It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherstitchers!

November 1, 2017November 2, 2017 Kate1 Comment

As I mentioned yesterday, pumpkins have long been one of my favorite motifs to recreate in fabric, fiber, floss, murals, poetry slams, bronze, slime, skywriting, performance art pieces… whatever. And every year I have plans to stitch up a bunch of pumpkins to celebrate this time of year. I’ve managed to stitch a few Halloween-themed pieces, but I’ve never been able to commit the time to fully indulge my pumpkin love. But, if I were, it would look a lot like this:

Heart’s Content’s, “French Harvest: Cinderella’s Pumpkins” is probably first on my “To Stitch” list. The main thing keeping me from stitching it right now (besides my sad, uninsured, middle-aged eyes) is cost. For some reason, Heart’s Content only releases its patterns in kit form, and I just can’t bring myself to buy more fabric and floss that I already own. Maybe one day… or maybe I’ll just wait for a used version to show up on Ebay.

French Country is not usually one of my favorite styles, but I could definitely make an exception for this adorable petit modèle de citrouille: JBW Designs, “French Country IV: Pumpkin”.

JBWDesignsFrenchCountryIVPumpkin — If I stitched this, I’d stitch “Citrouille” instead of “Pumpkin,” ’cause I’m fancy.

This little gem is tied for first on my “To Stitch” list, and I actually own this kit (is it OOP?) so I have no excuse. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the gloriousness that is “Itty Bitty Trio of Pumpkins” by Twisted Threads:

Itty Bitty Trio of Pumpkins

And this classic from Bent Creek, “Autumn Row.” I love the entire “In a Row” series and I have a dream of completing one for every season–you know, right after I finish stitching the entire “In My Garden” series by Mirabilia (see progress bar on right if you want a good chuckle). I’ll let you know how that goes, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Autumn Row by Bent Creek

I love Bent Creek’s “In a Row” series so much, I designed and stitched my own tribute, “Celtic Alphabet in a Row”:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — I think we can all agree that my photography skills have improved since then….

And finally, this little gem is tied for first place on my “To Stitch” list (hey, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds). I’ve seen so many beautiful variations of “Pumpkins Three” by La-D-Da online that I just can’t decide what colors of fabric and floss I would choose. Indecision, thy name is Kate! Here are just three of the many possibilities:

Pumpkins Three Official Version — “Pumpkins Three,” the official Twisted Threads version

Pumpkins Three from Stitching by the White River — “Pumpkins Three” from Stitching by the White River (blog)

"Pumpkins Three" from the La-D-Da Lovers Blog (laddalovers.blogspot.com) — “Pumpkins Three” from the La-D-Da Lovers Blog (laddalovers.blogspot.com)

And, last but not least, no tribute to stitching pumpkins would be complete without a shout-out to my friend (and the first person who made cross stitch seem cool), Stitch Bitch, whose August 1, 2007 blog post originally inspired this one. You can see her collection of pumpkin patterns here–she’s got great taste! And I suppose, by extension, I should give a shout-out to Adrienne Martini of martinimade.com for inspiring her.

Have fun stitching those gourds, my friends!

Happy Halloween 2017!!

October 31, 2017November 1, 2017 KateLeave a comment

So, I’m still working on “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherstitchers!” but I thought I’d just do a quick post today featuring this piece I stitched last year as part of the Smalls SAL Challenge 2014, “Rotted but not Forgotted” by Plum Street Samplers from the 2012 Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue. The last time we saw this piece, it looked like this:

"Rotted but not Forgotted" by Plum Street Samplers

As part of National Craft Month last March, I finally finish-finished it into a gravestone-shaped standalone, with a lot of assistance from Twisted Stitcher’s amazingly detailed finishing instructions (this is “The Cube”). Now it looks like this:

Craft Month Rotted but not Forgotted 004

Craft Month Rotted but not Forgotted 003

Craft Month Rotted but not Forgotted 002

Craft Month Rotted but not Forgotted 001

Since the design is supposed to look like a tombstone, I finished it in a tombstone shape with some wilted-looking flowers on top. In my version, I used Gentle Arts Sampler Threads in “Carriage Black”, “Adobe” (light variegated salmon color), “Cornhusk” (light green) and “Banker’s Gray,” and the fabric is 32-count Vintage Country Mocha linen. I love the mottled look of this fabric and the muted green/grey color combinations which just scream decay and aging. I can’t believe I found a fabric that matches these wonky colors.

