2016 Mini Projects

[Serinde]

Here's where you can show off all those small but precious finishes!

[Serinde]

Well, ok then. I'll start this off with something that isn't exactly a mini, but didn't know where else to show it off! It's an Assisi knot garden design by Mary Hickmott.

[rcperryls]

Beautiful!!!! And a great start to the 2016 thread. This is so delicate. What fabric did you use? The photo looks like it is stitched on 32 or higher count fabric over 1. I love the colors and the lovely detail!

Carole

[karen4bells]

I do like that a lot Serinde!! Very pretty

[Serinde]

What fabric did you use? The photo looks like it is stitched on 32 or higher count fabric over 1. I love the colors and the lovely detail!

Carole

Get ready for a shock... 14t Aida white! (not great photo, I expect) The red wasn't "pillarbox red" as we'd say here, but darker: Anchor 20, in fact. I really enjoyed doing this piece.

[Lizzieh]

beautiful design, beautifully stitched serinde

[Squirrel]

Love the colours and an interesting design beautifully stitched as always.

[acmpuk]

Hi!
I just started it

for my friend.

[Serinde]

Looks cute and colourful. Set up a SAL thread so we can cheer you on.

[fccs]

Looks cute and colourful. Set up a SAL thread so we can cheer you on.

I agree...I'm looking forward to seeing this one.

[karen4bells]

Looks cute and colourful. Set up a SAL thread so we can cheer you on.

I agree...I'm looking forward to seeing this one.

I definitely agree!!

[Squirrel]

Definitely it needs a SAL so we can enjoy watching it grow. It is such a cutie I am sure your friend is going to love it.

[Kathy_A]

Well, it's not really a "mini" project, but since I didn't do a SAL thread for it, I'll post it here. Lavenderbee posted a picture of a new kit that she bought, and I loved it so much that I ordered it, as well. I made it for my mom for her Christmas gift.

It's "Dragonfly Jewels" by Candamar. The one thing I didn't do was do the random stitching of the iridescent filament over the wings--I just ran out of time! Also, she's going to be framing it behind glass since she's hanging it in her kitchen with the rest of her iris and dragonfly pieces, so I figured the shimmery aspect of the filament would be mostly lost behind the glass, anyway. As it was, I didn't finish with the backstitching until 4:30 of the morning I flew home from the Christmas break in Florida!

She ironed it and sent me a photo of the piece last night.

[fccs]

The dragonflies are beautiful.

[Serinde]

Gorgeous!

[karen4bells]

The dragonflies are beautiful.

I agree!!! Beautiful!! I'd love to find just the chart of this---I just don't do kits at all!!! What a lovely gift and beautifully stitched!!

[Kathy_A]

Just as a review of the kit itself, I will say that it took me a long while to figure out the different varieties of green floss. Turns out that they didn't give me all of the colors that they were supposed to, so I ended up tracking down a conversion chart for their color codes to DMC colors, and then headed over to the local craft store to pick up the two or three colors I needed to have everything. I'm still not entirely sure I got the right shades, but they were close enough to the picture that I just threw up my hands in disgust and went with it.

This is why I'm not a big fan of kits anymore, either.

(Although I will say that Mill Hill's ornament kits have always been easy to follow, and had all the correct materials in them, and I highly recommend their products to anyone!)

[wendywombat]

Beautiful dragonflies! And I love that border.

[rcperryls]

Beautiful dragonflies! And I love that border.

I agree! A lovely gift!

Carole

[Kathy_A]

Thanks, everyone!

The border was fun to do--only two different colors, with diamonds in cross stitch, two French knots in the center (although the directions did say that you could use beads if you wanted), and then straight stitches from the center out to the edges. Again, the pattern was a bit inconsistent with the design of the straight stitches, but I chose a style for the top and bottom, then another for the sides, and went with those, regardless of what the pattern had.

In addition to the floss colors, the pattern didn't use the fractional stitches that I prefer on a small-count Aida (11-count, in this case). If I had gone with the whole stitches like they had, the dragonfly bodies wouldn't have looked as good, IMO. So, I turned a lot of the edge stitches of the bodies and flowers into half- and quarter-stitches.

I actually did much more pattern adjusting on this one than I ever have before. I don't think I would have had the nerve to break away from the pattern if I hadn't been hanging out here, so thanks, everyone, again!!