Welcome to "The Girl's Gone Crafty!" blog about all things, well, crafty, of course! My name is Raquel, owner of Calico Craft Designs, and lover of all things Craft. I hope that you too will join me on my journey to finishing one more UFO (unfinished object), stitching for charity, and just learning more about the wonderful crafts available out there.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Just in Time for Wedding Bells

I finally finished the Hardanger piece that I have been working on for my friend Kelley who is getting married this Saturday, May 17th.  It took me a little while to figure out how best to add the names and date to the design.  I actually ended up using characters from three different fonts!  I think the color and sizing works much better than what I originally stitched.  I sure hope so anyway.  I removed the lettering FOUR times to finally get it to the way it currently is now!  I just hope that once it's washed and ironed that it retains it's shape and helps to cover up the area where I had to remove those few stitches.  It's probably just me but my eyes seem to go right to that area when I look at the piece.  [sigh]  Hopefully, it's just me.

Behind the actual design, I'm adding a piece of silk fabric in a similar shade of blue.  This should peek through the openings in the fabric to give a bit more color to the finished project.

The completed design and part of the backing fabric.
Once I get it prepped, it's off to the framers.  I was a bit too late to get it framed for the actual wedding day but I hope to give it to her in a couple of weeks once she's back from her honeymoon and is back at the office.  At least I completed the design before the wedding bells sounded!  I'll post another photo once the framing is completed and it's ready to be wrapped up for Kelley.

The finished design before washing and ironing.
Close-up of the center.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Scenic Bridge Update - 5.12.14

As I mentioned in my last post, I joined an online SAL through Facebook that ran from Friday, 5/9/14 through Mother's Day on Sunday, 5/11/14.  I did make a little progress but wasn't able to stitch as much as I wanted to.  However, it was for a good reason as my husband's family came into town for the weekend and a local barbeque festival held on Saturday.  We had a great time over the weekend and it's always good to see my in-laws.  I'm lucky that way! :-)  On the down side though, I wasn't able to complete as much on Scenic Bridge as I had wanted.  The good news is that I believe there is another online SAL coming up very soon so I'll keep stitching away on this one.  You can see my progress in the photo below.  The top picture is my "Before" and the bottom is the "After" photo.

Progress as of 5.8.14 (top) and 5.11.14 (bottom)

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Progress on Scenic Bridge

Over the past week I have been working on the Scenic Bridge.  This is the design that I am not really that fond of but that I believe my friend will love.  I'm trying to finish it for her birthday in August or at least by Christmas.  I think I've made pretty good progress on it thus far.  I've included a couple of photos below.  I snapped these in a hurry so they are not the best quality but it should give you an idea of what I was able to complete. 

Previous progress as of 4/26/14


Current progress as of 5/8/14
I joined an online SAL scheduled for this weekend (May 9th to May 11th) and I'm going to continue working on this piece.  I do have family coming in for the weekend so I'm not sure how much I will get completed but I can at least work on it at night.  We usually watch movies in the evenings so it's a perfect time to get some stitching in.  Wish me luck!