Monday, May 31, 2010

monday mystery stitch part D






I am on dial up at the moment AND it's taking too long to upload pictures. Will post individual pics here of some closer views later. sorry!
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! Cyndi

Friday, May 28, 2010

fixed this link to the chicks

Sorry I forgot to click "share" on google docs for the mystery stitch part C the chicks.
here it is again, click on words "the chicks mystery stitch part C" by diagram for print link.



the chicks-mystery stitch part C

Monday, May 24, 2010

mystery stitch part C

Here we go, next part of the mini mystery stitch.  No pressure to join, just jump in and stitch along if you want to.   Just a bit of fun for anyone who wants to play along.
Here's the four I'm doing..........

close up of red and cream

close up of black and white : easier version

close up of black and tan, playing around with stitches and colors.

close up of the chartreuse and teal, playing around with more colors and other stitches



Click on the link below the picture of the pattern to get the printable version:


have lots of fun!!!!  NO pressure!!
send me pictures if you want I love to see what others are doing!!


Friday, May 21, 2010

winners!!!

Thank you all for all the nice comments.  Sorry I can't send everyone something.  Will email winners later today for snail mails.  For those stitching the mystery stitch, the next part will be posted monday, come and enjoy stitching along with no deadlines, no joining just fun.  Here's the winners, congratulations!!!

1. #122 TAWNY   NOTE: The little cardinals quilts are already backed and bound ready as little wall hangings or hang on those clear acrylic frames on a table or something,

Tawny said...

Hmm I'm going to be brave and go with the third option as my favourite. Who doesn't love surprises? But I also love the quilt blocks (although I don't actually quilt myself, so I would have to find someone else to make the rest of the quilt, or learn pretty darn quickly!) and the snowballs pattern is awesome too. Anything to do with winter is a hit in Winnipeg! :)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 2:14:00 PM


2. #148 KRISTINORTH

kristinorth said...

I love surprises, so I'll say #3! Thanks for a chance!

Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:15:00 PM


3. #88 DESERAE

deserae said...

I would love to win #1 or #3!!!

Cross my fingers!!!



Tuesday, May 18, 2010 6:38:00 AM

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

NEED SOME HELP/INFO

I am asking for help, advice, information on the following..........

okay, I sell patterns similiar to these in that they are photo copies of my own drawings.like this.........

mystery stitch part a

these are my questions......

Should I use a graphics program to clean them up or sell them as is......

If I should clean them up, what should I use..............limited funds so photoshop is out, illustrator is still too high unless I can get my college kid to buy a student version...........I do NOT have a "tablet" or a "pen"..........even more $$.   I have a laptop, a mouse and very limited internet access.  My head is swirling with new vocabulary words, vectors, bezels, rasters, gimp, vector magic, inkscape etc etc etc......so confused!

 I do have MS office 7 with Publisher and paint.......okay,  you can stop laughing now.

Would love to hear your ideas, problems in same areas, information, etc etc.  I can't decide what to do about my patterns, Would love to sell more patterns need to know where to go, but  I know they need to be more professional.  But $$ and time are a big factor!!!  Was going to try pay pal but I have heard horror stories about paypal..........of those of you selling through paypal -PDF patterns & hard copy patterns,  Any ideas?????
please..........share anything!!!!! email me,  leave comments, whatever works,  Thanks CYNDI

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

from quilter kathy


Quilter Kathy sent me her picture of her version of the monday mini mystery............ I hope she had a good time. She definitely did a good job!  Always hard to tell about colors in photo's but looks like she used a pale grey mottled winter sky background.  Thank you Kathy for sending me your photo! Cyndi

Don't forget we are now working on a monday mystery stitch project and that there's a giveaway day too.  look on the right for labels links and click.  Sorry, too busy to get them here at the moment, maybe later today.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Monday Mystery Stitch part B & a giveaway



Here are my four versions, red/cream is the original, black/white the easiest, the tan/black and the chatruese/turquoise combos have some extra stitching in them just for fun.  I use 2 strands of embroidery floss.  Have fun!

