Back in the Blogosphere

Wow.  It's really been a long time since I've written anything.  Blogging has been a "good intention" for the past few weeks, but life has just gotten in the way.  DH and I are finally getting over the crud that we've had off and on since before Christmas; he missed a week of work earlier this month due to pneumonia but is much, much better.

 

Like so many others, we've had a snowy weekend here.  I took this picture of the deck yesterday afternoon.  It's hard to tell how much snow we actually got because the wind blew most of it off the deck.  As you can tell from the flag, it was just a bit breezy.

I have at least been getting some stitching done.  I pulled The Lost Gardens of Heligan out of the WIP basket and managed to get more of the tree done.  All those little bits of green do get a bit tedious, but I've made it a 2015 goal to try to make significant progress on this one.

I also had an attack of startitis.  I was going through some projects that were kitted up or partially kitted up and found a project bag with a couple of Blackbird charts with fabric prepped but no threads pulled.  I decided to start this one:

 It's been calling my name off and on for quite a while.  I really like Blackbird designs and I'm especially fond of the pretty colors in this one.  I'm stitching it on 40 count Pearled Barley from Lakeside Linens, using the called-for Gentle Arts and Weeks fibers.

If you click on the picture and look at it larger, it won't look so wonky.

I've also been working on Salina Dunwoody, but don't have an up-to-date pic to share.

Has anyone ever stitched with Treenway silks?  I got the new Piecework magazine on Friday and it has a really neat 15-sided biscornu stitched using these silks.  I could always use DMC or some other silk, but was wondering if anyone was familiar with Treenway.  They have a website here.

Piecework came but I'm still waiting on Sampler & Antique Needlework Quarterly, fondly known as SANQ.  I got an e-mail 3 weeks ago, telling me that my copy was in the mail (uh-huh).  It seems like we're going through this exercise more and more frequently with SANQ -- e-mail, then multi-week wait for something that's allegedly in the mail.  I know magazines have a low priority with the USPS, but three weeks?

Well, it's off to stitch a little more before time for Downton Abbey.  Wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!