Amish Mistake Giveaway

Finally got a chance to get what I think is a better picture of my darling Ichabod but I did think about Anna's comment about how we don't want to be "that" person, the one searching for mistakes in needlework. At the time I posted I thought it would be fun because my mistake is pretty in your face but after taking a gazillion pictures and even close-ups of the mistake itself, it's not as obvious as I thought. So if you want a chance to win my gently used Primitive Needle Ichabod Seabury chart-I wrote on the last page, whoops, and a piece of Picture This Plus 40ct Swamp linen to stitch your Ichabod on, all you have to do is leave a comment to this post. If you leave one somewhere else on the blog I might not see it. I don't want anyone screaming shenanigans. I will use the random number generator to pick a winner, of course I must figure out how to do that. Ichabod Seabury

The Primitive Needle

40ct Swamp Linen-PTP

Belle Soie Silks

My current WIP can be seen below:

Rachael Holmes 1842

Heartstring Samplery

32ct linen aged by me

A potpourri of threads from the stash that matched Beth's thread's as closely as possible.

I'm stitching Rachael 1x2 on the 32ct and I'm loving the effect. The band to the bottom left is supposed to be eyelets, I messed up and made Smyrna crosses and decided I was not going to frog them since they looked just fine to me. As odd as it may sound I didn't have any of the WDWs in the stash or they were kitted with other projects so I pulled out my DMC color card and started matching over-dyed threads to the DMC equivalent. This is a fun, funky wonderful sampler to stitch. I don't want to put it down. For more of Beth Twist's designs check out her blog and there's a link to her etsy shop on her sidebar.

And finally, if you have not listened to the Glee Season 1 Volume 1 soundtrack, check it out. It's great. I have listened to it over and over and over. We've watched Glee from the very beginning, the 14 year old couldn't be bothered and he loves the CD. Now he wishes the show was still on. I mean seriously, it's way more entertaining than the current programing. Just sayin'.

A Good Friend Once Told Me

That cross stitching, it's a simple thing, you thread a needle:





You bring your needle up through this hole:





And down through that hole:



A very simple thing.

It has become apparent to me over the last week that cross stitching is not simple, at least when you move into the 40ct linen and silk thread league. Until recently I was never that stitcher. I was a DMC and overdyed cotton kind of girl on nothing higher than 36ct. But my love for Primitive Needle's Ichabod Seabury pulled me to the dark side. And dark it is.

I couldn't see the holes in the linen and my eyes aren't that bad. Reading glasses even at the lowest magnification made the fabric even blurrier to my eyes, so I felt my way along on this project. It's full of stitching mistakes. Chock full of them I tell you.

But because misery loves company I'm going to have a contest right here on this old blog. I left one glaring, huge, major, big time mistake in this piece, the kind of mistake that will make stitchers say to themselves, "can you believe she left that mistake in there, can you believe it, seriously?" and "can you believe she admitted to it?". I ripped it out and restitched four times before saying, "I give up, in you stay". So in the next couple of days I'm going to take a really good, freshly ironed picture of my darling Ichabod and let you find my Amish mistake. Once you find it, you can email me and all the correct responses will be put in a bowl or hat and drawn from and the winner will recieve my gently used Ichabod Seabury chart and cut of PTP 40ct Swamp linen on which to stitch your very own Ichabod. And I just looked at my chart and gently used is correct, I wrote the dimensions for 36ct linen on the back, whoops. Well at least if you decide to go up to 36ct I've done the math for you.

This is a very simple stitch, I just decided to make it harder on myself by attempting 40ct for the first time with a darkish linen.

The Picture This Plus Swamp is a wonderful funky green and I love it. All my stitching mishaps with this project were my fault, bad lighting, not the linen, I love, love, love Picture This Plus fabrics and definitely not the fault of the chart. It was all me, myself and I.

So stay tuned for The Amish Mistake contest to pop here in the next couple of days. I'd have posted a better picture today but this is one of those days when I have to be 20 places at the same time, I hate those days.

So see my quick snap of a completely finished Ichabod Seabury below:

Ichabod Seabury

The Primitive Needle

40ct Swamp linen

Belle Soie Floss

And stay tuned for The Amish Mistake contest!

Also, any guesses from what movie I ripped off my title and the first few lines with some creative license by me?

M-O-O-N

Spells Primitive Needle*:



This is the moon band of Ichabod Seabury. Fingernail Moon means I still got a whole lotta stitchin' to do!

Here's the big view, and yes the picture is crap but the project isn't. I love, love, love, the funky PTP Swamp linen. It's a great green. This is my first time using the Belle Soie threads, and my second time using silks, I am so a silk thread virgin. I like the Noir and the Lasagna, the blackish color and the hint of orange you see there to the left in the picture. The Tumbleweed has not been pleasant and I'm wishing I had swapped out a DMC or a WDW thread. I'm finding that the Tumbleweed frays and shreds pretty easily. It's possible it's an issue with me but I don't think so since the Noir and the Lasagna do not seem to have the same issues. I've started using shorter lengths. I only have two more lines of verse to go and bit around the top border and then I'm done with the Tumbleweed.

I'm hoping that designers don't start sending me cease and desist orders in regards to posting pictures of my WIP as they are so awful it might hurt their sales. I try, really I try hard to take good pictures but I just haven't found that sweet spot for the best light. One day I will.

*apologies to Stephen King

The real quote is "M-O-O-N spells Tom Cullen" or something like that from The Stand. My all time favorite Stephen King novel.

Oh and for all you Halloweenies--check out the new Stacy Nash book Merry Hallowe'en.