hello!

apologies for the small photo.  I realized just now you can't click on it to zoom in.  I seemed to be able to last night, but not now.  Here is a close-up of the body of the owl where I'm getting confused.



I really have to believe I'm looking at this all wrong.  In the area where the arrow is pointing, it doesn't look like the stitches are "joining" (I guess you could say).  It looks like one thread color stops in a square and the thread directly above starts in the square above, rather than in the same square. 

As a reference, most bargello needlepoint charts I've seen online look like this:
http://bargelloneedlepoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/bargello-charts.jpg 
this shows the stitches starting/ending in the same square. 

The reason I don't know if I can do it the "right" way is because any stitches next to those that aren't the same length won't match the chart and line up correctly.  Ugh...I'm sorry...I realize I'm being completely confusing right now!

Hello!

A little background.  I've been cross stitching for many years and have recently gotten into stitching up pieces from vintage kits.  A while ago, I bought a needlepoint kit from 1973 off ebay that I really liked, even though I've never done needlepoint.  I suppose I thought I could just figure it out.

In theory, this should be easy, except the chart has me going INSANE!  It's largely done in Bargello, which from what I can tell shouldn't be very complicated.  The problem is how the chart is written.  From the directions included in the kit and every online resource I've gone to, each stitch should share a square.  So if I end in one square, the next stitch should start/end in the same square as the last.  Just like cross stitch.  However, the chart shows each stitch as starting/ending in the next square.  This would leave a huge gap in the stitches and I'll be able to see the canvas in between the stitches.

I know this isn't right, and I've tried doing it the way I feel it should be done, except that when I do it that way, it throws the chart off completely.  If I do it the way the chart shows, I'll end up, like I said, with huge gaps between my stitches.

I've included a photo of the chart as reference (you should be able to click on it to zoom in):


Am I looking at this completely wrong?  I really love this kit and want to complete it, so I don't want to just abandon it, but I'm really frustrated.  Hopefully someone can help shed some light on this.  Thank you!

Hi everyone!  I haven't been around for a while, I know, but I've been concentrating on completing this project for the past few months.  This was my first really big, detailed project.  I love old pin up images (obsessed, actually) and I bought the pattern online.  Without further ado:



And the entire piece, unframed:



Her face and hair was the most fun to complete.  As I was completing it, I didn't think it would come out as realistic as it did.  But all those tiny stitches with a billion colors (at least it seemed) all came together.


Her body.


Framed.

I started this sometime in mid-February and finished it on July 1st.  There were just over 30,000 stitches and 34 different colors.  The finished piece measures about 12"-13" in diameter.

To be honest, I'm a bit sad it's done.  It kept me busy during many lazy days, bad TV, and long movies.  It'll be hung up in my new crafting room in my new apartment.  And even though I'm kinda relieved to be working on some smaller projects I've been saving up, I want to start ANOTHER one soon!

Thanks for looking everyone!

Okay, this is my first post in the bags/purses forum (I'm normally over in cross stitch), but I just wanted to show the little bags I've been making.  I've been sewing small zip pouches for a while now, but wanted to advance to something a bit more challenging.  I didn't follow a pattern or tutorial for these.  I just took bits and pieces of what I know about bags and formed the general idea for what I wanted in my head.  They're pleated zipper clutches with fabric flowers I made.

This was my first one and it's probably my favorite (I really love the color combo and flower).


This one is a bit longer and thinner.  The fabric is my favorite of my stash!


I finished this one yesterday.  It reminds me of green grass and summer.


By the way, I'm addicted to making fabric flowers!  They come out so pretty!

Hope you guys like these. 

Whew!  This one took me a while - from stitching to finally getting photos of it completed.  I've taken an interest in Elizabethan-style cross stitch lately.  There is a great book by Barbara Hammett all about the style and there was a beautiful flower scroll pattern I knew I wanted to use.  The original pattern had three different Autumn colors and some outlining, but I wanted something a bit darker and simple:



Originally I was only going to do the mirror images (the top and bottom scrolls), but felt the middle needed something, so I added in some smaller flourishes.  The whole piece measures 8" across.  I used some of my hand-dyed black fabric and stitched with a silver-gray colored floss. 



I couldn't decide which photo I liked better, so I'm throwing this one in as well!  Hope you all like!

"Home Movies" is a cartoon on Adult Swim about a group of kids who make films and have a seriously dysfunctional soccer coach.  It's brilliant and hilarious!  It's been a while since I made something for myself and this is a quote I've been wanting to stitch for a long time now.  It's from "Brendan Has Rabies" and is a quote from Jason:







I drew Jason myself on graph paper and was really pleased with how he turned out (he always has his hands on top of his head). 

Thanks for looking!

I found these great little frames in Target's $1 section (3/pack) and picked them up to frame some small cross stitch pieces.  I found these great little patterns and decided to stitch them in black on antique white Evenweave fabric.  I absolutely LOVE how they turned out!

This one is my favorite:








And this is all four of them hung on the wall:


I love the little frames so much I've bought about 10 more sets!

I just completed these biscornu within the past week or so.  I LOVE making these, mainly the seaming part because they're so much fun to watch come together.  Both patterns came from The Floss Box (www.theflossbox.com/blog).





The only part I'm not crazy about is sewing the buttons/beads in the middle.  I tend to pack these full of stuffing, so getting them indented while not breaking the thread can be challenging. 

I've been wanting to experiment with new ways of using cross stitch, other than just framed items.  And after completing a couple of larger items, I needed to do some things that were on a much smaller scale.  So I came up with these little hair pins:




I've also made cute little red hearts on black fabric.  My favorites are the butterflies though!

I love cherry blossoms and have wanted to do a cross stitch piece of them for a while now.  Originally, I was going to make one large piece, but I had three small embroidery hoops that I wanted to use.  I decided to make one large cherry blossom branch broken up amongst the three hoops. 

By the way, this was done entirely free handed.  I didn't work from any type of pattern.





This one shows a piece up closeEach flower has a single glass seed bead in the center.