Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 2

Part 2 of this tale is everything else I made while taking little breaks from working on Darth Vader (because my eyes can only take so much black thread ... don't laugh ... when you see the other projects, you'll understand).

I made a wolf silhouette skyline piece for our friend, Chris. I know he likes wolves, and we live in Minnesota. The night-time winter skyline called to me.

I actually started on this one before DV. I hadn't done any cross-stitch in years, and I wanted a smaller project to start with. It is not super complex, but I think the simplicity really is part of its beauty. I love how it turned out, and I wouldn't want to change anything about it. I am particularly pleased with the matting choice. I think the bright cobalt blue really makes the blues in the stitching pop. Clean, simple, beautiful.




The next item isn't technically a Yule gift, but I wanted to include it here. And it's my blog ... so I am. Two of our friends, Cass and Torrey, moved into a new house, and we finally got to go visit them at

the end of the summer. I wanted to make something special for them, and they are both big fans of Zelda. That's what inspired me to do this piece. I so wanted to do one of the big map pieces, but I was afraid to jump into a project that large with a shorter timeline. I have never cross-stitched any word art before, but I would definitely do another in this style.

Framing and matting was the hardest decision for this piece. I knew right away I wanted to do a simple, black poster-style frame. I have used a similar frame on several of my artwork pieces, and I really like that it doesn't compete with the art. I wanted the outer mat to a charcoal gray or a little lighter to bring out some of the variations of silver and gray in the weapon and shield. I just couldn't find an inner mat that I really liked. It also looked kind of squashed. I decided to play with it and cut out two vertical mat pieces to create the borders on the right and left sides. I think it turned out nicely. I like how it accentuates the length of the cross-stitch piece and brings out the lighter grays/silvers in the stitch-work. Cass and Torrey both seemed to like it, so that made me very happy.

The next piece is NOT a cross-stitch. My friend Tami loves the Disney Villains, especially Ursula, so I wanted to make her something featuring the villains we all love to hate (or hate to love?). It's cold and blustery here a lot of the time. I wanted to make her something cozy that would be just for her. No blanket or shareable. One of the pattern groups I am a member of (Stitch Upon a Time) posted a hooded poncho pattern last fall, and I fell in love with it for this project. It has POCKETS! I wanted it to be warm but not too warm, so I opted for cotton on the outside and polar fleece on the inside. I scouted out the fabric selection that Joann's released around Halloween and kept an eye on it hoping against hope that it wouldn't disappear before Black Friday. And it didn't! They still had one bolt of the villains print that I had in mind when I went shopping on Black Friday. So, I snagged it along with some lime green fleece and set to work. To the left is Tami modeling it because I forgot to snag a picture before gifting it for Yule. Doesn't it look great?! I just love it.

The last item was for my wife. Steffie very rarely asks for anything handmade, so when she does, I
make sure to make it a priority. When I was first learning to knit, she asked for a hat like one her mom made for her as a kid. Her requirement was that it be able to stand up on its own. I think I almost broke my fingers knitting that hat (and did break a few knitting needles during the process). She loves it though and wears it on puppy walks during the winter. It keeps her head nice and toasty even when it's windy.

I was showing her some fun crocheted items on Pinterest right around the holidays, and we saw a fun Grinch scarf that she really liked. She wanted it winter colors (white, blue, silver) instead of red so that it would not be as Christmasy. I couldn't find the pattern anywhere. I found out later the creator had to pull it because of copyright issues even though she was offering it for free. I looked at a lot of pictures, went and bought some yarn, and thought, what the heck ... I'd give it a try on my own. I'd never done any C2C (corner to corner) crocheting before, which is what the original pattern was. I watched about ten YouTube videos on how to do it and set to work. Once I got the hang of how the C2C worked, it went really quickly. I found some free snowflake patterns on the Red Heart yarn site and added those to break up the blue. Getting the eyebrows and eyes just right were probably the hardest part. I am very happy with how the finished piece turned out, and it looks so nice with her hat that stands up.

Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 1

For Christmas / Yule 2018, I decided I was not going to buy any holiday presents this year. I was going to make all of the presents myself. Before you go all, "Girl, what were you thinking?!" ... I did start making the items in April because I knew it would take quite a bit of time for at least two of the presents. 

I made a Darth Vader wall hanging for one friend, a landscape wolf wall hanging for another friend, and a Disney Villains hooded cape for another friends. I also took a couple breaks during the summer to make another friend a Zelda themed house warming present and to start up a block of the month quilting project.

I am almost done with all of the darkest blue sections.
The Death Star looks like it has a boob.

The Darth Vader project was definitely the most challenging and rewarding of the group. I bought the cross-stitch pattern Needlework #002-10 on Etsy from StitchLine. I decided to stitch it out on a light gray Aida fabric I bought from JoAnn's. There were only about seven colors in the pattern, and almost all of them were shades of dark blue, gray, and black. 

Early on, I was pretty sure my eye-sight would never be the same. With the colors being so close to the same shade, it was easy to  miscount. I cannot tell you the amount of times I had to take out stitches because I was one square over from where I should be. I kept at it though, and things started to come along.

I was so sad that my hoop size was just shy of the full width of the cross-stitch pattern. Before I do another this size, I want to purchase one of the scroll type holders for the fabric so that I do not have to re-hoop and also so that it does not leave hoop marks on my fabric.

I started with the green and light gray shades and slowly worked into the dark grays, blues, and black. The black is the last color I did because it allowed me to mostly just fill in without any sort of counting at that point. I spent a couple of hours a night, maybe three days a week working on it from May until November. I spent so much time

So close to being done with this section.
Just filling in the black.

working on it that last week that the muscles in my hand started cramping any time I tried to hold something smaller than a fat marker. My hands ached and my wrist hurt. I ended up using a compression wrap to finally get it to not be painful.

The fabric looked kinda dingy when it was all done, so I consulted one of the local framing shops on how best to clean the fabric gently. The owner said she always used dove soap, so that's what I did. It did get out the unfortunate Dr Pepper stain and cleaned the general hand grime that always ends up on a project that takes this long to complete. 

Unfortunately, the process that fixed the stains caused the green thread to bleed. I have made at least a dozen wall hangings, and I have never had something like this happen with one before. I always use name brand thread and am careful about using only cold water. It looked like a small creature had peed on the fabric. After some research, I made a fast dash to the craft store for some Carbona Color Run Remover and followed the directions exactly to *cross fingers* remove the color bleeds. When I pulled the fabric out of the chemical solution, the whole design was dark chocolate brown. I was on the verge of the panic attack and a blind rage all at once but something made me decide to rinse it out as the instructions said to anyway. As the cold water washed over it, the colors slowly started to show through. The brown disappeared after about five minutes of rinsing. The flood of relief was real. I was almost crying. That product should REALLY warn you that is going to happen.

I got it dried, ironed out the wrinkles, and ordered a nice frame and mat set  for it since the framing store wanted way more than I could afford to invest this year. I think the finished product turned out quite beautiful, and my friend seemed to really like it. That was the most important part, and it made the aches, pains, and almost tears completely worth it.