Year End

 

Time has been getting away from me. Sometimes it seems like there's a lot happening, other times, nothing is happening. 

But we are currently in Florida with the granddaughters for the first visit in two years. Fun times! They grow up too fast. I've got the 8 year old hooked on needlepoint.

Above is my last finish of 2021. Little Women from Sapphire Mountain. This was number 22 if I wrote it all down. Yay for me.

I've got stitchy plans for 2022. But first we have to drive back to Virginia.

So buckle up, friends. It's been a bumpy ride these past two years and I don't see it changing too soon. 

Be kind. Be well. Enjoy the sunshine. 

Stitching Friends are the Best

 Last week I was browsing thru the Facebook group for finding cross stitch unicorns, i.e. out of print charts.

I saw that someone was looking for this, the Charland Designs Welsh sampler. I currently have this in progress and will pass my chart on if the searcher doesn’t find it before I finish mine. I don’t have this high up on my priority list as I’m trying to finish two samplers.

But this made me remember that I don’t have a photo of the Charland Design chart that I want, the Thistle sampler. So I start searching google for a photo. Eventually I refine my search one more time (I have done this before without luck). What should appear but the Stitch Bitch blog where she’s posting about her finish in 2014. 

Within the hour I’ve messaged her and she’s located it! 

And now I have it. Thank you ever so much, my friend. 

Making Progress

 Bit by bit. I’ve got the hard part finished. Goal is to finish before the end of December. By then I’ll have some pieces to pick up at the framers and I can drop this off. 

Current Project

There's a plethora of designs, projects, and classes available online. One I stumbled across this past year is the Stitching Book Club on Instagram. This is run by Kristin Ashley of Sapphire Mountain Handcrafts.

I've purchased a couple of her designs and I just started Frankenstein. 

But Little Women I started with the book club. I'm using the called for DMC floss. And paired them with this pinky/lavender fabric that reminds me of the Scholastic Books edition of Little Women that I bought in third grade. I think it cost 95¢. I always regretted leaving that book behind when I moved out of my childhood home. (Along with about 500 other books.)

Signs

Background 

Back, way back, July of 2020, I was running our EGA Chapter's Zoom meeting and one thing we usually do in July is show our pieces that meet our President's Challenge. And then we announce our new challenge. 

So it being my second year as President, I got to pick a challenge. And I decided that the challenge would be signs. 

I knew what I wanted to do from the beginning and I ran out of time to do it. So instead to meet my own challenge I stitched this Kate Dickerson canvas. 

A little bit of bling, some beads and this totally in my wheelhouse color pallette. Love it. 
 

Framed

 Well, well, well. I let six weeks go by without posting. Here’s my Oh Canada framed by Total Framing.

Sampler Finish

 Charland Designs band sampler finished. The date on the chart is 1996. I think I started this maybe 2 years ago? Sometime after I finished her Irish Sampler.

I love band samplers for the variety of stitches and because they usually are narrow, if you find something that you dislike, you don't have to stitch it for very long.

Two slight changes. Two bands was supposed to be alternating cross and algerian eyelets. That just looked messy so all eyelets.

The second time I did four sided stitch.

It's cute and I love it. 

September Update

JA beautiful for stitching outside. My current Charland Designs band sampler. This is my second one. I have 4 or 5 more. Next up will be the Welsh one. 

And tonight I finished mu Cooper Oaks Swan. Next up, pillow finishing. Not by me, I pay a professional. 

Canadian Primitive #3

 

This little pulled work band is killing me. I can go all the way down and back before I see my mistake. Oof. But it's pretty. 

September and the Light Changes

 Because of a blogger, I discovered the Bloggess right before she wrote about the big metal chicken. I still read Jenny today and purchase her books. And try to absorb some of her hard learned lessons. So today Amazon brought me my first light therapy box.

Because I know I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I can tell even in August that the light is changing. We'll see if this helps.

On the stitching front, I finished a gift piece. No photos allowed. And I wasn't feeling inspired to pick up any of my current works in progress.

Because I have been organizing (yet again) this Charland Designs sampler popped up. I did not have the right colors of Flower Thread so I'm substituting DMC Linen Thread. I hope this works for the pulled work.

I love these little Charland samplers. Fun stitches, not too big so I don't get bogged down. 

Continuing my UFO Tour

 When does something lose WIP status and become a UFO?

Maybe when you can’t remember the last time you worked on it? 

