Three More Finishes

Hey Blog Buddies,

I haven't been stitching as madly as my last two posts would suggest.  I do have three more finishes to show you, but one was started over a year ago, another has been finished for a while, and the third?  Well, OK, I did whip that up in the last couple of weeks.  But needlepoint seems to go much quicker than cross stitch for some reason.

Here are the photos:

Long-time readers of this blog may remember this one.

I stitched it up for others in the past,

and thought I'd stitch one for myself.

This is just one of several cute little
hardanger designs from the Christmas 1991 issue of

Cross Stitch Sampler.

I started this piece around this time last year.

When it wasn't finished in time for Christmas 2014,

back into the bag it went until
just a few days ago.
And now it's hanging on my tree.

The next piece was finished about a month ago,

but I haven't shown it here because it was a gift.

This is Jeannette Douglas Designs' Pumpkin Pin Cushion.

The recipient was quite pleased with this.

This is another fabulous finish-finish from my friend Averyclaire.

The last one is Deb Bee's Designs' Ho Ho Ho.

This was a quick and fun stitch.

I will admit to switching out the DMC floss
for DMC No. 5 pearl cotton.
I had it in my stash, so why not?!
Laying 3 to 4 threads is just not my idea of
relaxation.

And here it is, all finished.

Not sure if this will turn into a picture,

box top insert or what.  Stay tuned.

Alrighty then.

That's it from here.

Hope everyone has a happy holiday.

I'll be back before the end of the year

with a Rotation Recap.

Thanks so much 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  Four threads were withdrawn for the hemstitching row.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.

Seven Small Finishes

Hey Blog Buddies,

How's your weekend been going?  I've been dabbling with a blackwork cyber-class that's just gotten underway, but more on that in another post.

I've also been doing some small projects, partly to take a needed break from all of the BAPs that are currently in progress, and partly to make a couple of small things to sell at my quilt guild's boutique coming up in early November--yes, it's just around the corner!

First up, we have BBD's Bird in Hand:

I switched the red floss in the model

for Gloriana's Holiday Blue.

I put my initials on it, so I'm keeping this one.

It was such an easy stitch

(I so appreciate monochrome projects after working on

 my 50-shades-of-gray-and-tan wolves every day)

that I decided to make one for the Boutique...

 

This was stitched with WDW's Merlot.

The colors are less bright in real life.

Next is the little hardanger piece

that Roz (former owner of Nordic Needle)

designed exclusively for retreat attendees this year.

It came with the cute, coordinating metal

heart-shaped box, which makes it more useful.

 I stitched this because I originally intended

to sell it at the Boutique.

But it turned out so nice,

and I can't buy another one because it's a Retreat exclusive,

that I decided to keep it for myself.  (My bad!)

 Here's the fourth strawberry that I've stitched this year.

They're all from Prairie Schooler.

Doesn't look much like a strawberry, does it?

Here is it, all finished up.

Now it looks like a strawberry!

I had three other stitched strawberries

that had been sitting around most of the year,

waiting to be finish-finished.

 After finishing the first one,

...they each got easier...

...and easier to do!

I won't lie, they were very fiddly,

but the cuteness factor makes up for it, I think.

Everyone from Eva at Stitching the Night Away in Illinois 

  to Cathy of Inspired Needle

kept telling me that I could finish these ornies myself,

so thanks for the encouragement, guys!

The "holly" strawberry is going to the Boutique.

Depending on my mood,

I may take another one there to sell, too.

Still hoping to make a few more small things

for the Boutique, so stay tuned.

That's it from here.

Stay stitchy, my friends.

Thanks 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!

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!

November IHSW: Tornado Warning, Power Outage and a Finish

Hey Blog Buddies,
Here in Illinois we had some pretty severe weather yesterday.  There was widespread property damage, some injuries and even some deaths due to the storms, and my thoughts are with those families.   A little before 1:00 yesterday afternoon the sirens went off here and the loudspeaker told us to "take shelter NOW."  Evidently there was a tornado on the ground nearby.  We had one heck of a storm for about a half hour, lots of rain and high winds but no tornado here.  We lost power right away, though, and didn't get it back until 9:00 this morning.  (Many people are still without power.)

