Birds of a feather...

Putting up a new calendar this past week, and getting my craft room straightened after pulling stuff out the week before, I was finally inspired  start on a new cross stitch project I'd been wanting to begin.

After seeing a beautiful Mocking Bird  cross stitched by Sandy (at Home Ec Major) I went looking for the pattern and found Crossed Wing Collection - and their ooh, so many lovely bird designs. Thinking at first that the website might be old, I did a search on Ebay for the patterns and found an amazing deal for a whole slew of bird patterns and didn't waste any time bidding on them.   

BUT, let it be known...  the designers did quickly contact me to tell me their website is indeed current and they suggested if I wanted to place an order it actually works really well to call them.  I'm offering that as a bit of an advertisement for them.  The patterns I bought are very nicely done.   On heavy paper (some are on cardstock), and most of the patterns don't appear to be nearly as difficult as the pictures of their lovely designs might lead one to believe they are.  And on top of all that, they're very reasonably priced!  Between $5 and $7 dollars for beautifully detailed patterns.  Most come in sets with several bird designs.

Okay, so now you've got the information you need for making your own if you're so inclined.  

Here is the start on my first one (the background looks white in the picture, but it's actually Confederate Gray Aida cloth - purchased from 123 Stitch):

I know... I've only just begun and it doesn't look like much, but I thought it would be fun to show its progress as I work on it.  

While I'm not going to show the finished picture (that comes with the pattern) I will tell you this is a Blue Gray Gnatcatcher.  Are you familiar with that bird?  I'm truly curious because I'd never heard of it.  But it looked like a fairly simple pattern to start with, so I'm getting to know this  feathered creature.  Those are tail feathers sticking up and the blue stitches are the beginning of the body.  Stay tuned!  More to come.

I thought I'd also mention... before starting the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, I finished stitching a small Christmas ornament I'd started working on in the recent past:  

This is one of three Prairie Schooler Christmas ornament patterns from vintage (1980's) Just CrossStitch magazines.

I've also got a colonial house ornament pattern kitted up to go with the three of these I've already now made.  I may work on that soon, too.

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Something else I thought might be interesting to show today...

Last summer I finished some embroidered and crochet-trimmed pillowcases.  I was asked if they were for show, and I said no - that they were for my everyday use.  Well, it's right around the 6-month mark of when I made the pair and I have used the same pillowcase in all this time, washing it with the other bed linens at least weekly (sometimes more often - when hubs or I are sick I often wash the linens every day until the sicky starts to get better).  I wash my sheets and pillowcases on a super hot sanitizing cycle in my front loading washing machine, and have machine or line-dried them at least weekly over the last 6 months.  

Just so you can see how well the embroidery and edging hold up, here is a picture of an unused one (on top) and the heavily used one (on bottom):

Right next to each other one can tell there has been some fading on the bottom one, but seriously...  using it every night I couldn't tell it had faded at all - until I put the unused one next to it.  Considering the heavy use it's gotten (including over 30 washings in super hot water) I'm really pleased at how well the edging and embroidery have held up.

To give a thorough review...  the pillowcase itself is starting to thin,  Again, I couldn't tell that when only looking at just the one.  But side-by-side I can see that the one I've been using is thinning.  It's a polyester/cotton blend pillowcase from a kit - I know it wasn't as sturdy as some of our other pillowcases bought in sheet sets.   I plan to keep on using this until it shows some obvious wear.   I may give another report at that time.  

I'm so glad I did this little experiment.  I knew that the ones I received as a newlywed held up a nice long time, but they weren't abused like I'm (sort of) abusing this one.  Seeing how well the embroidery and edging hold up, I'm looking forward to making some more someday.  I also look forward to trying out a stabilizer on the back of the next ones I make - just to see what difference that might make.  That may be my next experiment.  😉

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