All set for next Halloween

I finally finished Pumpkin House as a flat fold, and had a camera to take pictures. Yay!

I didn’t like using some of these fibers.  It took me awhile to understand how they worked.  So, not my best stitching.  The instructions say to use Janice Love’s Hardanger books as a reference for the hardanger stitches, but used different names for the stitches.  Um.  Dumb.  Bad instructions, actually.  I’m bothered that the top left corner is a bit wonky, and I think I’m going to add more orange berries.   I fussed and bit my nails over the embellishments on this piece more than you would think.  I wanted *more,* but every time I added that “more,” I didn’t like it.  In the end, I was tired of it.  I still think it’s missing something, but I’m more glad to put this in the “done” column.

Vitals:
Pumpkin House
Designed by Patricia Andrle for Kreinik.  Stitched with fibers included in kit on 28-ct linen.  I think the color is bittersweet.
Changes: I used 2 Just Nan spider charms instead of stitching the spiders.

Aack!

The husband and I are temporarily a long-distance couple.  The boy and I went to visit him last weekend, and I left something at his apartment.  It was my…my…my CAMERA!  *sob*  I’m not really a shutterbug, not a photographer by any stretch (perhaps you noticed?  how kind of you not to say anything).  That doesn’t mean I don’t miss the camera.  I have no stitching to share today, but…but…I WILL!  We won’t see the husband until Thanksgiving weekend.  *whine*

He said he’d mail it on Monday, but of course he didn’t.  I knew he wouldn’t, and yesterday I begged him to mail it today.  He just called to tell me he tried, but the private mail center he went to didn’t open until 9am, and he was there earlier than that.  Maybe tomorrow.  He’s a gem.  I mean, really.  He could tell me to wait three weeks, what’s the big deal, and all that, but he will go out of his way for me. 

And now, it’s picture time!  I’ll share a  picture of an old cross-stitch finish, a cherished picture of the boy as an infant, since we know I have nothing new.

 

Spice Willow

This was a gift for a dear friend of mine.  I had a heck of a time getting good pictures of this biscornu.  I took pictures inside and out, near and far, and was never satisfied.  Here’s the scan of the finished stitching, which shows an accurate depiction of the colors:

Deciding you want to stitch a gift for a friend is the easy part.  Then you have to decide on a design and make color choices.  It was sweet agony, but I love my final choice.  At first I was trying to decide on two color choices.  I think using the floss the way I did, letting the colors flow randomly in parts, and stitching very deliberately on the butterflies and a couple spots on the bottom worked out beautifully.

I named this “Spice Willow.”  While I was stitching, I was loving contrast between the icy blue linen and the spicy floss.  My mantra while stitching was “Ice/spice, ice/spice, icy/spicy…”  Then I remembered that the name of the top pattern was Japanese Willow.  A biscornu was dubbed.  So, I name my biscornus sometimes.  I love them, I can’t help them.

As it turns out, the pattern in question is *not* named Japanese Willow.  It merely reminded me of Japanese Willow patterns.  It’s actually a motif from The Gift of Stitching magazine’s Chinese Blue & White Embroidered Bag.  Not Japanese at all.  My friend’s nom de web is Tiger Willow, so perhaps that’s why I got confused.  My brain, she is smarter than me. ;)  At any rate, I named it, and I’m not changing it.

I love this picture so much!

Vitals:
Stitched on 32-ct Little Boy Blue linen with Thread Gatherers Silk ‘N Colors Turkey Feathers floss, 2 over 2.
Top design taken from Chinese Blue & White Embroidered Bag by The Gift of Stitching, from issue 13 (Feb ‘07). I flipped the butterflies upside down from the original design. The bottom design is from Alchemy Stitchcrafts’ Oriental Plum sampler. I switched out the corners from the original design for part of the motif from the top design. The butterflies, purple motifs on the bottom and initials/date were sequenced. Other motifs were stitched randomly. Embellished with 4mm River Silks ribbon.

Hop!

