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!

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.

I Have Conquered "The Beast"!

Finishes

Yes, it's true.  I have prevailed over the Beast!  Not only is it finished, but framed as well.

My framer tends to finish these pieces in record time.  (Maybe he feels a sense of urgency because he's 94!)  Anyway, he works with his daughter, and she wasn't there when I went to pick this up.  They have a new credit card reader, and he hadn't yet gotten the tutorial on how to operate it.  So he just sent me on my way with the framed piece and said we could worry about the payment later!  We did go back later that afternoon, with our checkbook this time, even though he said it wasn't necessary that we come back the same day.  I hope he wouldn't do that with a new customer, although I wouldn't be surprised if he did--he's very nice.  And they do know me well.

Here are some close-ups...

I didn't bother to change the date!

Blue Jeans and Daisies

by Blue Ribbon Designs

I mentioned a March small that was being pillowfied in my last post.  Here it is...

It turned out OK!

A Prairie Year - March

by The Prairie Schooler

Progress

My Lizzie-Kate Spring piece hasn't received much love, so I won't show that here, but I'm moving right along on the Easter piece.

Holiday Delights, Easter

by Needle Delights Originals

New Start

I usually like to throw a blackwork piece into the mix, and this year I chose a PDF download from Ajisai Press...

Here is my start on the ladybug...

It's kind of scary looking, and way bigger than life-size.

It's like the ladybug that ate Cleveland!

So that's it from here.

Hope your February is going along well.

Thanks for visiting!

Only One WIP!

Let's pick up where we left off, and I'll tell you how my WIPs dwindled down to just one.  (Now when I talk about WIPs, I am not including any of my UFOs.  They will be a story for another post.)

My mammoth project, the PS Alphabet, was stitched up and shipped off to the finisher to be made more beautiful.

I previously showed this little canvaswork start, Valentine's Day by Needle Delights Originals:

Since this design is very February, I wanted to finish it quickly, and I did.  These small designs are very fun to do.

I have a six-by-six box that I use to display seasonal designs in the lid, and this one is there now.

I had also shown you this little start...

...another seasonal design that I wanted to display with my other "winter" pillows.

So here it is.  The red and gray felt "pennies" were included with the chart.  The way I attached them looks a little ragged to me; the designer predicted that they would look similar to this, and said that it is part of their charm.  Okaaay.

I started and finished the March design from PS's A Prairie Year leaflet, but it is in the process of being pillowfied right now, so I'll show it next time.

So that left me with only Blue Ribbon Designs' Blue Jeans and Daisies (the "beast") in the WIP pile.  Here is my start on the lower part of the left third of the design (previously posted):

And here is where I was a couple of days ago (yes, I'm a bit farther than this today)...

I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this one.  I really like finishing projects more than starting them.  But I need to switch between projects; I usually stitch on at least two, sometimes three, projects during the course of a day.  Does this mean I have stitching ADD?  

So I needed to go to my very local "store" -- my computer/sewing room, open 24/7, 365 days a year -- and see what I could find.  Many, many projects got my attention, but I limited it to just two.

This is Spring, from Lizzie Kate's Spring Smalls leaflet.  There is a theme here, isn't there?  This one was not kitted up, so I had to hunt around for the threads and fabric.  The model was stitched on a beige-y linen, but I pepped it up by using Kermit as the ground.  I think it works for spring as well as Halloween.  (I had previously used this linen for L-K's Hocus Pocus--you can see it somewhere in this rather long post.) I always buy more than I need of any linen that I like--which is most of them!  This strategy works out well when you want to start a project when the store isn't open, or you simply don't want to leave the house!  This project should stitch up pretty quickly.  Yes, this will be another pillow.  2019 is the Year of the Small Pillows around here.

Easter Sunday occurs pretty late this year but spring, hopefully, is just around the corner.  I could keep those canvaswork hearts in my box until summer at least, but why do that when I have the Easter design by--you guessed it--Needle Delights Originals.

