New 12 month Stitch Along, Not Quite Whitework!

Original Colours (Spring colourway)

Start Date: April 1, 2015
End Date: March 31, 2016
Price: $20
Stitches Used : a little bit of everything - but NO Queen Stitches this time.

As the name implies, Not Quite Whitework is a twist on traditional whitework samplers. I named it Not Quite Whitework for two reasons, first, because it's not all done white on white, but a combination of white and pastel on a light neutral background. And second because it doesn't include any cutwork, which most traditional whitework has. This is mainly because while I know how to do it, my software is pretty limited and I'm a stickler for good diagrams – I would hate to release a substandard product and there are many designers out there who are much better at explaining cutwork than I am. There is very little cross stitch – just the alphabet and a few small areas of darning patterns. There are textured stitches, patterned stitches and pulled stitches, used as examples of different ways you can fill areas of fabric for other types of projects. As with the Learning Sampler, diagrams will be step by step, so the project is suitable for everyone from beginner to expert.

Floss for the model is from Dinky Dyes, and materials packs will be available from European Cross Stitch if you choose to use the same materials I am using for the model.

Fabric for the model is from Needleworker's Delight and will also be available from European Cross Stitch.

Stitch Count: 393w x 249h
Design Size: 19 ¾ x 12 ½ inches on 40 count fabric (20 stitches per inch)
22 x 14 inches on 36 count fabric (18 stitches per inch)
24 ½ x 15 ½ inches on 32 count fabric (16 stitches per inch)
28 x 17 ¾ inches on 28 count fabric (14 stitches per inch)

These dimensions are for the design ONLY. You need to add extra to each side for framing/finishing. The model is being stitched on 36ct Zweigart Raw linen, but you can use what you are most comfortable with. It does require linen or evenweave as the design is mostly specialty stitches which are more difficult to do on Aida. As far as colour goes, you'll want a light neutral in a count that you can see the holes clearly on. I'm using 36ct because I like using a single strand (except for the satin stitches which will require 2), but if you prefer something bigger or smaller that works too.

Floss requirements:
000 Natural or DMC Blanc x 7 skeins (10 skeins for 28-32ct)
003 Lavender Mist or DMC 605 x 1 skein
204 Flesh or DMC 967 x 1 skein
153 Egg Custard or DMC 3078 x 1 skein
219 Pistachio or DMC 955 x 2 skeins (3 skeins for 28-32ct)
008 Mint Ice or DMC 964 x 1 skein
010 Cloudy Sky or DMC 800 x 1 skein
208 Hydrangea or DMC 3747 x 1 skein
005 Mulberry Ice or DMC 153 x 1 skein

This is by no means a perfect conversion. The colours are close, but the DMC is darker overall and solid instead of overdyed. The Dinky Dyes are much softer colours. Usage will be the same for either Dinky Dyes or DMC as the skeins are the same size. Usage on 36-40ct assumes 1 strand for cross stitch and specialty stitches (except satin stitches). On 28-32ct it assumes 2 strands for cross stitch and satin stitches and one strand for the rest of the specialty stitches.

Of course you don't need to follow the colours I'm using – they are just a suggestion, you are free to use whatever your little heart desires! This would look very cool done with a white or cream overdye and replacing all of the colours with a variegated rainbow pastel colour! The possibilities are endless. Here are a few other ideas:

Autumn Colourway

Summer Colourway

Winter Colourway

The stitch-along is broken down into 12 parts. I will include the full border layout with Part 1, so you can choose to work ahead and stitch the borders first, or stitch them bit by bit as the parts are released. I will be doing the diagrams for each stitch in step by step pieces, so if these are new to you, you should have no trouble following along. Parts will be sent out on the 1st of each month via email.
Materials packs will be available in 1-2 weeks - Dinky Dyes is away at Nasvhille Market and will need a few days to recover before they can put them together for ECS.


If you would like to sign up for this, you can email me at northernexpressionsneedlework@gmail.com. :)

I'm working on part 2 at the moment, and I'm hoping to get a few parts stitched up ahead of the start date. :) I'll update from time to time with my model WIP pictures!

Side note - blogger is really beginning to drive me crazy - constantly inserting/removing line breaks and adding huge gaps. It's very annoying. 

Two new releases for Nashville Market

I wish I could go to Nasvhille market personally, but my models are making the trek there currently and will be on display in the Dinky Dyes Suite in room #420!

