Last Finish, First Start: More Birds

Hey Blog Buddies,
Happy 2015!  Hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year's celebration.  It wasn't too zany around here:  a Trivial Pursuit game and asleep well before midnight.

I do have a couple of stitchy things to show you.  Here is my last finish of 2014:

This is Happy Chirp, Chirp Day by The Trilogy

I hope to have this made into a pincushion

some time this weekend.

And for my New Year's Day start,

I picked...

Dawn Chorus by Long Dog Samplers.

There are 20 birds in this sampler

(hence the name of the piece).

You'll have to wait to see them, though,

because they're up at the top

and I've started at the lower left.

And, of course, this piece

is only one-tenth of my regular rotation,

so we'll see how that works this year!

Have a great weekend,

and thanks so much for visiting!

November Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,

How was your weekend?  My quilt guild had its annual giant boutique (think a rather large gymnasium overflowing with thousands of items), and I sold four embroidered items.  The items for sale don't necessarily have to be quilted, just handmade.  And no, I didn't price them to compensate myself for any time involved, just the materials.  It was a fundraiser, and I wanted them to sell.

What does this have to do with the Turtle Trot, you may wonder.  Well, it's leading in to the excuse I have for only working on one piece this month.  The four boutique items did take a bit of time to make after all.  I've also been diligently keeping up with the lessons in my blackwork cyberclass (photo coming soon), leaving little stitching time for anything else.

Yes, the day has finally come when I have ignored everything in my Turtle Trot list except for one (and we all should know what's coming next):

I'm sure that regular readers of this blog knew that it would be Mates.

Here is where I left off last month.

 

This is where I am now.

Hey, most of the white holes in her head are gone now!

For the past couple of weeks, the theme song

from the 70's comedy series "The Jeffersons"

has been playing in my head:

"Well we're movin' on up (movin' on up)

to the East side (movin' on up).

I'm already on the east side!   Ha!

I'm spending entirely too much time

with Wolfgang and Wanda!

This is a good example of a

no-matter-what project.

I work on it a little bit

every day before breakfast

no matter what.

And I'm getting results, albeit slowly.

To see what the other Trotters have been up to,

check out Claudette's blog, BAP Attack.

She's our Head Turtle.

 That's it from here.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

October Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the tenth of the month, so it's time to post our progress for the Turtle Trot SAL.  

Each month we post progress updates on the ten WIPs we chose at the beginning of the year.  Claudette of BAP Attack is our Head Turtle/ringleader.

This month, I'm afraid there's not too much to show.  I did make some progress on Ink Circles' 99:

This is where I left off last month...

...and this is where I'm at now.

I was hoping to get the entire 4th row done,

but the best laid plans, etc.

And last (already?!) but never least,

we have Perseverance Mates:

...last month...

...and this month...

The casual observer might think

that this piece is almost done.

Would that it were.

I estimate at least 2 to 3 more months of

stitching on it a little every day.

Not my definition of "almost done."

That's it for this month--short and sweet.

Visit Claudette's blog to check out her progress

and that of the other Trotters.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

September Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,
 
It's time once again for the Turtle Trot update.  Claudette over at BAP Attack hosts this SAL.  We chose ten WIPs to work on at the beginning of the year, and post before and after photos of our progress each month.  This update will be short, since I worked on only two pieces since last month.

First up, we have Ink Circles' 99.

Here's my progress as of last month:

And here's where I'm at now:

As I was working on "The Bottles" this month, I couldn't help but think of SoCal Debbie, who was working on this piece for Turtle Trot, too.  For those of you who don't know her, Debbie was a stitcher and blogger who passed away suddenly at a very young age last month.  We all miss her bubbly personality and cyber-friendship.

And the other piece that I worked on this month?

Of course, it's Cross My Heart's Mates.

Here's where I was last month.

Here's the latest.

I feel like I've just been trudging along

on this piece this month,

but progress is progress.

The rest of my stitching time

has been taken up with some small pieces.

More on those in another post.

And as if I don't have enough to stitch,

I've enrolled in Tanja Berlin's

Blackwork Lovebirds cyber-class 

which starts this Friday.

