Followers' Giveaway!

Hey Blog Buddies,

No, I didn't forget the giveaway to celebrate 100 Followers.  My order just took a long time to get here because there were evidently some not-so-common items in it.  But it has arrived, I did a random drawing from my Followers list, and Robin of Crafting with the Stitch Witch is the lucky winner!  Congrats!  Please get in touch with me, Robin, with your address details.

Here is the chart she won:

It's from the recent Nashville market.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

And thanks for visiting!

A Gift, and Liebster!

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's a gorgeous day here in "Chicagoland," the sky is blue, the temp is near 70 degrees F, and I got a birthday gift yesterday from my GF Averyclaire.  I like celebrating all month long!

Isn't this the most adorable pincushion ever!!

It's about 3" by 3" and I'm sure it must have been paper pieced.

I forgot to ask!!

And that's not all...

I also got a very debonair little mouse,

who looks like he was just made to sit on that cushion.

Thank you so much, Averyclaire!

How lucky can a Southpaw get?

Even luckier because I was given

the Liebster Blog award by Otter and Mary

Go check out their blogs, because they're great!

Thank you both very very much!!! 

 

Liebster is a German word, meaning favorite, dearest or beloved, and the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.

2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.

4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you. 

 

********

Picking only five blogs to give the award to was challenging,

but the field was narrowed by the "less than 200 followers" rule.

Here are my five:

Kaye at Kitten Stitching

Shelley at Elsie's Girl

Lelia at Stitches of Life

Rahenna at Crafty Rahenna

Anna at Northwoods Stitching

They are all great blogs, and well worth your time.

And here are the five random facts

that you never wanted to know about me:

I dislike cauliflower.

I am an only child.

I'm studying Spanish.

I have an amateur radio license.

I'm addicted to the TV show "Revenge."

I'm continuing my trip around the Rainforest this week.

Photos soon.

Hope you're enjoying your day.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Uptown Stitcher: The Farewell Tour

Dear Patient Blog Buddies,

You may have thought (hoped) that you'd seen the last of our old friend, the Uptown Stitcher, but she's just come back from the finisher, and I just knew that you all are so interested to see what she looks like now, and wanted one last look at her.  You do want one last look, don't you?  (I thought so.)   She went on a "trip" and I'm sharing her vacation snapshots.  She insisted on doing the narration:

"What is this supposed to be?

The International Quilt Show?

Are your readers that gullible?"  ... U. Stitcher

"I'm at The Library of Congress, right?

This is embarrassing."  ...U. Stitcher

"I guess this is supposed to be the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

Any 4-year-old can tell I'm perched on the

back of a sofa in someone's living room!"  ... U. Stitcher

"If you think this is the Morton Arboretum, think again.

I was stuck into a bush in a rather scruffy looking backyard!

I think I'm getting a sunburn and I feel faint."   ... U. Stitcher

"I'm surprised she didn't make me pose with this beast!

The minute I arrived here, it tried to dismember me!

I fear for my life!!"  ... U. Stitcher

"Beast?  Is there a beast in the house? Where can I hide?

Is my new chew toy handy?  She would comfort me."  ... Molly

"In the microwave?  Really??

I have fallen into the clutches of a madwoman!

I must phone the authorities!!   ... U. Stitcher

Well, that's all folks.

You can kiss her good-bye.

I will be dealing with her diatribes

for quite a while, I fear.

For those of you wondering about

the details of the finishing,

her base, back and piping

are all purple Ultrasuede.

Hope you are having a good first week of spring

(or autumn, as the hemisphere dictates).

And thanks for visiting!

March IHSW: Another Finish!

Hey Blog Buddies and Fellow Hermitters,

The weather in the Chicago area this weekend hasn't been conducive to staying inside and stitching (day after day of 80+ degrees and sun in March!), but I did get in a few hours here and there--enough to finish the small project I started a week ago:  "I Stitch..." by Calico Crossroads.  This was a freebie chart that I must have had for quite some time, because the copyright on it is 1997!  That doesn't necessarily mean I acquired it in 1997, but still.  When I ran across it, I thought the tongue-in-cheek saying on the chart was a hoot:  "I stitch.  Therefore I am."  Don't know why I hadn't stitched it ages ago!   I put it on my list for this year so it wouldn't fall through the cracks again.  (I am much more focused with a list!)  So here is my finish-finish of "I Stitch..."

Sorry for the bad lighting.

I never seem to finish things in the middle of the day--

only after the sun goes down.

A few close-ups may give you the idea...

Yes, that is a real needle in there,

threaded through the backstitching.

I had to sacrifice one of my petite No. 26's

for this project.

The row just under the THEREFORE is

eyelets backstitched with two strands of contrasting floss,

followed by Smyrna crosses outlined in ecru.

There are beads embedded in large crosses

in both the top and bottom bands.

