My Trips to the Framer

My framer reopened a few weeks ago, and I had five finished pieces that had been just waiting for that day!  I decided to take them in one at a time, however, because we've been having a lot of protests in the area and, quite frankly, I figured it would be bad enough to lose one piece, let alone five!  They (father/daughter framing team) understood.  But my pieces are all back home safe and sound now, so here they are:

The first piece that I had framed was Spring Robin

by Widgets and Wool Primitives.

I didn't get it in time for this spring, but I'll have it next year.

Next up, Rainforest Birds, my Charley Harper piece.

My framer actually took this piece home with her
one night for safekeeping.

I can't say enough nice things about these people!

This is my "Covid" piece that I designed myself.

I just took a quote that I liked,

and added some motifs from a

folk art embroidery book that I've had for decades.

I did it the hard way,

scratching the chart out on graph paper by hand

since I don't have any cross stitch software.

This is my favorite piece;
they couldn't have found a more perfect frame!

Pandora's Box, a freebie from Blackwork Journey.

The photo doesn't do it justice.

Last but not least, I decided to double-frame
this needlepoint piece.

The canvas is by Eye Candy
and the design's name is self-evident.

I was really surprised when I went to pick it up
and they said, "No charge."

I do give them a lot of business, but I wasn't expecting that!

These folks are the best!

And finally, a small pillow finish...

...from the Little Dove's Year series of monthly patterns.

What do I have in the works now?
So glad you asked, because I have more photos...

I'm actually done stitching this one,
but it still needs to be pillowfied,
hopefully before July.
Little House Needleworks, Freedom

Plum Street Samplers,
Serial Bowl Collection, Lesson Two.
Here's another future pillow.
Once I've finished "painting" the house,
there's a huge bowl of flowers on the roof,
and a large swath of grass on the bottom,
so I've got a bit more to go.
There are five charts in this series,
and they all come with over-dyed threads,
but the suggestion is to use one strand
because if you use two strands you might run out.
I do use two strands and
I've had good luck so far not running out,
except with the red in this piece.
I was able to stitch all the letters except one,
and believe me, I used every scrap of thread.
Since the kit is five years old,
I figured I might not be able to match
the color, even with the same thread.
So I pawed through my stash first and,
lo and behold, I found an almost exact match
with a different color from a different manufacturer.
And since both threads are over-dyed,
no one, not even DH "the color guy" as I call him,
can tell the difference.
So you might keep that in mind
if you run out of an over-dyed thread in the
middle of a project.

This is a workshop that I took through my 

local ANG chapter last year,

Jennifer Riefenberg's Pumpkin Patch.

There's a lot of laying of threads involved

which I'm not fond of

so this will take a while, I think.

This is one of the 35 projects in the book

"Splendid Samplers to Cross Stitch" by Chris Rankin.

It's called Caribbean Sampler in the book;

I call it Southwest Sampler.

I love the rainbow bands between the squares.

Last but not least, this is my start on

And Heaven and Nature Sing by Kathy Barrick.

I usually like to stitch seasonal pieces

closer to the season, but since I'm using

the called-for silks, summer stitching it is

because silk catches on my dry, flaky fingertips

in the winter and drives me crazy crazier.

The linen photographed blue

(and a lovely blue it is)

but in real life it's light gray.

And the wreath is stitched in 

two shades of green.

That's it from here.

Thanks for stopping by.

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.

This Year's Goals

Hey stitching peeps. How's 2018 been treating you so far?

I've put some effort into planning my stitching line-up for this year, and the list is surprisingly modest...so far.  Let's start with my current WIPs:

This is Winter Wind by Prairie Schooler.

This photo shows only the top third of the design,

but I'm quite a bit farther than that.

I generally don't like to predict,

but this will likely be my first finish this year,

perhaps some time this week.

I've got a bit done on Blue Ribbon Designs'
Blue Jeans and Daisies.

This is a fairly good-sized piece, and
I'm hoping for a mid-year finish. (hehe)
If I don't finish it this year,
I'll have to pick out the date!

