Frenzy and Finishes UPDATED

(Two additional finishes at the bottom)

Well I had myself a little stitching frenzy and finishing.  I managed to stitch and finish three quick ornament and one patriotic finish over the last week.  There was no baking this year as  I would singularly eat it ALL.   All the gifts were wrapped and mailed.   No prepping the house for incoming family.  All the decorating I was going to do was done.  What else was I to do but sit, stitch and have my backside grow wider?   

I stitched two Lizzie Kate designs stitched from stash with mystery fabrics.  I substituted with what floss I had on hand but pretty much stitched as charted.    First up, Don't Get Your Tinsel in a Tangle.  The word "tinsel" was to be stitched in white.   I scratched my head at that and I used some mystery metallic for it and for the cording around the edge.  

Going with the tangled thought, I came across the three 'bulb' buttons and I thought how appropriate.........just like tinsel, we all know Christmas lights get in their own tangle.

Second is Fa-La-La from Lizzie Kate and again it was stitched from stash.  I edged this with green chinese braid.

 The third is a Mill Hill kit.  These kits are super easy but I don't think I could have a steady diet of them.

Lastly, this patriotic stitch from Bent Creek.   The pattern, floss, linen and boxes were all part of different days in my advent exchange.  

Two more finished to round out the year.

The Peppermint SAL from Facebook for the year of blackwork.  I stitched this on 28 count banding with a blue edging from Sassy Jack's.  I stitched it using GAST Black Raspberry Jam.  

It was fun to stitch and easy to keep up with - one motif a week......except when I left myself fall 6 to 8 weeks behind.  

These itty bitty candies are an extra that was included with Brenda Gervais Merry and Minty.

Next up, shopping my stash for what's on tap for stitching in 2021.

Happy mail and happy starts

I forgot to share my quarterly shipment from Fat Quarter Shop.  They really put together such a nice package.

 

Even though I stitch on linen, the fabric they included is so pretty that I think I will just have to suffer through on the 14 ct. Aida.  I am keeping this one in mind as a Christmas in July project.   

Because I just finished the WTNT Merry and Minty SAL, I was in the mood to stitch up some ornaments.  I dug into my box of Christmas patterns and pulled three of small patterns for some quick stitching.  I used mystery fabric from stash and substituted floss as best I could.   I have been stitching on my blackwork in the morning and ornaments in the afternoons.   

I have always wanted to stitch ornaments but I think in the back of my mind I thought the scale of the ornaments on the tree wouldn't be right.    I saw what Carol at Stitching Dreams did with her ornaments and now I have a plan.   So while catching up on Floss Tube, I think I can eek out some more finishes before the end of the year.     Thank goodness for stash!

For my Blackwork, I only have room for 6 more rows, or 9 motifs,  before I reach the end of my banding.   

I think I’ve got a pretty good ratio going:  3/1.  One work on a year-long SAL and three new small starts. When it comes to stitching, I can justify 9 ways to Sunday.  

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe, stay healthy and keep on stitching.

Not that I'm in a hurry, but I think I am closing out the year.....

As we head into December somehow even with Covid we are all getting busier.   The holidays are going to be so very different this year.  The reports on the resurgence of the Corona Virus are scary.  I am wrapping and boxing up gifts that I need to get to UPS to ship to my family none of who will be coming home for the holidays.     I am sure some of you are doing the same.  It is a small sacrifice for the ability to spend many more future holidays together.     

Because of the pandemic,  I floated an idea to my children that we celebrate Christmas in July....gosh I hope the Corona Virus is in our rearview mirror by then.  We are searching Air B & B and VRBO to find a place for all of us to spend a week together next summer.    We are looking in the Keuka Lake Region of the Finger Lakes.   I want to make sure there is a reasonable cancellation policy just in case The Lady Corona is still among us.   The place has to have a water setting, sleep 6 adults and two children, preferably equipped with kayaks/canoes, fishing, fire pit, hiking, and must be dog friendly too.    Everyone is on board and it has given us something to look forward to.  We are all having fun sharing places we are finding and will be booking a place very soon. 

As we are making plans I am thinking of all the things we have at our fingertips that my parents did not (yes, both were alive during the Spanish Flu of 1918; my father 11 and my mother was one so she would only know by the stories her parents may have told).   Think about it....rather than being out on our own and isolated, we do have the internet, the tv news, InstaCart, Zoom calls, Amazon, instant downloads, YouTube and more to stay connected.    I will be the first to say that the internet info and the news media can get more than a tad annoying and overwhelming and full of panicking news and conspiracy theories but we have it to shop by, we have it to entertain us, we have it to stay in contact....   I think about my parents and grandparents and the fear they must have lived with.   Maybe there was not the fear that I imagine since there was not a daily litany of woe on TV and the internet that they had to deal with.    ..........and now pardon me while I step off  my soap box.

