Cyn’s Finished Projects

I don’t have pic­tures of all the projects I’ve done—I wish I did! I gave most of them away as gifts. I’m work­ing on get­ting images of those gift­ed to my imme­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, but I gave some of them to for­mer in-laws or ex-SOs with whom I am not in touch. If you’ve ever received a stitched piece from me and want to send me a pho­to­graph of it, I’d be most grateful! 

I have a ter­ri­ble habit of not fram­ing any of the pieces I keep for myself. I just nev­er get around to spend­ing the mon­ey, so they all sit around in stor­age. Of course, the absolute joy is in mak­ing them, but it would be nice to dis­play them some­day. It will take a lot of wall space when I do! 

I took many of these pic­tures using a bor­rowed and new-to-me dig­i­tal cam­era or a dinky old web­cam. I laid the pieces on a very dark brown wood dress­er. I did­n’t have the best light­ing for most of them, either. They weren’t all lying com­plete­ly flat because e I had­n’t framed them yet. But darn it, I final­ly have some pictures! 

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	My first fin­ish of 2021 — Pep­per­mint Pur­ple’s beau­ti­ful 2020 stitch-a-long. I start­ed it in late April of 2020, I think, and fin­ished it in May of 2021. It’s done with one strand of Caron Waterlilies in Appalachia over two threads on white 32-count Lugana.
	My only fin­ish of 2020! It’s anoth­er love­ly design from Pep­per­mint Pur­ple called Black­work Bands. It was my first fin­ished black­work project, stitched with DMC over two threads on white 32-count Lugana.
	This is my first coop­er­a­tive project, start­ed and fin­ished in April 2012, done with my friend Jeanne for lit­tle Abbey Road, who arrived on May 10. I stitched the star and rat­tle, and Jeanne did the ball, added the birth­date to the rat­tle and did a beau­ti­ful job of fram­ing the whole thing. The designs are by Ursu­la Michael, pub­lished in Pit­ter Pat­ter #2 by Jeanette Crews Designs (leaflet #2502). I’ve been promised a pho­to of the piece hang­ing in Miss Abbey’s nurs­ery, which I hope to add here some­time. You can see details of the indi­vid­ual motifs below.
	I fin­ished this one in March 2012. I can’t quite remem­ber when I start­ed it, but I chose it because I liked the col­ors and free­dom is impor­tant to me. The lan­guages are Chi­nese, Eng­lish, Hebrew, Ger­man, Russ­ian, Yoru­ba, and Span­ish. The design is from the October/November 1990 issue of Cross-Stitch Quick & Easy mag­a­zine, which I appar­ent­ly bought just for that pat­tern. And yes, I did iron it! It’s just ter­ri­bly wrin­kled from being stuffed in a draw­er for years.
	I did a Dis­ney Tig­ger pat­tern, Splen­dif­er­ous for my old­est nephew in May/June 2005. It was a Jan­lynn kit. I don’t nor­mal­ly do kits, but it used DMC floss and it was a real­ly cute pat­tern. It was the first time I’d stitched any­thing on Aida in more years than I can count, though.
	I made this set of hot­plates for my par­ents as Christ­mas presents in 2004. I’d orig­i­nal­ly meant to give one each to them and to my sib­lings, but decid­ed full sets would be bet­ter. I used the “Tid­ings of Joy” pat­terns from the Leisure Arts book Some­thing for Every Season
	This pat­tern came from the Leisure Arts book Pro­fes­sion­al Peo­ple, designed by Ter­rie Lee Stein­mey­er. I think I began it in the late 80s or ear­ly 90s for my father. I fin­ished it in Decem­ber 2003.
	I actu­al­ly did every­thing but the back­stitch­ing on this alpha­bet piece for Katie’s nurs­ery in 1990. Short­ly before she was born, her father informed me that he hat­ed it, so I stopped work­ing on it. I final­ly fin­ished it in Novem­ber or Decem­ber 2003. I’ll get a pho­to of the ful­ly fin­ished piece at some point. Maybe it’ll hang in a grand­baby’s nurs­ery someday.
	Make a Joy­ful Noise from Drag­on Dreams designs was a 2001 Christ­mas gift for my mother.
	The Golfer­’s Seren­i­ty Prayer from Cross My Heart’s Basi­cal­ly Bor­ders book was stitched for my father in Decem­ber 2001.
	This design also came from Cross My Heart’s Basi­cal­ly Bor­ders book. It’s “The Cook Rules the Kitchen” stitched on the Aida band of a chef’s hat for my broth­er-in-law in Decem­ber 2001.
	Celtic Cross from Y‑Knot Designs. I like Deb Davis’ work and enjoyed using Nee­dle Neces­si­ties fibers for the first time on this piece. I think was fin­ished in Decem­ber 2001.
