Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along Panel 2 Band 17 (End Of Panel 2)

Hi everyone!  I hope you all have been enjoying the Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along!

I have the final band for Panel 2 today!!!

Here is the entire sampler:

Here is Band #17 by itself:

Work this band with straight stitches and French Knots, Colonial Knots or Beads.

This is Band #17 with the Band #16 overlap for placement purposes:

I'm going to give ya'll a few weeks to get caught up before starting on the 3rd Panel.  I know everyone has been busy with Summer things and Back To School stuff.  Now that Fall is starting, I know there will be more time for stitching!

The 2018 Crazy Quilt Calendar Is Now Available!!

The 2018 Crazy Quilt Calendar is now available!  This year's calendar features 13 of my designs, each suitable to the month of the year.

2018 Crazy Quilt Calendar

Available at both Magcloud - http://magcloud.com/user/kitty-and-me

And at Etsy - http://www.kittyandme.etsy.com/

2018 Crazy Quilt Calendar

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we didn't receive enough entries to put together a 2018 Crazy Quilt Calendar.  Heartbroken is not a strong enough word to describe how I feel about this.

Not only am I saddened for the girls who took the time to work up their submissions, but I'm saddened for my readers as well. 

The entries are featured in the Winter issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine which will be released on November 1st.  Each entry is beautifully displayed on it's own page along with a nice bio written by the artist.  From the 8 entries, my staff and I chose 2 winners, a grand prize and an editors choice winner.

The grand prize winner will receive a 1 year subscription to Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine starting with the Spring 2018 issue.  The Editors Choice prize will be a publication of the artists choosing from my Magcloud publications.

Each entrant will receive a print copy of the Winter issue.

For the 2019 calendar, I've decided drop the contest and go back to choosing artists for the 13 designs.  This will ensure enough designs to create a beautiful publication.

In the meantime, for 2018, I've decided to put together a calendar using my own designs.  This will give my readers a pretty calendar for next year.  It's not what I wanted to do but it'll be pretty.  I will be working on it this week and will release it as soon as I have it ready.

These are the calendars from 2015, 2016 and 2017:

2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar

2016 Crazy Quilt Calendar

2017 Crazy Quilt Calendar

If you're missing any, they are all still available at both Magcloud and Etsy and very much worth the beautiful eye candy!

So that's my news for today! 

Cross Stitch Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon

I did this as a free cross stitch design quite a few years back and thought with October, Breast Cancer Awareness month coming up, that now would be a good time to rework the printable page:

Free Cross Stitch Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon

Right click on the image, save it to your hard drive and print it in any graphic software.  It will fit a standard 8 1/2 inch X 11 inch sheet of paper.

Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along Panel 2 Band 16

We're getting to the end of Panel 2 on our Never Ending Sampler Stitch-Along!

Today I have Band #16.  Here is the sampler so far:

Here is Band 16 by itself:

This band is worked with cross stitches, back stitches, satin stitched flowers and french knots or beads.  But I would like to you try the Colonial Knot instead french knots. The Colonial Knot comes out more consistant in structure than french knots do.  Here is a link to Sharon B's Pintangle blog where you can find the Colonial Knot Tutorial.

Here is a close-up of the little satin stitched flower:

Finally, this is Band 16 with the Band 15 overlap for placement purposes: