A Blog? Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog!

Well!  I certainly didn't mean to be away this long!  Sometimes life just gets in the way of other things.

There hasn't been a tremendous lot of stitching done around here lately, though I've made a little progress on a couple of things.  I stitched on Sophie's Stocking last weekend and got to this point:



Then I made the horrible discovery that I'd miscounted and would have to frog.  The point where I discovered the mistake was at the stitch connected to the lower needle; it was late in the day and I was getting tired so I decided to just groan and put it aside for another day, as I envisioned having to take out most of the wing that I'd stitched that day.  As I thought about it from time to time this past week and remembered how I'd stitched the wing, it began to dawn on me that maybe the frogging wasn't going to be as bad as I'd feared and, indeed, when I took a good look at it today, I realized that I would have to pull out only 3 stitches.  3 stitches!  I can cope with that!  So I re-did the stitches and managed to make a little more progress:

I've been working a little bit on Margaret Havelock but didn't make enough progress to make it worthwhile to take a picture.  I did do a little bit on Spring Sampler number 2 last night.  This leaf border is allllll around the piece, but it's broken up in places by the little yellow-ish berry thingies, so those will make it more bearable.  I'm planning to go to stitch night on Friday, so I may take this piece to work on.

Finally, doesn't this look yummy (and, I have to say, kind of pretty)?

A couple of years ago, the New York Times published a list of summer salads (hope the link works) and this is #8 - mango and jicama dressed with lime juice and chopped mint.  I made this for lunch last Sunday.  I found the mint a little overwhelming, so will probably go a little easier on it next time.  You can also use radishes instead of the jicama and cilantro instead of the mint.  The radishes would probably not be as sweet but would add a little more color and are a heck of a lot easier to cut up, especially for those of us who are klutzy and manage to take a hunk out of the skin over their knuckles when attemping to slice off the top of the jicama, but I wouldn't know anything about that, of course.  I first found the list on Laurie Perry's website. 

All is otherwise quiet on this front.  I will be stopping by Home Depot tomorrow after work to purchase one or two of those no poison/no touch mouse traps.  I have 2 cats and have been finding signs of mice in the laundry room.  Next to the litter boxes.  ("Yo, mouse!  How's it goin'?"  "Howdy, cat.  Looks like another nice day.")  Sigh.

Happy stitching, all!

A Finish and Two New Starts

I put the last stitches in Spring Sampler this afternoon...hooray!  Here is the finished product:

I love the soft colors in this sampler; they really are very spring-like to my mind.

Of course, once I finished that one, I had to start another.  I liked the Margaret Havelock reproduction that was in SANQ a few issues back, so I've had it kitted up and ready to go.

I'm stitching Margaret on 32 count linen from Lakeside; I think it's Vintage Examplar.  It's charted for AVAS silk but I'm using the DMC conversion that's provided.  The blue border is actually more of a periwinkle color and isn't as violently blue as it looks in the picture.  I'm not sure what happened with that pic.  My camera usually does a better job than that on colors.  Must have been my lighting, which wasn't optimal.

And while I was starting new things, I decided I'd start another of the Spring Samplers.  There are three of them in the same leaflet and I want to do all three of them.  This is the one I decided to go with next:

I'm using 36-count Navy Bean from Lakeside and the called-for DMC flosses.  All three samplers use the same color scheme and they complement each other well.  I was a little hesitant about stitching this sampler because that border looks like something that might just send me over the edge and, in fact, a couple of ladies in our Friday night stitch group suggested that I could do just the block with the sun in it, but I decided that I like the whole thing well enough that I can suck it up and manage the border.  I put in about a dozen stitches this afternoon, really just enough to say that I've started it.

These will probably be my stitch night projects; I expect that I'll be focusing on Sophie's Stocking on the weekends.

Wishing everyone a great week and happy stitching!

Well, THAT Was Different!

Did you feel the earthquake today?  I had just got up and was talking to a co-worker when I heard a noise that sounded like someone walking in the drop ceiling.  Then I began feeling like I was losing my balance; it was few seconds before we realized that the building was moving -- very disorienting!  I was wearing a pair of MBT shoes -- they have soles that kind of rock and it was only my second day wearing them -- and at first I was blaming the shoes for making me feel off-balance, but not so!  The building was evacuated for a brief time, maybe 15 minutes, until it was determined that there was no damage.  We're a good ways away from the epicenter; hope you guys in northern VA are okay!

Getting There...

No stocking or ornaments this weekend, just Spring Sampler.  I went to Stitch Night (more about that in a minute) on Friday and finished the "C" block and got a good runny-go on the frog, then this afternoon I sat down and finished the frog and did the little blue flowers around him and the pink butterfly.  The last critter is a bird (the brown blob in the lower left), then a little more border and one last rectangle with 2 pink flowers on the bottom.  There are two more samplers on this chart and I'm thinking seriously about stitching both of them.  I just love the colors in these.