here is the PDF form for the pattern

If you're just joining in, here are the links to the mystery stitch 1 layout and part A


more pictures of part B
See why I use water soluble markers to stitch on...never can draw things the same twice or, sometimes I edit while I stitch, lol!  Who is going to know? This red and cream version is the original.  The stitches are a little closer together than in black/white version.  This is an outline stitch and a blanket stitch combined with a running stitch.  The black and white version I did a row of outine stitch and then blanket stitch from opposite in varying lengths, the middle row is blanket stitch from opposites sides, the third row is opposite of the first row the corner like the first.
Below I had some fun with stitches, mixing colors to match my fabrics, adding a couple more rows to get more colors in.  On the small corner, I ran all 6 strands of a different color under the blanket stitch.  Blanket stitch worked in different colors from opposite sides
NOTE too that I outlined this petal in the teal rather than the chartreuse and that I have begun to outine the next petal in another blue.   Below is the fabric I chose for this version.

If you're interested I'm also having a giveaway, you can join in the fun here,

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

My giveaway for 2010 Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day


No it is not my youngest granddaughter, Kylie, nor the baby turkey she's holding, it's this.............
SEW MAMA SEW is hosting a giant giveaway day.  I wanted to give something away but couldn't decide what........so I think I'm going to giveaway all 3 options that have been bouncing around in my head.  
Leave one comment only please and tell me what you would like to receive as the giveaway.  Include a first choice and second choice.  Although it costs more to send things to other countries I will send them where ever you are, so join in the fun.  Giveaway ends midnight May 20th my time CST.   On May 21, 2010 I will pull some names out of my hat box. With all these giveaways, I am going to have to find another hat box or somewhere for the embroidered pieces I store in it to go. ha ha ha!

So these are the 3 giveaway options:

1. From the Mini Mystery #1, the red bird quilt blocks that I made from the mini mystery pattern. 
  

2. A Snowball pattern (pattern only, not the completed blocks), including the 16 original patterns plus the bonus freebie one.  (which reminds me I need to redo that freebie one as a PDF so it will print the correct size). 



3. A Mystery gift package of a few of my other patterns and some fabric.  As soon as I know what I'll post a picture. Hmmmm?!?

After joining in all the givaway fun, you embroiderers come back and join in the mystery stitch. 
Part B will be posted Monday the 17th too.  Here's a look at what we've done so far.....

Monday, May 10, 2010

Monday Mystery Stitch part A

Last night I posted the layout template.  You can get it here.   Mystery stitch layout template      
Grab your 12-12.5" approx. background fabric, fold in it in half both directions and mark lightly or crease well to find centers.  Transfer template to fabric, I use water soluble blue pens to transfer if I make tracing errors see the yellow green one you can see what I did smack dab in the middle.  If you are not using a water soluble pen, DO NOT make any marks in the center circle. Only SOLID lines will be stitched.  Dotted or dashed are only registration marks.  If you are only stitching in one color, do an outline stitch (or backstitch if you wish) around the whole thing I would NOT stitch the outside circle.  If you are using several colors pick one and stitch around one petal unit only until you decide what to do after you see part B. This will be part A.

Now on to the monday reveal............. you can get the template here........
monday mystery stitch part A




I have given you several options, and also stitched out samples of various below.... on the printout
option 1 is the original, option 2 an easier version, option 3 adds a lttle more detail.  When I was doing the one in celadon/yellow green I felt it needed more colors so I added optional dots!!!!  The dots work well with option 1 or 2.  See the tan and black sample.


Have fun and email me if you have any questions, or want to send pics.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

maybe sunday night head start of the template

But only if I can figure out how to attach a PDF so things will print out the correct size.  Still looking, have placed pdf in google docs.  If you are reading this and speak normal instead of computer geek, email me!!! 
NEVER MIND I GOT IT!!!!  YEA!!!!!!

and here is the Layout Template for the MONDAY Mystery Stitch........

Mystery Stitch layout template.

Grab your background fabric, fold in it in half both directions and mark lightly or crease well to find centers. Transfer template to fabric, I use water soluble blue pens to transfer becasue I make tracing errors you can see the yellow green one tomorrow, you can see what I did smack dab in the middle. If you are not using a water soluble pen, DO NOT make any marks in the center circle. Only SOLID lines will be stitched. Dotted or dashed are only registration marks. If you are only stitching in one color, do an outline stitch (or backstitch if you wish) of the whole whole thing I would NOT stitch the outside circle. If you are using several colors pick one and stitch around one petal unit only until you decide what to do after you see part B. This will be part A. and you will get the filler for it tomorrow.  Are you ready for some fun? Come back later for PART A.  talk to you soon. Cyndi

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

limited freebie

oh yeah, enjoy Cinco de Mayo!!!!