I finished Hop! as a magnet.  It didn’t turn out quite as I expected, but I do like it.  I planned on hiding Easter eggs behind the green “grass” beads.  I started getting worried about weight and skipped it.  I thought of another way to hide “eggs” when I was three-quarters done with the beaded edge.  Fortunately, I had a moment of sanity and didn’t undo all the beading I’d already done to achieve that effect.  It was touch-and-go for a second or thirty–I like doing things the hard way.  Here’s proof:

Oh, sure, I could have slapped a magnet on the back, but that would have been easy.  I’m going to keep it around for a couple of days, then I’ll put it in the Easter decoration box until next year. 

Happy Stitching!

Finished fob

Finished!!  So sweet, so lovely, I adore it.  I used the ribbon differently than the kit instructions indicated.  In the kit, you’re told to have the ribbon dangling like tassels from the end of one corner and to tack the ribbon down more loosely.  The ribbon is naturally curled and was a lot of fun to work with.

Just as I imagined

I got around to framing my flying crane last night. It turned out just as I’d imagined. It was more difficult to frame this piece than I imagined, though.

I’ve had this frame for more than fifteen years.  Seriously.  It’s a Charles Rennie Mackintosh pewter frame I bought at a museum store because I thought it was beautiful and I deserved a treat.  I’ve never found a picture I thought “belonged” in  it.  I ultimately decided, you know, three or four years ago, that I’d stitch this crane for it, and got right down to business.  HAHAHAhahahahaha!!!

I first had to decide whether to use the glass–yes.  I made two “mats” out of posterboard to separate the stitching from the glass.  This was the very hard part.  The opening isn’t centered to the frame backing.  It took several attempts to get the opening cut just right.  Drove me bats.  I fear this framing job will not survive the ages, as the stitching is mounted with glue on three glued layers of poster board.  It was a tight fit into the frame.  Choices had to be made.  I used acid-free glue, at least.  <grin>

I can see it from my stitching chair, and it brings me cheer.   Now I’m hoping it will be the first of several finishing projects I need to complete.  Procrastinators unite!…tomorrow.

OMG, LOVE!

Every once in a while, you see something that completely grabs you.  These scissors qualify for me.  When I saw them, I was filled with wishing for them.  So much so, I actually contemplated making an unplanned visit to see my brother this weekend so I could visit the Silver Needle booth at Celebration of Needlework show in Louisville.  That’s just nutty, not to mention expensive.  I can daydream, though.   I’m not one for collecting scissors.  I have more than one pair, sure, but I don’t remember ever having been overwhelmed with scissor-love at first sight.  Until today. 

In other stitchy news, I picked up a couple of framed pieces today.  *clap, clap*

Dandelion Clock by Margaret Sherry framed with our dwarf hamsters

Betsy by Sheepish Designs.  I LOVE this frame.

I hope you have a good stitching day, too.

The Mulberry Bush

Or, How My Head Exploded.

So, OK.  When I was kitting up Peace by BOAF, I was frustrated by the rusty tone of the GAST Mulberry floss I was finding.  The areas where the mulberry was charted for appeared redder than the dyelots of mulberry I was finding.  Alas, I can’t show you for comparison.  The chart is OOP, and I don’t have a scan of the model on my computer.  And I’m too lazy to see if I still have the chart to scan for you.  Take my word for it, OK?  Oh, wait, try this link.   It sorta makes it look like I’m colorblind or something, but the chart I have shows a “redder” capital “P.”  Anyway, like I was saying, rusty mulberry=frustrated stitcher.  I muddled through a solution, I’m happy.

Stay with me, here.

Now, this week, I’m kitting up Missing You by Prairie Moon.  The design is charted for NPI silks and DMC.  I want to use overdyed floss.  And I want to use a dark purple instead of black.  I was thinking, “eggplant.”  The WDW eggplant I had in my stash had really dark areas.  I thought I was OK with that, but I wanted to look at my LNS to be sure.  The color I decided I probably wanted turned out to be WDW Mulberry.  This was not a reddish color, it was not a rusty, brownish color.  It’s dark purple.  LOOK:

Technically speaking, they’re both “right.”  Mulberries can be dark red, they can be dark purple.  When I got the WDW Mulberry, I remembered the difficulties and trials I had with the Peace Mulberry.  What I didn’t remember was the brand.  I could not understand how you could have such a HUGE disparity in color with the same name.  “Don’t give me that dyelot crap,” I huffed to myself.  That’s pretty much when my head exploded.

