Never Ending Sampler Panel 1 Band 20

Panel 1 of the Never Ending Sampler Stitch Along is complete with this, Band #20.  Here is the complete sampler:

And here is the final Band, #20:

This border is to be worked with Cross Stitches, Backstitches and the Blanket Stitch.  If you're not familiar with the Blanket Stitch, please visit Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary for instructions.

Here is the overlap with Band #19 for placement purposes:

I'll give ya'll a little time to get caught up before we start on Panel 2 which will begin sometime next week.  Have a good weekend everyone!

Never Ending Sampler Stitch Along Panel 1 Band 16

Today, I have Band #16 of the Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along for you.

Here is the entire sampler so far:

And here is Band #16 by itself:

Work the trees with straight stitches and the stars with Eyelet Stitches.  If you need help working the Eyelet Stitch, please visit Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary.

For placement purposes, this is Band #16 with the overlap of #15:

Happy Stitching!!!

Never Ending Sampler Stitch Along Panel 1 Band 8

I spent 2 days shoveling snow here!  So I guess I have snowflakes floating around in my brain!  LOL!!!

Here is Band #8 of the Never Ending Sampler Stitching Along:

Work the stars on Band #8 with Eyelet stitches.  If you need instructions on how to work that stitch or any other stitch, hop over to Sharon B's Pintangle blog.  She has a wonderful Stitch Dictionary.

Never Ending Sampler Panel 1 Band 5

The 5th band for Panel 1 of the Never Ending Sampler Stitching Along features the Herringbone Stitch:

If you need instructions on how to work the Herringbone stitch and any other stitch you can think of, please visit Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary over on her Pintangle blog.

Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along Panel 1 Band 3

Okay ladies, here is Band 3 of the Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along:

Band 3 - the stars are Double Cross Stitches, sometimes called Smyrna Cross Stitches.

I'll give ya'll a few days to get caught up.  Look for Band 4 next week.

Crazy Quilt Seam Embroidery

I haven't been doing much in the way of stitching lately.  I've taken some time to work on my family tree and I've been having a great time with that despite being so incredibly stuck on my 3rd great grandmother!

I've also taken some time to do some reading.  There's been a lot of books on my "want to read" list so every afternoon around 3:30, I make a cup of tea and read a few chapters.

I love history so my current read is "Killing Lincoln" by Bill O'Reilly.  This also helps to put me in the 1800's "state of mind" which is where I'm focused right now on the family tree. 

In thinking about when I get back to stitching, I thought I'd start working up a few seam treatment patterns.  Most of you know that I mostly use Waste Canvas to embroider the seams on my crazy quilts and when I get a bee in my bonnet about some new ones, I chart them out on my computer.

For today, I have 3 flower borders that I thought I would share here in case I have any waste canvas girls out there!

Right click on the image and save to your computer then print it up and enjoy!  If you use these, please send me photos!!!  I may include them in an upcoming issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly Magazine!

Another Sneak Peek

Volume 3 of Elegant Crazy Quilt Seam Treatments is coming along nicely.  I have 10 more pages to do with 6 borders per page.  Here's a sneak peek at a couple more borders:

And here they are beaded:

And here is the stitched project:

Once I get a few more things stitched up, I'll need another sewing day!

Victorian Irish Lady

My family thinks I'm goofy!  Okay, I really am!  But I love St. Patrick's Day!  My grandfather was Irish and I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not but I really think that I like it so much because it's the beginning of Spring.

The thing that gets me through the cold, dark, snowy months of Winter is the fact that Spring is the next season and Spring is my favorite!

So, I started another St. Patrick's Day Crazy Quilt piece:

I have always loved this pretty lady image in the green hat!  I don't think I've ever used that image on a crazy quilt piece before so here she is, in all her Irish glory!

This will be a pillow.  When I finish up on this project, I'll be putting together an online class and then starting on my 3rd Elegant Crazy Quilt Seam Treatments Ebook.

Although I no longer design or spend my stitching time doing counted cross stitch, the background that I have in that will probably never leave me. I like the perfection of working with charted patterns.  I like how I can apply charted patterns to crazy quilting.  And therefore, I will move forward in the direction of applying my charting skills to my beloved passion, crazy quilting.

So, stock up on 8.5 count and 10 count waste canvas!  There are loads of great new crazy quilt ideas and techniques coming this year to Kitty & Me Designs!

