New Years Day Stitching

Started stitching yesterday after a hiatus. I started this project last summer, hated the coverage on the window panes and just put it away. I think I was burned out after my last finish!

Pulled it out again today and have done all if the blue color shown. This is LHN Home of a Needleworker (too). If I didn’t already have this in my stash, I would pick the original (more of a Sampler style) one over this one. I guess my tastes have changed since I purchased this many years ago! I still like it though!

The odd blue light is the tv as seen through the fabric.

Once I finish this up I may tackle one of my long neglected chatelaines!

Happy New Year to all!

Egyptian Sampler Latest Update…

I’ve moved the Qs and am working in the bottom border. I’ll do the eagle next, then remaining side borders and Pharoahs. This year maybe???

Ornament and TW Updates

HI…  Even though I’ve been quiet on the blog, I have been doing quite a bit of stitching!

Here is my progress through yesterday on my Teresa Wentzler Egyptian Sampler.  I think my husband, who I’m stitching this for is finally starting to get what goes into cross stitch!  I’ve been working on this, on and off, for about a year and a half.  I’m happy to say that I’m more than halfway through with a long way to go!  I’m happy to have finished the frame all the way around and the background in the arch.  A little tedious but not as bad as I thought it would be.  When I started doing the background I had to pull out the staff and the flail on the middle figure but it shouldn’t take much to add those back in now.  I’m loving stitching this!

I spend the week of Christmas with some family and kitted up a Victoria Sampler ornament from the 2015 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Edition to take with me.  When I travel I like to take something small.  There were some errors in the pattern as published, so for some of this I was just on my own.  Plus the accessory pack that I ordered had two different sized stars!  I contacted Thea at Victoria Sampler and she sent me the correct button size.  I love the little gingerbread man buttons!

So for now, I’m just going to keep on working on Egyptian Sampler and ignore all of my other WIPs.  I’d love to finish it up this year.  🙂

Ra Smiles Upon Me (Egyptian Sampler Update)

Here is my latest update on Teresa Wentzler’s Egyptian Sampler.  Its beautiful!  I love the colors and the subject matter.  I’m not really “into” Egyptian stuff, but my DH is so I’m doing this for him.  Since my last post, I’ve finished stitching and backstitching the border and the scarab, finished stitching the falcon (still needs backstitching) and started stitching Horus.  Please forgive the below par photos.   My camera battery is dead and I took these pictures in low lighting with my iphone.

I’ve also recently finished the VS Pennsylvania Hearts of America.  I have one of these for every state I’ve lived in:  New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Indiana!  I lived for a summer in Denver during college, so I might try to find Colorado and do that one too.  I received mail there, so it counts, right?  I’ll do something with these someday…. when I’m sure I’ll not move again.

The story on the Pennsylvania one is a little bizarre!  I searched for the pattern on google and saw it offered for sale on Amazon.  I thought that was a little weird, but bought it anyway.   When I opened the kit to stitch, I found that the border was already partially stitched – about 15 stitches in the upper right hand corner!  I guess someone started it and didn’t like it and put it up on Amazon.  I finished it and here it is!

 

I welcome all comments!

My Stitching Mojo is Back!!!

I haven’t done much stitching for the last couple of years.  One night, my fingers were feeling bored, so I picked up my Lizzie Kate Living with Charm Banner and reasoned that it was easy stitching and that I could finish the last three words pretty quickly.  So off I went and finished it!  This is the only larger project that I’ve finished in YEARS.  I am so excited to have it done and still love it!  I stitched this with all DMC and didn’t attach the little charms that come with the pattern.  If anyone would like the gently used booklets that include the charms, just e-mail me and i’ll put them in the mail for free.

I was so motivated by a finish that I decided to pick up a Teresa Wentzler design!  I’m not a big fan of dragons, but I like most of her other designs.  My husband loves egyptian stuff, so I started Egyptian Sampler.  I had forgotten how much dreaded back stitching her designs have….  not my favorite thing.  The thing with TW is that when you get to the finished products, the back stitching is so worth it.  So…. here is my new start!

So shortly after starting this, I put my christmas tree up and realized that my husband needed an ornament like every other member of my family has.  This is based off Victoria Sampler “Humour” Virtues ornament that you can download for free on the Victoria Sampler website.  I stitched, finished, and put it on the tree last weekend.  I bet I’ve stitched at least 20 of these virtues ornaments over the years for friends and family.  I like how each one has a different design but all of the ornaments obviously look like part of a set, but each one has a different family member name instead of the virtue in the design.  So…. here is Will’s ornament photographed on the tree! The fabric is actually white, even though it doesn’t look it in this picture:

So now that is done and I’m ready to get back to Egyptian Sampler!

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Olympic Stitching

I love the Olympics.  I’ll watch sports that I had formerly no interest in… like fencing … just because its the Olympics and these are the best in the amateur world at their sport.  The only downside of the Olympics is Bob Costas.  He must be botoxed to the max because he only has one facial expression.

