Back to Stitching

After working on Emma’s stocking for so long, it felt strange to sit on the couch in the evenings watching TV without some sort of stitching in my hands…so I started something new. I kept seeing photos of various Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery designs pop up in my Instagram feed last year, so I decided to jump on board for 2014 with their Once Upon a Time sampler. Each month this year, they’ll email the pattern for that month, and at the end of the year I’ll have a 12-block sampler featuring different fairy tales that should be a cute piece to hang in Emma’s room.

I ordered the recommended fabric (a hand-dyed pieced of 28-count linen), picked up all my floss from Joann, and got to work. This is the first time I’ve stitched on anything but Aida cloth and I already prefer the texture and general feel of the linen. Aida can be rather stiff, but this is nice and soft.

I started in the center of what will be the finished piece, but quickly worked my way to the upper left corner where the January block goes. I’ll continue to work on the borders as I have time, and as I need them for reference when placing other stitches.

The photos above were taken with my iPhone in the evenings. The photos below were taken with my dSLR in natural light yesterday afternoon, so the colors are much more accurate. This particular fabric also has some shiny bits woven in so it sparkles just a little. The general idea is that the fabric is supposed to look like a faded page from an old storybook. In the photos below, you can also get a good look at the tiny weave.

At 28-count, or 28 threads per inch of fabric, this is also the smallest weave I’ve ever worked with before. The holes are harder to see for sure, and since each stitch actually covers two “rows,” I find it a bit more difficult to count as well. I have to double and triple check my counting before starting a new area, and even with that, I’ve already had to pull out two small sections after discovering mistakes in placement. By comparison, I never had to pull out a single thread when I was working on Emma’s stocking. I suspect that I will improve with practice — and I do really like how the smaller weave makes the “grid” of the fabric less obvious.

I should be able to wrap up the January block this weekend — not bad considering I didn’t get started until the middle of the month since I was waiting for my fabric to arrive. Can’t wait to see what February looks like!