Half and Half

While at my daughter's for Thanksgiving, she brought something to my attention. That I'm stitching a lot of canvas these days. And a lot less stitching on linen.

I used to be maybe 70% linen and 30% canvas. Now that ratio is probably flipped. This was happening before I started working in the needlepoint store. 
I'm enjoying my canvas more and it shows. 

But never fear linen lovers. I have dragged a project out of the past - the Tsunami Charity Sampler. 

 Here's when I started it - Feb 2006

Not much attention paid to it - progress as of Sep 2008.

By March 2009. It's a big piece on a large scroll frame. I can't just casually take it anywhere.

April 2009

By the end of April 2009 - I guess I got in the groove.

Maximum progress - November 2009

But this isn't where I was when I picked it back up, because I had to frog a huge knot on the back of motif on the bottom left. And I lost a lot of that motif.

I uncovered this piece from its hiding place when I was readying the china cabinet for shipment to daughter. It was living there along with two other forgotten beauties. I immediately felt guilty. It's a beautiful Quaker sampler. I changed the fibers to Crescent Colours (by the way, did you know that Sharon Crescent has sold her business? Just in case you missed this news -  Crescent Colours hand dyed threads will now be manufactured by Classic Colorworks, a brand new company in the cross-stitch industry. 

Ronny Williams, the son of Little House Needleworks founders Diane and Ron Williams and brother of Country Cottage Needleworks founder Nikki Leeman, is the sole owner and will oversee dyeing and shipping operations for his new company. )

I took my Quaker off to stitching with me today. There are some people there that have never seen it. Yikes. But my cold made my progress very slow. The medication fog coupled with the interrupted sleep. There's not much to show, so no photo yet. 

And that brings me back around to what kind of balance do I want in my stitching? 

Right now I'm completely enjoying hand painted canvas for the freedom it gives me. No need to follow a chart! Not sure if I want this to be 50/50. I'm guessing I will always have a foot in both worlds. Maybe I'll just stitch on whatever calls my name and keeps me captivated.  

Trying to Find a Routine

I can see now that is it was my trip to Florida back in September that has totally upset my usual routines. 

I have not been posting with any regularity and I regret it. And am trying to find a routine that gets me back in the groove. 

I certainly have been stitching. I've got progress to show. And things a-plenty to post about as I continue to take classes and read and discover wonderful things. 

We'll consider today a new beginning and here we go!

On Wednesday at a regular EGA chapter meeting we had a little hardanger class. This is a Victoria Sampler freebie called the Gingerbread Cookie ornament from 2005 or 2006. It's based on the Gingerbread Garden design. 
Thea's freebies can be found here at the Victorian Sampler.

I investigated some of these freebies and see others that I need to do! Time to fire up the printer!

Here's my progress from our Wednesday evening class. I also won a free finishing kit to go with this so I've already got everything except the trim. 

And here's the progress on my Guildhouse Sampler. It continues to seduce me away from other things that I SHOULD be stitching on. 

I don't know what it is about Quaker samplers, but once you start one, they are very hard to put down. Better than eating chocolate!

This morning on facebook all I'm seeing is posts from friends and family in New Hampshire about snow. The weather here says even we may see a few spare flakes in the next 36 hours. And thus it starts. 

DH and I had a little adventure on Wednesday. I was supposed to taking him to the doctors and then driving him to work. We made it to the doctor's office. And then detoured to the radiologist. And then the orthopedist. Seems he'd been walking around with a broken ankle bone for ten days. Silly boy!


Between medical visits we swung by the Amphora diner for food as he hadn't eaten because of blood tests (the original reason for the doctor's visit.) And I saw some cool berries in the parking lot.

(Good start, she says, patting herself on the back.)

Will attempt to be back here tomorrow!

Sporadic Postings

 I know I've not been posting regularly. But it's summer and things are happening. I will be back to a more normal schedule in about three weeks. 


Next week I leave for EGA Seminar in Naples, Florida with some visiting time also with my Mom and step-dad. I'm not sure how much the internet situation has improved at my Mom's, but I should be able to post from hotel. 


Meanwhile, here's a photo of the fun thing I've been stitching. Oh, how I love that basket of apples. This is a Quaker design by Pamela Darney that was created for the Carolina Sampler Guild. I purchased the last kit of this design from Pam back in late 2009. And I decided of all the designs of hers that I have I wanted to do this one the most. I'm changing all the words on it and I'm not saying exactly what I'm doing. You'll see it as it happens. 

Last week I finished stitching my flamingo. Today I start the process of attaching it to the canvas tote. I don't know if you can see in this photo, but I added Naples, EGA, and the year to this piece. 

I'm using the new interface page here on blogger and there's so much white space it reminds of that blank piece of paper in my old electric typewriter that would mock when I sat down to write. I think I can get past it though!

Stitching Progress and a Finish

Constantinople progress. I was so excited when the 6 strands of floss looked better than the Pearl #5 that I stitched the Kreinik braid over it to see how it looked. And of course, I counted wrong that day. It came out yesterday when I realized my error. I can see the end of this project very soon. I should be able to get some time tonight while watching the ballgame. 

And then we have Stars progress:

So. Clark Gable, the second  square is finished. And then I moved on to stitching sashing and sashing corners. Also finished up my top border and will start down the side before stitching the third square on the top. I don't think it shows in this picture...but I apparently caught a strand of that blue Splendor in the top border. I wanted to fret over it. But someone nicely talked me off the ledge. I'll deal with it later. 

Now people who know my stitching projects well might be wondering what could I have possibly finished???

I'll tell you. This is another of those projects where the stitching was finished years ago. And on Friday night, I finished the finishing. This was an EGA class in the spring of 2005 when I was a member of the Mid-Hudson Chapter. The project was a Merry Cox piece from Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly. But that's not what I stitched. I did this little Quaker bird. And it is finished as a needlebook according to Ms. Cox's directions. It's so silly that I put this down. My finishing was halfway done. And now it's completely down, five years later. 

I don't even remember where this pattern came from.  Will take research of a historical nature to find out the answer.

Edit:  Quaker pattern is from Samplers and Such. I did at least write that much in a blog post in March 2005.

Triskaidekaphobia

This is post number 1,313. I've got no fear of the number 13. In fact, I've developed a fondness for it. One of the best houses we lived at was a number 13. My cell phone number ends in 13. Numbers are just numbers - an artificial way humans have developed to order the universe.

In honor of the number 13, I will do a random drawing for a surprise package.

Just write me a comment. You have until May 13th - my mother's birthday - to enter!





Updated photo of Tsunami Quaker sampler. I finished the motif with the flower yesterday. This was a color change from my original picks as the red I had was certainly too dark. This is now Crescent Colours Cherry Tomato. More pink than red.



Did I mention I found 7 needlework books last week at my library's used book sale?
One bargello, two books dealing with florals, a book of colonial American needlework, a temari book, and two crewel books. I'm definitely outgrowing my bookcase. Soon it will only have room for needlework, beading, and a few sewing books. The overflow cookbooks are going to have to go. And the papercrafting? what to do with those? I think most of them I'm going to freecycle.

I continued organizing the downstairs yesterday. Our finished basement contains our office, our bar which is currently home to my needlework stuff and all the "extra" furniture in our house, laundry/storage room, and a bathroom. Got most everything off the floor of the office. Still need to get into the closet and rearrange. There's tons of filing to do. Which means there's tons of shredding to do. I'm hoping they do another community recycling event soon with the giant shredders. Today I'm hoping to get back into the storage room. I took a huge bag full of garbage out of there yesterday. I say we need a storage unit. DH says no. Sigh.