Tag: cat

baking, Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Paws up for birthday cake!

wittychild

What is it with Margaret Sherry and cute cat designs?  While flipping through a back issue of Cross Stitcher magazine on New Year’s Eve (is that a debaucherous evening or what?), I found the perfect design to turn into a card for my mom’s birthday.  While the red velvet pancakes were charring cooking, she opened a rather unassuming white envelope to find this staring back at her:

I used 18-count fabric instead of 14 as called for by the magazine to get it to fit in the card, and used random colours that looked close enough to those on the model – perfect way to use what I had laying around.  I love the concerned look on his face, and promised to use fewer candles on her birthday cake – if only by one.

(Please excuse the “arty” shot.)

I don’t think the cake could have been any simpler to make: a double batch of the basic chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, divided between two round layer pans, topped with a coffee-and-Kahlua’ed version of the chocolate buttercream frosting from the same.  Because I had serious doubts about my ability to wield a tube of decorating gel, I had the foresight to trace the words onto the top using a toothpick, and then follow the lines.  Hey, it may not be terribly skillful, but it worked.

And now that it’s all over, I get to breathe easy again, at least until Mother’s Day.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery, General Sewing

She’s got the moon in her eye

wittychild

When I first found this pattern, I was abruptly reminded of driving to the grocery store with my mother, my cousin and I sitting in the backseat, singing along with the golden oldies on the radio.  When the Eagles came on, my cousin went right on singing, labouring under the delusion that the woman they were singing about was itchy, not witchy, and then interrupted herself to wonder aloud just why she was so itchy in the first place.  (The unspoken consensus in the backseat seemed to be VD, although this is an archaic term that we didn’t actually know back then.) From the front seat, my mother pointed out that the woman was in fact witchy, not itchy, and this put rather a kibosh on our impromptu concert.

After completing “Scaredy Cats” from the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue, I tackled “Witchy Kitty” by Brittercup Designs, and then turned it into a cute l’il pillow ornament.

I used plain old DMC threads instead of the fancy-pants overdyed ones recommended in the instructions, but I think it looks just as good.  The one thing I’m particularly proud of is using Kreinik glow-in-the-dark fine braid to do her potion; it makes the piece really pop.  I fashioned a corded hanger using the same colours I used in the design, and then….

….I backed it with some wicked cool fabric with glow-in-the-dark kitteh eyes on it before stuffing it.  I now have the better part of .3 metres of that stuff in my stash, and I’m going to have to find a project for the rest of it.

Happy Halloween!

(And now the Christmas stitching begins…!)

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

It’s ghoulicious!

wittychild

According to the editor of Just Cross Stitch magazine, Halloween is the second most popular occasion to stitch for.  I don’t know whether the sample size for this pronouncement includes only readers of this particular publication, or stitchers in general, but that still can’t dissuade me from devouring the annual Halloween ornament issue.  My mother decided she liked “Scaredy Cats” by Val’s Stuff, so I stitched it for her:

I did not have 30-count Peoria Purple in my stash as prescribed in the magazine, but lo, 14-count Lavender Whisper aida still lends a bit of colour.  I layered the finished piece on top of two pieces of stiff, sparkly felt, and slipped a loop of black ribbon in between the black and purple felt to make a hanger.  I also tweaked the “a”s and the “s” in “cats” to make them slightly less blocky, but that was just a personal choice.

It now hangs in the living room, teasing the living and breathing cats in the house to no end.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Little Bundle (of joy, one assumes)

wittychild

Lo, the much-hyped birth announcement has been completed – and less than two months after the actual birth.  Go me!

It’s an Anchor kit, designed by Margaret Sherry (love her stuff!) called “Little Bundle”.  Much like the lovey-dovey Solo the Cat cross-stitch in the last post, this one is full of backstitch that starts and ends at funny places, and would have been easier on evenweave.  Despite that, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out; it really was an enjoyable stitch despite the vast areas of green and white.

Please excuse the rather dreary appearance; this is what happens when one waits until natural daylight is gone to take a picture.  Rest assured, the fabric and the diaper are white…ohhh, so much white…

It has yet to be washed and framed, but I’ll be holding off on that for just a little while.  When you hear the neighbours having a shouted conversation across the street: “Hey, Bill, how’s your water over there?”  “Brown!  Yours?”  “Yep!”, the prudent thing to do seems to be to wait for the municipal waterworks department to finish their water main repairs before attempting to soak what will hopefully be an heirloom piece.

After all that crazy backstitch, working on a perforated-paper ornament kit feels like some sort of dream…

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Love and strangulation are almost indistinguishable…

wittychild

Okay, so….the anniversary gift I was stitching for my parents was just a wee bit late, say, a week and a half or so.  (But don’t worry, I’m not some slacker child; I did buy them dinner to celebrate.)  So yes, first I was late getting it to them, and now I’m horribly late in posting it, but better late than never, right?

It’s a Solo the Cat pattern by Anchor, found in an old issue of The World of Cross Stitching, and stitched with much cursing of backstitch.  This would definitely have been easier on evenweave.  It hasn’t been washed or framed yet, but that will come…in time.  I had picked Solo because he bears a slight resemblance to one of our cats (very slight – as in, they both have darker markings on a light body, but that’s about it); upon presenting it to them, I realized that I had also done pieces for them in 2004 and 2008 with cuddling cats.  I think I detect a trend.

