Welcome Spring!

Spring officially arrived yesterday afternoon and brought with it some real spring-like weather, so I celebrated with a trip to the LNS! I went to pick up Catharine McNeal, which Shelley, the owner, had ordered for me, and while I was there I saw that she had Sarah Woodham as well, so Sarah and Catharine both came home with me. I think I'm going to order HDF silks for Sarah and stitch her on 40 count something. I'm not sure what to use for Catharine; the model is stitched with NPI but the chart includes the DMC conversion. I might try to convert that to HDF. Once I decide on a fiber, I'll do a floss toss on some of the fabrics in my stash and see what I come up with.


I also got the DMC perle cotons for Robert's Stocking:

I love these colors; such muted jewel tones. I'm missing 844 but I've got enough to start with. I just need to prep the fabric. It's 18 count lambswool. This is my first SB stocking, so I have a question for you gals who've stitched them. Did you baste in the borders of the stocking? In my mind, that would make the finishing easier, but I'm just wondering what you did. Also, was one skein of each color enough for the stocking that you stitched? I think it's going to be an interesting project and Laura (other LNS owner) told me that it's a pretty quick stitch. I can't remember the last thing I stitched on a fabric with this low of a thread count! This one will be for my guy and I plan to get another of their stockings to stitch for myself.

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And, in honor of spring and in spite of the fact that I have umpteen bijillion WIPs and UFOs hanging around the house waiting to be finished, I decided to start something new this afternoon instead of working on a BAP, which is what I usually do on Sundays. I've had this kitted for quite a while:

I didn't realize until I uploaded the photo that the fabric is covering the name of the booklet. It's Spring Samplers by Prairie Schooler and there are 3 fairly small samplers in it. I have fabric prepped to stitch 2 of them. All three use the same fibers; I'm stitching it on 36 count "navy bean" from Lakeside (I love their linens!) with the called for DMC flosses. Here's the progress I made this afternoon:

Not much; I'm a pretty slow stitcher.

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I hope everyone has a great week -- happy stitching!