One is a familiar one, The Learning Sampler. Now that the SAL is over, the design is being re-released in print to shops and through PDF on my Etsy shop. With over 40 pages and over 80 diagrams it's a great way for beginners to get a feel for different types of stitches.

The design was model stitched with silks from The Silk Mill, but can be done in any colour. I've uploaded a couple of conversion lists for the design to different colour schemes and different brands of floss.

Solid colour coversions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw7hbQqMHyjGRXhfZDdkem00bXc/view?usp=sharing

Multicolour conversions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw7hbQqMHyjGSFRqd1dTNmM2VVE/view?usp=sharing

The second is a brand new design, the next in the Shades series, Shades of Rose. The model is stitched in 3 colours of Dinky Dyes silk floss on 40ct Elizabeth linen from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie. This one is all cross stitch so it can of course be stitched on any type or count of fabric. :)

This one was a last minute addition, had to do a lot of shuffling around of the schedule and give up sleep for the past few weeks to get it all done in time, but I'm pleased that I did! It turned out really well, the picture just doesn't do the gorgeous pinks justice. :) 

These will both be available from Hoffman after the Nashville show - I didn't get everything done in time to ship the charts to them before the show started so they will be a week or two before they make it to Hoffman, but are available from Dinky Dyes now, or if you prefer PDF, they're up in my Etsy shop. :)

Happy stitching! :)

A little freebie for Valentine's Day

This is a little quickie I stitched up last night - it's one of the original ideas from Celtic Valentine that didn't get used but it was too pretty NOT to do something with it. :)

It's the perfect size for a biscornu, a pincushion, a needleminder, or a hand made Valentine's card.

In the interest of using up stash, I used a leftover piece of 32ct antique white fabric and a limited edition skein of Hand Dyed Fibers I bought back in 2008. The beads were leftover from a Mirabilia. :)


You can download the chart here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw7hbQqMHyjGeW45ckhCWTVxV28/view?usp=sharing

Happy Stitching!

Lots of news...

It's been a while since my last post, so I have lots to report. :)

It's been a while since I had a new release, that's because October arrived and I suddenly realized I had a mountain of Christmas presents to get stitched and needed to finish them all! I didn't get pictures of all of them, but here are the two I did get. First is my nephew Easton's stocking:

I already showed it off I think, but I finally got it put together - this picture is minus the trim, forgot to take pictures of that. My aunt Pam helped me put this together, I am a disaster with a sewing machine. lol

And the back of it - picked a green marbled fabric - wanted to stay pretty neutral because the front it so colourful! We also lined it so it can actually be used without catching the stitching. :)

And mom's Christmas present, which is also a model, Hootie. He's stitched on 40ct Heavenly Skies from Sassy's Fabbys with silks from The Silk Mill.

He came out beatifully. He's going in for framing hopefully this week. Thinking plain black laquered frame - he's very bright (brighter than the picture even) so I don't want to detract from that, I think black will make him pop even more. :)

Then some ornaments which I forgot to take pictures of.

And then it was back to work on models. I managed to finish stitching the rest of the birthstones before the end of the year, but only just finished all the instructions and chartpacks today so they're only now ready to print and ship.

Here's Sapphire:

Opal:

Topaz (which was my personal favourite to stitch!):

 And finally Turquoise:

As with the previous birthstones, each one is stitched in a single colour of silk with lots of beads and crystals to simulate gemstones.

And since several people have asked, yes, there is now a pack for all 12 available. Because this is such a huge chartpack (164 pages), it's available only as a PDF at 40% off the price of all 12 individually. I've also included a large 30 page chart of all 12 stitched together for anyone brave enough to attempt it!

So that catches me up on new releases!! After all that model stitching, I needed a day off, so I took one and finished up Mirabilia's Stargazer:

I stitched her on a custom dyed piece of 40ct linen from Sassy's Fabbys using my own colour conversion. Yes, they can be done on 40ct! This is actually my 4th Mira/L&L finish on 40ct fabric now and yes, I do include the beads, but I change them all to size 15/0. ;)

And that brings me to 2015. I've made a few resolutions. First, I need to starting taking time off for me. 7 days a week 12-18 hours a day is too much. I don't want to ALWAYS be model stitching - I have so many charts started or purchased that I'd like to stitch so I am officially taking weekends off from now on to work on stuff just for me. Second, I WILL finish my Silk Mill collection off this year. Yeah, I know, not a difficult one to follow, but until I finish it, I'm going to try not to be tempted by other stuff until I do. lol And finally, I WILL get the website up and running. Hubby has been working on it as he has time, but I really want to get it finished. I have over 40 designs available now and apart from social media, nowhere to showcase it all! So that's on the agenda.


