A Few Small Things

Hey Blog Buddies,

Happy July!  Yikes, the year is now officially half over!!

I've been fairly busy stitch-wise this week, and have gotten a few small projects completed.  Let's get the photos up:

I may not have finished this project

but I did finish stitching the first square of

Needle Delights Originals' Tangerine Twist.

The canvas that you see showing through on the right

will be covered by Little Charmers orange beads,

which are waiting for me at my LNS.

The beads are a variety of sizes,

and should add a lot to this already eye-popping square.

Obviously, the beads will go on

after all the squares are stitched.

 

Here's a funny story.

When I was stitching on this last Monday,

I was so in the groove that I kept putting off

eating dinner--the "just one more row" mentality.

I vaguely noticed that it was getting very dark outside--

too dark for early evening.

We've had a lot of storms come through here just lately,

so I was unconcerned.  Just more rain.

Little did I know that we were going to get hit with a derecho!

(According to Wikipedia, a derecho is

a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is

associated with a land-based,

fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms.)

When our lights started flickering,

it got my attention fast.

I ran upstairs to put my leftovers from lunch

into the microwave, but I was about a minute too late.

Pouf!  Power out until 10:30 p.m.

Had to make dinner on the gas stove,

and my stitching was on hold until the next day.

There were lots of branches down,

but no damage to our house.

Lots of people had it far worse.

 

The next little project is my

June ornament for the 2013 Halloween SAL.

The theme for the month was mummies/tombs.

  

This is one the headstones from Prairie Schooler's Heads Up leaflet:

stitched on 40-count Heritage linen

(I purchased a large piece of that last year!),

using one strand of Gloriana India Ink

over two threads.

 

I was on a roll this weekend,

so I also started and finished this...

Lizzie*Kate's Summer ABCs,

stitched on 28-count light mocha linen.

I changed the colors on the lettering because

 I wanted to make it look a little more "beachy,"

but used the recommended JABC watermelon button.

 

Last but not least,

I started and finished a charity project for one of my guilds.

 

We are donating a bunch of bibs to PASS,

an organization which assists young single moms.

The incredible part about this finish is

I don't even have to turn it in until the middle of September!!

It's unheard-of for me to be so early!

 

I think this calls for a new start, don't you?

 

That's it from here.

Hope your weekend was fun,

with a little stitchy time thrown in!

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

Seasonal Smalls

Hey Blog Buddies,

For the past few days, we've been having what has been described in a poem as "October's bright blue weather"--beautiful bright blue skies which set off all the glorious autumn colors on the trees, but it's been somewhat chilly.  Great weather for stitching!  But you could make a case that all weather is great weather for stitching!

So, on to the stitching.  I made the last item that I'm planning on selling at the Quilters Plus Boutique (see shameless plug on my sidebar).  It's a hardanger tree that I made earlier this year. The first version was white on white--you can see it here.  I like this new red version better.

I used red congress cloth, #8 red perle cotton

for the blanket stitch and klosters,

#8 red Kreinik metallic for the eyelets,

and white #12 perle cotton for the woven bars.

The color variations are endless on this one.

And, since it's October already,

I finally finish-finished my two little Halloween ornies:

The owl from Prairie Schooler's Heads Up booklet...

...and the tombstone from the same booklet.

Very simple finish--just mounted the little pieces

on some matboard, then glued it to black felt,

with an orange ribbon sandwiched between the two pieces.

I'm also working on Night Song from the

BBD booklet "Tis Halloween."

I'll show it to you when it's done.

Hopefully, that will be finished and on the tree before the 31st!

Hope your upcoming weekend is fun,

and that you have a little time to

do some stitching.

Thanks for visiting!

The Pyramid

39 Ort Bags

No two with exactly the same fabric.

I'm not an engineer.

The pyramid isn't exactly symmetrical.

But I had fun setting up the photos!

Until next time...

...thanks for visiting!

It's Hot, Hot, Hot! Let's Crochet!!

Hey Blog Buddies,

Yes, it's true.  I've been crocheting.  With mohair.   My quilt guild is having its yearly boutique in November, and since I really don't have the temperament to block out a whole month to devote to making things to sell (like some people do--I admire them!), I've got to start pretty early.  I do a little here and a little there.  Fortunately, the items don't need to be quilted, just hand-made.  So I started with something easy (for me): crochet.  Most of this was done last week, when the temperature here was in the 100's (F), but it was very cool inside the house, which was where I was hiding from the weather.

Animal cruelty!

The yarn I used for this was Patons Divine,

only 10.5% mohair, but it felt and acted like mohair--

not the easiest to work with--

it kept catching on my crochet hook.

Oh yes, that white fabric peeking out from under the scarf

is the t-shirt I wrapped around Molly's neck

so she wouldn't shed all over my crocheted creation!

Don't worry, she got a nice treat afterwards

to compensate her for her time and humiliation.

Here is the same pattern, different yarn:

The pattern is really simple and works up quickly:

just chains and double crochets ("filet crochet").

This yarn is Sensations Angel Hair Stripe,

an acrylic/wool/nylon blend.

It was a dream to work with after the mohair.

It's very fuzzy, too, but you can't see that

in this photo.

I've also been sewing: lots and lots of ort bags,

one for each person who comes to our guild's

Ukrainian embroidery workshop.

I'll take a photo of my "ort bag pyramid"

after they're all done.

See my prototype ort bag here.

There has been some holiday stitching, too,

(on 40-count linen!)

which I'll share with you during the Theme-a-licious update.

Hope you get a chance to stitch today...

...thanks for visiting!