This should be fun--I'll keep you posted

on my progress.

By the way, Tanja's blackwork elephant 

is to die for!

That's all from here.

Hope you are enjoying your September.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

August Turtle Trot: A Milestone

Hey Blog Buddies,

How's your weekend been going?  It's been cloudy here all day but no rain, so I'm not complaining.  The clouds are probably keeping the temperature down, which is good, because I like the cooler weather we've been having.

It's time for the monthly Turtle Trot update, organized by Claudette over at BAP Attack.  We all picked ten WIPs to work on at the beginning of the year, giving monthly progress reports about them on the 10th.  The reason that I keep showing only the same four is that four of my original TT pieces are finished, and the other two are just not calling to me now.  But I do have my hands full with these four because they are all large projects.

First up is (let's get this one over with) my hardanger table topper, Pristine by Cindy Valentine.

 

This is what I did last month--I filled in this triangle with all the eyelets that you see in the photo.  I'm doing these little slices of the project because if I took a photo of the whole piece, it would be hard to see what's been accomplished.

 

So this month I did another triangle's worth of eyelets.  Quite a bit harder to see!  I'm somewhat embarrassed to be putting these photos up because this project is a hot mess.  I started it on 2006 and wasn't going to do the eyelets at that time, so I started cutting.  (Any eyelets in a project like this should be done before the cutting starts, but oh well.  Nothing "bad" has happened yet!)

Second is Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself:

 

Here's where I was last month.

 

And here's this month.

I love all the rabbits and birds in this one.

And the Quaker-like trees.

And the Native American saying.

Third, we have the bottles.

 

Yes, it's 99 by Ink Circles.

Here's where I was at last month.

 

This month, I put up another six-pack.

I certainly hope they don't "happen to fall"

before I can get the shelf constructed!

Sorry, my corny sense of humor

got the better of me.

Finally, I'm still plugging away at Cross My Heart's Mates.

 

This is last month's photo.

Has anyone been wondering about the "milestone"

in the title of this post?

Well, here it is...

 

Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about!

I'm so excited, you'd think I was done with the whole piece.

But Wolfgang is all done.

There is not one stitch missing--that I can see--

in his slightly menacing face.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on Wanda, though.
(Of course I've named my wolf friends!)

I'm beginning to think that this project

will actually be finished sometime in 2015.
We'll see.

So that's it from here.

Hope you had a fun weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

Stitching from Stash in July

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the end of July already and that means it's time for my Stitch from Stash report.  This is a Stitch-a-Long hosted by Mel of Epic Stitching where we all try to stick to a $25/month budget for new stash acquisitions.  I have three finishes and a new little start to show you, too, but first the stats.

I spent a total of $10.25 this past month,
all of it on this one little chart:

I guess I was just in a patriotic mood.

And, it's very cute!

This month I've been stitching on the usual suspects:  Mates, A Tree by Itself and, currently, 99.  And I stitched and finished...

 ...my Semaphore quilt.  My self-imposed deadline was September 1st for this autumn-colored cutie, but I beat that by a lot!  (That usually never happens around here.)  The bottom part of the quilt that's in the shade shows the quilted fern design a little better.  You can click to make any of the photos larger...

...and here's Nancy Buhl's Flowers from my Needle from the workshop I took in back in May.  This had been my traveling piece, because it was so mindless and small--and it was stitched on 18-count canvas so it was easy to see.  What looks like a frame is really the top of a lovely music box.  All I had to do for finishing was trim the piece a little and pop it into the top of the box.  Easy peasy!  It was fun to stitch--I'll miss it.

Oh, don't worry!  I have another small 18-count canvaswork piece in my stash that's been kitted up since last year and which I'll start the next time I go a-traveling.  This is why the Stitch from Stash SAL is so easy for me.

And finally, finally:  The Long-Lost Pumpkin.  That's not its real name, but that's how I was starting to think of it, since it took so long to get it finish-finished.  Remember this?