So what am I working on now? Well I'm finishing up The Learning Sampler. I'm a bit behind the group since, I'm only on part 12 at the moment, but I have to finish it this month as I'm re-releasing it in print for Nashville (so I need to get motoring on it). Thankfully all the instructions and diagrams are written already so it's just the stitching. ;)


And I'm working on the new SAL, Not Quite Whitework. I'd like to at least get the bulk of it stitched before we start! It'll like start in April or May, not sure just yet, but will announce all the details long before then. :) Here's a sneak peek at it and the colours it's being stitched in. It's very little cross stitch, just the alphabet. There are two reasons I named it "not quite" whitework, first because it's not all in white, but in white and pastel colours. And second because traditionally whitework includes cutwork, this one does not. I stuck to pulled and textured stitches for it, partly because I know cutwork terrifies people and partly because I just do not know how to do diagrams for it properly. :)

I think that's about all for now... lots more to come this year, it will be another very busy year! And with that I'm off to stitch. :)

A celebration sale

Hi all! I've been quiet again, because I've been working on Christmas stitching and can't share a whole lot of pictures as they're surprises! lol

However, as of this morning I have reached 1000 likes on my Facebook page. I'm so excited!! I decided that this is definitely worthy of celebration, so I'm having a sale in my Etsy shop through the end of November. The sale code is CELEBRATE25 and will give you 25% off on any purchases.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NorthernExpressions1

If you're not an Etsy user or would prefer printed charts, you can also contact me via email. :)

A New Release, some news and a WIP

I feel like it's been ages since I updated but it's only been six weeks. I have so much going on these day that it's hard to keep up! On one hand, time seems to fly by, my little newborn nephew is almost 2 months old already. On the other I look back on things that happened a month ago and think... wow, it's only been a month?

I have a new release this week, it's the fifth in the Shades series, Shades of Orange.

It's stitched on 40ct Honey Nut Linen from Sassy's Fabbys, and it uses 2 different colours of Classic Colorworks Silk floss (formerly Crescent Colours Belle Soie). The model was stitched by Nicola Maltby and it came out beautifully if I do say so myself, though I suppose I'm just a little biased. I'm not an orange person, but this may just win me over! It's in transit to Hoffman and has been sent off to Dinky Dyes as well for shop purchases. I've also added it to the Etsy shop for pdf purchase.

I haven't been stitching a whole lot myself. After finishing up Twisted Rainbow, I did up a Halloween Freebie for Pumpkin Seed Stitchers Facebook Group. I love Halloween, but I'm not really a Halloween stitcher. I admire all the pieces, they're really pretty and wonderful, but I just never really got into it. BUT, I had a lot of fun with this little piece.

It's stitched on 32ct PTP Fresco (which is a little more pinkish than it shows in the picture), using Carrie's Creations Silks and Mill Hill Petite Seed Beads. I sent it along to my distributors as well to send out to shops with orders. The Facebook group is lots of fun, every month of the year there is a new Halloween freebie (this month was my month!). I will make it available to everyone at a later date, but for this month it's just for group members - please feel free to join us! There is also a group called Candy Cane Stitchers, and as you can imagine, each month is a different Christmas Freebie. I've got a design coming in that group as well.

After I finished that up, I started on a stocking for my new nephew, Easton, and worked on it for about three weeks. Then the cooler damp weather arrived and my arthritis kicked into overdrive, so I haven't picked up a needle much at all. I've been trying to get September's birthstone done, and I feel terrible that I haven't yet, but I just can't hold a needle. It's actually a challenge trying to type some days. :( It is improving though, so hopefully I'll be back to my normally lightning fast self soon. :)

Speaking of the stocking, here it is so far - not quite finished, but after I finish the next two birthstones I'll get it done. I can't put it off too long as I have to send it away to have it sewn together - I'm just not a seamstress. lol

Apparently I forgot to take pictures before I put it away, as I'm 2/3 through the bottom half now too, but oh well. lol I'll show it off when it's done.

