These may be my last perler beads projects for a little while, but maybe not. I made the bow for a hair clip, the nesting doll for... something. I made the little Jaws thing for my nephew because that is his favorite movie. I think I'll put a magnet on the back. I think it's super cute.
It's that time of year again when I get the urge to make perler bead stuff. I cannot explain why I am like this, but I usually only do perler bead stuff in the winter.
I prefer to do projects with the smaller beads because I often want to make hair clips or pins or magnets out of them and they just make cuter little things! I get my beads from Perler and Artkal. There was a really great place to get the mini beads, but they unfortunately went out of business. They were a US distributor of the Artkal beads, which originate overseas and with tarrifs and stuff, I'm sure they've gone up quite a bit on their prices. Luckily I grabbed just about every color under the sun a few years ago and have plenty left!
I decided since I am in a place now where the weather allows me to wear blazers and vests more than a couple of times a year, I will make some cute lapel pins. I love to wear flair on my vests and blazers, and I thought maybe some Perler bead pins would be cool. I may make some hairclips too, but I'm not sure. I get all of my patterns from Pinterest, or sometimes I will use a cross stitch pattern I already have.
I made these last night...
And I made these both last night and today at lunch, but I ironed them at lunch.
This past weekend was great. I didn't do much, which was nice. I did go to a Stitch and Bitch at this really cool creative space here in Pueblo and had a nice time. There was one other cross stitcher so I sat with her and we had a good chat.
Other than grocery shopping and Stitch and Bitching, I finished my scarf! It's a lot thicker than I expected, but it will be great for really cold days.
Happy Friday!
I really want to try Bargello stitching! I have wanted to for a while but it wasn't popular so it was hard to find instructions and supplies but there is a company out there now called Hello Bargello who makes lovely kits with everything you need plus a pattern and instructions. They have videos on their site and on YouTube too, and I watched them all last night in bed. I REALLY want to try it but I hate spending $40 on a kit if it's something I'm not gonna like, so I was looking for supplies at Hobby Lobby since that's the only craft store we have in Pueblo, and of course, they don't carry the yarn you use for it. So I thought I'd have a look at the yarn I have to see if it would work. I don't know if it will, but in true Jonesy fashion, I got distracted when I pulled out the yarn, as in the yarn box, there was a blanket I started three years ago on a long knitting loom. I had a look at it, and it's terrible. I didn't have the right yarn for it and it was really holey, so I took it off the loom and unraveled it and decided to start knitting a scarf, using a round loom. I'm quite proud of those color switches!
I was able to decorate this past weekend and display some of my cross stitches! I have a lot of them and since we don't have the same sort of walls or wall space as we did in our house in Hutto, I can't hang all of them. I thought I'd display the new ones!
I'm very pleased with how this display came out. I wanted it simple, but not so simple that it looks unfinished. I wish the cord for the lights was silver or white.
I forgot to post the stitches I did during our cold Thanksgiving break!
I love stitching in the cold weather, all bundled up with a coffee or cocoa and a blanket. I used to love it in the woods the most, and I guess I probably still do, but it's sure nice to do it in Colorado where it's actually cold when it's supposed to be cold!
I finished this one by CryBaby Cross Stitch and I'm kind of mad that I started it too low on the fabric and I'm not even sure if I'll be able to do much with it. This is a piece of aida I dyed last week. I think it's gorgeous with the black.
This is the second one I've done by Noctiflora Designs. I started it on a piece of dark fabric and got irritated because it was not really conducive to the colors in the patterns and I messed up so I pitched it and decided I'd revisit after making another piece of aida for it, and so I did! This is another piece I dyed last week. I love how it looks on this fabric!
I think I'll post about the jar dying method next, once I have a couple more pieces done. I was going to also try to do a blood spatter pattern, but when I tested it on a piece of scrap aida, the dye bleeds too much for it to look good, so I just purchased a piece of fabric already dyed appropriately so I can do a cross stitch piece for my sister, just because.
Here are some of the little diamond paintings I did from the Paint Gems Tattoo Edition Kit. I have only done a few, but I'm sort of getting back into it and so I'm sure I'll have more to post soon.
One thing I like about diamond painting is that it's similar to cross stitch, and another cool thing is that often, the little gems used correspond with a cross stitch color, so you can make your own designs. I have tried this without success. Diamond Dotz makes some little grids but they are so small I can't fit a decent design in the grid. There was also a paint-by-square book I got to see if I could make some of those into diamond paintings by using an adhesive sheet over the page, but the squares are just a tiny bit too big. I tried these methods a couple of years ago and so maybe there are better resources or ideas out there now. I think it would be cool to design one of these myself or use a cross stitch pattern for a diamond painting.
This guy is my favorite.