Well, before the power outage I had been in the middle of trying to finish-finish my little Tudor Tassel ornament.  When DH went out to get some spare batteries for our emergency lights, I found the window with the most light coming through and continued where I had left off on the ornament.  It wasn't what I would call "stitching light," but beggars can't be choosers.  When he came home and saw what I was doing, he told me he thought I had a Problem.  I quite agreed.  At around 4:00 I was this close (picture a thumb and forefinger a hair's width apart) to finishing, but what little light remained was almost gone, so I reluctantly stopped.  After the power came back on this morning, I was able to finish it and take photos, so without further ado, here is the saga of the Tudor Tassel.

I started stitching this ornament back in August and posted this progress pic:

 

The above piece, finished, looks like this:

This is a Victoria Sampler design,

from the 2010 JCS Christmas Ornament issue.

It's very, very cute, but I think of it as

a product of the Evil Genius of Thea Dueck.

First off, I don't like doing wrapped bars.

I know, they give a more delicate, lacy

look than woven bars, but still.

And this is only one of three sides to the ornament,

so three of these need to be made.

 

I've had this kitted up for three years.

I was reluctant to even start it

because I thought the finishing would be very tricky.

 

For those of you contemplating making (and finishing)

this ornament, I highly recommend getting this publication:

 

This leaflet had two pages of finishing instructions,

complete with photos, which left

nothing to the imagination.

I believe there was only a short paragraph on

how to finish the ornament

in the 2010 JCS Ornament Issue.

And of course, there are directions for

three more adorable tassels here!

Once I had read and reread the finishing instructions,

I actually was encouraged to try finishing it myself.

 

So I had my three sides stitched and

was ready to cut out around the hardanger bottom.

 

Oh no!

Oh yes.  I was careless and the first thing I did

was cut into the blanket stitch.

Arrrrrrghhhhh!

But it's nothing that a little ripping,

Fray Check and restitching won't fix, is it?  (sigh)

The whole project was very fiddly from start to finish,

and cutting into the blanket stitches didn't help.

 

So, blanket stitch repaired,

here are my three stitched pieces.

I flipped one over face down to show you the

fusible interfacing called for in the instructions.

Not certain that the fusible interfacing would stick,

Thea also recommended that you sew it down.  (I did.)

By the way, the seams have an overlock zigzag,

per the instructions.

 

On to the finished product...

I have to say, this ornament

is much cuter in person than any photo.

I got a little carried away with the bead strands--

they turned out quite a bit longer than I thought they would.

It's hard to see, but there are three strands.

The ornament is hanging from a pencil,

and I'm standing in front of my garage door,

taking a photo with my free hand.

If my neighbors thought I was nutty before, they're sure of it now.

I tried out many spots in front of, and inside of, the house,

before hitting upon this one.

 

 

Yeah, I know, not as good.

That last one is on my Halloween tree,

cleared of ornaments on one side to showcase The Tassel.

Yes, it's still up, and yes, I have a Problem.

 

Can you tell I'm really excited about this finish?

And no, just in case you were going to ask,

I'm not going to start any of the other tassels

any time soon.

 

That's it from here.

To check out what the other Hermitters

were doing this weekend,

click here.

 

Hope you all had a great weekend,

with better weather than we had in Illinois.

Thanks, as always, for visiting! 

Fraidy Cat

Hey Blog Buddies,
I finished--and ornamentified--my February Halloween ornament:  Fraidy Cat by Jamie Kile of Knotted Tree NeedleArt.

I'm not  totally satisfied with it...

The one strand of black doesn't cover all that well,

even on 40-count linen.

But I do like the orange linen (brighter IRL),

and it will certainly be hung on my tree come October.

I also managed to finish my prework

for the Nordic Needle Retreat

intermediate hardanger project...

...and I'm not even leaving until April 17th!

 

To celebrate this victory over procrastination,

I started a new piece:

Little House Needlework's Home of a Needleworker.

That will be my rotation piece for this week (photo soon).

DH is now beginning to ask questions about

just how many WIPs I have.

Actually, the WIPs are at five now.

The UFOs are another story!

 

Hope you had a groovy weekend.

Thanks for visiting!