The colors are displaying a little strangely on my computer.  They are much more pastel-y in real life.  The tulips at the top, for instance, are medium pink, light yellow and medium purple.  Hopefully that's what you're seeing.  This one was a no-brainer:  all kitted up and ready to go.

Well, that's it from here.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.

Thanks, as always, for visiting.

A Snowy Weekend...

...is good for eating snow, if you're Molly...

...and good for staying indoors and stitching, if you're me.

Here is my latest small finish:

This is from Prairie Schooler's

A Prairie Year booklet.

I am into small seasonal pillows this year.

And as long as we're talking stitching,
these are the projects that

I'm actively working on and

sincerely hope to finish this year.
Actually, I hope to finish at least
two of them this month:

Minimal progress has been made on the Beast.

But at least those @#$%^&* bees are done!

The actual name of the project is

Blue Jeans and Daisies by

Blue Ribbon Designs.

I'm having a lot of issues with it.
This is definitely not one of the projects
that I hope to finish this month.

This is Needle Delights Originals'

Holiday Delights Valentine's Day.

Would you believe that the small hearts

come from a skein of Watercolours that is

 a totally different color than

the large heart?

And they show up less well

against the lilac background IRL.

So I held my breath and
ripped them out (very carefully)

because I wasn't restitching that background!

And I was careful to avoid the pink parts
 of the thread when I restitched the small hearts.

Better.

Here's another little seasonal start.

There are two very similar designs in this chart:

Solitude and Serenity.

I'm doing Solitude.

Last but not least
this one needs no introduction:

So near, and yet so far.

I lightened up the flowers considerably.

The red flowers would have been

the same color as the watering can.
And the purples would have been darker.
The leaves were charted in a much darker color, too.

I'm happy with the changes.

That's it for now.
Thanks for visiting!

Year End Wrap-Up

Hello, Blog Enthusiasts!  It's me and I'm back for a year-end stitching wrap-up.  I realize it was July when I last posted, so we have a lot of ground (get it?  ground?) to cover.  Where to start...?

But of course, the Prairie Schooler alphabet:

I showed the V for Vineyard finish in my last post, and here's the entire row.

And we have Y for Yarn...

...and the ampersand.

No Z.  Yet.

This is the fourth block in this series

that shows a woman stitching,

and the first one who's a lefty.

The stressed-out sewer in S is for Sewing

had her scissors in her left hand,

but she could be ambidextrous.

I finished BBD's Spell of the Moon.

...and Lizzie-Kate's Hocus Pocus...

...Blue Ribbon Designs' Hayride Happenings,

published in an issue of Just Cross Stitch;

I got the frame from Hobby Lobby...

...Needle Delights Originals' Poppers...

...and Boo Logs by the same designer...

...I pieced together a bed quilt from a

Bonnie Hunter workshop!

The actual quilting was outsourced

on this large piece.

I used up a lot of scraps and left-over

fabric with this one...

...this cute little thing was a kit by Hands on Design,

sold exclusively by one of my LNSes...

...my only Christmas finish this year,

from PS's Folk Art Christmas booklet...

...and finally January, from Hands on Designs'

A Year of Celebrations.

This one hasn't been pillowfied yet -

hopefully, it will be before 1/1/19.

I have made very few stitching plans for next year.

Obviously, finishing Z is for Zinnia is one of them.

I have a start...

I'd also like to finish Blue Jeans and Daisies,

otherwise known as "the Beast."

I've got quite a bit done, 

but I just don't enjoy stitching on this linen.

This is an icky photo;

I can't get the colors right on my little iPhone -

it's much prettier IRL.

I have this little design in the works,

Erica Michaels' Defining Winter.

It's going to be another pillow.

One can never be too rich, too thin

or have too many little pillows.

I plan on starting this blackwork piece "soonish."

Other than that, I think I'll just stitch

whatever strikes my fancy.

So that's it for this year.

Hope your 2018 was a good one.

Thanks, as always, for dropping by.