Lofty Pumpkin - Finished

Hey Blog Buddies,
Hope you all are having a good weekend!  Our weather turned much cooler and autumn is in the air here.  What a great segue for my pumpkin piece, huh?

Here it is all finished and framed.

Lofty Pumpkin

Designer:  Twisted Threads

Fabric: 25-count ecru Lugana

Threads:  Recommended DMC, one over one

 

I told you I had the most perfect frame, didn't I?

It's by Homespun Elegance,

probably for one of her specific designs,

but it goes with piece this beautifully, too.

 

On the Hallowe'en front, I stitched the September ornament,

so now I'm all caught up with my SAL.

 

This is another design from

BBD's Trix or Treat booklet.

The theme for this month's ornament is

Hallowe'en words.

To celebrate this finish, I put up my Hallowe'en tree.

It looks quite festive with nine new ornaments!

The fabric is (again) 40-count Heritage linen,

and I used Gloriana silk in the color Charcoal.

This was cute and very quick to stitch!

 

Lastly, here is a little something that

I started a while ago and haven't showed yet:

 

This will eventually be one of

Victoria Sampler's Tudor Tassel ornaments.

The pattern is from

the 2010 JCS Christmas Ornament issue.

I've had this kitted up for almost 3 years now.

I think the finishing is what's been

making me procrastinate on this project.

But I'm glad it's at least started,

because now I'm much more likely to pick it up soon-ish!

(I refuse to define "soon-ish"!)

 

Right now I am working on my long-neglected BAP

Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself.

I started it in April and haven't picked it up since!

Stay tuned for a update on that in a few days.

 

That's it from here.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

Finishing Frenzy

Hey Blog Buddies,

First, thanks so much for all the comments you've been leaving--I love you guys!

This past weekend turned into a finishing frenzy for me--very uncharacteristic.  There's quite a bit to catch up on, so let's go right to the photos:

This crocheted daisy scarf (not part of this weekend's frenzy)

was finished right around the beginning of this month.

It's another donation for the Boutique.

 

Next up, my July Hallowe'en ornament

(I am in the 2013 Halloween Ornament SAL):

 

The July theme was bats and/or spiders.

I finished stitching this in July,

but put off the ornamentification until this past Friday.

This was another one that was very annoying to complete

and I'm not at all happy with the way it turned out.

Hopefully, I will have so many tiny ornaments

on my Hallowe'en tree this year

that it will get lost in the crowd!

(I won't bore you with what's wrong with it.)

 

And the August ornament:

 

We got to choose our theme for August,

so I chose All Dressed Up

from the BBD Trix or Treat booklet.

The original design had a diamond border,

but I omitted that in order to

make the ornament smaller (for my small tree).

This is 40-count Heritage linen--again.

I am so used to using two strands

that I started out with two and then

decided to just go with it.

It was a little more difficult to find the holes

but the coverage was sublime!!

Don't worry--it's over two, not over one!

I put the black running stitches in at the end

so that my seams would be somewhat straight

when I sewed it all together.

I had every intention of taking them out,

then decided that I kind of liked the effect.

Not perfect--a little funky even--

but I'm happier with this one than the July ornie.

 

And while I had my sewing machine out...

...I decided to finish this little piece as either

a small pillow or large pincushion (take your pick).

The design is PS Summer & Winter's August.

I finished stitching this in August,

but put off the finish-finishing until now.

The good news is that

I believe we will have an August in 2014,

and it will be displayed then!

The batik fabric, which is a pretty good match

if I do say so myself, was in my stash.

 

And in between all the stressful finishes

was I stitching on something soothing

like a Lizzie-Kate on 14-count Aida?

Uhhh, noooo.

I decided to pull out

Twisted Thread's Lofty Pumpkin.

Here is what it looked like after my June start:

 

This is 25-count Lugana, 1 over 1,

with lots of confetti stitching!

Let me explain this choice:

I switched out my little seasonal cubby-holes

at the beginning of September.

I have five of them and only three are filled--

all with pumpkin designs.

So I remembered I had this pumpkin in the works.

By early Saturday, stitching it was driving me nuts

and I figured I would just put it away

and finish it "later on."

As a matter of fact,

it reminded me more of an ear of Indian corn

than a pumpkin.

But by the end of Saturday I realized

I had gotten a whole lot of stitching completed!

 

This is what it looks like now:

 

Still a bit of 1-over-1 confetti stitching left,

but it's almost there.

And more good news:  I have in my stash

the cutest, most perfect frame for it!

Once I have it finished and framed

--hopefully very soon--

it will make a final appearance on this blog.

 

So that's it from here.

Hope you all had a fun, relaxing weekend.

And thanks for visiting!

June IHSW

Hey Blog Buddies,

How is your summer/winter going?  Did you have any time to stitch this past weekend?  Despite being "gone" for a day and a half of this past 3-day International Hermit & Stitch (IHSW) weekend, I managed to work on two new and very different projects.

The first one is...

Lofty Pumpkin by Twisted Threads.

There are two options:

just the pumpkin stitched over two--the model is 32-count--

or the "scissor weight" with specialty stitches, over 1.

I chose the over-one option,

but used 28-count Lugana instead of 32-count linen.

It's not the over-one that's driving me crazy

(a very short trip)

but all the blasted confetti stitching!

This project has now been lovingly placed

at the bottom of my rotation pile.

 

The other project that I started is

Needle Delights Originals' Tangerine Twist.

Zany, huh?

I grabbed this chart as soon as I saw it,

not so much for the design as for the colors.

It will go nicely with the quilted wallhanging

that I finished earlier this year.

See photo of that here.

Okay, there is no green in this design,

but it's close enough to be a nice

companion piece.

 

Here is my progress so far.

I really love this design--photos don't do it justice.

It's challenging enough so that it's certainly not boring,

but not so difficult that it's frustrating.

The cashmere stitches

(on the diagonal stripe right next to the yellow eyelets)

were the worst so far

because of all the compensation stitches!

 

Right now I'm torn between finishing this square

and starting my June Halloween ornament

to stay on track with the 2013 Halloween SAL.

I have too many projects,

and most of them seem to know my name!

 

That's it from here.

To check out all the other IHSW stitchers,

go to Joyce's Random Ramblings blog, here.

Until next time, thanks for visiting!