but that’s about it); upon presenting it to them, I realized that I had also done pieces for them in 2004 and 2008 with cuddling cats.  I think I detect a trend.

In other news, the birth announcement I’m working on is almost, almost finished, although I won’t be seeing the new mother for a while, so time is not necessarily of the essence.

And I just received a few new Mill Hill beaded Christmas kits in the mail the other day, so stay tuned….

They’re not quite perfect, of course, although I’m pretty happy with how the waistband turned out, and the fact that my stripes are reasonably straight.  It was a delightfully simple pattern to follow, too – big thumbs-up!

Now I just need to figure out where to wear them…

(I can’t remember how to ask where the train station is, for example, but ïжак , I remember.  Oy.)

I found this Margaret Sherry design in an issue of Cross Stitcher magazine and knew that I had to do it up.  I did it on 28-count evenweave rather than aida, mainly to make the crazy backstitch just a little easier – and did this ever pay off the night before Mother’s Day, as I was frantically working the lettering.

And lo and behold, Mill Hill released new spring kits in plenty of time for me to stitch one:

This one was from the kitties.    The kit came with a magnet, but no one would ever get to see it on the fridge, so I finished it as a hanging ornament instead and backed it with some holographic paper I found in my scrapbooking stash.

(As always, clicking on the photos will make them larger – thanks for looking!)

I did, however, manage to steal a bit of time to try my hand at homemade marshmallows.  These are not vegan, alas, as my experiences with agar agar have been somewhat unpredictable and I actually wanted these to work; if anyone knows a good gelatin-to-agar agar equivalency rate or other vegan option, I’d be thrilled.

That said, they turned out perfectly!  I used Alton Brown’s recipe (found here), although I used nearly 2 1/2 Tbsp of vanilla instead of the recommended 1 tsp to enhance the flavour.  They do get a little sticky if left at room temperature, despite the powdered sugar/cornstarch coating, so I’ve been keeping them in the fridge.

Some of them have extra “skin tags” because I cut them once in the pan, then turned them out and re-cut on the bottom, and some of my cuts didn’t quite line up perfectly – but that’s purely cosmetic.  I’ve never used a candy thermometer before or attempted anything quite like this, but if I can manage, anyone can.  They are vanilla-y, soft, and smooth, and I can’t wait to make s’mores out of these babies!

Oh, yes: Happy Nabokov Day!