Speaking of decay and aging… this stitched piece is riddled with minor errors where the stitches are off by one linen thread. This is perhaps most obvious at the very top of the design between the decorative trapezoid (???) with the skull and wings and the dark gray outline; where there should be a full stitch between them, there’s only half-a-stitch. My sad, uninsured middle-aged eyes find it difficult to navigate between my stitching and watching TV, which I do almost always while I stitch, and I need much better light than I used to. Overall, though, my first cube finish went well with only a few minor hiccups.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Tomorrow, the pumpkins!

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherknitters!

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017 KateLeave a comment

Pumpkins have long been one of my favorite things to recreate in fabric, fiber, floss, paper, wood, crayon, papier maché, goo, interpretive dance… whatever. And every year I have plans to knit up a bunch of pumpkins to display at this time of year. But the closest I’ve ever come is making pumpkin hats for my nieces and the babies of some of my friends:

Pumpkin Hat for Lolo

Pumpkin Hat for Ella

Pumpkin Hat for Ronan

Pumpkin Hat for Ronan – Top

You’ll have to take my word for it that the Jack o’ Lantern hat is a lot less creepy in real life. Jinkies!

Anyway… in the meantime, here are five pumpkin patterns on my wish list of knitting patterns (and the first three on the list are free!). Someday, I will knit these up and they will be mine. Oh yes, they will.

These Pumpkins by Jordana Paige from the Fall 2005 issue of Knitty are really simple to make and bonus — felting!

Pumpkins by Jordana Paige

I also really like this variation on the standard pumpkin pattern. “Fall Pumpkin” by Sarah Hawkins of Lavenderlime Knits calls for variegated, chenille, and novelty yarns, and then you add actual cut-off stick as the stem. Finally a way to combine gardening and knitting–I know we’ve all been waiting for that! Lots of possibilities here, and a great way to use up that oddball yarn (or odd ball of yarn) you can’t figure out what to do with.

Pumpkins Fall

And then there’s this adorable little Pumpkin Pie Amigurumi by Miss Dolkapots Krafties.

Pumpkin Pie Amigurumi

This “Pumpkins on a Vine” stranded colorwork cowl by Thea Eschliman is gorgeous and I love the variegated orange yarn. The pattern calls for an inside sleeve which you can do in any contrasting color you want, which is like having a reversible cowl. For sale on Ravelry.
And, finally, a twofer from Erin Black: Chevron Pumpkins and Cable Knit Pumpkins (for sale on Ravelry and Etsy). These are my absolute favorites.

Tomorrow, I will bring you part II of my two-part series: It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherstitchers!

October 2014 Smalls SAL: A belated Halloween treat

November 13, 2014November 21, 2014 Kate1 Comment

"Rotted but not Forgotted" by Plum Street Samplers — “Rotted but not Forgotted” by Plum Street Samplers, my (belated) October submission for the 2014 Smalls SAL

I had originally intended my October Smalls SAL submission to be completed before Halloween in order to celebrate the spirit of the season, but the best-laid schemes o’ stitchers and knitters gang aft agley, as the Scottish bard once said. I actually finished stitching quite a few days ago, but I’ve been so busy with … life? … that I just haven’t gotten around to posting until today.*

I fell in love with this design the second I spotted it on the cover of the 2012 Just Cross Stitch Halloween Issue (bottom row, center, in front of the little pumpkin):

In fact, I bought the issue specifically for that pattern, only to discover, to my surprise, that the pattern isn’t included in the issue. On page 62, the finished design is pictured in a group with some others from designers like La-D-Da, The Stitcherhood and JBW Designs. However, the actual pattern, which should have been on pages 63-69 (or thereabouts) is missing; I looked several times and kept turning the pages over and over again before I ultimately consulted the web page and saw an errata announcement. Fortunately, I printed out the pattern a couple years ago because it has subsequently disappeared from the Just Cross Stitch site without any explanation.

I stitched my version with Gentle Arts Sampler Threads in “Carriage Black” (the pattern calls for DMC 310, pure black), “Adobe” (light variegated salmon color), “Cornhusk” (light green) and “Banker’s Gray” (the pattern calls for “Tradewind” but I didn’t own it and didn’t feel like making a special trip to my unreliable LNS). The fabric is 32-count Vintage Country Mocha linen. I love the mottled look of this fabric and the muted color combinations which just scream of decay and aging.