Now that I’ve collected my head and put it back together, I’m sorta thinking maybe I’ll use both brands of mulberry, just to amuse myself.  Probably not.  It’s fun just thinking about it. 

Oh, and here’s a small thing I’ve recently finished (that I’ve been meaning to stitch for **mumble** years.  I’ve never gotten around to it before b/c it was small, I could finish it right quick any old time.  Heh.  I have to frame it, and I’ve been lazy about such things lately.  I’ll get around to it.  The colors make me happy.  I enjoyed stitching this, as my niece used to say when she was small, “A big whole bunch a lot.”

Vitals:
Flying Crane Coaster by Barbara Hammett
Design appears in Art Nouveau Cross Stitch
Stitched on 36-ct white linen
Crane stitched with WDW Blue Bonnet, 2 over 2
Swirls and spots stitched with Needle Necessities 190, 1 over 2

Sweet Betsy!

I finished Betsy yesterday.  Now I’m waiting for my LNS to call and tell me my order is in (Elizabeth’s Designs Bumble Bee) so I can bring her and the Dandelion Clock to be framed.  I hope they hurry.  I’m dying to look at the JCS Christmas Ornament Issue!  Here’s Betsy:

Vitals:
Betsy by Sheepish Designs
Stitched one over two on 36-ct Sand linen with NPI Silks. 
Modifications: Stitched “1776″ for date instead of this year, and used darker red for the red bird on the tree instead of the medium red as charted.

Progress?

Here’s the tiny bit I stitched yesterday.  Six small hills for six sheepies to graze upon.  Please note the circled bit with giant arrows pointing to it.

I ask you: how long do you suppose it took me to stitch that particular hill?  No, I’m a slow stitcher, remember?  Guess again.  Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?  I’d expect “not too terribly long, T, fer cryin’ out loud it’s not a lot of stitches,” too.  But if that was your guess, you’re WRONG.  I wasn’t just visited by a frog last night.  No.  Last night, I qualified for this:

You know, I don’t have one particular formula for stitching.  Sometimes I’ll stitch all the same color in an area, sometimes I take the easy most accurate way, and stitch the design according to what’s closest to what I’ve just stitched.  It’s all about following whims.  For instance, in my last wip photo, it appears that I completed each color as I went.  It’s a carefully staged illusion.  I didn’t permit myself to take a wip pic until I completed each color used for Betsy, but it wasn’t stitched in a color-by-color order. 

I wanted to stitch the hills and the tree leaves all at once.  It would have been much easier to stitch each hill one row at a time, or one hill at a time, row by row.  But I wanted to stitch all of the hills first and then the cute little sheep.  I very carefully counted the placement for the middle hill on the right.  I counted more than once (three or four times, to tell the truth) before stitching the hill.  That hill was perfectly placed!  Unfortunately, I used the bottom middle hill to orient the middle right hill instead of the bottom right hill.  I left the misplaced hill in the wrong place to ensure I didn’t screw up again make the same mistake twice.  I was very careful with my counting the second time and was pleased to see that I had stitched the hill in the proper place.

Now it was time to frog the original, misplaced hill.  I carefully snipped the front.  I turned it around and snipped the back.  I pulled the stitches out.  I pulled of stray fuzz and turned the piece around to check for fuzz on the front.  There was none.  There was also no newly stitched hill!!  I had frogged it, too!  Ahem.  As I said:

I stitched that baby for a third time.  Third time’s the charm and all that, yeah, yeah.  It was so aggravating.  I needed to finish all six hills before I put the piece away for the day, to be sure I didn’t do something like that again before I was done.  I hope, I hope, I hope I’ve put that bit of foolishness behind me, and can finish the piece without pulling out any more hair, or spending too much time sitting in a corner sporting my new hat.

