cross stitch

Godzilla Cross Stitch

Posted on by cycadia

I made this for my Bother-In-Law and his family.  I’m sure it will end up in a place of honor.  Here’s the pattern I found.  Hopefully, it isn’t stolen from someone.  I just found I found my own colors and made the word “destroy” to look a bit like flames.

godzilla, walk 003

I used a frame from IKEA.  Mostly because I love IKEA and will use any excuse to go to there.  I also used some foam core that we had lying around the house and some tiny pins that were called sequin pins.

godzilla, walk 009

I cut the foam core to a little bit smaller than the mat in the frame.  After I washed and ironed the fabric, I measured out the middle of both the piece and the foam core.  While having everything lined up, I used the tiny sequin pins to attach the needlework to the foam core.  The pins were inserted all the way around into the edge of the foam – super tedious.  I wanted to make sure it was straight, though, so I did a pin or two per side at a time starting in the middle of each side. The fabric needs to be pulled taut in an attempt to prevent wrinkles.  This was the first time I have framed anything this way.  It was harder than it sounds.  Especially the corners.  I trimmed a bit there and just tried to get it to lay and fold as flat as possible on the back.  Lastly, I taped all the edges down and popped it in the frame!

godzilla, walk 014

 

Framed and ready to go for Christmas!

flamingo,godzilla 021

 

Flamingo Part 2

Posted on by cycadia

So I finished the flamingo in time for the Mom’s birthday!  I still think it’s super ugly, but I can appreciate the design and the colors now that it’s finished.  Here is a pic from before I washed and ironed it.

Flamingo; Reston 004

I’m not sure what she’s going to do with it.  There is a distinct lack of wall space in her place.  Perhaps a bag or a pillow is in her future?  I’m not so good at that part, the finishing, unless it’s just slapped in a frame.  It’s all nice and washed and ironed now.

Flamingo; Reston 028

flamingo,godzilla 002

It was super hard to get all the tape of the edges.  Honestly, they are still sticky.  I should have just cut them off.  If you look really close, there are still some pencil marks left over.  An unfortunate side effect to using a pencil to mark your place?  It will rub off on your fabric eventually.

Typically I use pen to do my marks. However, a more dense pencil would be helpful. Try using a 2H the next time. The lead from a 2H pencil may not be easily seen when it rubs off on the fabric.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Flamingo Part 1

Posted on by cycadia

While visiting my mom this summer, I worked on some cross stitching.  She dragged out one she’d been working on and asked if I could finish it.  “Sure Mom!”  I should have looked at it first.  It’s a super ugly flamingo (Cover Band Name?).  I’m a bit spoiled by my current projects.

Most of my current patterns are easier to read. These new projects have colored charts with symbols and they are much easier to work with.  Not to mention all the colors used with the ugly flamingo are very close together, so it is hard to see what you are doing.

To top it all off, penciling was used to show the area’s that had been worked.  That’s not so much the problem, I’ll probably do the same.  But diagonal lines were used.  Visually the printed, black & white pattern is just bananas, and then to add gray pencil diagonal lines on top of it? No wonder she felt as if she was going blind working it!

tribble, flamingo 054tribble, flamingo 056

And don’t get me started on the back of the work.  I like stitches to be neat and it almost looks like the work was done in rows.  Disaster – a complete disaster.  It’s a bit hard to see here (ed. excuse potato), but I did the not-pink section.  You can see the difference.  I’m such a cross stitch snob.

Back of Flamingo

I may have to wash it before I go to much further as well.  There’s some weird baby powder/lavender thing happening that assaults my nose when the hoop gets too close to my face.  Which, for a teenager, happens more than you would think.  There must have been some strong hand lotion in the mix for the odor to linger like this.  Maybe I’ll just hose it down with some febreeze and see if that helps.

Hope you aren’t reading this Mom!  I love you and am super happy to be helping you out! 🙂