In other news, the birth announcement I’m working on is almost, almost finished, although I won’t be seeing the new mother for a while, so time is not necessarily of the essence.

And I just received a few new Mill Hill beaded Christmas kits in the mail the other day, so stay tuned….

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Hellooooo, nurse!…er, I mean, Hello Kitty

wittychild

I almost have the feeling that I haven’t been terribly crafty since the holidays – but then I realize, that isn’t strictly true: I’ve been sufficiently productive, but without much to show for it.  For example, a couple of weeks back I completed a set of curtains of which, due to the sunniness of their location, I was unable to obtain a decent photo.  And I’ve been working slowly but steadily, since late December, on a rather large needlepoint picture, effectively adding another UFO to my pile.  At approximately 38,416 stitches, it’s going to take me a while, but it will get done.

Despite these large-ish undertakings, I managed to work up the requisite hand-stitched card for my mom’s birthday at the end of January.

Actually, I’m the Hello Kitty fan in the house, but what better way for her to remember who it’s from?  That’s 14-count Lavender (or Lilac?) Whisper aida cloth, although the next time I attempt one of the charts from that leaflet, I’ll be using evenweave – the freaky-deaky backstitch was annoying, but ultimately with great effect.

craftmas, Cross-stitch and Embroidery, General Sewing

Mine!

wittychild

Just a short and sweet one for tonight – a little ornament I made my Avon lady, Heather, for Christmas.  I had done Margaret Sherry designs for her for the past couple of years, but when the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Preview issue came out this summer, this caught my eye:

(Yes, that’s my own stitched version, not the magazine picture.)

It’s called “Mine”, by Brittercup Designs.  I love Britty Kitty!  I made a few changes to the colours, using what I had on hand, and did the red holly berries in holographic fine braid by Kreinik (all other threads are DMC).  On 28-count, over two threads, it’s just a shade under four inches square.  Using some Christmassy fabric I had been hoarding since at least last year, and a little cording, it makes a cute little pillow ornament.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

It’s a bird – it’s a plane – it’s a UFO!

wittychild

Hey, I did promise that UFO pictures would be forthcoming, didn’t I?

Anyway, I’m kind of proud of this one, if only because I just started it earlier this year after finishing another UFO.  That has to be some kind of record for me.  My UFOs are usually years in the making.

It’s “Too Pooped” from Dimensions, based on original artwork by Charles Wysocki.  My dad picked it up for me when he was out of town on business, and although it does seem like a strange choice for a souvenir, he definitely had me pegged with it.  This kept me occupied way longer than, say, a keychain or shot glass.  Cross-stitch and cats are the perfect (notice I didn’t say “purrfect”) combination.

What a lot of brown!  I was clever and did most of the tree first so that I had fun kitty stripes at the end rather than just brown and more brown.  I think finding the perfect frame earlier in the summer helped motivate me too – all that was missing was the completed needlework.

Our youngest cat routinely positions herself thusly on backs of chairs, arms of couches, etc., garnering cries of “Too pooped!” whenever she does.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Bewitched Kitty

wittychild

I bought this Mill Hill beaded kit last year just after Halloween – thereby eliminating the pressure to have it finished before.  Oh, yes.  I’m clever, I am.  After finishing one of my UFOs (pictures still forthcoming), I thought it was time for a quick-stitch project that would provide almost instant gratification.  And right I was!

It’s actually pretty tiny, maybe 2 1/2 inches tall.  The kit came with a pin back, but honestly, I’d be paranoid about something happening to it (flimsy perforated paper, delicate beads, potentially de-secured thread tails – ack!), so I used one of Kreinik’s new holographic threads to make a hanger and turn it into an ornament instead.

My own bewitched kitties seem quite enthralled with it, as the living-room sun glints off the beads, so it’s now hung safely out of harm’s way.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

What’s shakin’, Daddyo?

wittychild

So here’s the problem with parents: you stitch a card for one, and then the other one starts clamouring for one.  Okay, so not really – but I couldn’t not make a homemade card for my dad for Father’s Day.  I found a motif in an old issue of Cross Stitch Crazy that bore a vague resemblance to our youngest cat, Skeeter, and then changed the markings just a bit to make it look more like her.

That mocha-y colour around her face is the result of tweeding, my friends.  Oh, and the ball has blending filament in it for a little added sparkle.

She seems to approve:

(And so did he, for what it’s worth.)  Also under the Homemade Goodness category, I made the No-Bake Black-Bottom Peanut Butter Silk Pie from Vegan With a Vengeance. It didn’t turn out quite as it should have, I suspect – agar tends to behave unpredictably for me, and this time, although it firmed up somewhat, there was no way it would hold its shape once cut – but I calmly stuck the whole thing in the freezer and turned it into a really delicious dairy-free ice-cream-type dessert.  I miss ice cream cake sometimes, but this was definitely a worthy substitute.  How worthy?  It got devoured, and I didn’t get a picture.