Stitchin' with the frogs

Unfortunately, there isn't much stitching to show for the past couple weeks.  Besides having a major allergy attack, the dogs and I have been busy going to classes during the week and shows on the weekends.  Plus, I've taken a couple one day stitching classes (the bunny garden and stumpwork class).  And finally, it seems that every stitch I put in, must be done twice -- it's the attack of the frogs!

I have managed to complete part 4 of Odds & Ends  -- with deviations from the original.  I finally decided to just let the 'errors' stand as they are and work around them.  After all, this piece is called 'odds & ends'.

 I finally managed to finish the second part of When Stars Collide, again after froggies came a courting.

And from frogs I went to a bunny.  With this free form embroidery piece there are no mistakes -- whatever I put down stays down.  Hopefully, this will change my luck and chase all those froggies away.  It's starting to look more like a bunny.  Just in case, I labeled the nose and tail to give you an idea of it's bunny shape. 

The final piece is a stumpwork class I took on Saturday from Marsha Papay Gomola to honor Ohio Day (I think that's what they called it -- I'm not a resident of Ohio, so I'm not sure).  The finished scissor fob has the state insect (ladybug), flower (carnation), and tree (buckeye) on it.  The bee, caterpillar and spider are just extras but are also plentiful in Ohio.

The photo on the right is what I finished in class.  Please notice the lady bug size in relation to the buckeye and carnation.  LOL -- that's one big bug!  It must have eaten it's Wheaties every day.

Each seminar attendee received a needle roll with a cardinal (the state bird) as a table favor. These where made by members of the Youngstown chapter of EGA.  A lovely lunch was served with desert being a yummy white cake with a strawberry filling -- no idea  if this is the state cake ;)  It was a very enjoyable day and I thank the Youngstown chapter for hosting this seminar.

I enjoy stumpwork but don't feel confident enough of my skills to do it without taking a class.  One of these days I'll have the skills to try it on my own and then I can stitch the patterns from my stash.  Who else buys patterns without knowing how to do them?

Have a good stitching day!



When stars collide on something wicked

Not much stitching to show for the weekend because the dogs and I were at an agility trial.  I did manage to get a little done Friday evening and last night.

I stitched some on When Stars Collide but didn't get much done.  Unfortunately, I'm falling behind on this StickLounge SAL.  I'm still working on part 2 while the group is on part 4.  I figured this would happen, especially since my weekends are very busy this month and I have classes several evenings during the week.  The picture doesn't do this piece justice.  The sparkly-ness of it doesn't show up very well.

I'm also working on Something Wicked -- I want to finish it before Halloween.  Again, the picture doesn't show how nice the boot  is coming out.  The thread, from a distance, looks black, but it isn't.  It's overdyed (ThreadWorx) with dark green, purple, and brown (or maybe it's maroon).  And instead of making each cross completely, I have stitched a half cross and then am going back over it with the rest of the cross.  I like to do this because it softens and blends the color changes, making them more subtle.  I especially like doing this with leaves -- it makes them look more natural.

Take care and have fun stitching!

A Christmas finish and a Halloween WIP

Happy Days!  I have my first Christmas present finished!  I'm sooo on top of it this year ......  not.

Anyway, here it is, Home with Jane Austen by The Sampler Girl:

I used Valdani threads for this pattern, my first experience with this brand.  I like them.  The threads laid (correct word here?) nice for me and didn't tangle much.  The only problem I had was that the linen fabric was a little hard on the threads -- the ends would soften up and fray more than other brands.  This won't keep me from using Valdani, just using shorter lengths of thread and/or clipping the tails more often. 



I pulled out La-D-Da's Something Wicked and started back on it.  I lost the original Needle Necessities thread I was using for the boot -- sigh -- how that happened, I have no idea.  Anyway, I bought the corresponding ThreadWorx thread to try to save myself some frogging.  The thread is beautiful but, of course, not an exact match.  However, since I had only put half the cross down before losing the thread, I thought it would be okay.  And I think I'm right -- yay!  Can you tell where the NN ends and the TW begins (look at only the completed cross stitches)? 

hehe -- good luck with that comparison -- I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  The pic's not that great.

I probably won't get much stitching done this weekend -- the dogs and I are headed to a Teacup agility trial.  Should be fun!  I hope everyone has a nice stitchy weekend!

Jane Austen and my Bunny Garden

I'm buzzing along on the Jane Austen piece from the Sampler Girl.   It's different from the original in many ways but it still looks nice, I think.  Only the strawberry line on the bottom needs finished.  Hopefully, I can get it done tomorrow.

Last Saturday I attended a class with my EGA group.  We are making a little embroidery Bunny Garden.  You may not be able to see but the shape being filled in with flowers is a bunny.  The outline thread is very light and doesn't show up well in the photo.  I have the nose (blanket stitch flowers), part of the head, chest, front legs and tummy areas stitched.  It's going to be very cute when the whole garden is in bloom.

A finish plus others ...

Finished!  Yippee!

I changed the pattern slightly, instead of words in the top right section, I put a butterfly.

Works in progress:

I really like this pattern -- even though it has scads of  stitching "errors" on it (someday, I really must learn how to count).  It's in 2 parts because I didn't take it out of the rollers to photograph it.

See the Star is coming right along .... it's almost finished!  I love this pattern and am happy with the colors I picked.  However, if I were to do it over, I would chose a lighter color for the outside flowers.  The reason has nothing to do with the way it looks and every reason to do with dog hair.  I'm going crazy trying to pick out the light dog hair from the dark DMC 3371.

And here we have a new start from the Stick Lounge.  It's called When Stars Collide by Tam's Creations.  The fabric is 28 ct black lugana and the threads are very sparkly Kreinik braid and Sulky.  And to add a little more sparkle, clear beads are included. 

Hmmmm, call me crazy.  Wasn't I just complaining about white dog hair in brown thread?  Now I'm stitching on black fabric???