home sweet home - the series

i have finally begun a project that i have been wanting to do for almost a year now (or maybe more); a series of home-sweet-home cross stitch pieces.
on friday i spent the morning in a sunny brooklyn backyard (with the moya!) making up patterns and getting started on the first two pieces. i hated them; so much so that i'm not even going to show them to you. booooooo.
but yesterday i tweaked a pattern that i had done earlier in the week and now i'm on a roll.
attempt number one:


yea! it's cute! but definitely not finished..... it needs something else... and it's waiting for its frame, which was just painted black, to dry.

once i finished that, though, i was able to see that i really love the lettering and i wanted to see how they would look all pushed together like actual script. (sometimes it is difficult for me to see these things when they are just patterns; i often have to go through with the actual stitching to decide whether or not something works for me. when it does work, all if good, but when it doesnt, ooooh, that is frustrating!)


i like it! and i really like the white stitching on the black background... gives it a more modern look, no?

i like this photo of the piece on my urban outfitters doily rug. (speaking of urban outfitters rugs, check out this one -- so appropriate, right?! i might need to order it...)


and then THAT one (above) inspired me to do THIS one:


i find that few cross-stitch fonts actually have the letters line up all nicely but these ones do and i was making my lines and grids to get everything spaced and even and centered, i came up with the idea of putting the stitches on an embroidered schoolhouse paper kinda thing. the script style letters and care i was going through to get them all lined up just reminded me of early penmanship lessons.
i'm really happy with the colors together. i went with a graphite grey color instead of black.



(this piece also reminds me of my friend barbara's paintings -- the ones i gushed about here.)


so, i think i am maybe now finished with all of the home-sweet-home pieces that i want to do with this lettering style. but i'll definitely be doing more in other styles... i've already got more patterns made up.. coming soon.