For a limited time only, I am offering Snowball #17.
Let's say a week, may 12?, then it will only be availble for purchase.  Eventually it is going to replace one of the originals that I don't like. I had scanning issues this morning, and am not sure how this is going to print out, but when printed out on 8.5 x 11" paper the circle should be 6.5"    If you have a lot of trouble, check back tomorrow.  I  am going to see if I can work out the scanning issues again tonight, and hopefully it will print out okay.  My PDF version didn't end up on my flashdrive so I'm not sure how this version will print.  The conputer I'm on at the moment is not hooked up to a printer.

This is how I got it to print.  Double click on the picture, after that comes up, do file, print, etc you may want to set printer to black ink only and some of you may need to adjust margins out as far as you can.....I think I set the defaults on mine to have no margins  a long time ago but the printer still leaves about 3/8 all around edge anyway.  Mine will not print all the way to the edge.  If that doesen't work email me and I'll email it back to you.


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Secret Santa sisters mystery revealed

FOUND IT:::::::: my flashdrive was hiding, rolled up in the Monday mini mystery stitch project
that's coming up on this monday!!!
Here is Betty, (my secret santa sister from about 2007?), hiding behind the mini mystery quilts I had given her as bits and pieces and she assembled.  I don't know how much fun she had getting the little packages filled with fabric bits and some "directions," but I had a blast!!! 

......at this time Betty still didn't know who her secret santa person was, }B-D.  
 I didn't tell her until just a little later.     

Next up are the ones I did last week and finished the hemming on Monday AM before work.  (that is good for me......if I was on my usual "procrastinating" schedule I would have been hemming 
them THIS morning before work!!!!


Amazing how light changes things.  These are the same fabrics Betty used ( I dug out the box from that project with all the extra pieces still in the box and there was enough for me to do it too without having to go find anything other than batting., woohoo!), but they look a little different.  I took the picture outside about 6:30 pm CST last night.  Evening light and a green lilac bush really make the colors pop. 


solution to mystery 1

Here's the solution in case you haven't figured it out, I'll post pictures of the ones Betty and I made later today (as soon as I find my temporarily misplaced picture flashdrive.) (:-O   I had it this morning.  It probably fell between something in tote.  Need to figure out how to attach it to my pretty key fob from Cyndi but it doesn.t have a hole to attach a key ring, or transfer my pictures to a flashdrive that does have a key ring hole.  Hope you had fun!  Come back for more fun tomorrow.  Going to post a Freebie Snowball, but it will only be available for a short while. 



Monday, May 3, 2010

Monday Part D PLUS

SORRY, I'm late...........Okay here's the last part.  Keep in mind this was a part of a secret santa project.  I put the parts of this little mystery quilt in little bags that and gave one secretly to Betty every month to keep her a little confused. (we start secret santa in July or so)   She was trying so hard to figure out who her secret Santa was.  The parts of this mystery she got every month gave her something else to wonder about.  Sorry, but the directions on this one are a little goofy, Betty is an experienced seammstress and would know what I meant about the almost QST"S.  Just make them like the pictures. You'll have a few extra little leftover triangle pieces on this one.  Using up scraps and not trashing much of anything, was also why you got two quilts with maximum amount of different red and green fabrics.  Pieces are lettered out of order on purpose,and you may have to turn a piece or two around I can't remember......????  Did your think at first it was going to be flowers?  I thought it did.   You guys had a hint that she didn't have and that was that you were going to get 2 mini quilts, I'm sure she was trying to figure out how to put all of these parts together.  If you're doing this little mystery, email me pictures of your mini tops or quilts and I'll post them all together. 
It's fairly easy but if you can't figure out how to put your pieces together, I'll post the solution, along with pictures of mine and Betty's quilts tomorrow.


GOOD LUCK! 