Anyway, we enjoyed unseasonably warm weather the weekend before  and the week of Thanksgiving so I lugged out all the holiday decorations.   It was so nice to be able to put up the lights in the warm weather instead of the bitter cold.    It seemed so odd to be pulling down the fall things and it wasn't even Thanksgiving.   I have to admit, the tubs of both fall and Christmas sat side-by-side nicely lined up and untouched for about a week.  Like who would be stopping by and would see them?   I had been undecided about decorating the inside of the house let alone doing it early.  It is a lot of work and no one will be coming over.....but for the most part, I decorate for myself anyway.  I love to get out all my stitchy pieces and I love the festive feel of the decorations and the house lit only by the tree lights.

I finished my Shepherds Bush stocking.   Always a pleasure to work on the large count.   This is for my grand-daughter.   It is stitched on 18 count Putty Khaki by Davos.  I had fun foraging through my stash of buttons and beads for embellishments.  I need to finish-finish it and get it in the mail.  I am happy with fabric I found in my stash is fabric for the backing and lining.  The floral will be the back and the stripe the lining.  

Since the decorations are now up, the buying is done and I am just waiting on the final Amazon deliveries,  I am looking forward to finishing up some WIP's during the rest of December.     Once I finished the stitching for the stocking for Little Miss,  I got back to my  blackwork SAL.   I am behind since all other stitching stopped when I was working on Coming to America September to November.  I have two different spools on 'stand-by' for this finish.   I am wondering if I should line the back.  Theoretically the back and the front should be pretty similar........um, until you find you got a loop or knot 100 stitches back.....

I am doctor's office transportation for a  couple of friends and you guessed it, because of Covid, I have to wait in the car.   This is the perfect piece to take with me to work on while I wait.

   Along with the blackwork is the cutest cardinal I started last winter.   I put this aside when I realized I nelglected to include the blending filament with the white.  That's what happens when I mess something up.....I put it in time-out for a while.

I am just adding the blending filament over the already stitched white and I will go from there.   The pattern is  "When Cardinals Appear" from Blackberry Lane Designs.   The fabric is the beautiful blue Crystal Fathom.   The photo does not do it justice.  

I want to get back to my whitework Lotus Box.   This is the first of two sides.  

Once I attempted and got over the fear of the openwork, this zoomed along.

Not too ambitious of me to think I can get this all done before the end of December is it?  This year has been fabulous for reducing that backlog of WIPs, UFOs and that basket of shame.   But it also included online stash enhancement..... but I am sure I am not alone in that. 

I did get a lot of reading done this year.   So far I have read 48 books.   Yes 48 so far!   I have the Goodreads Ap and way back in January I set a goal of 24 books for 2020.  I sure did pass that.  Admittedly some of my completed books were audio books.    It was easy to complete books on the one-hour drive to my sister's house.    I've got a one book discrepancy between Reading Challenge and what I have uploaded to my 2020 folder and I can't find it....

Some of favorite books of the year are -

• The Woman Who Smashed Codes, by Jason Fagone
• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michelle Richardson
• American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins
• Salt to the Sea, by Ruth Sepetys
• Break Shot:  My First 21 Years, by James Taylor
• The Husband's Secret, by Liane Moriarity
• The Bregdan Chronicles, Books 1 through 8, Ginny Dye

As I look back on this post and proofread it, sure sounds like I am doing my re-cap for the year.    Not like I want 2020 to be over already.   

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe, wear your mask, stay healthy and keep on stitching.

Gearing up

 As for the August crafting goals I set for myself, I am pretty much on target.  The quilt I was working on and wanted to finish is completed - see this post.   

Progress has been made on my grand daughter's Christmas Stocking.  Stitching on this larger count is a nice change of pace.  Stitching will be done in no time.   The count makes it a great piece to stitch outside on the deck.  However the frequent color changes are a nuisance.

I am up-to-date on the blackwork SAL.

And just what did we do before we discovered these clips!

Coming out of time-out, is Ornaments ala Round.  Humidity and thunderstorms today will give me the opportunity to concentrate on this.  I really want to move this one across the finish line.  This weekend all I want to do is get one of the #*$&@! branches completed.  Needles are loaded and ready for attack.

Many thanks to comments on my Wordless Wednesdays......problem is I am a people watcher and nature lover.   Most likely you will soon get bored of my yard and the lack of people since I am staying  home but for now I will trudge on.  I am trying to  avoid being repetitive and not to include any photos I put on Instagram.  Even though I said it was Wordless Wednesday, I wonder if I should add captions.   I will resist my urge to be use my words.  