So, in my Olympic fervor, I decided that all time spent watching would also be devoted to my neglected Alpine Seasons.  I talk about it constantly in posts but rarely do any stitching!  I made some great progress and feel somewhat energized to keep working on it.

I started in the lower left hand corner, finishing that border!  I hate working with the perle silk that makes up some of the flower stems.  Love the color, but the twist and the curliness drove me crazy with the constant knotting and loss of length due to untwisting of the free end.  Ugh.  I actually like how it looks once its stitched tho.  I love the little corner flowers and especially the butterflies…

A larger corner view:

And here is a shot of the whole thing with the bottom left border finished. Note the empty upper right hand corner:

I moved the Qsnaps to the upper right hand corner and finished the inner border and started on the second inner border:

Once I get to the final quarter of this project, the inner borders will finally meet up (hopefully!!!) and I will only have to do the diagonal bits. 🙂 I hope to finish up the borders I’m doing now and keep going onto the mountain/tree/field parts. I can still finish this this year if I just keep working on it!

Yep… It Was Epic

Last weekend, I attended a wonderful stitching get together and reconnected with old friends, met internet friends IRL, and made some wonderful new friends!

There was lots of laughing, hugs, nail polish discussion, yummy desserts (courtesy of  Hostess Susan), stitching,  and stash enhancement.

While there, I made some progress on my Lizzie Kate Living With Charm Band sampler… finished the words “Listen” and “Learn.”  I’m stitching this with DMC rather than the recommended thread and am really happy with it so far.  Plus, it was simple to stitch and allowed me a minimal amount of counting and concentration during Canadian glitterification (I’m still finding it  – most lately in the dryer filter) and other activities.

The colors are actually a little brighter IRL.

I was so inspired by the beautiful Chatelaine WIPS at the GTG, that I may just pull out Alpine Seasons again.

Looking forward to next year!

WIP Extravaganza!!

You could hardly call 6 WIPs an “extravaganza,” but this is more WIPs than I usually have going at any given time, and two are Chatelaines!

We’ll start with the project I’m working on currently that is my current favorite… The Drawn Thread Perennial Border. One thing about this project that I like is the use on only one thread over two on 32 count lugana. I didn’t think that would provide enough coverage on the flowers, and it doesn’t, but I like it anyway. I like that you can see each X, and there’s no concern about two strands twisting up too much and it seems to knot less too. The last flower on the right, is all backstitch, lazy daises, and french knots. This so far has been really fun to work on…

Next is Lizzie Kate Living with Charm Border. I’m doing this one with DMC and am undecided about adding the charms when I’m done. I envision this someday as being a bellpull finish. I like the big blocks of color and total lack of confetti on this one. I haven’t worked on this for about a year and a half… please forgive the wrinkles!

Our next featured piece is Olde Colonial Designs Mimi’s Tape Measure. Ive stitched this one before as can be seen HERE, but with the first one, I lost the pattern, somehow, when I went to pick it up, and wanted so badly to finish it that I bought a second kit just to get the instructions, then since I had everything I needed to stitch another, I decided to do so. This is another that has languished, even though there’s really not much stitching left to go…

The next is the first of two Chatelaines –  Alhambra. For those not familiar with this one, it is mostly stitched with DMC and is lovely lovely lovely. Even though there’s a long way to go on this, I often look at Jenny’s finish and dream of the day when mine will be as beautiful as hers. Jenny’s framing is also awesome…. Also read about and check out these pictures of the real-life Alhambra…

The next piece is Victoria Sampler Heirloom Stitchers Sampler. Zero progress. I hate the way the alphabet looks that I started but I know from looking at Christine’s finish, I know this will be awesome if I ever get going on it again!

The last is Chatelaine’s Alpine Seasons, which is my oldest WIP, also known as the Never Ending Chatelaine of Confetti (NECC). AS soon as I get bored with the Perennial Border, I’m going back to work on this, finishing up the outer border and moving onto the next quarter of the piece. I love it, I hate it, and I really want to finish it!

Holiday Stitching

I think I’m starting to get my stitching mojo back!  I did a couple of ornaments for friends… you’ve seen these before, but here they are again with new names!  These are the Victoria Sampler Virtues ornaments with names replacing the virtue words.  People just love these and they are so quick and easy that I end up making them every year!  I know I’ll do more so I just keep all of the fabric and floss and ornament forms kitted up:

I also started a new project – The Drawn Thread Perennial Border This thing calls for a huge amount of colors for such a small project that only has color in the outer most border of the project… How many greens do you really need???  🙂  I like it though and  the flowers look like lots of fun to stitch – lots of different kind of stitches.  Here’s what it will look like, hopefully, when I finish it.

My progress so far, and all of the floss….

You can just barely see the whitework I’ve started in the middle.  I’m using the recommended thread and fabric and I’m hoping it’ll pop a bit more once I’ve added more of the textural stitches.  Its platinum fabric with white DMC.  Maybe I should’ve used the extra white stuff?  Or maybe perle cotton?  Or maybe I pulled 28 instead of 32 fabric?  I just hope it all works out in the end.