Next up the Monday Mini STITCHING MYSTERY.  Okay I got started Friday night sketching out the finer details and then went to work the next day.  Now when I got home from work, I flipped the tv on.  I need "white noise" on when I am in the house.  But the TV was on dish 157 the ovation channel.........never watched this channel before,,,,,,,,,,,,, I usually don't even get a "choice" about watching anything on the dish, someone else is watching hunting or racing or sports, yea. NOT!  But they were not home....... 
 I am now suffering from SENSORY OVERLOAD................. this weekend must have been a designers marathon on 157.  I saw architects, painters, fashion designers, everything everything everything!!!!  I am like a sponge soaking up all the details, textures, colors, etc.  I am just wallowing in the pretty inages I saw this weekend!!  So while I was transferring my mystery design to fabric I was imagining all sorts of possibilities........so I had to stop and scribble down some ideas, which lead me to more ideas...........!  Before I get this stitching mystery even really started, I think that I'm going to do in about 4 color variations, and from that stemmed off another idea, that I think I will sell as completed items and also patterns, so I want to work on those too.  Worst thing is, I have to work work, I need to change jobs but can't afford to.  One of these days maybe..............................??? one can on dream!!!

Anyway I am behind at what I was going to tell you that you need, BUT basically for your MYSTERY STITCH supplies, find a pretty piece of fabric you want to use for a binding you will need  a BIAS strip about 2.25" or so by WOF, OR about 40" or so of piping.   Find a background solid or tonal that compliments your bias edge you a piece about 12"-12.5" square, and something for the back 12"-12.5" square too.  Choose your floss the from your fabric too, you won't a lot of anything.  Because I am a non-traditional redwork designer, I have to do it once with  DMC 498 red on Kona "snow"(almost white, but not quite), I also want to do DMC 310 Black on something, was going to do white, am leaning towards a darker gold tonal fabric.........must go shopping!!  But I might do black with bits of brighter colors on white as well as the black on antique gold too.  Have also pulled about 12 colors of floss to match a piece of fabric I bought a month or so ago, will check on those and let you know.  They range from celadon to a dark blue-green, plus brown.  There won't be a "surprise" with the last part of this mystery like with the patchwork mystery, only the mystery of what goes in the next space.  Once you get part 1 you will realize what shape it could be (have an alternate ending, more on that monday).  And I think you all will enjoy it.  I was going to make it super easy, but I am known for drawing "extra" details, I can't help myself.......it's only a little more challenging, not hard at all!!!  When you get done, I hope people will go WOW!

Come back , patchwork mystery pictures revealed tomorrow.
A FREEBIE snowball stitchery will be posted on Wednesday,
 but it will only be available for a short time(maybe a week or so) !!!!!!!.  
I am going to replace one of the original snowballs that I'm not real wild about with the freebie one, it's way cuter!  The one I don't like is a square peg in a round hole, he's just out place.  I had pulled it out of a different pile of stuff to fill in, then later regretted it.
 Then we'll see what pops up between now and Monday with the MYSTERY STITCH and other things!
Sorry for all my tyops and grammer errors!!!! Bye for now, Cyndi

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Woohoo Winners!!!

Happy MAAAAAAAAY DAY!

I am thrilled by all the wonderful comments, and emails I received during this contest.  People from all over the world.  I didn't realize that all the entries would not fit into a May basket, so I substituted a large hatbox.  I need to get home from work before husband gets home and wonders why there are embroideries dumped out on the bed, lol!  Next time I'm going to have to do something different!  Anyway, here we go..........
First name out...........................


Woohoo it's DARLENE, and she chose the blue!!!!!

and the second name..................................................


Janet chose the red (on a different comment), so all works out well !!!
will send you an email to get your snail mail shortly!!
Thank you to all who entered.  I wish I could send you all something.  I think I will post a freebie snowman soon so that you will all get something.  I already have a rough sketch.  I just need to clean up the fine details!  And a special thank you to those of you who've contacted Chris or Linda about buying the snowball patterns.

COME BACK for MONDAY MINI MYSTERIES!!!  This Monday we will finish up the patchwork mystery and Monday, May 10th, we will begin a mini stitchery project.  Gather your floss and a 12.5" square of your favorite background fabric.  Will give you more materials info this Monday( have to work out the details this weekend!! lol).

Enjoy your weekend, it appears it's going to be a rainy one here! Is okay though, have to work on the mystery stitch details, go to town abd get groceries and do a mountain of laundry.  That leaves no time for outside stuff anyway, although hanging sheets outside would have been nice. 
 CONGRATUALTIONS WINNERS, Darlene and Janet WOOOOOHOOO!!