Finally: Some Production and Finishes!

I’ve been tying up loose ends.

That sounds ominous and rather old-time gangster. It’s not really what I mean. Anna is still alive.

We’ve been trying to clear our plate of projects, bit by bit, so that we can move on to — more projects!

Two projects that we’ve finally managed to move along and get out are these ready-to-stitch towel sets. We’ve shown you glimpses of them previously. And here they are, finished and ready to go!

Here’s a bit about them, with a few stitching and color tips.

Our ready-to-stitch towel sets include three 100% cotton flour sack towels. Each towel features a different variation in the design theme, already imprinted on the towel so that it is ready for you to stitch it when it arrives in the mail.

We use high quality cotton towels that are white-white, about 27″ square, with a hanging loop across the back of one corner.

The towels are suitable for kitchen use, for decoration, or for use in other ways. I like to use them in the middle of my table for a casual center topper. I also use them to line bread baskets, gift baskets, Easter baskets, and the like. And I’ve even used them as “wrapping paper” for gifts.

The towel set above is called French Sampler. It features three different vintage / antique French floral motifs in “stamped” cross stitch.

On the blue set, we used DMC 3838 (two strands) for all the stitching.

On the red, I used DMC coton a broder #25 (which I talked about here) in 321.

Stitch Tips for French Sampler

With these ready-to-stitch stamped cross stitch towels, a couple tips for stitching may come in handy:

1. If you’re using floss, two strands are perfect. Strip your floss and put the two strands back together, to get the best coverage.

2. Try to keep your threads flat and untwisted, so that the strands lie as parallel to each other as possible. You don’t have to obsess about it, but you do get better coverage that way, when stitching with stranded cotton.

3. Stitch all your x’s in the same direction. For example, work the lower half of each cross stitch from lower left to upper right. Stitch the top half of each cross stitch from lower right to upper left.

4. Stitch in rows, working the lower half of the stitch in one direction and returning along the row in the other direction, working the upper half of the cross stitch.

5. When necessary, change your direction of stitching to accommodate the design.

These tips help keep the stitching consistent, but again, this type of stitching isn’t rocket science – it’s really just meant to be relaxing. It gives you something to do with your hands when you don’t want to be taxed too much. So just do whatever you’re most comfortable doing!

We’ve also finished and prepared our Seasonal Gnomes towel set, featuring mischievous, cheerful gnomes in a spring & summer setting, in a fall setting, and in a real mess at Christmas.

These towels are for surface embroidery. You can use whatever stitches you want, to embroider these little guys. The towel set does not come with instructions or with thread. This leaves you completely free to choose your own stitches and your own color schemes.

Gnome Colors

If you want to use the same colors we used, here’s the list of DMC floss colors that we used, using a combination of 3 strands and 2 strands of floss at a time, depending on the size of the detail:

Spring / Summer: 108 (variegated), 208, 210, 700, 704, 726, 891, 894, 956, 967, 996, 3341, 3843, 4180 (Variations).

Fall: 105 (variegated), 321, 433, 739, 743, 798, 800, 967, 4066 (Variations), 4130 (Variations).

Christmas: 105 (variegated), 321, 700, 704, 726, 740, 743, 890, 967, 956, 996, 3865

Gnome Stitches

We used the simplest of embroidery stitches for these fellows: stem stitch for all the outlines, seed stitching to fill some of their garments and the toad stools, some satin stitch here and there, and some simple flower stitches, like lazy daisy stitch, some French knots here and there, fishbone stitch on some leaves, and straight stitch.

For stitches, I recommend playing with stitches you want to learn, or sticking with your tried-and-true favorites.

Do what you want and what you enjoy!

Available Now!

These towel sets are available now, here in the shop. We’ve prepared about 30 sets of each, to test the waters. So if you want them, now’s the time to grab ’em!

Incidentally, we also have stocked the 4″ Dovo embroidery scissors! Yay! I am glad they arrived. The cost fluctuated slightly due to a rise in the value of the Euro and import duties. Sorry about that! Still, they are reasonably priced for a good, life-long pair of embroidery scissors. The 4″ scissors are your all-around-great-for-all-types-of-needlework scissors.

There are a few other lovely items in the shop this week, too. I’m going to tell you about some of them – the tins – in their own article, just so I can show you what I do with tins! I love tins, and I especially love these particular high-quality, beautiful tins from the UK.

And that just about ties up this batch of loose ends! Whew. Now, onto the next loose end.

Anna…where are you?