The suggested finishing as a bellpull

is a little retro, but it did appeal to me

because I could do that myself fairly quickly.

If you want to check out

what the other hermitters have been up to,

go to Joyce's blog for the links.

Hope your weekend was as lovely

as it was here.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

A New Start, and a Birthday Gift

Hey Blog Buddies,

I've put CT13 aside for now and decided I needed something a little smaller to balance it out, so I started "I Stitch..." on Monday.  Here is my minuscule progress:

You may be wondering why I skipped

over the "IT" in STITCH.

This is a very old freebie from 1997,

and the directions said to use

SNC Sherbet, "a special 1997 edition color."

Well, no one at the LNS was quite sure

what color that was, so we guessed 

and picked out a variegated light orange.

I know it shows up great in this photo,

but stitched in real life, it just didn't pop--

especially with all the ecru in so many of the bands.

I had stitched the STIT in the coral/yellow,

then I tried the bolder variegated on the CH,

frogged the STIT, 

went back to the beginning of the word, 

and that's why I ended up with

ST   CH.

Yesterday was my birthday, so we took a trip

to The Lake (by which I mean Lake Michigan).

We spotted a strange-looking (to us) waterfowl

with a white head and a black-and-white

striped body.

He wasn't in my Birds of Illinois book,

so I have no clue what type of bird this is.

That's the only photo I got of him,

he saw me and started swimming away fast.

We had lunch at a new (to us) restaurant,

The Flying Saucer in Humboldt Park,

which is a neighborhood in Chicago.

It may look a little sketchy from the outside,

but the inside of the restaurant was clean

and the food was good.

I love funky little neighborhood places like this.

(I'm a pretty cheap date.)

The day was absolutely gorgeous

and warmed up quickly--no jackets required.

I even went without a jacket,

and I'm the first to get chilly.

At the end of the day, I peeked at my blog

and got my final birthday present:

100 followers!

Woo-hoo!

Watch this space

because I plan to do something special

for one of my followers very soon.

Hope you're liking the weather where you're at.

Thanks so much for visiting!

WIPocalypse 2012 - March Report *EDITED*

Hey Blog Buddies,

February was a short month (even though we had an extra day), and it's WIPocalypse report time already!

This month I have four items, including two finishes!

I included this in the WIPocalypse because

I had had it kitted up for a l-o-o-ong time.

This month I started it and got

the four center squares finished.

Another chart that I've had for some time

is Springology, and I knew I needed one or two

spring designs for my stitchy bookcase.

So I started and finished the Spring design last week.

The most exciting news of the year so far (at least for me)

is that, after ten years, I finished the Uptown Stitcher!!

If you're new to this blog, click here to see my post about it,

complete with close-ups.

And, finally, we have to talk about the swirls.

(Yes, I'm afraid we must.)

I'm still plugging away at CT13.

Here's where I left off last month.

And here's where I am now.

Yes, there are leaves in the design...

many, many leaves, not just the few that you see here.

And I decided to make the woefully undersized pot green.

(The design calls for only one color:  red.)

I actually added a row of stitching to the pot,

and it is still really, really small.

But it's not supposed to be true to life, is it?

I'm really glad I signed up for the WIPocalypse.

I made my list at the beginning of the year and,

with one or two exceptions, have really stuck to it.

Even though it's only March, I've realized that

there's no way that I'm going to finish

all 22 projects, but they're all on my radar,

and that's a good thing.

To see the links to everyone's progress on the

WIPocalypse this month, go here.

That's it from here.

Hope you're having fun doing what you're doing.

And thanks for visiting!

This 'n' That

Hey Blog Buddies,

Yesterday my guild held a This 'n' That workshop.  There were 30-minute demos of techniques such as the pinhead stitch, using a laying tool, attaching beads to linen so that they are not slanted, mounting a finished piece on a board for framing, the history of scissors, and a small bargello project.  All this was free to members--even the canvas and chart for the bargello!  Everything was very well done, fun and informative, but of particular interest to me was the mounting technique (lacing), since I have a lot of smaller projects that need to get finish-finished.  Here is a small seasonal piece that I started just a few days ago--mounted and framed last night:

This is from the Springology leaftlet from The Trilogy.

The design measures a scant 3" x 3".

Here are two more projects finished recently

(mounted and framed last night)

that readers of this blog will remember:

S is for Spring from The Prairie Schooler...

...and Snow Patches from the Cross-Eyed Cricket.

Yes, I know winter is just about over

despite the fact that we are still getting flurries here,

but this guy is now ready for next winter!

The talk on the history of scissors was

really interesting, and I brought

an unusual specimen for show 'n' tell:

This was a gift to me from a friend.

The shears (since it's longer than 6 inches)

has 5 sets of blades, good for shredding paper.

Hope you're having a fun weekend.

Thanks for visiting!