UFO No. 3

At last, another one of my UFO's is finished!  You may remember this little project in my UFO list from earlier this year...

This was the progress I had made on a reversible cross stitch cyberclass piece from 2015.  Well, I got bogged down with the instructions and gave up on the piece.  This year I figured I should just finish it using the regular cross stitch technique.  So now I present...

...my two new coasters?  Yes, these two were meant to be coasters.  But when I went online and looked for small plexiglass coaster covers, the largest I could find was 3" x 3", and these are 3.75" x 3.75".  They are kind of cute, so I think I'll just set them out and see if anyone uses them.  It's fine if they do; I'm just glad to finally be done with them.

Continuing on with my Year of the Pillows theme, the small Halloween piece that I mentioned in my last post was finished and pillowfied:

This is from Prairie Schooler's Hocus Pocus leaflet.  I love all the designs in that leaflet and I plan on doing more of them--probably not this year, though.

And here is another recent pillow finish...

This is my favorite design from the Little Dove's Year leaflet.  I have seen many falling-leaf designs for October and even September, but around here, most of our leaves fall in November, although most of our trees turn a single color and not many, like the one above!  It's artistic license, I guess.

My last finish is not embroidery and came from a workshop given my by quilt guild:

We all got 24" x 24" pieces of plywood to paint a barn quilt!  It was a great make-it-and-take-it class; everyone left with a finished piece.  OK, we're pretty urban around here so most of us don't have barns, but I do have a shed in the backyard - which I would not hide this on.  It's going to go up on the front of the house.

So, last time I mentioned that I was just about out of WIPs... well, I fixed that problem!  The weird thing about this batch of WIPs is that I have four needlepoint pieces and only one cross stitch.  Usually, I have more cross stitch pieces than needlepoint, and I like to keep the number at or below four total WIPs.  You'll see why I have five in a minute.

I am sooo close to a finish on this one, just the little border which I've already started.  This was a design that was created and taught by a member of my EGA chapter quite a few years ago.  I had it kitted up all this time.  I think the reason that it sat around was that she had stitched the model in all white, which is fine because the textures of the piece are highlighted that way, but it wasn't calling to me.  I like this design a lot, and it was fun to stitch.

This is from a workshop hosted by my ANG chapter that I took this past weekend.  Jennifer Riefenberg is the designer who taught the class.  I like that she gives her students lots of time to actually stitch on whatever areas they want to in class, which is not how most other teachers I've encountered do it.  Well, she did want us to at least start on the large pumpkin, which was the most challenging part.  And between the compensation and the exotic threads used, yes it was.  But almost all of it is behind me now.

This is the gorgeous model that she stitched.

I hope mine turns out half as nice.

Pumpkin Patch is the name of the design.

I've been working on Rainforest Birds for a little while.

It's a Charley Harper painted canvas,

and I find myself spending way more time

puzzling over which stitch to use in each section

than the actual stitching of said section.

But it's a fun, learning experience.

The Tomorrow's Heirlooms ladies

attended the Pumpkin Patch workshop, too,

and they brought me a goodie bag

with this in it, all kitted up...

If it had been anything else,

it would have gone in the voluminous

Soon But Not Now pile,

but I had been itching to get my hands on this one

ever since I first saw it, so...

...yesterday, I couldn't resist; I had to start it.

I'm hoping to get it finished by Thanksgiving

(it falls a little later this year).

There's a surprising amount of

basketweave in it, so we'll see.

Last but not least,

here is my cross stitch start

which has stalled a bit lately.

The design is

In All Things Be Exceedingly Diligent

by Needlework Press.

I don't have a photo of the finished piece.

It's very, very wide, and it contains

several alphabets.

Well, that's it from here.

The meteorologists are predicting

nasty weather, including snow,

for Halloween.

Although it's a day early,

I'll leave you with this...

Thanks for stopping by!