Egads! It's been a month since I last posted. My excuse -- I've been sick and had a house guest.

Even though I was sick as a dog for about three weeks with some kind of upper respiratory ickyness, I did manage to finish the Tree of Stitches:

I love it -- it's pink, has lots of glitter, a bunny and a butterfly -- what more could I want??  It's at the framer's right now.  I found a lovely gold frame that makes the whole thing pop.  Gotta love things that pop.

I also managed to finish my "Purple" Garden while near death's door (and no! I will not point out the errors made while stitching sick):

It too is at the framer's where I found the perfect bright yellow frame (can you believe it?).   POP * POP -- lots of that wonderful pop-factor :)

I have no idea where to hang this piece.  In case you were concerned, my house is not decorated in these bright colors.  Since I grin everytime I look at the thing, I'll probably take it to work, where grinning and POP are in short supply.

As I was recovering from my near fatal sinus infection/bronchitis, an old college friend came to visit for a couple weeks (she had her wooden floors refinished and kitchen remodeled and was asked to leave her home for a few weeks by her contractor).  We had lots of fun plans but since I was still sick, we didn't get to do much but spend some quality time watching movies, chatting, and eating.  Toward the end of her stay I started feeling better and did a little stitching on the Golden Cat (which hasn't been touched in months).  Kitty is almost finished -- unfortunately I got bored with the same color thread and put him away again.

After my friend went back to her practically new home, I decided on Halloween that I needed to get stitching on my 2011 Santa.  You may (or probably don't) remember, I started this back in January as one of my crazy challenge pieces.  Isn't he adorable?

I'm not really happy with the beard.  It's really nice in the original picture but my interpertation lacks something.  Right now, I'm just going to live with it as I stitch the rest of this piece and hopefully, I learn to like it better.  If not, I'm a firm believer that french knots fix many beards and will just add a few to the beard to make it better. 

Of course, I'm just using threads from my stash instead of the wonderful Rainbow Gallery threads listed.  I'm trying a couple new threads (to me).  One is a linen thread (the french knots on his cuffs) from Thread Gatherer called Flax N Colors.   I've never stitched with a linen thread before and probably won't do much with it in the future.  This thread is stiff and kind of scratchy.  It made okay french knots but I like the look of the ones in Santa's hair better.  I picked the linen for his coat cuffs because I thought it would look more like wool -- and it does, but I really don't like the feel of it.  And since, for me, stitching is very tactile,  I didn't enjoy the experience of the linen thread.

Another new thread-type I used is made from bamboo -- go figure.  I used Rainbow Gallery's Mandarin Floss (a 6-ply strandable thread) and The Pure Palette's Luster Solids (a thicker thread like Perle Coton 12).  I love this stuff!  It's soft and has a lovely sheen to it.  I used the Luster Solid for Santa's hair, beard and mustache (a great thread for french knots).  The Mandarin Floss is in Santa's coat, his mittens, and the ginger bread men.  I like both brands and types of the bamboo thread and will be using more of it in future projects.

And in case you're curious, the yellow in the border is Rainbow Gallery Fiesta (a rayon thread -- wonderful shine-factor), the green is a Rainbow Gallery silk thread, Santa's skin is DMC, the green afghan is a Caron Watercolour, the chair is a Caron Wildflower and Santa's socks are a Needle Necessities overdyed floss.

And last, but not least, I finished the next part of my Heart Note Alley SAL:

I have a mild dilemma here .... how should I continue with the flowers?  Should the remaining two make a symmetrical pattern (light, dark, white, dark, light) or a sequential pattern (dark, light, white, dark, light)?  Another thought is to make those flowers 2 entirely different colors.   One could be the light peachy-pink thread from the first row.  I haven't used this color any place else yet and maybe this would be a good place to add it again.  Now the problem is I would have to introduce a  new color for the fifth flower and it's kind of late in the game to be adding a new color here.  However, I really like the idea of all the flowers being different -- it breaks the strong symmetry of  the bands in this lovely piece.  What I'm toying with is to add the new color to the third band from the bottom -- the light colored thread I chose is kind of wimpy and is getting lost between the 2 strong flower bands.  I could fill the knots with the new color or even alternate the fill-in colors (since one is already filled in).  Or I could rip that entire row out and put in the new color.  So many decisions .....

Isn't this what makes stitching samplers so much fun??

Have a good weekend everyone!