I started this project in 2006. It’s the Tsunami Charity Sampler from SANQ. Designed by Martina Dey. I was attracted to right from the start. I spent a lot of time changing my threads from silks to overdyed cottons. Everything in here is Gentle Arts or Crescent Colors. The linen is 32ct Magnolia by Picture This Plus.

That motif on the left is the halfway point. I’ve got more than half left to stitch. But there’s no time like 2021!

Threads

What's available now? Anchor Tapestry Wool and six stranded floss. 
Where?This is my local Michaels. I hear JoAnn's has the floss, too, but haven't confirmed it for myself yet. 

35th Anniversary Sampler

 My eyes. They gave out on me in 2019. I was scheduled for cataract surgery because of an oil drop cataract. Couldn't focus my right eye. Surgery canceled because of Covid-19. But miraculously my eye got better. I could and still can see.

One of the things I was working on was the hemstitching on my EGA anniversary sampler. This was stitched by July 2018. But the hemstitching I was working on in 2019. It's 29ct Glenshee and I am using DMC Floche for the hemstitching.

So today I removed 8" with the worst mistakes. And I started back down the long side.

I was doing this outside sitting by the bay talking with my sister.

Black and White

Catching up with a busy month. Here's some progress on a pilot class our EGA chapter had with Terri Bay. 

In person, eight intrepid stitches met for the first time since Covid-19 began. We were almost giddy. 

Terri is a joy as a teacher. Informative, organized, prepared, and professional. 

It's Ukrainian whitework and blackwork. I have completed 6 diamonds. Twelve to go. 

 

Framed

Beach Dance by Lindy Stitches back from the framers. And by the way, my framers are Total Framing in Fairfax. Always a pleasure to work with them and have them protect my needlework heirlooms. 

 

Unearthed

I was organizing in June and found this. A Jiffy needlepoint kit from 1992. Probably finished in 1992. 

It's on interlock canvas with wool and floss. Because of the interlock, I lost track of my direction more than once, giving me lines in my background thread. 

I've always had a thing for blue and white. 

Now what do I do with it? 
 

Look, A Finish

 Because my Mystery Sampler is on a scroll frame, I didn't take it with me on Memorial Day when we took a short road trip to Antietam. Instead I grabbed my O Canada Sampler by The Victoria Sampler.

Started in 2011, I think. I modified this to be an homage to my ancestors who relocated from Connecticut to Nova Scotia when the British brought in people to replace the evicted Acadians.  They arrived in 1761, thus the 250 in the sampler.

I changed some stuff on this one. Didn't have a good color of pearl #12 so I used floche which was then too thick to do the satin stitch so I designed a cross stitch band.

Moving Along

In 2013, the Loudoun Sampler Guild started a mystery band sampler. Betsy Morgan was the organizer of this project and every month for a year we got a new band designed by one of our members.

I designed band #2, the bargello one. The quote is part of a Monet quote.

So for the first months, I moved right along with this piece. But eventually I fell behind and by the time I got to my design your own band, I had an idea involving Boston Bars. Then I really got bogged down with the blue and light yellow colors. All the joy was gone. And there it sat, occasionally making me feel guilty.

Then in pandemic times, I pulled it out and gave it some serious thought. Decided the blue needed more color, even if that isn't typical of historical samplers.

Dusted off my plans for the salt box, birdhouse, barn combo that is unique to Portsmouth NH samplers and I just now finished that part.

Next up, my final band that I designed yesterday. It's already 28" long. 

Plan B

 Turns out that I need to use my magnifier to do my buttonhole stitch on my radish leaves.

So enter Plan B. The leaves need to wait.

I'm currently taking an online course with the EGA called Some Accumulation with Terri Bay. She writes excellent directions and has made videos for us. 

I'm still finishing the first lesson.

I have a light green 32ct linen and a gray Finca pearl cotton. 

This is going so much better with the magnifier. So it's taking all my magnifier time. 

Huzzah!

Well. I finally found my fabric! Only took a few weeks to locate my safe place. 😁

 

Only Six Years

Almost five years ago, I went to Seminar in Myrtle Beach and took two classes with Jennifer Riefenberg. The first Colorplay is the only class that I have ever finished right after the class. Yay, me. 

But this is about the second class, Radishes. There's sky above the radishes. The lovely red radish. And layers of earth that they are growing through. It's mostly flosses, some overdyed. A little bit of Kreinik metallic braids and beads on congress cloth. I did work on the piece after Seminar, but I stopped about halfway down the layers. 

