Stitching on a Rainy Sunday

It was a perfect day to stay in and stitch -- well, most days are, actually, but today was even more so. It was cloudy this morning and the rain started shortly after I got home from church, off and on at first and then a steady rain this afternoon. I had to shoo Mimi off my lap a time or two, but I finally got settled in to stitch.

Here's where I am on This is the Day, although I did not stitch all of this today! I put in the last 5 berries or whatever they are on the lower right border, and got a good start on the inner border in the top right corner. That outer border was so tedious and I still have to put it down the left side, but I'll probably put it in a bit at a time as I work my way down.


I worked on Spring Sampler last night and made a little progress. I may work on this a bit this week, if I get a chance.

Here's hoping everyone has a good week -- happy stitching!

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!

Wednesday Wanderings

Wander: What my mind does on a warm almost-spring afternoon when I’d really like to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine instead of in an office.

It’s not a bad office, mind you. It’s small and today I’m here by myself and I have a radio and control of the thermostat (YES!) so things could be much worse. But it’s very nice outside…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone! I celebrated with a nice Caesar salad at lunchtime – lots of nice green Romaine lettuce :-) As I was driving back to the office, I was at a stoplight next to Long John Silver’s. I know there’s not a thing on their menu that is good for me, but it sure did smell good!

I also celebrated with a dark cherry mocha from Starbuck’s this morning. I can’t say that this really relates to St. Patrick’s Day, but it was very tasty and the Starbuck’s employees had their Irish on with bright green headwear.

::stepping on soapbox:: Okay, is anybody else pretty much over it with all the media attention given to Tiger Woods and Ben Rothlisberger and any other celebrity athlete types who seem to carry their brains south of their navels and north of their knees? Enough already! How about some media attention for the celebrity athlete types who respect their families and understand that being a role model, whether they should be or not (and that’s another soapbox rant for another time), carries certain responsibilities? I’m sure there are more of those than there are of the naughty boys. ::stepping off::

No stitching so far this week, but I’m hoping to remedy that this evening with some time on either Moon Garden or This is the Day. I also just got a call from one of my LNSs (LNSes? LNS’s?) to let me know that the Catharine McNeal chart she ordered for me has come in – hooray! – so I see a short road trip in my future for the weekend. I bought the Shepherd’s Bush “Robert’s Stocking” chart a couple of weeks ago and I need to get the perle cotton so I can start that.

Enjoy the day!

A Little Bit of Stitching

Not much stitching done around here the past couple of weeks, for various reasons, but I have managed to get in a little bit of work on a couple of pieces.

First Celtic Birds -- the bird looks like a bird! I love this piece. I think once it's stitched I'll find a nice backing fabric and fill it with walnut shells or plastic pellets and make it into a book weight. Or something.

I've also been working on This Is the Day and have made good progess on the border.

I probably won't be around much this weekend...everybody have a good one!

Ooooh, Pretty!

Have you seen this beautiful thing?


This is "Catharine McNeal 1843" from Samplers Revisited. I first saw it on another blog, so of course I had to get me to the designer's website, which is where this picture is from. This is a Scottish reproduction sampler and each of the thistles in the border is different. Isn't it gorgeous? I think it may have to come live with me!

Elizabeth

Timms, that is. I worked on her while the hockey game was on this afternoon. I'm not a big hockey fan, but, hey, it's the Olympics and it's the U.S. vs. Canada, so why not. I like the Winter Olympics; I like the summer games, too, but the Winter Olympics are my favorite. All the sports are pretty much interesting to watch, even the ones I don't know much about. Isn't ski jumping cool? It looks like so much fun. I even like curling. I don't understand how points are scored, but it looks like fun and it looks like something I might actually be able to do. (Ski jumping, ummm, not so much.)

Anyhoo, the point of the post was to show you Elizabeth, so here she is. I got in most of the green bits this afternoon. I'm a slow stitcher to begin with and this is stitched with 2 over 2 on 36 count, so that makes it even slower going. And I haven't even got to any of the over 1 stuff yet!

Have a great week and happy stitching!

Saturday Night Stitching

I've been focusing on Moon Garden for the Saturday Night Stitching group (it's on-line on one of the boards I read) and I made some decent progress on it tonight. I got the vine finished down the right side, so that pretty much takes care of half of the border.

I'm still trying to concentrate on finishing WIPs, although I have made a couple of new starts since the first of the year. And I think I'll go back to Elizabeth Timms for tomorrow afternoon and see what I can get done on her.

Stay warm!