Stop laughing!  I know you’ve done things like that, too.  Confess!

Always date your work

One day while visiting Washington, DC, the boys went to the Air and Space Museum.  I love the sculpture in front of the Air and Space Museum, but I didn’t want to look at boy’s toys.

              

I went to the National Gallery of Art instead.  It was a wonderful afternoon.  One exhibit was chock-full of period furniture and beautiful tapestries, including these pillows.  You can see by the sign when they were crafted.  I’m not sure when the right one was made, but I know where and when the left one was made!  Gouda, The Netherlands, three hundred fifty years ago!  Amazing.  I don’t expect my works to last that long, but I tend to be surprised when I look at my works’ dates.  They have a way of being older than I expect. 

            

What else did I see on my vacation?  So many wonderful things!  I’m still remembering it all fondly.  I’m trying to make a slide show for a friend (she asked!), but it’s slow-going.  I have more images I want to share here, though.  After DC we went to Gettysburg, PA.  We saw the monument memorializing my great-great uncle’s regiment.  That was very moving.  Perhaps I’ll post the photos another time, but today I want to share items from the museum.

What the sign says: Women on the homefront scraped lint from linen cloth, twisted it into bundles like this, and sent it to army hospitals.  Surgeons used damp lint to cover wounds.

         

What its accompanying sign says: Back to Normal  After the battle, the people of Gettysburg tried to reclaim a normal life in different ways.  This piece of canvas from a hospital tent was embroidered, edged in lace, and transformed into a table runner.

And now my personal favorite from the museum:

What its sign says: Patriotic Apron, about 1861  Mary Himes Fox of New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania wore this apron during the war.  The bib contains one white star for each of the 34 United States.

 I’m sure what you’re really curious to see is what I’ve been up to.  I know I would be.

Betsy by Sheepish Designs

I’m itching to start something new; something not on my goals list, or from my newly acquired stash.  I don’t know why such urges overcome me, but there it is.  Today the boy and I are scheduled to do Zelda papercrafts. 

An improvement

Last weekend, we braved the rain to drive to Midland, MI, where we purchased a trikke for our son.   The dealer assembled it for us, and since it was going to take awhile, he suggested we go to the mall for an hour or so.  We left the boy there to practice and took off.  We’re not mall wanderers, so I suggested an adventure.  There is a cross-stitch store listed on the Hoffman site not too far from here!  Let’s go see if it’s still there.  The husband didn’t mind, and off we went.  It was there.

The Stitching Well in Bay City, MI (No website).

It was a very big store–a converted house, I believe.  It had some yarn, some needlepoint, a framing section, a room for Christmas, a room for samplers, a room for animals, Mirabilia in a hallway (which led to a necessary bathroom), and fiber, fiber, fiber!!  When the husband asked if I’d be OK if he left me there, I told him I’d manage.  Truth is, I had to cut short my leisurely investigation.  I enjoyed myself tremendously. 

Remember my picture of the completed Dandelion Clock?  And how I used dark gray Wisper thread b/c I didn’t want to go to my LNS to acquire a new color of Wisper b/c I’d spend too much money?  Well, lucky me, I got to spend too much money at a brand-new LNS and get a new color of Wisper!!  Here’s a shot of the stash I got, including a new skein of Wisper.

This week I frogged the gray Wisper and replaced it with the yummy, new stuff.  I do believe it was worth the too much spending.

An improvement, yes?  Now I need to decide if I’m going to get it framed, or if I’ll incorporate some of our pet hamsters into the finished product.  I finished this just days before our beloved Ridley, father to our babies, died (9-13-08).  He was also the inspiration for the tail-stubbing of this design.

dandelion clock

One GINORMOUS dandelion. Look at the Queen Anne’s Lace in the background. That’s a seriously tall, and large, dandelion. I love it.

Here’s a close-up of the Queen Anne’s Lace. So pretty! These photos were taken at Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, VA, where we spent two nights during our trip.  I would have linked to the official park page, but as I type, it’s not working. 

