Auspicious August

Hey Blog Buddies,

Hope everyone's August went well.  
I was beginning to think I wouldn't get a post in this month, 
because I wanted to wait until I had another letter finish.  
But finally...

K is done!

I think the cat looks a bit nervous.

Maybe she's afraid that the birds

are going to start pecking at her ears.

I worked a bit on Rip-Ro, too.

Here's where I was last month.

And here it is now.

I had a good bit done on Forest last month.

And here it is now, all stitched.

I like the way the trees change color

when they overlap.

I made a couple of new starts, too.

I don't know if this will be

finished in time to be seasonally displayed, 

but at least I should have it for next year!

This has been in my stash pile for several years.

It finally called loudly enough for me to notice.

The Lake County Fair was in the middle of the month...

...and I did quite well.

This past weekend, I attended

Needlework Galleria with my friend Joyce.

It was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel

in St. Charles, Missouri.

There were close to 30 vendors,

mostly designers and some needlework shops,

and it took up the entire fourth floor of the hotel.

Since all the rooms were two-room suites,

the vendors set up their shops 

in the living room part of the

suite where they were staying.

I took this photo from the 12th floor where

our suite was, far from the madding crowd.
You can see the banners of some of the vendors
down on the fourth floor railing.

A tiny sample of goods from various shops.

I went a little nuts in the shop with all the fabric...

I got lots of nice 18- and 20-count evenweave,

good for over-one work!
Wait, am I planning on doing a lot of over-one work?!

I signed up for one class, the Round Robin.

Six vendors took turns presenting their small projects.  

Just what I need, six more projects!

But they're small...

Clockwise from top left, The Silver Needle's acorn stand-ups;

JBW's candy cane holder; Romyscreations' Christmas ornie;

J Design's Spooky Tin, Noteworthy Needle's

thimble holder (it's really small); and finally

Needle Bling's sampler pillow.

The Silver Needle is a needlework shop in Tulsa, OK.

They had a fabulous 2-suite shop jam packed 
with the most tantalizing stuff.

If you're ever near Tulsa, pay them a visit!

I have to give a shout out to Cathy from

Inspired Needle (my local LNS)

who puts on this incredible event year after year.

Thanks for all the hard work, Cathy.

It was well worth it.

That's it from here.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Slow Progress

Do you guys realize that the last "letter finish" (I) that I showed you on the Prairie Schooler alphabet was back in May?!  It seemed like J was taking a long time to finish--I did have to set it aside a couple of times for other projects with deadlines.  But, finally, here it is...

There is a lot of stitching on that pumpkin!

I did have another small finish, too.

This is Victoria Sampler's Christmas Spools--

quick to make and easy to finish.

The trick here is finding a wooden spool,

although I have noticed that some needlework shops

are carrying large "new" wooden spools.

I happened to have an older spool in my stash.

Currently, I have three projects in my rotation:

Satsuma Street's Forest

This is what it looked like last time.

And here it is now.

This seems to be going slowly because

it's over one, on 25-count lugana.

Over-one is usually challenging for me,

but I had to do it in order

to get the size I wanted.

This piece could be complete the way it is,

but I plan to stitch the entire thing.

There are four additional trees on both sides.

The second rotation piece is my 

ANG chapter's challenge project...

Needle Delights Originals' Ripple Rotation II.

Here is what it looked like last time.

And here it is now.

This seems to be going slowly because her

"Log" series which I did recently

 relied on Caron's overdyed Watercolours

for the color changes.

Here, some of these small squares 

contain six or seven different colors!

And since I'm following the colors

as opposed to stitching square by square,

there is constant page flipping going on.

It makes my head hurt.

The third rotation piece is,

you guessed it, Prairie Schooler's K:

I think it's a little strange

that a bird was charted in the

"K is for Kitty" box,

but he was so cute that 

I didn't want to change him out for a cat.

That's it from here.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for visiting!