This is part of a series, Carrots, Radishes, and Beets. (Side note: I have the other two projects in my stash.) Jennifer used similar techniques, but added unique parts to each. Each set of leaves is different. The Radish leaves are stumpwork. And of course we started a leaf in our two-day class. 

So I put my hands on this last month and decided to finish it. And woe is me. I've broken one cardinal rule. That started leaf, both fabrics and one thread have been separated from the rest of the kit. I know I've had my hands on it at least once or twice. 

My fear was that I had tossed it out. But that spool of Soie isn't in my stash. This means that this probably tucked into some "safe" spot. So safe that I can't find it. 😂

 

 

Woodlawn, the Needlework

 I did not take a ton of photos, just captured things to jog my memory.

First off, there are four versions of the ANG Stitch of the Month 2019

OK. These will help me figure out how to adjust my own version.

There is gigantic peacock on canvas. It's a true attention getter.

There's a Holiday Patches in its original colorway and there's this one:

I want to post more but blogger is misbehaving. Maybe I'll try again later. 

Kudos to all who entered. It's an enjoyable show. 

Woodlawn Needlework Show

Like always, the house itself is deserving of attention. 

 

My Goodness

 https://www.fendi.com/au/baguette-bag-with-embroidery-kit-for-adding-a-personal-touch/p-8br600afirf0vph

I hope you can still see this on the Australian website. Because in the US, this is apparently sold out according to one of our customers. 

It's a Fendi bag kit with floss, needles, three thimbles, and a horrid made of Penelope canvas bag and is it even lined? Looks like you are paying thousands for a Fendi buckle. 

More April Ornaments

 Two more Kathy Shenkel ornaments done. My stitches and my thread choices. Actually most thread came from my stash except the background and the light green Petit Very Velvet on the previously seen owl. 

Hope the girls will love them as much as I do. 

From the Framers

 Let's begin with me saying how happy I am to have a wonderful framing business that I trust and can unreservedly recommend. Totally Framing has two store fronts here in Fairfax County, Virginia. If the only way I could use them was mail order, I would still be using them.

These are my January finishes. And I dropped off Beach Dance. 

These are the Sunflower Seed's Tequila, Little House Needleworks, and Catherine Agnes by Indigo Rose. I made changes to all of them. And waited nearly 15 years to finish all three. Why? Let's not go there. Happy to have them done so I can admire all the time! 

April Ornaments

Got to get my ornaments for the granddaughters finished. First one done, second started.

This year I chose 3 Kathy Shenkel ovals ornaments. I'll brush up the Fuzzy Stuff when it comes back from the finisher. All threads  from my stash except the background. 

As I was working on this, I went to put away some of my more canvas acquisitions and discovered I already owned this owl canvas before I bought it last fall. Oops. That's okay. I still want one for me. 

But that made me take an inventory of my unstitched, unkitted canvases. Yikes. 

I wrote them all down. All organized them by subject - Christmas, Halloween, birds, buildings, travel, etc. And put them back in Art Folio binders. 

Now some of you might be curious as to how many do I own? Let's just say, in my defense, it's less than 300 and the majority of them I didn't pay full price for... 

So I need to stitch 20 or so every year. LOL 

March Finish

Only took me 6 months, which is kind of pitiful if I hadn't been working on other things.

Presenting Beach Dance by Lindy Stitches. I love Stephanie's quirkiness and sense of humor. She's got an entertaining Floss tube Channel, too. 

It took me most of the Grammy Awards to frog the flower on the right. But I decided that this needs to hang in our powder room where it can make me smile every day and the flowers need to match the paint.

Off to the framers soon! 

Progress Report

Finished a carrot last night. This is part of a Kathy Shenkel Easter set. When it is finished it will look like this one. 

 Mending Hearts. I'm adding some gold #4 Kreinik to the background around the heart. Then finish couching the gold and the cording.

March Finish

 In the fall of 2019 I designed and stitched a little ornament for my ANG Chapter for our December meeting. We do a program called Holiday Surprise. So everyone got a piece of red canvas, a ball of white #8 pearl cotton, and my instructions. 

I did not have much of a teaching experience that night as the heat was out at our meeting location. It was freezing cold. Oh well. 

Fast forward to this year when I finally got around to stitching a second version. This one is blue on blue. With more blue for finishing it. 

I created a back to my ornament by just freestyling the information and adding some of the stitches from the front. 

A little bit of beading (like an hour or so) and I've got a finish.