	After read­ing a Green Egg review of the pat­terns Witch­es Stitch­es were pub­lish­ing I imme­di­ate­ly ordered the “Ele­men­tal Cos­mos” design — it’s mar­velous! I’ve put up a pic­ture of the fin­ished piece here on the site if you’re inter­est­ed in see­ing it. This was also fin­ished in Decem­ber 2001—it was a busy month!
	One of our Girl Scout troop’s lead­ers had to move out of state in Decem­ber 2000, so with some help from Katie I stitched a Girl Scout logo on a tote bag as a farewell gift, and all the girls signed the back of it.
The Man­dala I series from Amaryl­lis Art­works: “Tran­quil Sky,” “Deep For­est,” “Sun­set Desert,” and “Peace­ful Sea.” These geo­met­ric designs use a lot of stitch­es I had­n’t done before as well as a wide vari­ety of fibers and beads, and I just can’t tell you how love­ly they are. There’s no way any pho­to­graph can do them jus­tice! I was told that Denise Har­ring­ton Pratt was doing a Man­dala II series, but I nev­er found them. I think these pieces were stitched in 1999 and 2000. I’d stitch these again, but I don’t think I’d be able to find all the embell­ish­ments again.
	Around 1998, I stitched one winged cat from the “Divine Feline” design in The Omni­Book of Winged Things onto a small linen tote bag. Katie had been car­ry­ing it around for sev­er­al years when I final­ly took a pic­ture of it and it was a bit worse for wear. I found that it was­n’t easy to scan, either.
	A won­der­ful piece from Sharon Pope that was appar­ent­ly first pub­lished in Stitch­ery Mag­a­zine. The leaflet I have is from Stitch­World. The piece is called Wis­dom & Har­mo­ny Sam­pler (item 03–212). It’s based on Asante Adinkra sym­bols, and I’m absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ed. The col­ors are sim­ple and won­der­ful­ly bold. I fin­ished this one in 1999.
	Mélange by Lin­da Con­nors, pub­lished by Cal­i­co Cross­roads. This one is for me (although Katie likes it too). It’s the first piece I’ve ever done that isn’t intend­ed as a gift for some­one else! It has a very inter­est­ing tech­nique that is used to make it appear that the piece is sur­round­ed by a tex­tured mat—reed, square ray, dou­ble leviathan and dou­ble framed eye­let stitch­es done in pearl cot­ton that match­es the linen (unfor­tu­nate­ly, that does­n’t show up well in the pic­ture). This is also one of the most chal­leng­ing pieces I’ve done in terms of learn­ing new tech­niques. Now I’ve just got to get it framed. I only fin­ished it in 1998!
	Mom has this tiger lily piece based on a Janet Pow­ers water­col­or hang­ing in her sun­room. I’m think­ing it was done around 1991 or 1992, but I’m not real­ly sure.
	Dad­dy had this Marine Corps emblem I stitched for him hang­ing in his office at work until he retired, when it came home with him. I stitched it the same year as the tiger lily above. It was a major pain in the patootie to stitch on that black fab­ric, but the result was worthwhile.
	The reflec­tion from the glass in the frame is a nuisance—sorry. Still, it’s the only pic­ture I have of this project. It’s the crest for Wayne’s (Katie’s father, my sec­ond hus­band) fra­ter­ni­ty, Lamb­da Chi Alpha. It was done in Octo­ber 1991. The pat­tern came from Your Accents.
	This piece is from the leaflet Spring Bou­quet from Debra Designs. I remem­ber fin­ish­ing it while I was in the hos­pi­tal to deliv­er Katie in Octo­ber 1990. I bor­rowed it back from Mom in Decem­ber 2003 to get a photo.
	“Shells on a Win­dowsill” is anoth­er water­col­or by Janet Pow­ers that was adapt­ed for cross-stitch by Green Apple Com­pa­ny. I did it back around 1989.
	I could­n’t begin to tell you when I stitched this lit­tle piece. I do still have the book—it’s Notable Quotes That Count from Designs by Glo­ria & Pat.
	I have no clue when this one was done, either. It has the look of some­thing I did just to pass time, using a scrap of cloth from some­thing else.
	I can say with some degree of sure­ty that this would have been done while I was in high school, but that’s about it. The leaflet was ThumbThoughts from The Graph Menagerie, Inc. The crit­ter is referred to as a “ThumbPrint by Ron Ran­som.” It was on my fridge for many years until it and all the rest of my refrig­er­a­tor mag­nets dis­ap­peared in a move.
	Not only do I not know when I stitched this thing, we have no idea its glass got bro­ken. I’m think­ing I prob­a­bly stitched it around the time that I was work­ing at Rod­er­ick­’s Arts & Crafts, which would have been 1983–1984. Here’s more about try­ing to clean it.

