Baby Announcement-O-Rama Round-Up: THEY'RE DONE, ALL DONE.
I am happy to announce that the last of the 2011 Baby Announcements are DONE, and better yet, currently at Micheal's for framing. HUR. RAH.
Of course, right after finishing, I had the following conversation with a friend.
Friend: So how's the stitching?
Me: I finished the baby announcements finally! No more baby announcements!
Friend: .....I'm pregnant.
Me: Dammit! I mean, Congratulations!
Happily for me, she's not due until 2012, so I have a little breathing room - but it does mean a few additional months before I can get back to Erised.
Four friends of mine had babies in the past six months. I started on baby announcements back in February, because I'd been planning a move in June (which ultimately was postponed anyway). I'm so glad I started early, because I ended up doing five announcements and was racing to finish the last of them at the end.
The first two announcements have already been finished, framed, and gifted to the recipients (and posted here); here's the last three.
Announcement #3 is Alexander, who coincidentally ended up with the first of the stitches I completed. I don't usually decide who gets what pattern until the baby is born - part of this is superstition.
I extended both the grass under the bear and the dandelion puffs around Alexander's name in order to bring his name and birthdate into the pattern a little better. I probably could have done a better job with the grass, but I think it's okay (and anyway, it's out of my hands now). The bear is from the Cross Stitcher magazine issue 187, and was designed by Andree Langhorn. He's been stitched on 14-count Aida and took about two or three weeks to do.
The next two projects were a sibling set. Not twins - Isa is one of my son's playmates, and her mom and I have become very good friends. Her son A.J. was born five days after Alexander. Because I don't think it's fair to do a cross-stitch for a newborn if there are older siblings who didn't get one, I try to use the new birth as an excuse to do one for all siblings involved. The downside is that I end up doing smaller pieces; the upside is everyone gets something and the older siblings don't end up feeling forgotten. (Not that Isa, being 2, really cares that much about a framed cross-stitch with her name on it!)
Now, the story behind these two. You might recall that a few weeks ago I posted about trying out punch-needle. Well, I hate to admit it, but I hated punch needle. Not just because I wasn't picking it up half as fast as the boxed kit seemed to indicate it would take, but because it just isn't as comfortable for me to do as cross-stitch. My back hurt, my neck hurt, my eyes hurt, and I found it far more difficult to watch TV while I worked.
However, I'd already purchased two kits as baby announcements from the clearance bin at ACMoore. After a day of thinking, I decided to change direction and do them as needlepoint instead. I figured with only a half stitch, they'd move quickly, and the only difficulty would be paying attention to the pattern drawn on the reverse side of the fabric.
It turned out to be ridiculously easy. Actually, I really loved working on them. No counting, no worries about the pattern bleeding through the thread, and no double-checking a pattern every few minutes. I'm seriously tempted to buy more of these kits for conversion to needlepoint, especially for use in travel!
The kits I used for Isa and AJ are here and here.
So, with the 2011 crop of baby announcements done, it's back to...well, more baby announcements, actually. I've got a half-finished pattern that will work very well for a little girl, and I'm going to go ahead and finish it before returning back to the retirement patterns, and then it's a back-up announcements for a little boy, and THEN I'm going to let myself get back to Erised. I'm hoping by...oh, Christmas, maybe. Unless somebody ELSE gets pregnant. At least I know it won't be me! :)
Of course, right after finishing, I had the following conversation with a friend.
Friend: So how's the stitching?
Me: I finished the baby announcements finally! No more baby announcements!
Friend: .....I'm pregnant.
Me: Dammit! I mean, Congratulations!
Happily for me, she's not due until 2012, so I have a little breathing room - but it does mean a few additional months before I can get back to Erised.
Four friends of mine had babies in the past six months. I started on baby announcements back in February, because I'd been planning a move in June (which ultimately was postponed anyway). I'm so glad I started early, because I ended up doing five announcements and was racing to finish the last of them at the end.
The first two announcements have already been finished, framed, and gifted to the recipients (and posted here); here's the last three.
Announcement #3 is Alexander, who coincidentally ended up with the first of the stitches I completed. I don't usually decide who gets what pattern until the baby is born - part of this is superstition.
I extended both the grass under the bear and the dandelion puffs around Alexander's name in order to bring his name and birthdate into the pattern a little better. I probably could have done a better job with the grass, but I think it's okay (and anyway, it's out of my hands now). The bear is from the Cross Stitcher magazine issue 187, and was designed by Andree Langhorn. He's been stitched on 14-count Aida and took about two or three weeks to do.
The next two projects were a sibling set. Not twins - Isa is one of my son's playmates, and her mom and I have become very good friends. Her son A.J. was born five days after Alexander. Because I don't think it's fair to do a cross-stitch for a newborn if there are older siblings who didn't get one, I try to use the new birth as an excuse to do one for all siblings involved. The downside is that I end up doing smaller pieces; the upside is everyone gets something and the older siblings don't end up feeling forgotten. (Not that Isa, being 2, really cares that much about a framed cross-stitch with her name on it!)
Now, the story behind these two. You might recall that a few weeks ago I posted about trying out punch-needle. Well, I hate to admit it, but I hated punch needle. Not just because I wasn't picking it up half as fast as the boxed kit seemed to indicate it would take, but because it just isn't as comfortable for me to do as cross-stitch. My back hurt, my neck hurt, my eyes hurt, and I found it far more difficult to watch TV while I worked.
However, I'd already purchased two kits as baby announcements from the clearance bin at ACMoore. After a day of thinking, I decided to change direction and do them as needlepoint instead. I figured with only a half stitch, they'd move quickly, and the only difficulty would be paying attention to the pattern drawn on the reverse side of the fabric.
It turned out to be ridiculously easy. Actually, I really loved working on them. No counting, no worries about the pattern bleeding through the thread, and no double-checking a pattern every few minutes. I'm seriously tempted to buy more of these kits for conversion to needlepoint, especially for use in travel!
The kits I used for Isa and AJ are here and here.
So, with the 2011 crop of baby announcements done, it's back to...well, more baby announcements, actually. I've got a half-finished pattern that will work very well for a little girl, and I'm going to go ahead and finish it before returning back to the retirement patterns, and then it's a back-up announcements for a little boy, and THEN I'm going to let myself get back to Erised. I'm hoping by...oh, Christmas, maybe. Unless somebody ELSE gets pregnant. At least I know it won't be me! :)