Dog Lessons for People–

A post from Kelli–

It’s no secret that I always need to be doing something. Most nights, Jason is pretty tired when he comes home–I guess that happens when you work an average of 14 to 16 hours a day–and so we don’t have a lot of time to do much except watch a bit of TV and go to bed. Because of this, I always try to have some kind of hand work to do while watching TV so that I don’t fall asleep. I have made quite a few stitching pieces and really love the patterns that Crab Apple Hill has put out. I have also taught myself to knit and crochet. Recently I decided to take a plunge and tried counted cross stitch. A while back I had picked up this Dog Lessons for People pattern (I’m a sucker for anything to do with dogs). I had done about an inch square of cross stitching, but got frustrated when I started having to count stitches between letters and words. That’s when it got put away.

When cleaning out some things in my sewing room, I rediscovered the pattern and decided to finish it. And here it is–

Over all, I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I can tell that I got a bit better as time has gone on and definitely got more comfortable with counted cross stitch. I had to do a bit of ripping out on one of the rows, so I ran out of blue floss at the end. I decided to do the last line “love unconditionally” in red. Once I got this finished, I pulled out another counted cross stitch piece that I had purchased. It is a very large non-traditional sampler done all in a hand dyed blue color. Stay tuned to see the finished product–It may be a while, but I promise I will share it when it’s done!

6 thoughts on “Dog Lessons for People–”

Michelle
July 3, 2014 at 4:17 pm

Have you tried gridding the fabric? You baste stitches with sewing thread every ten rows, making a big grid the size of your design. Then you can use the lines on the pattern to find your place more easily. I used to do that with my big landscapes and had MUCH better luck avoiding and fixing mistakes.

Let me know if you need pictures. I think I’ve got some abandoned WIPs that have the grid lines.

Ellie
July 3, 2014 at 4:25 pm

Great job ! I’m a sucker for dogs, too so I can see why you wanted to do this piece.

Charlene
July 3, 2014 at 4:26 pm

I LOVE the red stitching at the end. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing that dogs do?

sandi
July 3, 2014 at 8:03 pm

Great job on your counted cross stitch project Kelli! I enjoy doing counted cross stitch.

Rita
July 4, 2014 at 7:01 am

Hi Kelli Check out this site http://www.elefantz.com “Jenny of ELEFANTZ ”
She has a free stitch-along with quilting. I thought you might like it.
Sorry if I copied and pasted the site wrong
Have a great 4th with your family!!!

Sharlene B
July 4, 2014 at 9:44 am

Good choice using red when you ran out of blue. Looks wonderful!