That Was Quick!

Hey Blog Buddies,

I got so excited when I bought those Shaker boxes mentioned in my last post, that I pretty much dropped everything and went to work on BBD's Midnight Ride.  It was a very fast stitch, and now it is all done and finished just in time for Hallowe'en.

The smallest box was 7" in diameter (the pattern called for a 6" box), so I switched the fabric count from 30 to 28, and voila!  It's perfect!

This treasure was finished inside and out by the talented Averyclaire.  The top of the box is lined with the plaid fabric, too!   I had asked her to line the box, and was flabbergasted when I saw all that ruching!  It's pretty snazzy, as my mom would say.

In other stitchy news, I checked another project off of my rotation list.  This is my progress on Laura J. Perin's Nordic Panel as of April.  I was about two-thirds done.

 

Here it is now:

 All done!

But when one door closes, another opens, right?

 So here is the latest addition to

the rotation:

This is the start of Needle Delights Originals'

Autumn Logs.  It's my ANG chapter's 2015-16 SAL.

I've done Winter and Summer,

and I plan on doing Spring, too.

That's it from here.

I've got to start packing for

the Inspired Needle Retreat in Shipshewana

starting tomorrow.

It's going to be a fun weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

Done and Done

Hi Blog Buddies,
How has October been treating you?  Today near the Big City we're experiencing some of "October's bright blue weather," with temps in the upper 70's.  I'm not complaining.

The big stitchy news here is my hardanger table topper.  Can you believe it's done?!  I got the woven bars finished a couple of weeks ago, and I've been futzing with the hemstitching since then.  There's a lot of prep work involving with hemstitching.  The instructions called for three rows of basting, but I got by with just two:

The basting lines perpendicular to the border were my idea.  I did them in each corner to help me count threads, but fat lot of good it did me.  Four threads were withdrawn for the hemstitching row.  I actually cut two (yes, two!) incorrect threads.  I then had to withdraw the threads cut in error, take a thread from the edge of the warp or weft of the fabric, depending on where I was, and reweave those in.  I didn't see any other way around it.  After those little episodes, DH started calling this piece the Devil Project.

 But all's well that ends well...

Cindy Valentine's Pristine

Started in April, 2006

Finished on October 4, 2015

(I didn't want to take it into the double digits, yearwise.)

I am glad that this is finally done!

This past weekend, we went to the Knox County Scenic Drive here in Illinois, as we normally do each year.  It takes place on the first and second weekends of October.  Most of the action takes place in and around Knoxville and Maquon.  There are folks selling crafts, flea market items and food.  A lot of the items are unusual:

I passed on this quirky lamp, but further down on the same table, three items did come home with me.

These wooden Shaker boxes are not quite as fancy as the very, very expensive ones that are for sale in my LNS, but I got all three for $8.  If there had been more of them, I believe I would have bought them.  I was ecstatic!  As soon as I got home, I went stash diving and pulled out this chart:

The piece will look fabulous

mounted on top of the smallest box!

Knox County is really pretty in the fall.

Here are some photos:

 

 

This is Wolf Covered Bridge.

And just north of Knox County is

 one of my very favorite Illinois two-lane roads,

Henry County 5.

It's a lovely stretch of rolling hills and farms.

 

That's it from here.

Thanks for dropping by.