Pink Valentine Pillow and Seam Embroidery

I finished up my Pink Valentine Pillow yesterday:

It just needed a few hearts and some butterflies.  I added a bee too! 

And here are the seam embroidery photos:

If you click on the photos, you can see them closeup!

These will be permanently available to view in my ongoing series page of Crazy Quilt Seam Treatment Inspiration photos found at the top of this page.

It seams that the vote for my tall cat dolls is unanimous!  Everyone seems to like the tall ones.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to let me know.  I will plan on a series of tall cats for 2012.

For now, I'm off to start on a new project.

Rose Garden Cat Doll

I've been asked many times, how I manage to get so much stitching and finishing done.  I've told my story before but I'll post it again.  I have ADD with high anxiety and I've found that keeping my hands busy helps to manage my nervousness.  When the hands are occupied, the mind is occupied!

Yes, my house is always clean, my laundry always caught up, I do make healthy meals and I bake.  I have time with my husband and I help my parents out.  All in all, I guess I'm just one of those people who gets stuff done.

So with that said, my Rose Garden Cat Doll is my latest finish:

And here are closeups of the seam treatments from this project:

I keep an ongoing photo gallery of my Crazy Quilt Seam Embroidery so if anyone needs some inspiration, it can be found on a page at the top of my blog.  The newest photos are always at the top of  the page.

Back to my cat dolls, photos of all the Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls that I've made are now available to see on the Collectable Cat Dolls page, also found at the top of my blog.  Again, the newest photos will always be at the top of the page.  Now that I have all the photos available, I'll go back and date them.  I hope to get that taken care of over the weekend.

I've decided, since I've made so many of these little kitties, and because I have several ladies who like to collect a few of them, that it would be fun to start dating and numbering them.  Starting in 2012, all of my cat dolls will be dated and numbered on the back.

If you own one or more of my cat dolls, check that page again in a few days to date your doll.

Finally for today, I've started on a new project:

I thought I'd better start making a few Valentine's Day projects.  I know, it's not even Christmas yet but since I like to make things for my Boutique, I have to start long before an upcoming holiday!  Anyway, this will be another pillow.  I sewed a few Valentine pillow projects up the other day so I have a nice little pile of things all ready to stitch on!  And I must tell you, I just love Valentine's Day!  The soft pastel colors, the little hearts and cupids and the pretty flowers are quite soothing on the eye!

Large Pink Cat Doll

Yesterday, at 2 am, I somehow managed to bump my electric wax tart melter that I keep on my stove.  I keep it there so it's away from the cats and I can't burn candles because I forget to put them out.  What can I say?  ADD. So I use a little wax tart melter and Yankee tarts to make my house smell like I'm always baking.  Well, I bumped it while making coffee so I had wax all over my stove and all over the wall behind my stove.  It took me over an hour to clean it all up!

After all that, I said AMEN!  I'm stitching!!!  And I did.  I finished up my Pink Cat Doll:

If you look closely at the photo at the top, you can see his little ears!  I have one more large cat doll to stitch up.  That one is blue.  I'll start on it later today.

In the meantime, here is the seam embroidery from the Pink Cat Doll:

I also finally got my little cellphone pouches all sewn up.  All I have left to do on those is to sew on the trim and the little snaps.  I plan to get that done today.

My dad has a Dr.'s appt. today for that final test.  The others all came back normal.  Mom and I are thinking he passed a kidney stone.  I'll be going with him today in case he needs me to drive home.  I suggested that he just let me drive my Towncar because I'm more comfortable driving my own vehicle but that was a "no go".  Men!  They're so stubborn!

Winter Lady Crazy Quilt Purse Continued

Other than going into town for groceries and doing some laundry, I spent most of yesterday stitching on my Winter Lady Crazy Quilt Purse:

I'll be sitting here and doing some more beadwork on this before I head over to mom's for the day.

Also, I've decided to add a new feature to my blog.  As I stitch on my Crazy Quilt projects, I'll take close up photos of some of my seam treatments and post them on the page titled, "Crazy Quilt Seam Treatment Inspirations".  You can find it at the top of my blog.

Since I use my Waste Canvas technique for the majority of my embroidery on crazy quilts, I thought this would be a nice way to give my readers some ideas for seam embroidery and how to embellish them.  I'll start doing this when I complete this purse.

Finally for today, we're having a nice Christmas Sale at our Boutique:

Christmas Village Houses and Bottlebrush Trees are on sale.  We won't be doing anymore of these of so please, get them while you can!  The sale is only available at our Boutique.