Speaking of decay and aging… this stitched piece is riddled with minor errors where the stitches are off by one linen thread. This is perhaps most obvious at the very top of the design between the decorative trapezoid (yeah, let’s go with that…) with the skull and wings and the dark gray outline; where there should be a full stitch between them, there’s only half-a-stitch. I really need to do something about my glasses prescription. I find it impossible to navigate between my stitching and watching TV, which I do almost always while I stitch, and I need much better light when I work on linen especially. The only cross stitch projects that are proceeding well are the Shepherd’s Bush stockings with their user-friendly 9 stitches to an inch.

Alexander McQueen Skull Aran Jumper — This season, it’s all about skulls!

In keeping with the belated Halloween theme, from Alexander McQueen comes this Aran Skull Knit Jumper. If the $1085 tag gives you second thoughts, this stylish blogger, CreativeHandmadeCONCEPTs, has already recreated the sweater design for free. Here‘s the link on Ravelry so you can knit your own for less. While I can actually imagine a hand-knit sweater being worth that much (after you take into account the price of yarn and pay yourself a decent hourly rate to knit and finish it, it’s not that outrageous a price — and that doesn’t include the added love), I have a harder time imagining paying that much for one. But this kind of designer label pricing really drives me nuts.

*Unrelated note on Google searches: When you start to put “Burns To a Mouse” into Google search, it wants to autofill the response as “Burns to pee.” Make of that what you will.

Pumpkin Hat for Ronan’s First Halloween

October 27, 2008January 26, 2012 KateLeave a comment

In celebration of All Hallow’s Eve this Friday, I’ve made this pumpkin hat for Ronan, the son of my high school BFF. If you’re interested, the story of the last gift I made for Ronan starts here. This is Ronan’s first Halloween and I thought he needed a suitable “costume.”

I have a thing for pumpkin patterns. And I love the idea of babies wearing hats shaped like fruits and vegetables — the result of some early childhood trauma, no doubt. Knitty has an adorable berry tart baby hat pattern here that I can’t wait to do.

The pattern is slightly adapted from “Kürbis” from the Sonnentaler blog (“kürbis”–with an umlaut of course–is the German word for “pumpkin”). The yarn I chose (a double strand of Berroco Comfort DK color 2731) had a different gauge so I redid the math for a 15″/38 cm head circumference. I also chose to do a seed stitch border rather than garter stitch to avoid the “rolled brim” look. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

The stem is knitted from the leftover scraps of some Noro Kureyon (color unknown) and the leaf is made from some scraps of Suss Ull in “nervous green.” To me, the slightly scratchy texture of the Kureyon suggests a pumpkin vine stem. The leaf pattern is just something I pulled out of my hat. Get it? I pulled it out of my hat… nudge nudge…

You know what Samuel Johnson said: “He who would make a pun would pick a pocket.” Enough said.

Anyway… Happy First Halloween, Ronan! Love, Auntie Kate

Bent Creek Black Kitty

October 28, 2007April 19, 2011 KateLeave a comment

In celebration of Halloween, I’ve worked up this little design from Bent Creek, “Black Kitty” on 40-count sand linen with two strands of floss over two. I like the nice, thick effect this “overuse” of floss creates.

The cat has been done in DMC 310, classic black, but the rest was worked with Gentle Art Sampler Threads. To create a “halo” effect around the cat, I stitched around the edges of the cat in concentric circles. I don’t know if it actually shows in the final product, but I would still do it again to avoid, for this particular design, that horizontally-oriented variegated look.

Because I am making this into an ornament, I “designed” a little matching pattern for the back — basically the same outline and background as for the “Black Kitty” pattern with the word “Boo!” (on the right). It’s a little surprise for anyone who checks out the back of the ornament.

And here they are together side by side:

And in the process of sewing up the two halves for final finishing:

Bent Creek Black Kitty Sewn-up, Front — Bent Creek "Black Kitty" Sewn-up, Front

Bent Creek Black Kitty Sewn-up, Back — Bent Creek "Black Kitty" Sewn-up, Back

Now if I could only find my polyfiber fill and twisted cord maker… maybe they’re hiding as part of a Halloween prank they’re playing on me. Trick or Treat!