Yikes! it's been awhile

since my last post.  I've been really busy at work and at home.  I've been stitching some gifts (that I can't show you yet but will in the future) PLUS!  I finished another one of my crazy challenge pieces.  WooHoo!  It's called A Ghost's Alphabet by Primrose Needleworks:

I enjoyed stitching this and think it turned out so cute.  I have some Halloween fabric to finish this off as a small wall hanging.  This will be a complicated (for me) finish but I'm going to give it a go.  Wish me luck.

I also framed a bunch of my little projects.  The first three are Sticklounge SALs:

Graphic Sampler -- I added the lacey stitching at the top and bottom to fill in the empty space caused by the bigger frame.  The color of the frame was just too perfect to pass up.

Quickie Sampler -- I added a border to this piece, again to fill in some empty space caused by the larger frame.

Midnight Garden

The next two are designed by Hand Blessings -- I had lots of fun picking the thread colors for these two:

And the remaining framed pieces are:

One of my Crazy 2011 Challenge pieces from the Sampler Girl

The 2011 Easter SAL from  SoloBrode

And last, but not least, I finished Homage to Japan into a bell pull:

Sorry, not the best pic.

I think that's enough for now .... have a good Tuesday, everyone!

More stitching, no puppies

The puppies left last weekend and my house got much quieter and kind of boring without them.  But I have gotten some stitching done.  I worked on 2 more of my Crazy 15.  The first is the Sampler Girls' Jane Austen In The Kitchen:

The colors are so awful because my flash didn't go off -- I must have changed the settings somehow.  It isn't actually finished because I haven't attached the charm or signed and dated it yet.  In case you are familar with the pattern, I rearranged, changed and deleted some elements from the original design.   This is the second time I stitched this one, the first was for a friend.  This one is for me.

The second Crazy 15 is A Ghost's Alphabet by Primrose Needleworks:

You probably don't remember (why would you) but I started this on different fabric and when I picked it back up last weekend, I decided I didn't like it ===>

<=== So I changed the fabric to a 14 count golden-colored aida (again crappy lighting makes for crappy colors) and I like it better.  I should be able to finish this over the weekend and when I take the next picture, I'll be sure to get the flash to work.

This third project is almost finished also -- Friendship Heart SAL from my Sticklounge group:

I need to decide how I'm going to finish this. I'm not a big fan of heart shapes in frames because of all that empty space at the bottom.  A throw pillow is not a good idea with my dogs, unless I keep it off the furniture and display it on my shelves.  One of the ladies in the group found a heart shaped box that fit her stitched piece perfectly -- what are the chances of that happening for me??  Another thought was to finish it as a heart-shaped wall hanging -- ugh! sewing.  Oh well, I'll come up with something -- any suggestions?

I forgot to take a picture of this guy last week:

He is my third hardanger snowman -- the first two were given away as gifts.  This one will be mine and serves as the model for my EGA group's Christmas in July class (which I am teaching).  As you can see, he needs a few finishing touches -- mainly a face.  All three snowmen are from the same pattern but they're all different (due to threads, material and counting errors).  Here are the other two as comparison:

I think that's about it on the stitching front.  Have a good weekend!

Entertaining house guests .....

I had the cutest house guests the last 2 weeks -- 3 little boy beagle pups:

So needless to say, I haven't really gotten much done in the way of stitching, house work or gardening.

I did manage to get one of my Crazy January Challenge pieces finished -- yay -- Jane Austen On Weather by the Sampler Girl:

Plus I spent some time on StickLounge SAL's:

Friendship Heart

Purple Garden

Have a good Monday!

Crazy Days 7, 8 & 9

On Friday, aka Crazy Day 7, I started another Sampler Girl pattern.  I love, love, love this particular quotation because I hate, hate, hate the heat:

"What dreadful hot weather we have.  It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance."

Talk about understatement.  Anyway, I got quite a bit of it done:

Saturday, I started the Tulip Sampler by Rosewood Manor.  I just love the colors in this one.  Considering I spent most of the day in Pittsburgh visiting an old college friend, I think I got lots done:

On Day 9 or Sunday, I began a canvas piece designed by Cheryl Schaeffer for the Rainbow Gallery.  This will be my Santa for 2011.  Isn't he cute? 

Even though it doesn't look like I got much done, there was a bunch of prep work for this one.  First I had to paint the canvas blue and let it dry.  Then I had to iron it.  And before attaching it to the stretcher bars, I had to straighten a bunch of tacks.  The only tacks I had that weren't in use were badly bent and mangled, ie, totally UN-USEABLE.  Rats!  And of course, I needed to gather some threads for it (I currently  have 2 -- the green and yellow border colors.)

The pattern called for French Blue 18 count canvas.   I only have white congress cloth.  I thought about just stitching it on white but I liked the blue wall.  I thought about making the wall blue with a background stitch but decided against that.  I decided to paint the canvas instead.  This is kind of fun 'cuz I never know exactly what I'm going to get.  I was trying for a lighter blue but the one I got is okay.  I may have to change the color of the chair and ottoman -- I'll just have to see what hits me when I get there.

While I was waiting for the blue canvas to dry and between loads of laundry, I spent some time stitching on my Sticklounge project, Odds & Ends by Tams Creations:

This is such a fun piece but because I made an error near the 3 o'clock position and because I decided to not try to figure out or correct the error, I have been compensating the little objects to get back on track by 6 o'clock.   Since I don't know where the error is, I really hope my circle ends meet.  I'm going to be extra diligent to make sure this comes out okay. 

If not, I'll just put a little charm over the offending area.  What you can't see isn't there -- right.

See you tomorrow ....  go crazy, keep stitching!

Framed!

 Back from the framer :)

Here's the little quaker pillow.  I changed it by adding my dad and stepmom's initials.  It's to be an anniversary present.

Good 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???

Jane Austen

These two small samplers are from The Sampler Girl .  They were to be Christmas presents for a college friend who is a big fan of Jane Austen.  Unfortunately, with the amount of snow we had over the winter and then with my job, we couldn't get together until this past weekend.

I'm really happy with them, even the frame job -- which I did, my very own self, if you can believe that.  The first one I chose for Sandy because she makes an excellent apple pie and the second one because I thought it funny.  The geometric motiffs are changes from the original patterns.  They came from a book by Gay Eaton entitled Wessex Stitchery.   Very pretty stuff.