Why do I share a dandelion picture, you ask?  I mean, besides liking the picture, of course.  Because I love how it relates to my recent (yesterday) finish, Dandelion Clock!  OMG, so cuuuuuuuttttte! I adore him.   He will live in my son’s room. 

Vitals:
Dandelion Clock by Margaret Sherry
stitched on 28-ct. Summer Sky Jobelan using DMC threads
Changes: I shortened the tail and stitched it in DMC 762 and white to make it a hamster instead of a mouse, and instead of stitching the dandelion seeds in DMC 535, I used 640 and Wisper thread.  I only had the gray and some white Wisper thread, so I used gray.  White wouldn’t have shown on the fabric.  If I’d gone to the LNS for another color, I would have spent a bunch of money, so I made do.

22, 7+, 1,858, 232/574, 12, 6, 1

Our road trip by the numbers–

22: is the number of days our trip lasted.

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

7+: is the number of states we visited (+ the District of Columbia). Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania. North Carolina and Maryland were first-time visits for the boy.

1,858: is the approximate number of miles traveled. Not the actual number driven, of course. I didn’t keep track of that.

232/574: is the number of miles my husband rode (232) out of the number planned (574). His back went out severely after he rode 127 miles (of 469) on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He was down for a week, and then he rode the entire Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National park (105 miles).

 

12: is the number of hotels we stayed in.

Oak Park Inn in Waynesville, NC.

6: is the number of bears we sighted on the trip.

Mama bear and cub, Shenandoah National Park, Luray, Virginia

1: is the number of cross-stitch projects I completed.

Vitals:
Shepherd’s Bush 2008 fob
Used supplies included in kit:
32-ct Peach Whisper linen
DMC and WDW cotton floss, button

Road Trip

So, if you’re hankering to take a long bike ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and you’ve been thwarted two summers in a row, what do you do?  If you’re my husband, you quit your job.

Like all good lies, there’s a kernel of truth to that statement.  Let me ’splain.  No, there is no time.  Let me sum up: The husband quit his job July 24.  He doesn’t start his new job until mid-September. We leave Thursday for Cherokee, NC.  We’ll be gone three weeks. We plan to spend 3 days in Washington, DC and hope to make it to Boston, and possibly Bar Harbor ME, with the husband riding Adventure Cycling’s Atlantic Coast bicycle route. 

These are the projects I’m planning on working on, if there’s time.

Enjoy the rest of your summer, and happy stitching!

A, B, C, and an award for me!

On Yahoo’s Carriage House Samplings group, there is a VERY informal SAL going on for CHS’ Alphabet Blocks.  I decided I would stitch each letter as a pillow ornament.  Thinking in a very biscornu fashion, I thought about what I’d stitch for the back of each cushion.  I mentioned this onlist, and someone sensibly asked me why I decided to stitch the backs instead of using fabric.  You know, like a normal person.  *head desk*  Oh, b/c it never ocurred to me.  I don’t think I mentioned my lapse on the list, I think I smoothly covered with the idea that maybe I’d do some with stitching and some with fabric, I don’t know.  I confess the truth to you now, though.  Sometimes my brain plays tricks on me, and I fall for them!!  Gullible, much?

See, my big plan was to be random with the fronts and backs.  Stitch each front and 26 backs.  Put each in a separate bag, and pull them out to be stitched together, without planning a match for front A beforehand.  I had a devil of a time completing the third back, though, and I’m not sure how far this over-the-top plan will go.  Here is my current progress:

The real reason I got off my lazy unmotivated butt and put this image together for a post is because Monique nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award!  Thank you, Monique!

Here are the rules of the award:
1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.
2. Put a link to the person you got the award from.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to the blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

It’s hard to make choices.  I look forward to reading many blogs. 

1. Wendy
2. Renee 
3. Jackie
4. Carla
5. Kim

And a bonus:
6. Stitch Pink

Happy Stitching, all!