If you've looked at this blog at all in the past year, of course you do!  And you were probably hoping never to see it again!  I posted about my June 4th finish of this weeks ago.  It was at the finisher's until the day before yesterday.  It took a long time to be finished--much longer than the three weeks which was promised--and then it was weighted wrong (very lopsided) and the green crocheted stem had it's wire poking out.  It was a mess.  Why would the finisher/store even think that a customer would be happy with something like that?  I had the store send it back to the finisher to be done properly, even though I had wanted to enter it in the Lake County Fair and didn't think that it could be fixed in 10 days' time, which is all the time that was left at that point.  But it was more important to me to get it finished properly.  So I did get a call on Friday that it was done (again) and went to pick it up.  Saturday was the Fair deadline.    Did I mention that it's a 120-mile round trip to the store?  The weighting issue was fixed and the stem was fixed, but overall it was just OK.  To be honest, I probably would have been happier with the result if I had not been mentally comparing it to the stitched model that Debbie (Stiehler, the designer) had brought with her when she taught the workshop last year.  And the store owner did give me a 10% discount for my extra trip.  All I have to say is it's a good thing that paying for finishing doesn't count against the Stitch from Stash budget, even with a 10% discount!

Debbie Stiehler's Autumn Pumpkin Patch.

Yes, it looks fine in the photo.

All's well that ends well, I guess.

Last but not least,

here is my new little start (from stash, natch):

This is Blackbird Design's Bird in Hand.

I seem to be in a bird mood recently.

My friend Anne gifted me the chart a while back.

Yes, I just finished another small piece called "Bird in Hand,"

but that was from La D Da.

This will be just a bird, a branch and a border, no words.

I'm using a dark blue floss instead of the red

which was used on the original model.

The ground is a 40-count piece of mystery linen from my stash.

So that's it from here.

I'll be back in a week or so with 

the Lake County Fair report.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

July Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the 10th of the month, so it's time for the Turtle Trot report.  What's Turtle Trot?  It's a stitch-along hosted by Claudette of BAP Attack.  Everyone who joined picked 10 WIPs at the beginning of the year, and we report on their progress monthly.  And this month I've been turtling along slowly again.  Here's what I did on four of my pieces:

This is Pristine by Cindy Valentine.

It's a rather large handanger table topper,

so I'm only going to show what I've worked on.

I had started stitching eyelets in one of 

four large triangles last month.

My progress this month.

No, I didn't wash the piece.

I just photographed it in direct sunlight!

I told you it was white!

Next is Ink Circle's 99.

My progress as of last month.

Here's where I am this month.

When I started this SAL in January, I had one shelf completed.

It's taken me until July just to finish the second shelf!

Next are my old and dear friends,

Mr. and Mrs. Wolf,

better known as Cross My Heart's Mates.

Here's where I was last month.

This is where I'm at now.

Would you believe that this is

40-50 hours' worth of stitching?

But despite my relatively slow pace,

 I remain happy with the progress on this one

and I'm surprised that I'm sticking with it.

Finally, at long last

I dug out Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself.

This is where I left off in September, 2013.

 Not a whole lot of progress,

but I intend to change this from a UFO into a WIP,

with some progress made each month.

Well, that's it from here.

Hope you're getting some time to stitch.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

A Day Downtown

Hey Blog Buddies,

Hope you've had a great weekend with a little time for some stitching, too.  I've managed to get a little cross stitch in this weekend, but earlier in the week DH and I took the train to the Loop for a day in the city.  I brought my camera with, and thought I'd share a few photos of my neck of the woods.

It was a gorgeous day, so we took a walk up Michigan Avenue, starting at Millennium Park.  

 

This is Cloud Gate, designed by

British artist Anish Kapoor,

but everyone here calls it The Bean.

You can walk right up to it and take a selfie!

 Another fun feature of the park is Crown Fountain,

designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa.

It consists of two glass block towers

with images of 1,000 Chicagoans projected onto them,

and a little reflecting pool in the middle.

Further north is the Tribune Tower,

completed in 1925 and designed by

Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells.

It's neo-gothic in style with flying buttresses at the top.

One of the many cool things about this building

is the fact that there are almost 150 stones

or fragments of structures from around the world

 embedded in the outside walls of the building.

 Nope, not gonna make you look at all of them!

