Bluebirds of Happiness

A dreary Sunday afternoon, a baseball game on the telly, and a bit of stitching -- perfect combination!  I put a loaf of banana bread in the oven and threw in a bit of laundry, then sat down to stitch for a while.  The end is in sight for Spring Sampler; I finished the bluebirds this afternoon.

And here is the whole thing so far:

The right side border is complete, so you can see there isn't much more to go.

Wishing everyone a great weekend and happy stitching!

What the Heligan?

I know, I know, it's corny. But that's what I stitched on this past weekend. I decided to pull out The Lost Gardens of Heligan, a long-neglected WIP, and not just a WIP but a BAP into the bargain. It's a kit I bought some time ago and this is what it's supposed to look like when it's finished:

 

This is an actual garden in Cornwall, England, and it's on my "wanna go there" list.  I started stitching some time ago with the tree in the upper right corner of the picture and that's about all the further I've gotten.  Here's where I started on Sunday afternoon:

And here's my progress:

Not too bad for just a few hours of stitching.  This is one of those pieces with lots of different colors in a small area, so it's a little fiddly to stitch.  But I think it's beautiful and will definitely be worth the effort!

 

Spring has sprung in our little corner of West Virginia, at least for a day or two, and I'm enjoying the warm weather.  A robin visited our deck this evening; hope he comes back.

 

Happy stitching to all!

Spring, or Something Darn Near Like It

Our "Snowquester" turned into "Noquester" this past week; the office was closed on Wednesday, so I got a much-appreciated day off, even though it meant that our work is now a day behind.  Mother Nature has been teasing us with spring, and I've had the windows open this afternoon, just airing the house out a bit.

Are you familiar with the Sampler Pears on the Samplers and Santas blog?  They're neat little designs and this afternoon I started stitching the first one.  I'm using 28-count Country French Latte and a skein of Needle Necessities floss that I found in my stash.  The chart calls for five different DMC colors, but when I went to pull them from the floss box, I could only find two of the colors.  I assume that the others are probably kitted up somewhere, so, lacking the initiative to dig through everything to find them, I went stash diving and came up with a nice, gently shaded NN. 

 I got about halfway through before I decided to put it aside and work some more on the Spring Sampler.  I finished the verse (yes!) yesterday evening and am working on a bit more of the border.  It's not as tedious if I do it bit by bit as I go along.

 I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through this piece.

Not much else is going on here.  Happy stitching, everyone!

Some Stitching and Some Reading



 

I haven't done a lot of stitching lately, but I have made some progress on the Spring Sampler.

 

The full verse is "In my garden goes a friend, dark and wild whose name is wind."  So I've almost got that bit licked and the border, while a bit tedious, isn't too bad.  I love the colors in this one.

I've been doing a bit of baking this weekend; made some banana nut bread (with chocolate chips -- yummy!) yesterday and this evening I mixed up a meatloaf for tomorrow.  It's in the fridge and DH can pull it out tomorrow afternoon, then I'll put it in the oven directly I get home.

Well, I broke down a few weeks ago and bought a Kindle.  I've resisted for a while getting an e-reader, then I saw my sister's Nook and started thinking about it more seriously.  I finally decided that it might be a practical purchase, given that my bookshelf space is quite limited and there are some books that I just really want to own.  Also, for years I've had the great book debate with myself when I travel -- I'm sure you readers know how that game is played ("hmm, can't take that one, it's too big, so I'll take that one, but I probably want to take another just in case it finish one...").  Since DH and I want to do some traveling, I decided that an e-reader would enable me to take all the books I might want to take, as well as solving the issue of reading on airplanes during night flights.  The overhead light is never quite bright enough, assuming that it's working :-/  I don't anticipate that the e-reader will ever quite replace books for me, but right now I'm enjoying it.

WETA is re-running season 3 of Downton Abbey today, so I can avoid DA withdrawal for a little while longer before I switch over to the History Channel's series about the Bible.  It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

Wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!

Projects

Greetings from blustery WV!  It's been an excellent afternoon to stay in and stitch, so that's exactly what I've been doing.  

Progress on Spring Sampler:

I thought it was time to get back into ornament stitching, so I started the Peace dove from a JCS ornament issue from a year or two ago.  I'm using the called for fabric, 32 count something, and a combination of DMC and Gentle Arts flosses.

 

Ornament stitching, yes.  Ornament finishing?  Well, maybe some other time.

Finally, some Sunday afternoon baking:

These are called "Loaded Oatmeal Cookies" and have coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans in them.  Yummy!

Quality control:

Have a happy holiday tomorrow and a great week -- happy stitching!

Halftime Post

It's halftime of the Ravens - Patriots game, so I ran down to do a quick post :-)  Here is my progress on Spring Sampler:

I'm starting up the left side of the square, then it'll be back to border for a while.  The verse is stitched below the square, so more fun stuff there.  It's okay; stitching alphabets isn't my favorite thing, but it's a short verse.

Wishing everyone a good week -- stay warm and happy stitching!

A Belated Happy New Year!

It's only the middle of January; that's not too late to wish everyone a happy new year, is it?  I have to say that precious little stitching has been done around here of late.  I'm still in the process of getting the house in Pittsburgh ready to put on the market ::sigh::  and I'm relieved to say that the end is in sight.  The furniture is all out except for a bedroom set that a friend of DH's is taking and I've been making arrangements for painting and carpet replacement.  I'll be glad once all is done.  I won't miss the trek up there and back.

Here's a picture of my Spring Sampler progress.  It's a nice piece to be stitching on during these January days.  I love the color combination in these samplers.

I didn't start anything new for the new year.  I have enough WIPs that I couldn't bring myself to start something else.  That said, though, I must admit that Sonne Spotte by Long Dog has been calling to me from the "to be stitched" basket.  I have it kitted up with a piece of 40-count linen and HDF silks, so I'm thinking that I'll get it out and at least look at it :-)

Finally, I have to tell you part 2 of my little auto accident saga.  I told you about spinning out and hitting a bank whilst driving home from work on Christmas eve.  Well, I was driving to work on New Year's eve morning when I began hearing a noise from underneath the car.  It was alarming, so I pulled off the highway at the next exit and drove to Sheetz, where I got out and inspected.  There was a plastic panel of some sort under the front part of the car and one side of that had let go and the panel was dragging, thus creating the noise.  I couldn't fix it at that point, so I decided that I might as well go ahead on to work and hope for the best.  My commute is 4-lane highway and I work in an office part that's right off the highway, so I thought it would probably be okay.  I won't go through all the gory details, but after I got off work, I went to a local grocery to buy duct tape; my plan was to duct tape the thing in place sufficiently to get home.  So I was down on my knees in the grocery parking lot, trying -- with marginal success -- to duct tape this panel, when a couple in an SUV stopped and asked if everything was alright.  I gave the Reader's Digest version of the story and they parked a couple of spaces down from me.  The wife came over and asked if rope would be helpful and I said that it probably would.  She pulled a hank of very nice nylon rope out of the back of their vehicle and it worked much better than the duct tape.  After I got the panel tied up and cut the rope (hated to cut it; it really was very nice rope), she said, "Why don't you just keep the rope in case you need it down the road."  Wasn't that just absolutely awesome?  There are nice people out there!  I was so tickled and I know that somewhere down the road I'll have an opportunity to pay it forward.

Well, I'm going to try to get in a little bit of stitching this evening before I settle down to watch "Downton Abbey".  I've gotten hooked rather late on that show, but I enjoy it.

Hoping that everyone has a great week -- happy stitching!