Friends and Family Patterns

 A few more bowlfillers for your home. Don't be afraid to go big either. Any of these would be lovely, stitched on a 12x12 or 18x18 piece of muslin in extra large letters and finished as a cushion for your couch, too!

 Right-click and save and then you should be able to print the size you want from a small bowlfiller to a larger page size. If you want it bigger, simply enlarge on a copier and you might need to take the pieces together. Once printed, cover with muslin and use a water soluble pen to trace the lettering. Or tape the pattern and muslin to a window to see better.

I love DMC 498, but I think these would also be lovely stitched in a dark brown or blue or whatever color suits your fancy and your decor.

 Feel free to sell products you make from these designs as long as you stitch them with your own two hands. And, if you do stitch them and are on Instagram, I'd love to see your finishes under the hashtag #kindnlovelystitches so I can see all of your gorgeous work!

If you'd like to make your own, of course, all you need is a Sharpie and some white paper.

Happy Stitching!

Patriotic Stitches

 If you've heard of Stitching with the Housewives and Priscilla and Chelsea, you may have seen the adorable redwork 'America' bowlfillers that Priscilla has in her galvanized 3-tier tray for July 4th. She said she bought them years ago, but even if they were available now, I couldn't get them since I'm not in the US.

 However, as an American living outside the US, decorating for July 4th is a big deal. I also started thinking of all kinds of little pillows I'd like to stitch up for other holidays, too.

 You should be able to right-click and save these photos and then print them the size you choose. Then, you can lay muslin over the top and use a water soluble marker to trace the word(s) onto the fabric.

Use your favorite red or blue floss (I like to use 3 or 4 strands) to stitch up as many of the designs as you like. Feel free to sell products you make from these designs as long as you stitch them with your own two hands. And, if you do stitch them and are on Instagram, I'd love to see your finishes under the hashtag #kindnlovelystitches so I can see all of your gorgeous work!

If you'd like to make your own, of course, all you need is a Sharpie and some white paper.

Look for more designs in the future! Enjoy stitching!

Stitch MAYnia plans 2019

Last year for MAYnia, I started 31 smalls, mainly Christmas ornaments thinking I would finish the whole lot during the year. How many did I finish? Ummm...two? I have a whole box of small WIPs now in addition to my other WIPs and they are driving me crazy.

So, for Stitch MAYnia this year, I'm going to finish some of my small WIPs. I want to finish at least 9, but I'm aiming for 19. Even if I just finish 4 or 5, it will feel so good to get some of these out of the WIP box and into the finishing pile.

During the last week of April, I worked on adding a few stitches to all the WIPs I want to finish during MAYnia to make it more doable and hopefully be able to finish a few more this way. Some of these hadn't been worked on since last May! Yikes!

A few of these were started during MAYnia 2016 and never had more stitches put in them. I need these off the burner so I don't feel guilty every time I start something new!

Stamp Carving

I just realized I hadn't shown these, yet. These are three stamps I carved to use in my art this year. This is the second year that I've made a signature stamp with the year on it to use on my art and art journal. I also want to experiment with tea bag art this year and I think the world could always use a little more kindness. So I hope to get a lot of use out of these stamps. Hopefully more than I have been getting. I haven't been doing much art work recently. It's just been too busy.

Victoria Sampler Altoid Tin Topper

This is the Needles and Scissors free design by Victoria Sampler. I stitched it on vinyl fabric so I didn't do the cut outs that normally would have been done with this pattern. I also changed all the colors to use up some scraps of threads that weren't labeled. I love how it turned out. Now, I just have to empty an Altoid tin so I can put this on the top. I'm thinking about attaching it with velcro so it can easily be removed, but I'm not sure.

Gloriana Pashmina Thread

This sampler is S.Ward: A Little Rag by Kitten Stitcher and was a limited edition kit that came with the linen and the Gloriana Pashmina crimson floss. This floss was so wonderful to work with. Many people who used this kit didn't like the thread. The key, for me, to working with it was cutting the strands in half because if you worked with the full strand, it got really fuzzy. The half strands worked great and it gave such good coverage.

Like other silk threads, you also have to keep your hands soft when working with it. It does snag on dry skin, but, as long as you keep your hands moisturized, it's not a problem.

I love how soft and silky the floss feels, too. But, it slides through the linen very smoothly. It's just a wonderful thread to use.

Red Pincushions

I love the color red and pincushions. When clothes wear off, I always take off the buttons. So the white buttons with red thread on a linen heart turned out really well. The second pincushion is a thread crochet granny square on top of a small red gingham base. I sewed the two gingham squares together first and then stitched the granny square on top stretching it as I went. I love how these two pincushions turned out.