Yvette's Petitpoint Blog - Double the Fun Crafts

Borders Almost Complete

12/13/2024

Since my return from Antigua, I have not had as much time as I had hoped to stitch, but I have definitely made some progress. The borders are now almost complete and I will be able to move on to the center.

As you can see, I stitched all of the light background in the lower left before I start the flowers. I am finding this easier to do now that I am getting more familiar with the pattern and I have only made a few minor counting errors, which I caught and fixed quickly.

Now that the majority of my Christmas preparations are complete, I hope to stitch a bit more this week and have another update for you soon. Fingers crossed...

A Much Needed Break

11/28/2024

We are heading home to Canada today after a wonderful two weeks away in Antigua and Barbuda. The weather has been beautiful and we have had a very relaxing time.

With Christmas around the corner, I will be throwing myself into decorating the house and getting those last minute gifts ready for Christmas. I tend to shop early during the year as I see things people would like. This has an unfortunate consequence that I often forget what I have purchased by the time Christmas

rolls around. Therefore, I will be getting everything out of its hiding place and taking stock. I always love this time of year!

I did not bring my stitching with me this time but did bring some miniature Crochet with me and have been making some miniature items using a 0.4 mm hook and silk thread. So far, I have crocheted a pillow and part of a blanket. When I have stuffed the pillow, I will post a photo of it. I am very much looking forward to picking up my stitching again tomorrow. I have missed it very much and feel I have gone into withdrawal!

Working the Inner Corners

11/10/2024

These past few weeks I have been working on the inner corners of the Mary Ellen. I intend to complete all four corners before starting on the center of the rug. I feel this will give me more points of reference to use to double check the placement of my center motifs.

It is fun watching the abstract flowers take shape behind the geometric corner motif. When working the flowers I have been working from the lightest color to the darkest color so that no dark threads end up under my light colors. In this way, they won't show through from the front.

Tonight, I should be able to finish the geometric shape in the left corner and begin the shape in the next corner.

Finished the Background of the Inner Border

10/30/2024

A couple of days ago I was able to finish the background for the inner border. I decided to stitch it all, leaving blanks where the flowers and vines will go and just get it all finished. I am running out of background thread and need to start a new skein, but wanted to make sure I could finish this section before I switch to the next skein. When I completed the last stitch, I had only one thread of an 8" strand of floss left! This worked out perfectly and the new skein can start in another area of the pattern where it won't touch.

It was not easy getting to this stage since, for some reason, there was one section of the background (shown below creating a butterfly looking shape) that I simply could not stitch properly. No matter how carefully I counted, I would make a mistake. I think in the end, I must have taken out the mistake and re-stitched the area about 15-20 times!

When this happens, I try not to despair. After the 5th or 6th re-stitch, I decided to put it down and go do something else for a while. This helped to clear my brain, but obviously not enough, since I continued to struggle. I put it aside for a few days before attempting again, then was able to finally stitch it correctly.

Hopefully, this will be my last stitching hurdle, but I doubt it. Mistakes happen quite frequently and I am lucky that I am able to catch them quite quickly due to checking placement with the elements in the green border. When caught early, they are easy to fix, so I don't mind and tell myself it is a learning experience.

I am currently filling in the vines and flowers before moving on to the next element of the rug. The flowers are very abstract and mostly just dashes of color, which is the effect I was going for. I am enjoying watching the pattern unfold as I stitch.

A Delightful MET Show

10/20/2024

Yesterday was our third time as a vendor at the MET Show in Toronto, Ontario. My daughter Heather and I were on the road at 4:45 am and fully set up by 8:30. Here I am before the show opened, fresh and excited for the show to start. Both Heather and I had a wonderful time seeing lots of familiar faces and meeting some new ones. We thoroughly enjoyed speaking with everyone who stopped by to chat. So far, each show we do gets better and better as we learn what people like. We loved the several suggestions that came our way and hope to incorporate some of them into our next show. Thank you everyone for a wonderful show and we look forward to seeing everyone again next year.

Working my way around the Border

10/18/2024

I have been spending a lot of time getting ready for the MET Show which is tomorrow. In the evenings however, I have still been taking the time to complete some more on my Mary Ellen rug. I have been working my way up the right side of the rug and have been reminding myself to check placement of the elements frequently so that I don't have to undo stitching.

So far, it has been going very well and I am enjoying seeing the pattern emerge. Now that I am constantly checking for placement of each element against the outer border, I haven't made a mistake. This definitely helps the stitching go faster.

I also finished some little Christmas stockings and sewed the backing onto them. While doing so, I took photos and will be writing up a tutorial for that. Stay tuned, next week I will write up the tutorial and post photos of my adorable little stockings.

Don't be Afraid of Mistakes

9/30/2024

This post, I am going to be focusing on mistakes. We all make them, no matter how many years we have been doing this. My biggest message to you is not to be afraid of making a mistake. It is always a learning experience and helps you remember to do something differently the next time.

As I have said before, I like to get my border set properly before I do the middle. Partly, this is to make sure my borders always look the way they should and partly so that I can use the border to determine if I have made a mistake when stitching the middle. When I do this, I can often catch a mistake early on (as long as I remember to double check the placement with the border!)

In the photo above, you will see my mistake quite easily. I began stitching the beige and a green line to border that. My green line should be lining up with the small green line at the top of the little square, but it is 1 row too high! At first, I was devastated that this had happened when I was so careful. Then I reminded myself that I had luckily caught it early on, so I could take out the stitches fairly easily and fix my mistake.

This I was able to do, then I continued to stitch. The lesson that I learned (again!) is to double check more often so that I can catch a mistake before I get too far past it. Someday, maybe I will remember this lesson better, lol!

I made two more minor mistakes after this that I caught very quickly because I was double checking more often.

I have now gotten past the mistakes and have completed quite a bit of the section I am working on. I am always hopeful that I won't make another mistake, but am realistic that I will probably make and fix a few more before this rug is finished.

Approximately 2 Weeks progress

9/22/2024

After approximately 2 weeks of stitching each evening for about 4 hours, I now have the inner border completed and the outer border almost complete on my Mary Ellen.

True to my usual method of stitching, I am trying to complete some of the boring stitching first so that it doesn't seem so overwhelming at the end of the stitching process.

I stitched the inner border first in order to place the size of the pattern properly. I do this by stitching and counting each little motif until I have the correct amount across each side. Once this has been accomplished, I can rest easy that my rug will be stitched to the correct size and my borders will all match properly. There is nothing worse than stitching the entire middle of the rug and most of the border, only to find out that you have made a counting error and your border does not line up properly.

Beginning the Mary Ellen

9/12/2024

Two days ago I began stitching my next dollhouse rug, the Mary Ellen. I saw this rug in the front hall of one of my friend's homes and asked permission to photograph it and create a pattern using the rug as inspiration. I created the pattern back in 2021, and stitched my little test square to approve the colors. I am happy to now be able stitch the entire rug. It is called Mary Ellen in honor of this friend.

As usual, I am starting in the bottom left corner of the rug and will be working my way around the borders before beginning the middle. The finished size of the rug will be approximately 5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.8cm) so I chose a frame I had that had an opening of 6" x 9". There is about 1/2" space on either side and 1" on the top and bottom because I want to do a fringe on this one without having to move the rug around in the frame.

Stay tuned as I make more progress in coming weeks.

Completed Hemming the Mariko

9/10/2024

After blocking the Mariko for about 3 weeks, I finally hemmed it today. Here it is finished at last!

This rug will be travelling with me to the Miniature Enthusiasts of Toronto's Miniature sale where I will have a table and will hopefully sell it.

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