Right across the street from the Tribune Tower is the Wrigley Building.

This building was designed by the firm of

Graham, Anderson, Probst and White 
for William Wrigley, Jr. (the gum guy).

It was the first major office building built north of the Chicago River

(it was built just a couple of years earlier than the Tribune Tower)

and the first one to have air conditioning in the City of Chicago.

And speaking of all things Wrigley....

Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs)

is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year,

and you can find these decorated seats along Michigan Avenue.

I wasn't going to take a photo, but DH urged me on
(I'm so not a Cubs fan).

It's weird--in Chicago, if you follow baseball,

you're either a Cubs fan or a Sox fan--never both.

I will say that the late Ron Santo was a great guy,

just had the misfortune to play for the Cubs!

One of our newest skyscrapers, the Trump Tower.

Those letters are 20 feet high and the Mayor hates them

and is looking for ways to get them removed permanently.

The Donald, on the other hand, thinks that they're wonderful

and enhance the values of the neighboring property!

It was a gorgeous day for a boat ride on the Chicago River!

And here's the reason we went downtown:

Taking photos was strictly prohibited

inside of the theater, so this is the best you'll get.

The musical was great-- there were over 60 songs

made famous by the Motown artists

of the 60's and 70's.

And here's one last little surprise.

It's stitch-related.

The finishes in 2014 on this here blog

have been few and far between,

not because I haven't been stitching,

but I've been devoting a lot of time

to my larger projects.

But I did manage to finish my funky bird.

This is La D Da's A Bird in Hand

using the recommended fabric and silks,

except for the eye and spots on the bird,

where I substituted Gloriana India Ink.

The recommended color was just too

close in tone to the bird's body. 

It's nice to have a finish once in a while.

I have several other smaller bird designs

which I should plug into what passes for

my rotation these days.

That's it from here.

Thanks for visiting!

Inspired Summer Seminar

Hey Blog Buddies,

How has your weekend been going?  Seems we've had more than our fair share of rain here just lately, but that didn't dampen the spirits of the attendees at Inspired Needle's Summer Seminar with Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers.   I know, I know--yet another seminar/workshop?  Don't I have enough to stitch?  Well, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet Paulette whose blog I've been following and designs I've been stitching for some time--and it was just a 30-minute drive. There were 50 of us at the Ruffled Feathers Clubhouse, and the entire day was delightful!  Paulette was very friendly and lots of fun and she designed a wonderful new patriotic piece for us to stitch!

Laura, who blogs as Maude & Mozart is on the left in this photo.  I was glad to finally meet her in person after knowing her "virtually" for several years.  (You should go to her blog and read the highly entertaining exploits of her "posse" at this event!)  Paulette is on the right--she really didn't need to wear her name tag!

 

Here is the project we stitched--Liberty Inn.

Everyone oohed and aahed when they saw the entire project--

Paulette had given us only a sneak peek ahead of time.

She also gave us pins, crushed walnut shells and six fabulous pieces of wool...

 

...to make a few of these lovely strawberries.

The designs on many of them are done entirely in pins.

Paulette gave us complete instructions

on how to finish these.

Cathy (who is Inspired Needle)

gifted each of us with a  nifty project bag.

 You can see that I have the Seminar project

stuffed into my new bag already.

If you're me, you can never have too many project bags!

She also gave each of us this super cute thread holder,

which was inspired by one of the motifs

in the Liberty Inn piece.

Cathy, you're the best!

The kit contained 36-count linen,

and Paulette recommended that

the piece be stitched using only one strand of floss.

Since I am a bit of a maverick (and a coverage freak),

I chose to stitch it using two strands.

 Here is the difference between my two strands on the left

and my friend Joyce's one strand on the right.

I've got to admit that I really like the way

the colors in her piece seem to have more contrast,

but it's too late for me to start rippin'!

Here is where I am so far.

I'd really like to continue on with this piece,

but I was in the middle of getting caught up

with four months of a SAL before the seminar,

and feel I should pick that piece up where I left off.

So I'll put Liberty Inn away for now.

Such problems!

Hope your weekend went swimmingly.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!