I don’t have pho­tos of the fol­low­ing pieces, but I do have images from the design books so that you can get an idea of how they looked. I’d much pre­fer hav­ing pho­tos of what I did, and if I can get those, I will. 

	I stitched the Fairy Tale Sam­pler from Drag­on Dreams for my for­mer life part­ner, Sam. I know I took pho­tos of it, but I can’t find them. This is one of the few pat­terns that I’d stitch again.
	There’s only one piece that I’ve ever stitched twice. It reads “Engi­neer­ing: The reward of a job well done is to have done it.” I did one for Wayne and one for an old friend, Ed. I know I have a pic­ture of this one too, but I can’t find it.
	My first hus­band, Scott Hall, had a piece with sand­pipers on it that hung in his office at one time. The design was from Along the Coast with Ray Dav­en­port, Graphs by Bar­bara & Cheryl Inc.
	I did the Pheas­ant from A Tisket, A Tas­ket for my first father-in-law, Gary Hall, Sr. I remem­ber it as being an absolute bitch to do due to par­tial stitch­es and col­or changes.
	I stitched the Christ­mas Minia­tures from A Tisket, A Tas­ket, but I have no idea what hap­pened to them.
	I stitched the True Friend piece from A Tisket, A Tas­ket. It might have been done for my youngest sis­ter-in-law, Dawn, but I’m not certain.
	I did a whole series of ted­dy bear alpha­bet squares for Scot­t’s niece Rachel’s birth in 1986. I think his moth­er sewed them into a quilt or wall hang­ing. The designs were lat­er pub­lished in the August 1989 issue of Just CrossStitch, which is where I got the pic­ture here.
	I did a a baby sam­pler from Anne Pow­ell Heir­loom Stitch­ery for Scot­t’s nephew Jonathan David’s birth around 1985.
Some­where between 1985 and 1987 I did four pieces from The Vanes­sa-Ann Col­lec­tion’s A Tisket, A Tas­ket book for my first moth­er-in-law, Jean Hall. I mount­ed them under the glass of a Sud­ber­ry House serv­ing tray. The pat­terns are named Gar­den Sal­ad, Veg­etable Stew, Blue­ber­ry Bas­ket, and Fruit Basket.
	Michelle, one of my best friends in mid­dle and high school, has the first sig­nif­i­cant piece I ever stitched. The pat­tern was in the Uni­corn Col­lec­tion leaflet pub­lished by Can­damar Designs. I did­n’t do this very well, as I did­n’t find out until after­ward that you were sup­posed to make all the stitch­es go in the same direction.

I don’t have any kind of image for the fol­low­ing projects, but of course I’d like to have some if any of the own­ers ever hap­pen across this site.

• In Decem­ber 2001 I did two oth­er Drag­on Dreams designs — Those Who Teach for my sis­ter, and Guide the Hands for my broth­er. I know I got pic­tures of them and I can’t find them!
• I did at least three small Mill Hill bead­ed and stitched pins, giv­en to Mom, Katie, and a friend’s ex-wife. I’ve also done lots and lots of small Christ­mas orna­ments over the years. I think my broth­er has an entire set of Mill Hill bead­ed ted­dy-bear orna­ments I made for him when he first got out on his own.
• I did a wed­ding sam­pler for my sis­ter and her hus­band when they mar­ried in 1999. She also has a small paper­weight I did with a rain­bow on it and a larg­er piece with her name and rain­bows. She had actu­al­ly start­ed that last one her­self and last­ed all of maybe 30 min­utes before she decid­ed that cross-stitch was not for her.
• I know I’ve done one piece about ski­ing for my broth­er. I thought there was some­thing else, but my mem­o­ry is fail­ing me.
• My first hus­band has a sil­ly lit­tle plas­tic can­vas (I think) piece that I did as a gift for his grad­u­a­tion in June 1983. I made stock­ings and a tree skirt for Scott and me, but they’re long gone. I used some of Dale Bur­det­t’s ted­dy bear designs and vari­a­tions thereof.
• Madame Gustafson, one of my French teach­ers from high school, had a rose and lat­tice piece that I did from the Hearts and Rain­bows leaflet from Bette Ash­ley Designs.