::Gasp!:: She's Blogging Again!

 

Yes, she is.  Blogging again, that is.  I took an unintended and unplanned leave of absence from the blog world, not for any particular reason and not really on purpose.  It just seemed that blogging was becoming more of a chore than something fun to do.  Many's the evening when I thought I might go downstairs to the computer and do a spot of blogging, but it just never seemed to come to pass.  Until today.

 

I haven't been blogging, but I have been stitching.  I finished Blackbird's "Beneath the Sunlit Sky":

 

 It's stitched on 40 count Pearled Barley from Lakeside Linens, with the called-for GAST and Weeks fibers.  I love the way it turned out; the colors in this one are so pretty.

I've also been playing with needles -- knitting needles, that is.  My goal is to make a pair of socks, but I've been working on my knitting skills this summer with dishcloths and haven't gotten up the nerve yet to tackle knitting in the round.  Here's one of my dishcloths, partially complete:

I have a ball of yarn and some double-pointed needles to use for a cloche before I have a go at socks.  The hat pattern calls for circular needles, but the lady at the yarn shop in Shepherdstown told me it would probably be easier for me to use the DPNs because of the decreasing.  So, you knitters out there, what do you suggest?  The cloche is actually knitted in the round, not knitted flat then sewn together.  DPNs or circular?

Here's wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!

WIPpy Weekend

The weather is warming -- hooray! -- and I've been working on a couple of WIPs this weekend.  Here's Salina Dunwoody:

 I stitched on her this afternoon.  The border is a little tedious, but I 'll stitch the rest of it in bits as I work my way down the sampler.

I worked on Beneath the Sunlit Sky yesterday:

Love the colors in this one.  I'm doing it on 40-count, but it's still a pretty quick stitch.

Did you remember to set your clocks forward?  I didn't, but DH did.  When he came in last night, he said "Did you move up the clocks?"  Oops.  The first few days of Daylight Savings Time are very disorienting.  It takes a little while to get used to it being bright broad daylight at 6pm.

Wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!

Pretties

When DH and I were in Ireland last fall, we spent a night at a bed & breakfast outside Trim, northwest of Dublin.  For you movie buffs and/or Mel Gibson fans, portions of the movie Braveheart were filmed at Trim Castle.  Our room was lovely, with lace curtains and pink wallpaper -- a little girly for DH's taste, but I thought it was charming.  My attention was caught by two pieces of embroidery, framed and hanging on the wall. 

 

They were so pretty.  If you look closely, you can see a name and date penciled in the bottom left of each one.  I questioned our hostess about these and she told me they had been stitched by her mother-in-law.  I thought it was neat that she displayed them for others to enjoy.

 

I've been making a little progress on Beneath the Sunlit Sky.  I'm really liking this piece. 

I think I have time for a few more stitches before Downton Abbey comes on.  Tonight's the last night for DA; we'll have to wait until next January for more!

Stay warm...hoping everyone has a great week!  Happy stitching!

Darned Socks!

No, really, they are.  Darned, I mean.  As in patched.  The thing is, I am hard on socks.  Sometimes I wear holes in the toes, but the largest holes are usually in the heels.  I don't mind consigning a sock to

the rag bag if it's one of those white crew socks that you can buy at WalMart or Kohl's for 5 in a package, but I can't quite bring myself to do that for nicer -- and usually more expensive -- socks.  I've pondered for some time on trying to darn the holes and today I finally sat down and had a go. 

 

I started by turning to YouTube.  You can find all kinds of instructional videos on YouTube; I did a search on "how to darn socks" and came up with a number of videos of varying quality.  I watched parts of several to try to figure out the best technique before I tried.  Here's what I did.

 

First, supplies.  You need a few basic tools:

 Thread of the color of your choosing, preferably of a weight similar to the thread used in your sock.  A couple of the videos suggested using embroidery floss, but I used perle coton (no. 5 for this sock).  Next, a darning needle.  Darning needles are kind of like a long tapestry needle, with a blunt tip.  I also used a needle threader, just because it's easier that way.  Also, scissors.  And finally, a darning tool.  I have two, an "egg" and a "mushroom".  I chose to use the mushroom because it gave me the larger surface to work on.  I think the egg would work fine for a small hole.  Some of the folks in the YouTube videos substituted other doodads for the darning tool; one lady used a billiard ball, and a two or three of them used light bulbs.  I can't imagine me trying to use a light bulb for darning; can you imagine if that sucker broke?  I had these tools in my sewing basket; the egg is one that was in my mother's sewing box for many years, while the mushroom came from, I think, a thrift store in London.

You also need one other thing:

 A holey sock.

 

The first order of business is to turn the sock inside out so that the darning will be on the inside and the patch will look nicer (in theory) on the outside.  I stretched the sock just a little bit to open up the hole.

 You can see from this picture why the long needle is nice.  You can work it in and out several times then just pull the thread through.  I started just a little bit above the hole.

Most of the videos recommended not knotting the thread.  Since this will be on the inside of the sock, next to your skin, that makes sense.  I left a bit of a long tail and caught it in the stitches along the edge.

I ran several rows of stitches across the hole.  Ideally, they should be more even than these are.

 Once you have stitches all the way across the hole in one direction, turn the needle and work your way across, weaving in and out of the stitches you've laid.

 

 Continue weaving until the hole is covered.

 

 I tried to weave the end of the thread through some of the stitches along the edge, then cut it and left a tail.

Voila!  The finished product!  Granted, I need some more practice, but at least I can now wear the socks.  This makes me happy, because I like these socks; they're colorful and warm.  Why throw them away if I can fix them!

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!

"What Are You Reading?" Wednesday

How about a round of book talk?  Sounds good for a chilly Wednesday, at least that was what I was thinking this morning (at a time when my mind should have been on my driving...bad Karen).  So...what are you reading?  I just finished The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection, one of Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana books, and now I'm making pretty good progress in As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride.  The author is Cary Elwes, who played Westley in The Princess Bride, and this is his memoir of the making of that movie.  It's actually pretty entertaining.  Of course, when I finish this book, then I'll have to re-read The Princess Bride (which I read probably 30+ years ago) and then watch the movie again!

A Belated Happy Thanksgiving!

DH had to work today and I didn't travel, so I spent the afternoon puttering around the house.  My puttering included some time in the stitching room, trying to create a bit of order out of the chaos, and I came across a piece I had stitched with the thought of making it into a scissors fob.  It's a motif from the Hunt Sampler, stitched on 36-count linen with Needle Necessities Woodland Fantasy floss (I love NN floss; I'm glad I have several skeins in my stash!)  This is one of those pieces that I've seen in the stitching room and thought that I still had some stitching to do on it.  Today I picked it up and discovered that the stitching was complete and all that was needed was finish-finishing, so I decided that would be a good project for the evening.  So I trimmed off the excess fabric, stitched back and front together, and filled the fob with plastic pellets.  The twisted cord wasn't the best I've done, but it's good.  And now my Ginghers are naked no longer!

 

Front:

Back:

 (Yes, the date is 2011.  It's been finished for longer than I had thought.)

Wishing everyone a belated happy Thanksgiving...and happy stitching!