Blooms, a Finish & new Start!

Hello lovely friends! We've been having gorgeous weather here in California. Today was the warmest day yet - 86. All the other days and coming week - 70's! Just Fantastic! This is the time of the year that I have pretty blooms to share with you. I love that the roses are all in bloom. I have a new finish and a new start as well. WOOHOO!!! I took these photos on my new IPhone. My last cell phone lasted a good 6 years LOL!

 Angel Face Rose

 ??? Can't recall the name of this Rose - LOL!

 Peace Rose

 ??? Don't know the name either of this Rose but it's Beautiful 

 Blue Bearded Iris

I've had my eye on this praying it would bloom and it did!!!

"Midnight Ride" by Blackbird Designs

Threads: GA - Onyx (1+ skeins), Garden Gate (2+ skeins) and

Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe - Lavender

This fabric is very special! This was gifted to me by the sweet Ali of With Needle Thread and Basket blog.

The fabric had  belonged to Ali's grandmother Jean. I actually won it in a giveaway Ali had. She had asked if we were to win what design would we stitch on it. It's a beautiful rich orange red color. I knew Midnight Ride would look amazing. I won! So I started this project after finishing Sojourner. When I started stitching I tried 2 over 2 and learned very quickly that the fabric count is probably 25ct. I frogged what I stitched and tried 2 over 1. Much better. Somewhere I did try 1 over 2 and 1 over 1 that didn't work.

So 2 over 1 is what I ended up stitching. I love it. I think I am going to make this an ornament and not on a box. But we'll see and will share when I am done. Oh I have plans for the rest of the fabric. Nothing is going to waste. More on that later. 

Okay so now it was time to start on HAED (Heaven and Earth Designs) - "Gingerbread House"!

oooooh Good Lord! First of all I had kitted up all the threads before. I am using a candy box to store them.

I had bought 28ct evenweave a huge cut. But I started looking at all the pages of the chart 108 of them and started having doubts. Why? Because I knew after seeing lots of you stitching on your HAED's that most of you were using 25ct Magic fabric. This Magic fabric has the grid printed right on it. Mine did not. When I bought my fabric I thought "Oh NO I don't need grids". Ahem...... looking at all those pages I decided YES I DID! I didn't want to waste tons of time trying to figure out where I left off and where I would be stitching this HUGE design. Okay what to do??? Last week I finally learned of Floss Tube. I've heard many of you mention on your blogs this Floss Tube but had no clue as to what it was. It's on YOU TUBE and there I typed in "Floss Tube" and hit enter. OMG!!! That's a whole new world or I should say another beautiful community of cross stitcher's and more.WOW! I actually found a video of how to stitch a grid on my fabric. YES I stitched my own grid. HUGE Thank You to Jennifer Apodaca! God Bless her - her video #19! I stitched my outer border all around 780 x 570. As I stitched and got closer to the end I had done extremely well. Till I learned I was off 1 thread - URG!!! Stayed up waaay to late in the evening. Went to bed and woke up in the morning (Saturday) and found my error after 20 mins. sigh....... Then I needed to stitch the lines in the inside. Took all day Saturday and thru Sunday. And that was only several lines just to get started to place that first stitch. LOL!!! So here we are:

 LOVE LOVE LOVE all the colors!

 I used Sulky Sliver Metallic thread (Joann's and had coupon). OH MY WORD! Have you tried this thread? It glides and its strong. No splitting at all. I may use this thread in other projects because its fantastic and beautiful. These photos don't capture the sparkle but it does.

Close up I started in the upper right corner. 1 over 1 Full Cross Stitch 

I gridded mine as Jennifer said to do. The inside grids I am stitching each line as she did but my squares are in 20's not 10's. Safe to say I love this project. So sorry this post is long. But so much to share.

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather and if you have snow - Hope you get to get cozy and stitch! 

Thank you for stopping by!

With my love and appreciation - Annette