New starts

What can I say other than the first week of the new year was a challenge for me as I couldn't think of what I wanted to cross-stitch.  The good news is I have almost finished the first cape that I have been knitting for myself.  I just need to sit down and sew the pockets on it and then I will be able to take a picture of the finished piece.

Mouth of Flower - Stitching Studio

So this weekend after a lot of thinking and rethinking I finally decided on what I wanted to work on.  Well it came down to three different pieces and I couldn't figure out which one I wanted to do so I ended up starting all three of them over this weekend.

The first start was Mouth of Flower by The Stitching Studio and as you can see I didn't get much done on it but at least there are a few stitches done.

The second start was Blackbird which is another.  This piece is a blackbird with a sun and some flowers.  I am looking forward to seeing how this one turns out so I am going to be busy working on it over the next while.

Omi's Rose - based on photo taken by myself

The third start which was yesterday was Omi's Rose.  This is based on a picture that I took of a rose that was in a basket that was received when my husband's Omi passed away.  I loved the colour of the rose and decided that it would be a way of always remembering her.  I had started this rose before but realized that it was way too dark so recharted it and the colours were a lot truer to the original photo.  Now to see which piece gets worked on during this week.

I have to admit that i didn't want to start all three pieces at once but when I couldn't decide which one I wanted to work on and which one was going to wait it was just as easy to start them and then figure out on a daily basis which one I would be working on.

Now I would have had a lot more done on both Blackbird and Omi' Rose if I hadn't run into an issue when I started them.  As these are other patterns that I may be releasing in the future I try and stitch the first version on 18ct aida cloth so that it is quicker and easier for me to see.  I had bought a piece of aida at a store and on Saturday I cut it to the size that I needed for both of the pieces.  I should have realized that there would be a problem with the cloth when I was fighting to even get it to stay flat instead of immediately rolling back up.  Well I was determined and figured that it was just me having a bad day so I put both pieces onto the q-snaps with help from dh.  Saturday evening I put about 10 stitching into Omi's rose and put it down for the evening.

Yesterday was the day I had planned on sitting and stitching for a few hours.  I did pickup blackbird and decided to start it first so that I could then have a choice later in the day.  Well, I threaded my needle and started to stitch and couldn't believe the noise I was hearing.  The piece of fabric sounded like a drum and every time the needle went through a hole it made a loud sound and even the thread going through was noisy.  I figured I was just being very sensitive to the noise so decided to try to work on Omi's Rose.  You can probably guess what happened, the noise was almost the same for that piece of fabric.  It was a little quieter but probably because I was using a smaller needle so it meant that both of the projects were going to be a major problem to work on.  I talked it over with DH and he decided that he would try and wash a piece of the aida that remained and see if it would get quieter after a washing but after it dried it still was nosier than it should have been.

So the results you see for Omi's Rose and Blackbird are on 22ct aida which I had at home and that fabric is a lot softer and easier to work on.  I don't need to wear ear plugs when working on these pieces now so hope that this week I can make some good progress on at least one of these projects.

I have been cross-stitching for around 30 years and have never encountered aida cloth that was as noisy as the piece that I had picked up recently.  I just hope that the package I got was a bad batch and I will be able to get some softer aida in the future.  Have you ever encountered a piece of fabric that was extremely noisy, and if so what did you do?

It is now time for me to get some work done and hope that tonight I will be able to find a little bit of time to stitch on one of these projects.