Cross Stitch Update and Stitching Kids

Before I tell you about my stitching, I thought I’d tell you about the stitching my childcare kiddos are doing.  My kids that are doing this range in age from 4 to 7.

They are stitching with burlap as the fabric, yarn as the thread, and plastic needles.  You can find the plastic needles HERE on Amazon.

We cut the burlap a little bit bigger than the hoop.  I pick up hoops at the thrift store.

Then we take a Sharpie marker and draw our design.

Away we go.  The kids need help tying the knots but other than that, they can do this themselves now.

This one is was so cute.

She decided she wanted to make it into a pillow.  She picked the butterfly fabric for a backing.  (Thanks blog reader for sending the fabric) I decided it might be best to put fabric behind the burlap to stabilize it.

I got out my Featherweight and the girls sewed their pillowcases.

We learned all about what right sides together means.  We learned to backstitch at the pillow opening. 

We learned about turning things right side out and stuffing.

I sewed the opening shut for them.  It was a little hard for them to hold everything together and stitch it shut.

She had me pose with her pillow and she took my picture.  Here it is finished…

Carver wasn’t here the day we did that so he saw the girls’ pillows and wanted to make one.  Here he’s working on his tractor.  He’s enjoying stitching too.  Thanks so much to the blog reader who sent the yarn scraps.  They are so appreciated.

For now, all I’m really teaching them is technique and a running stitch.  It’s technically embroidery and not cross stitch but this is a great place to start.  The kids are learning not to wrap the needle around the hoop.

Sadly being babies are here, we’ll be sticking with the plastic needles in case the kids aren’t careful.  They are loving it though.  They have really impressed me with how independent they can be while doing this.

Now to my stitching.  I’m still working on A Changed World by The Scarlett House.  I did a little experiment with the border.  Originally I thought the border to be kind of plain.  It’s hard to see but there is a little white “flower” in the zigzag and in the center of the flower, it is supposed to be blue.  I had it in my head that I thought I would like it better if the “flower” was red.  Hmm.  I tried it.  You can see the red on the left side of my stitched piece and white at the top.

This is the stitch along I’ve been doing with Judy at Patchwork Times and Denise at Just Quiltin.

Here is a more close-up picture.

I ended up liking the original white so I’m going to pull out the red I experimented with.  I am so glad I gave it a try.  I would have regretted not trying it.

On Thursday I only had three here for childcare.  The girls asked if I would stitch with them.  I said sure.  Who isn’t going to turn down an invitation to stitch??  So I pulled the red thread along the left out.  Then I started to advance the white across the border.  A few stitches in and I realized that I had made a mistake.  Oh no!

I had to rip out quite a bit.  I ripped from the sixth zigzag all the way across the top.  I had started that corner flower on the upper right. Bummer.

I started stitching the zig-zag again and hopefully, I’ll get a little stitching time and be able to replace what I pulled out.

I also stitched on my Anniversaries of the Heart.  This is the August block, #8.  This one I am stitching for my parents and will have the initials of my siblings on it.  I LOVE the sunflowers on this.  I am hoping to get the house stitched by the time I show this to you again.

I had very little stitching time this week.  One day I did ZERO stitching.  Most of the other days I didn’t quit working at night until 9:30 pm.  It’s garden season here and plus I had Kalissa and Craig kids for an overnight.  That all equals little stitching time.

One night I did get a chance to watch Lori Holt’s floss tube.

She was working on the piece below, A Savior’s Praise by Shakespeare Peddler.  Oh my.  I loved it.  I’ve been pretty good lately about not buying charts or linen or even much thread.  I might treat myself and buy this one.

Needlework Expo is coming at the end of the month.  All of the designers are releasing their latest charts.  I told myself I could put in an order and get something…so if nothing else comes along that I like better, I think I’m going to purchase this.

It’s a danger of watching too much floss tube.  I see all the stuff others are stitching and want to be stitching it too.

That’s where I am at with my stitching this week…slowly working through the projects I have and dreaming of stitching even more!