Here is Ho Ho Ho by Debbie Forney.
At a minimum, I need to do Santa's beard,
to convince myself that I still remember
how to do the bullion knots that make it up.
If I get the beard and mustache done,
it will all be downhill from there.
Maybe.

And my last current WIP is
our old friend the Prairie Schooler Alphabet.

Poor headless owl.
A little more done in the past couple weeks, no?
My fervent desire is to finish O through X this year.
(hahhahahahahaha)

A piece that I need to get started on

is Plum Street Sampler's Merry Friends.

This needs to be finished by the vernal equinox,

because I will be taking a tart finishing class 

from Vonna (the Twisted Stitcher) at

the Fancy Works retreat in March,

and this will be the tart!

No, I have not started this one yet.

There will be a patriotic pincushion exchange

at the retreat, and if the tart stitching goes well,

here is something that I had planned

to make for the exchange:

Liberty Starburst by

Summer House Stitche Workes.

This one is a definite maybe.

And I simply must do a blackwork piece, right?

I have this cute bird from Tanja Berlin, all ready to go.
I must admit that it looks a little intense.

In March I have two workshops to attend:

Kathy Rees (Needle Delights Originals)
is teaching one of her pieces at my ANG guild!
I'm really excited about this one.
I've done so many of her pieces,
but I've never had the opportunity to take one of her classes.

The name of the piece is Highland Circle.

Then my quilt guild snagged Bonnie Hunter (Quiltville)
and she will be teaching her Pineapple Blossom quilt.

I'm a little nervous about tackling this,
but the only way to improve a skill is with practice, right?

And that's it, so far.
As I said before, a modest line-up for me.
We'll see what the rest of the year brings.

Hope you're having fun with your stitching
because that's what it's all about.
Thanks for visiting!

Leap Year List - November Report

Hey Blog Buddies,

Less than two months left until 2017.  How time flies!  Do you all have a list of projects to stitch for next year?  I do--but I'll wait until January for the Big Reveal.

In the meantime, I'm still plugging away on my 2016 list, which tends to get longer as the year wears on instead of shorter.  What's up with that?  Here's what happened since we last got together.

In the middle of last month I attended another workshop--my last one for this year, I swear!  This one was Ho Ho Santa, taught by Deborah Forney.  It is a cute 3-sided stand up.  

This was our class kit.  Look at all those Rainbow Gallery threads!  And it came with a 30-page instruction book.

Another view of just the threads.  You can't see them all, because they're piled one on top of the other.  On the right side in the plastic sleeve are two bullion needles:  5" and 7" long(!), respectively.

Here are what the three sides of the piece will look like... someday.  Santa's eyebrows, beard and mustache are all bullion knots.  Now I have had a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with bullion knots in the past, especially the ones on canvas. But Debbie sat down and demonstrated the construction of one bullion knot after the other until we were all confident that we could do one.

I'm really excited about my doodle canvas.  I know it's only five knots, but the top right knot has 30 wraps!  Very fiddly, and it took a while to get done, but these things don't just pop into place, even for Debbie.  Fortunately, most of the bullions on the beard are 7 wraps or less, like my row of three on the far left.

The mustache, however, will be the most challenging part of the project.  And look at that red nose!  I think that Santa must be a tippler.

Here is what I've gotten done so far.

(close up of the packages)

I can hardly wait to be able to get back to this fun project.

But enough of that.

Let's get down to brass tacks with the rotation.

First up is Needle Delights Originals' Spring Logs.

Here's where it was last month...

...and this month.

A close up so you can see the texture.

Some of the SAL participants think that the

variegated gray on the outer edge looks

out of place with all of the bright spring colors.

I say that Spring around here is always rainy.

Here's one we haven't seen in a while.
In January, I had 4 of the 6 sides
completed for the pin cube, part of 
With My Needle's Kindred Spirits project.
I have been doing a little here and there
on the last 2 sides during the past few months.

