Projects from 2012 Part 1 - Bookmarks

I've been under the weather this last week, and I'm still a bit congested and I can barely talk, but on the whole I am feeling much better.

In last week's entry I said I would throw together a post with all the projects I worked on last year. This post will be very picture heavy, so I will be putting the pictures under the jump. I was a busy bee last year with how much stitching I got done. Partly because it gave me something to do to fill the hours and partly because it gave me something to focus on instead of pain.

The biggest deterrent from stitching for me in the past was the lack of designs that suited my tastes. Turns out that I just wasn't looking in the right places all these years. There was plenty out there that I would have loved to stitch, I just didn't know where to find it. While the craft stores carry quite a few patterns and kits that I like, most of what I've done in the last year has been things I found online or in magazines that I didn't even know existed.

As I mentioned last week, I found a set of bookmark charts by Sandy Orton and they were the first things I dove into stitching. After stitching a few of those, I started finding designs I liked on Etsy and I found a lovely kit by Joan Elliott, who has quickly become one of my most favorite designers, at JoAnn's on the reduced price rack. Anyway, onto the pictures.

Stitched as a gift for my mom. Design by Sandy Orton.

The above was actually the second project I worked on. I didn't have all the colors of cloth and floss I needed to get started on this one or most of the others in the book the day I got it. So instead I started on the second one in the picture below since I had everything I needed for it already in my stash.

Bookmarks 1-4 designed by Sandy Orton. #5 is from Etsy.

I don't recall the exact order I worked on these ones in, but they were all worked on in the same couple of weeks. The first in the above - the definition of journey - was one I set out to make for my step-mother who had been diagnosed with and recovered from breast cancer. She's not one for all that pink ribbon stuff, but I felt like this one would suit her very well. She absolutely loved it when I gave it to her. The fifth one was a design by Stage Appeal Crafts on Etsy. I wound up doing that one a second time on red fabric with white floss to better match the original poster it was inspired by.

Design by Stage Appeal Crafts

Below you will find several more bookmarks I did from Sandy Orton's book.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

Design by Sandy Orton.

 All of these were stitched between February 2012 through June 2012. I quickly became addicted to these small projects because I could often finish them in 1-2 days. The last one pictured was the first time I added beads to a project and it was quite exciting.

I made another bookmark with a pattern from one of Cross Stitcher Magazine's bookazines (see above) as a gift for my dad. I decided that it needed some text and with some help from a friend I wound up settling on and charting up the text for it on my own.

I also charted a few bookmark designs with pencil and paper and stitched them up, but as I will be selling the patterns in my etsy shop when I open it, I'm not going to post them here.

This marks the end of Part 1 of my projects from 2012. I'll make another post with the other projects I did last year very soon. Possibly later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Design by Emily Peacock

edit: I forgot to include this bookmark that I made for My best friend Liz's daughter as a birthday gift. It was a cover kit included with an issue of Cross Stitcher Magazine that came out during the summer.