The Doctors (Doctor Who) Cross Stitch

One of my favorite television shows is Doctor Who.  I discovered it in 2008 on BBCA, at that time BBCA did not run the shows at the same time they were running in the UK, so they were a little delayed.  David Tennant was the current Doctor, the 10th.  I watched it off and on over the years never really keeping up but always liking it whenever I happened upon it.  In 2013, I got into full on obsessed mode and watched every single episode of the modern series (starting with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor) in time for their 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor. It's been a year since then and I still love the show, even though the days of the 10th Doctor, my favorite, have long since passed. All this obsession has lead me to my new cross stitch, just in case you wondering if all my rambling had a point, The Doctors by Wee Little Stitches.

I plan on stitching one doctor every 3 weeks. I was going to stitch one a month which, including the TARDIS, would take me 14 months but I would like to try and finish it in 2015 so I figured if I do one every 3 weeks that will give me the extra time to get them all done. I'm changing up the layout and I may end up changing up the colors and details a little.  I'm starting with the 1st doctor and I've already done his hair. Stitching on linen is a bit of a change for me so I will be stitching a little slower than I'm able to on aida.  I love the way finished projects look on linen so much better than aida and I'm happy to be advancing my cross stitching skills.

Story Time Sampler Fabric and Floss

Since I've gotten back into cross stitching one of the pattern companies I really enjoy is The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  They do lots of fun samplers where they reveal the pattern slowly over a few months.  They have done a yearly pattern (one part of the pattern every month for a year) for the last few years which I've always been tempted by but never willing to quite take the jump.  That all changed this year for 2015.  They are doing a Story Time Sampler with twelve literary characters. The sneak peak with a little Alice from Wonderland was enough to do me in! The first part of the pattern comes out on the 15th and I wanted to be ready to go so I had to get my floss and fabric all gathered together.

Isn't it beautiful! The colors almost filled the ring I keep them on and they just laid out so beautifully perfectly on top of the linen (this will be my first cross stitch design on linen.) I really hope I can keep up every month, stitching what I'm sure will be a wonderful design!

15 Projects

I used to be the most crafty one in my family.  I was always sewing or making some kind of craft.  Ever since we moved into this house (a year and a half ago) I have been so bad about doing crafts.  The ones I have done (mostly stuff with my Silhouette Cameo) I don't end up posting about.  My sister has replaced me as the most crafty one in my family.  She sews, knits, crochets, and so on and so forth. So when she posted about doing 15 Projects in 2015 I thought, wow, I need to do that. So here goes!

01- Honeycomb Stitch Along (started this, need to finish it!)
02- 2015 Story Time Sampler by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery || IN PROGRESS ||
03- Quilts for My Daughters (using the pattern Sea Glass by Talk of the Town)
04- Q-Snap Frame Cover (an easy project that I keep saying I want to do) || DONE! ||
05- The Doctors (Doctor Who) Cross Stitch by Wee Little Stitches || IN PROGRESS ||
06- Vinyl Project Pouches || DONE! ||
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15-

I feel like 15 projects is going to be really ambitious for me. It will be a miracle if I complete all 15 projects with 3 kids in elementary school plus their activities, going to school myself to get my Bachelor's degree, and all the normal house keeping and life stuff. I really want to try though.  I really enjoy doing crafts and sewing and I feel like I need to make it a priority to make it more a part of my life again.

March Cottage of the Month

So, it's been a while but I finally finished my March Cottage cross stitch from Country Cottage Needleworks. 

I stitched it on 14 ct Natural Aida cloth and used DMC colors:  3347, 3348, 433, 3823, 3822, 3031, and White.  I messed up on a few of the leaves but didn't want to take the time to fix them.  I left out one of the floating clovers because I thought it would be too much.  The white hardly shows up at all on the aida cloth so I outlined the fences so you could actually see them!  I'm really happy with my color changes particularly making the flowers yellow instead of pink/orange. 

Next up I'll be stitching up June.

I'll be using 14 ct Natural Aida Cloth.  I also changed up the colors on this one and I'll be using DMC floss: 581, 3822, 347, 3031, 422, 420, 433, and White (which I have to buy some more of, so it isn't pictured.)  I got way behind and I want to display these in their months so I'm going to skip ahead.  I'll just have to make the time to catch up on April & May later.

February Cottage of the Month

I finally got my February Cottage of the Month done!  (Now that it's almost the end of March, yikes!)  I had it most of the way done but then I lost steam.  I finished it up last night and as you will see I made a lot of changes in fact I'm not sure if I kept anything the same other than the design.

I stitched it on white 14 count Aida cloth and used the following DMC embroidery floss colors:  brown/3031, green/3011, blue/3766, reds/816, 3831, pinks/601, 603, 605.  I really like the way it turned out because it very much matches my February decor.  Since I have already put away my February stuff, I didn't bother putting it in the frame and just put it away to use next year.  After I finished up the February Cottage, I gathered up all the supplies for the March cottage!

I'm stitching March on a Natural colored Aida cloth.  I did change a few of the floss colors this time too.  I changed the Pale Yellow to DMC 3823 and I didn't want to use the Geranium color because I wanted more Yellow in the design so I changed it to DMC 3822.  I also chose a little bit of a darker brown for the Pecan color and went with DMC 433.  I'm really excited about getting March done and if I hurry and get it done before the end of the month then I'll be back on track!

January Cottage of the Month

I finished my January Cottage of the Month.  Even using 3 strands of floss, the snowflakes aren't really very visible.  I probably should have used a darker fabric but darn it if I didn't want that sparkle.  I didn't really do much finishing on it.  I just ironed under the edges and put it in a frame.  I'll probably finish it properly on foam core in the future, but for now just ironing it will do.  I found this 8x8 frame at Michaels and I'll be using the same frame and switching out the cottage every month.  I had so much fun getting back into cross stitching and I can't wait to stitch up February's Cottage!