This stocking has taught me several things. One, never, ever, ever again will I use aida. I hate it. I mean I replaced the cardboard like cheap fabric that came with the kit with slightly less cardboard like DMC aida, but it's not much of an improvement. I figured it was fully covered so why bother with nicer fabric. It's really terrible, that's why I should have bothered. No offense to the aida stitchers out there, it's totally me, I can't stand the stuff. I should have thought ahead and ordered some white lugana or jobelan with it, but I didn't and I'm regretting it. Two, never, ever, ever will I do another Dimensions kit. ICKY!!! Not only did I throw away the fabric, but the floss as well - at least most of the colours. There were a few I couldn't match up to DMC. It's horrible! 5 bloody strands? I'd rather do two strands and full cross stitches. If I'd been thinking at all, I would have. I did replace the a couple of the "unblended" reds, the green in the lettering and the white in the candy canes with Petite Silk Lame, and the whites in Santa's beard and coat with Wisper to give it a little more pizazz. Third, cotton floss and I do not mix. Even DMC. Perhaps it's the combination of cotton and aida, as I use DMC on linen occasionally and it doesn't seem to bother me nearly as much. If you've used silk and linen for any length of time you notice it glides through the fabric effortlessly - and quietly. Cotton floss and aida makes this grating sound that just irritates me. And because I'm using so many strands in the needle in places, I have to use a larger #24 needle and force it through the holes. Evenweave just has so much more give, the needle slides through the hole much more easily. With this I have to yank on it like crazy - it's possible that this has contributed to the arthritis issues with my hands as well. Call me an elitist. I know I am. I'm spoiled by years of silk and linen and once you're hooked it's hard to go back. All that said, it does look nice and will be a really cute stocking when it's done.

Since I haven't been stitching much the past couple of weeks, I've been working on charting some more designs. Quite a few are freebies that I'm doing for charity. I was approached by a stitcher asking about a possible Awareness style design for her son's epilepsy and autism. I found these absolutely adorable little awareness butterflies by artist Donnee Spencer, and she gave me permission to chart them, so I am. I had initially thought to make them small but they have these lovely rounded flourishes that just don't work well in small size, and I tried to round them out with fractionals and backstitch but I was not happy at all with the result. So I stuck with all cross stitch and a bigger size and I'm much happier with them. I kept them simple with only a couple of colours each, they could be stitched on any count of fabric and they could even work with variegated flosses if you so choose. There are quite a few for different diseases, and I will probably add a few of my own for other diseases Donnee didn't have made up already. Keep an eye out here or on my Facebook page, as I will be making them available soon, I'm just working on getting the balance of them charted. :)

Next week, if/when I get some time, I really need to update the WIP page and the finishes page here on the blog - I've been sent some absolutely wonderful pictures by stitchers and I have been terrible about trying to keep up with it.

Also I would love some input from everyone. The Learning Sampler is soon coming to an end. We're working on part 14 at the moment, though everyone is at different points in their stitching, and the last part will be sent out in January. It has gone really well, and I've had several people ask if I'll be doing another stitch along when it finishes. I will be asking around before I decide for sure, but I have two different designs, Not Quite Whitework (which I've already started stitching) and Positive and Negative, which have layouts that would break down into parts easily. The first is predominantly specialty stitches - a lot of pulled work and textures, and the second is predominantly cross stitch and assisi stitching (which is still just cross stitch) and a couple of specialty stitches. I'm debating whether I'll make either or both into stitch along pieces and release them in their entirety after the SAL ends. Tentatively thinking that if I do, I will start Not Quite Whitework in March or April (giving me some time to get it stitched up ahead of time) and Positive and Negative in the late summer sometime. I'd love to hear your thoughts! If I don't do them as stitch alongs, I will of course release them in shops as per usual.

And one last order of business... I'm finally getting around to having a website set up. My hubby is working on one for his boss right now, but will be starting mine when he finishes that. I will likely be moving my Etsy shop to a built in cart system, and this blog over to the website when it gets finished. I'll keep everyone updated on that as it progresses.

I had been feeling like I haven't accomplished much of anything of late, but as I type this I realize I've been just as busy as always, just with things other than model stitching!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Another correction to Twisted Rainbow

Sigh. I really do proofread and have multiple people proofread for me as well, but sometimes things fall through the cracks.

On the key for colour #17, it shows a filled star as the symbol, on the chart it is two dots side by side. For colour #18, it shows two dots side by side, on the chart it is a 2. 

They have been corrected and the correct version is now in the Etsy shop and with my distributors so it will be correct in future orders, and only in the specialty stitch version - the cross stitch only one is correct.

I feel completely awful about this and I'll make sure I check even more in future. Thank you to Barb who notified me.