This is the whole thing so far:

I've been joining some ladies for Stitch Night on Friday nights recently.  They used to meet at the French Knot, a recently-closed local LNS :-(  and now are getting together on Fridays at a couple of local Panera restaurants (yummmm!), alternating Fridays at each location.  Lee invited me to join them; my first Friday was two weeks ago and then I went again this past Friday and enjoyed myself tremendously both times.  We stitch in the "VIP" room at Panera.  It's a great group of ladies and they're fun to stitch with, not to mention that it's a good excuse to have dinner at Panera (broccoli and cheese soup -- mmm, mmm, good!).

Hoping everyone has a good week -- happy stitching!

Ornaments

I put the finishing touches on Snowdon this evening.  It was about time; I started him at the end of January.  The stitching has been done for a long time but I was procrastinating about putting in the seaweed and the ornament thingies.  The chart called for Glissen Gloss for the seaweed but I didn't have any so I used some stuff from Rainbow Gallery that I had in my stash -- Arctic Rays, maybe?  Whatever it was, it was a PITA to work with.  But it's on, it's done, and he's kinda cute.

He is from Jemini Designs, from the 2008 JCS ornament issue, and he's stitched on 28-count "miracle mint" Lugana with DMC and GAST fibers, that green stuff and buttons from Just Another Button Company.

Having finished one ornament it was, of course, necessary to begin another.  This one is from the 2008 ornament issue as well -- Bluebird of Christmas Happiness, by M Designs.  Here's the picture from the magazine:

I'm using the called-for "crystal icon" linen from Picture This Plus (32 count) but I switched out the DMC fibers to some HDF silks that I had in my stash.  I don't know what the red is; some mystery silk, also from the stash.  I put in a couple of rows of stitching this evening, but not really enough to be worth taking a picture.

Maybe it won't take 7 months to get this one finished.

I Do Love Sunday Afternoons

Especially when they're peaceful and quiet and I can get in some good stitching time.  I pulled out the stocking to work on and you can see that I made some decent progress.

The blue bit and the few brown stitches where I left off are the start of the wing and the back of the head.  The chart calls for stitching the hair with the brown and then stitching over it with French knots using brown Alpaca.  I don't know if I have any in my stash; I may have to make a trip to the LNS.  Darn, I hate when that happens.

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that we are getting a Hobby Lobby just up the road. in the building where a large local supermarket was before it relocated.  I think that Hobby Lobby is the best of the "big box" craft stores -- they have fabric!  Don't get me wrong; the "big boxes" are by no means a replacement for the LNS or the local quilt shop (LQS?) but sometimes they do come in handy (although I doubt I'll find Alpaca there).  And I admire the owners of the Hobby Lobby chain for upholding their convictions and not opening their stores on Sunday.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon in a nice cool movie theatre with the last installment of Harry Potter and if you're a fan, definitely see it.  It's excellent.  Several people applauded at the end, and one man stood up and shouted, "Thank you!" at the screen.  I didn't go quite that far but I did enjoy it.  I think that overall the series was very well-done and well-cast -- can you imagine anyone else but Alan Rickman as Snape?  I popped movie 1 in the DVD player to "watch" whilst I stitched today.

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

A New Start and a Not Quite Finished

Since this is supposed to be primarily a stitching blog, I will refrain from ranting and stick with stitching.  A little rant goes a long way, at least for me.

I had promised myself that I wouldn't start something until I finished something, but I just couldn't help myself today.  I've been planning to stitch Sophie's Stocking from Shepherd's Bush as the companion for Robert's Stocking and since I finally got all the perle cotons that I needed, I sat down this afternoon and started her.  I had originally planned to do one of the other SB stockings for myself but when I saw Sophie I felt like the design was more complementary to Robert.

Here is my progress:

The fabric is 18-count linen of some sort, same as the other stocking, natural something.  The fibers are DMC #5 perle coton.  The beauty of these fibers on this low count fabric is that the stitching moves quite quickly.  I'm a pretty slow stitcher so I felt like the row of hearts and a little bit of the vine was quite an accomplishment.  I know the chances of getting it finished by Christmas are slim but I'll plug along on it.

Speaking of plugging along, Spring Sampler is getting close to the end.  There are a few more small motifs -- including a not-so-small frog -- to go in the lower part of the sampler, then another alphabet block and another rectangle with the pink flowers across the bottom.  I love this little piece.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print from this neck of the woods tonight.  It's getting on for bedtime so I will be off.

Happy stitching, everyone!