June

July is almost half over. =8~O  I guess it’s a good time to share what I haven’t managed to share from June.  First, I finished the stitching for the Peacock Stitching Chair by The Cat’s Whiskers.  I’m not sure when I’ll find the courage to assemble it.  I had planned on July being a ‘finishing month,’ but that’s not shaping up as I’d hoped.  Maybe I’ll stitch the Garden Chair and tackle finishing them both at the same time.  I don’t know.  It’s a mystery.

I did manage to get a jump on my ‘July finishing’ before we went back to Seattle and finished my Bargello, excuse me, Florentine or Flame Stitch Needlecase:

Vitals:
Florentine or Flame Stitch Needlecase  
kit by The Essamplaire
Stitched with provided 35-ct linen and Au Ver A Soie silks

Happy Bastille Day!  Are you enjoying Le Tour de France as I am?  I love July, I truly do.  Must go, the race is on!

Vintage

My MIL passed away 07-1-08.  We had to double-back to Seattle for her funeral.  Very, very sad.  She was a wonderful woman.  She was nearly 86.  She had been diagnosed with 3rd stage lung cancer ten weeks before her death.  She was determined to be at her granddaughter’s wedding, and determined to die at home.  She accomplished both of these goals, dying just a few minutes before an ambulance arrived to take her to hospital.  We were on an airplane trying to say our final goodbyes, alas.  I’m glad for my son, having his last memory of his grandmother be a good one.  I’m sad for my husband, not getting to her in time. *sigh*

One thing I learned was that she stitched tea towels as a wedding shower gift for each of her grandchildren.  My step-daughters and son are among her remaining unmarried grandchildren.  We received these to pass on to the kids:

These were stitched for my eldest step-daughter.

These are for my other step-daughter.

And these are for my son.

I have no idea when she stitched these.  I’m not sure if you can tell from these images, but there is foxing on the towels she stitched for my step-daughters.  They must have been stitched a long time ago.  My step-daughters are fifteen and sixteen years older than my son.  I think it shows in the condition of the towels.  They must have been stitched when the kids were very young.

I gave her the second piece I ever cross-stitched.  I got it back last week.

It’s going to look good in my kitchen, I think.  I may need to have it re-matted, like I did with the picture I stitched for my mother.  We’ll see. 

I wasn’t in much of a mood for stitching while we were gone, and I’m finding it difficult to get back in the swing of things.  I’ve stitched a tiny bit, mostly out of habit.  It will come back when it comes back.

Betsy halfway point

The color’s off on this scan.  The fabric is yellower, more gold.  I liked Tanya’s use of the 1776 date for Betsy.  I saw, I liked, I copied.

 

Home again

We had a lovely, lovely time!  As you can see, I suck at Photoshop.  *shrug*  We saw a bear!  We didn’t have the camera out, though. 

We went to Anacortes (and Ana-Cross Stitch) and Orcas island.  They have dwarf deer there!  Very short, and very unafraid.  The boy and sister went to Mt. St. Helens while the husband and I went to Acorns & Threads (OK, he read in the car.  The staff deemed him a keeper.  I agree.) and Powell’s.  We spent 5.5 hours there!  I kid you not.  I had no idea.  I thought maybe three hours.  It was heaven.  My niece got married!  Good times.

Oh, and we had clam chowder.  Did I mention clam chowder? 

Seen in the airport:

It reminded me of my crane memorial.  Was it made of paper cranes? 

No, that was a trick!  It’s made of…
 
Sharks!  Beauteous.

Vacation stitching:

Dandelion Clock by Margaret Sherry

 

 Betsy by Sheepish Designs.  OK, I started her before we left.  But I did stitch on her in WA, so it counts.

Since I’ve just come back from a trip, and I’ve seen this about, I’ll play along.  I really wanted a North America map, but that’s not a choice.  I’ve never left North America, but I’ve been to Antigua and British Columbia and New Brunswick and Quebec and Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and Mexico in addition to my USA map. 

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Forty-seven states!  I want to go to Vermont in autumn, and Nebraska whenever I can manage it, and I want to not take a cruise to Alaska, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.  Now I’m itching for a road trip, even though I just got home.