I’m always learning new things and getting new inspiration from our stitching community ~ I truly appreciate all the emails and photos that everyone shares with us here.

Thank you all. Happy Stitching!

You can purchase the monthly ornament charts individually here…

January Ornament$2.75

February Ornament$2.75

March Ornament$2.75

Once soccer season and school are over the blog hopping will get back to normal. I expect our next hop to be June 15th. In the meantime enjoy these photos I managed to snap of the kids (getting them to hold still long enough for a photo is seriously hard!) …

Lucas received some cool new golf stuff for his 15th birthday over the weekend (new golf bag and a new hybrid #3 club)


Ethan (my youngest son) would like you to see his “oh realllllly” face…

and our silly kitty Moe-Moe thinks my Nightmare Before Christmas fleece belongs to him, and he is terribly wrong…

That’s all I’ve got today …. What’s going on in your world?

But this design held my attention because I really liked the poem verse that it has at the bottom…

Families are like quilts…
Memories stitched together
with threads of joy
Hearts pieced with love,
growing more precious with time.

Design’s model was stitched on 28 count Antique White Cashel linen using DMC threads (click through to chart for list of threads and supplies) Stitch count is 154w x 214h, for a finished size of 11×15 when being stitched on 28 count evenweave or 14 count aida fabrics.

==> Click here to pick up the chart and supplies for this piece.

A few months ago, when I first started guest blogging here, I talked about how I prefer to stitch smaller projects.  It’s mostly because they don’t take forever to finish and also are less expensive to finish.  But occasionally, one has to stitch something truly epic.  And I mean EPIC!  Lord of the Rings kind of EPIC.  My goal for this year was to stitch a bunch of ornaments, however, I too have been bitten by the EPIC stitching bug. 

I’ve stitched large pieces before but never anything that I could truly say was EPIC.  By EPIC, I mean something that’s solidly stitched like an HAED or Kustom Kraft piece.  About the closest I’ve ever got to epic was the whitework I stitched last spring for my in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Sorry, it’s not the best picture ever but all ecru is really hard to properly photograph. You can’t really tell from this angle but there’s some fairly extensive beadwork in there too along with some perle cotton and a variety of random specialty stitches.

I guess we could also consider this Dimensions Gold Collection stocking slightly EPIC too.  It’s mostly solidly stitched.

The tweeding also got old after awhile

But that’s all in the past.

In December, Mel (of “Epic Stitching”) had a giveaway to get an HAED.  I never win anything but I managed to win that.  I had my choice of HAED so I chose this:

Mel was also nice enough to hook me up with a piece of 25 ct Lugana large enough to stitch it on.  I’ve put in about 600 stitches in the left hand corner and I still haven’t quite covered a square inch of fabric (which is pretty impressive).  I had put the first 10×10 square on when I realized that it would be a very good idea to grid the fabric.  After all, with something this EPIC I didn’t want a repeat of the dragons.

I’d never gridded my fabric before so I Googled how to grid cross stitch and came up with several tutorials, including one from this very website.  After doing a bit of research, I decided to use this grid pattern:

 I used some bright orange sewing thread I had leftover from making Ducky Momo.  I like how it crosses right on the corner.  This is only one page of the HAED (which is slightly scary).

I found the grid so helpful that I decided to apply it to another EPIC project on the UFO pile.

I decided to try a different kind of grid with this one just to see what kind I preferred.

As you can see, the corners don’t have thread over them.  I’m not sure if I really prefer one kind over the other.

Overall, I really like the grid on larger solid stitched projects.   Yes, it does take a few hours to put the grid in but it saves the frustration of hours of frogging later on.  I can always double check my work easily.  There are more color changes on the Snow White piece, so I find I can work one color in one square and then park the thread in an adjoining square (hence all the threads you see sticking out in the picture).  With my masters degree looming, the gridding also ensures that I can put down the piece and easily pick it back up for a little work if I have a free afternoon.

Share your Stitching the Night Away finishes with us on Facebook or you can drop me an email directly ~ I look forward to seeing your work!

(this is a free pattern available here)

I know I say this all the time, but stitching really is therapy. I feel so much better right now. I need to stop over-scheduling myself and save some time every week for just stitching.

What are you stitching on this week?

Sunflower Sam comes from The Sunflower Seed (and there are lots of other cute sunflower-themed charts from them, of course) and the design is a quick stitch at about 80 stitches high x 60 stitches wide.

==> Click here to grab Sunflower Sam for your stash today!

Need stitching supplies? You can get this chart and plenty of stitching supplies over at Everything Cross Stitch.

– as stitched by Shaunterria –

Happy Stitching!

You can purchase the monthly ornament charts individually here…

January Ornament$2.75

February Ornament$2.75

March Ornament$2.75

Model stitched on 14 Ct. White Aida with DMC floss. Finished size: 18.43″ x 14.5″

And then to top off a weekend of geeky goodness, my husband took the boys to see Iron Man 3 Sunday morning. It was possibly the best weekend of the entire year. (I didn’t feel all that great, so I skipped the movie.)

People are always asking me where to find legitimate Star Wars cross stitch patterns, and it would seem there aren’t all that many out there to be had. This one is titled May the Force Be With You (although those words don’t actually appear on the design itself) and was charted by Andrew Read for Cody Country CrossStitch.

I hope your week is off to a fantastic beginning ~ Happy stitching

I hope you’re having a great week and I hope this made you smile just a little bit today