And now I have a completed pin cube.
And I put it together myself!
There was an awful lot of over-one stitching
on 36-count linen here.
I found that cubes are very hard to photograph.
One side always seems to be in shadow,
even with lights on every side.

Here is the bottom of the cube.

Now all I have to finish are
the needle roll,
the scissor case,
the ruler cover,
the pipkin,
and the lining of the wooden carrier!
The pin cube took me a year.
Hmmm, let's see...

Finally, the month wouldn't be complete
without Prairie Schooler's Alphabet.

The D, last month.

And this month--another finish!
The eagle's head was charted in yellow,
but I didn't care for that
so I switched to white and back stitched
in 3371 so that the head would show up.

I even got a modest start on E.
Wanna see? (Of course you do!)

The stitcher on the bottom looks like
she's conducting an orchestra.
I think she needs to sit a little closer to her work.
But her posture's great, though.

 Last month I showed you a little raven
that I had stitched.
This month it's finish finished
courtesy of Averyclaire.

I love the pompom finish.

And here is a pompom tip:
I bought my pompoms from my LNS
and they are fine.
Some discount stores carry
 the mini-pompoms, too.
As I was examining the package in one such store,
I noticed that the material used is
100% nylon, and if the pompoms get
near a hot iron, they will melt
quicker than you can say "Eeek!"
So if you see mini-pompoms in a store,
be sure to check the package.
Just so you know.

That's it from here.
Congratulations if you've read this far.
Thanks for visiting!

Leap Year List - October Report

Hello Blog Buddies!

How did your September go?  Mine went very quickly!  We had a very warm month here, so my head is still in summer mode and it's hard to believe that there are only 79 days until Christmas!  (Somebody slap me...)

Rotation stitching took a small hit this past month, but I did OK considering I had a few distractions, as follows...

I started and finished this piece by

Plum Street Samplers, one of three patterns

from the Goodness and Plenty leaflet.

It will be made into a small pillow.

In September, I took an EGA French Boutis class,

taught by my good friend Averyclaire and

Elizabeth Janzen, the designer of the piece.

We were given a very detailed 10-page 

set of instructions to create this beautiful needle book.

Here is what I accomplished in class

on the wing of the cicada.

It's just a running stitch--

but there are a lot of them!

Then you take the provided yarn

and run it through the channels,

giving you a beautiful quilted look.

That is the short version.

This past weekend, I attended another EGA class

for Illinois State Day.

Kay Stanis was our teacher,

and Elegant Egg was our project.

We had three different colorways to choose from.

Most of us chose the purple.

First we had fun lacing up our canvas,

then we transferred the pattern onto the canvas

using the tissue paper method.

I didn't take a picture of that in class,

but it's similar to what I did

on Tanja Berlin's horse.

Here is my start on the

Milanese stitch background, 

done with metallic filament

right over all the lines that we basted!

The funky little flower in the lower right

corner was just for practice.

Hopefully, I'll do a better one

on the actual egg.

Speaking of Kay Stanis, I will segue right

into my rotation, and her

Copper Illumination piece.

You may recall this is my ANG challenge piece.

Here's what it looked like the last time we peeked at it.

Basically, this is what got done in the 2015 class.

Here it is now--all borders completed!

There's nothing like a little challenge to get
a project going again, eh?

A couple of close-ups.

I think this piece may go on hiatus

for a little while because

I don't need to have it finished

until next June...

For the past three years, my ANG chapter

has chosen one of the "log" designs

by Needle Delights Originals

as their ongoing project,

and this year is no different.

Here is my start on Spring Logs.

You can see that the logs

don't really line up on this piece.

This should be another fast, fun stitch.

Finally, one or two of you

may be wondering if I had any time

for my Prairie Schooler Alphabet piece.

I did.

My D isn't quite finished,

but I got a good start.

I love starting the day with this piece.

It's so easy, it's keeping me (somewhat) sane.

Well, that's it from here.
Thanks, as always, for dropping by.