Stitching While S.I.P.

Hello, My Fellow Shut-Ins!

Of course, the S.I.P. in the title refers to sheltering in place, which most of us are doing right now.  So while I have a captive audience, I'll take this opportunity to show you some finishes and also what I've been working on lately.  Let's start with the finishes...

I love the robins on this pillow.

March is the month when you start to see them again

around these parts.

From Heart in Hand's Square Dance series.

Jeanette Douglas taught this class last year

at a retreat in Bloomington, Indiana.

I just recently got these two pieces back from the finisher.

About five years ago, Plum Street Samplers 

came out with a series of Sampler Lesson bowl fillers.

I, of course, bought all the charts (with thread).

This is the second one that's completed.

And yet another March pillow.

This is from the Little Dove's Year leaflet.

In the chart, the fourth sheep was on a hill

that was floating above the ground.

I decided to extend the hill downward

and backstitch the month over the cross stitching.

Now for the WIPs...

I'm close to a finish on this Charley Harper piece.

Just a couple of sections on the large bird and

a small piece of the background need to be stitched.

The name of the piece is Rainforest Birds.

I'm getting close on this one as well.

This is a freebie (!) from Blackwork Journey

entitled Pandora's Box.

In addition to the blackwork motifs,

there are boxes with cross stitch,

pulled work and pattern darning.

This book is from 1995,

and I came across the cover piece on Instagram.

It was love at first sight.

There are a lot of enablers on Instagram!

I found the book for sale on Etsy,

and started kitting it up right away.

Here is my start.

It was somewhat of a challenge.

The book was in perfect condition,

but the printed chart was so small

as to be unreadable.

So I enlarged it on my copier/printer.

The model was stitched with Anchor yarn,

which doesn't necessarily correspond to DMC colors.

I matched colors from my fairly large stash

of DMC floss to the photo as best I could.

Finally, the chart did not have every tenth

line bolded, and no stitch count was given.

So, after manually counting and

marking every tenth line, I was ready to go.

I know that two empty boxes

are not very exciting, but just wait.

Here is my final WIP, Spring Robin

from Widgets and Wool Primitives.

The chart was gifted to me by Averyclaire

a couple of years ago.  Thanks, K!

The fabric is 20-count "Summer Sunset" Lugana.

So what is on my staying-at-home horizon?

More small pillows, of course.

I have a very fun painted canvas

that I plan on starting when

Rainforest Birds is completed.

And after that, who knows?

Thanks, as always, for visiting.

Stay well.

More Finishes... and Galleria

My happy, chubby bird is finished!

Jolly Robin came as a kit from Bothy Threads.

I love the speckled aida that came with it;

it was fun to stitch.

My framer finished him in record time.

This Laura J. Perin piece, Nordic Valentine,

was finished recently, too.

I was attempting to attach the

called-for beads with invisible thread,

when I thought to myself

"Life's too short."

It looks fine without the beads.

This is the second piece from

Jeannette Douglas' Flower Tray set.

I'm going to find someone to make it

into a pincushion drum for me.

And, finally, just in time for October...

This is from Little Dove's Year.

I changed the lettering

from backstitch to cross stitch

and omitted the second spider.

I backed it with the fabric shown  in the 

background of the photo.

It reminds me of centipedes,

so it's appropriately creepy.

I almost didn't find this fabric

because it was at the bottom of a

large pile of various non-purple pieces.

I wound up re-organizing all my fabric by color.

I'll be able to find all of the purples now;

I discovered that I don't have a lot of them.

Almost two weeks ago

I went to the annual

Needlework Galleria

held in St. Charles, Missouri.

The event was bigger than ever this year;

the entire fourth floor of the

Embassy Suites was given over to it,

and about a half dozen shops were on 3.

This is just a smattering of photos

from some of the participating shops.

The bottom photo was from a

counted canvaswork shop,

participating for the first time this year.

See the tall skinny red/blue piece

in the top row.

Doesn't it have my name on it?

Of course it did!

My haul.

I went crazy at the fabric place (lower left).

If you look at the lower right part of the photo,

you can see the instruction booklet,

threads and blue canvas

shown in the model photo above.

These people (sellers) were from Canada,

and I had never seen their pieces before!

I saved on shipping!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Another thing I really liked about the Galleria

were all the doo-dads at the various shops.

Here's a close-up of those that I bought:

A couple of "square" hoops; 

metal tea balls to cross stitch

for Christmas ornaments;

little rubber cylinders to use when

tightening a hoop or to grab a needle;

and the wooden octopus square

will measure a border of either

1", 2" or 3" if you place it at the

corner of your fabric!

See, not many!

There were many other cute doo-dads

that I didn't buy.

I do have some self-control!

I seem to have finished most of

my WIPs at the same time.

I'm currently working on just

one Halloween small

which should be finished very soon.

I need to start a bunch of new projects now!

Well, that's it from here.

Thanks for visiting!

Catching Up

The time since my last post has been rather hectic, so we have a lot of catching up to do.  Let's get right to it, because there are a lot of photos.

This is my Prairie Schooler alphabet, finished as a quilted wall hanging by Vonna, the Twisted Stitcher.

I was able to find coordinating fabric that had a "stitched" alphabet pattern in it.  It was perfect for this piece!

I finished the last little bit of this Needle Delights Originals Easter design, and now its home is in the lid of a Sudberry box.

Another very recent finish is this little pillow from Hands on Design's A Year of Celebrations.  It's not my best finishing job, but it is what it is, and it looks cute from across the room.  The word "grow" under the daisies could almost be mistaken for "snow" which is what we got today.

This is from Prairie Schooler's A Prairie Year leaflet - the design for May.  A future pillow.

This design from Lizzie-Kate's Spring Smalls booklet is another future pillow.  I haven't been finishing these things too quickly, so these two may not make it for Spring 2019.

The ladybug that I showed a couple of posts ago now has a daisy to sit on...

I've started the background, and it is a painfully slow go.  I had planned to take this one to the county fair in August, but I'm not confident that it will be done in time.  We'll see.

I have a good start on this design by Jeanette Douglas.  It was featured in a class that she taught at the Fancy Works retreat in Bloomington, IN, at the end of March.  This will be a little tray, and there's a scissor fob and drum pinkeep in the set, too.  The overdyed ground fabric is really very pretty, but I guess my camera didn't like it.

This is the progress I've made on my ANG challenge piece.  Two and a half packages.  This one definitely won't be finished by the end of June, and I'll be $10 poorer.  But at least it's no longer a UFO.

Last but not least, this is what the stylish, color-coordinated dog will wear on a stroll if she's recovering from foot surgery and has a bandage that needs to be kept clean and dry...

Molly looks about as happy with the whole thing as we are.

I think we're caught up now.

Thanks for stopping by.

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!