My only excursion other than grocery shopping is meeting weekly with my stitching circle.  Since I am planning to head out and visit my babies later this week I begged off this past week from getting together with the gals.    I was with them in spirit.  Mr. William has a count down for when Damma will get there.  And I understand his tent is set up in the back yard and he believes I will be camping out with him........OMGosh, what body aches I will have come the morning.      I am also toying, yes toying with, the thought of bringing him home with me for a week.   I am more worried about my surviving a week with a four-year-old than him surviving a week away from his parents.  With many kid oriented places shut due to Covid I am not sure what I will do with him.   Jury is still out. Quite doubtful after this post if I will get anymore crafting done this month between visiting State College and if I bring Will back with me.  

Fall is just around the corner and with that retreats that I booked back in March......fingers are crossed that they won't be cancelled.   Who would have thought back in March when the word pandemic first was reported on the nightly news that we would still be in the throws of it.  Two October retreats are still on as of now but one for November has already been axed.  

My Delaware Guild has starting having monthly Zoom meetings and they have been fun to participate in.   My EGA will be starting them soon as well.  I just love how we have all made unknown technology our new normal.  

So that is where I am this August morning.     Thanks for stopping by, stay safe, stay healthy and keep on stitching!

The Dog Days of August...(Updated)

(Updated to show my finished quilt)

I feel like so many of you....ready for some cooler autumn weather. Whew......it is not even nice to sit on the deck in the shade anymore. But afternoon and evening dips in the pool still feel wonderfull. And some evenings, they include an adult beverage.

Needless to say zip, zilch, nada is being done to make progress on my yard work project of clearing the back tree line.   I am having a good time perusing the internet for shade loving and non-invasive plantings. Ivy, sticker vines and honeysuckle are still too close in recent memory to ever consider anything invasive. I am a little more knowledgeable about gardens then I was 40 years ago and now I have time to really plan one and not just see something, like it, plant it only for find it might not have been the right choice!  I am making a list noting the flowering seasons, the height, the width, the maintenance (cut back in fall, etc.), shade tolerance and more to try to decided what to plant that will give me color and variety from March to November with little to no maintenance. 

For stitching, once I frogged all I had to undo on Ornaments ala Round, I put that piece in timeout for a week.   Since I deactivated my Facebook account, I fell behind on the blackwork SAL so I reactivated my account and printed the last 13 weeks of the SAL.   Some of these motifs are quick and easy, some not so much.  Usually I can knock one of these out in a morning.

Finally my fabric arrived for the quilt back.  The color is a little richer than it looked on the internet but that is to be expected.  I have this thing for quilt backs. I like there to be something unexpected when you lift the corner and find a backing you would not expect.  No match-matchy Garanimals for me.  Well you got that with this one for sure. Even though the colors are secondary complementary colors on the color wheel, I was not too sure.   The more I am working with the combination, the more I like it.   

I took the scrapes from the front and made random four inch squares to incorporate somehow on the back.  That created the dilemma of how to incorporate them.  I had a light bulb moment when I was tossing the squares around the countertop to arrange them......and I thought, that’s it!   Add them as if you were experimenting with a layout.    I am happy with the quilt for two reasons.  First is it a finish. More importantly I purchased the pattern and fabric when I was in Georgia working on clearing up my brother's belongings after his passed away a couple of years ago.  One afternoon my sister  and I took a break and we went on an explore and came across a wonderful quilt shop.  A Scarlet Thread.  Of course we shopped and this is where I bought the pattern and fabric. I will always think of my brother when I use this quilt.  

I am working on hand sewing the binding on now.   This is my favorite part of quilting.   It is rewarding and stress-free.  Next favorite part will be washing and drying it to have it get that crinkled vintage look.

And I finished and washed and dried after I posted earlier today.....

Look at that intersection!  Wahoo!

There's a peak at the contrasting back.

Time to move from the basket of shame and to the completed column.

And I have a new start.   But I can totally justify it.   Of course  I can.    I was itching to start something new but knew that I shouldn't and then the eureka moment!   I have a Christmas stocking I HAVE to get done for my grand-daughter's first Christmas.   See, I had no choice.  This is the second Shepherd's Bush stocking I have done.  I kitted this up yesterday using 18 count fabric and perle cotton it will stitch up super fast.  

My goal is for the rest of August is to get caught up on the blackwork SAL, finish the quilt binding, finish Ornaments ala Round and make significant progress on the stocking before my Coming to America SAL starts in September.   Wish me luck!

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and keep on stitching.

Sidelined

I’ve been sidelined.   I have an eye issue.    I used the medical degree I obtained from the internet and was smart enough to see a real professional.  Glad I did and as long as I don't do Zumba, run on a treadmill or get on a pogo stick, it should heal fine.  Which the funniest this is I am more likely to get on a pogo stick than either of the other two.  Surgery is not necessary unless it progresses to a retinal detachment which is why need to stay relitively sedentary.  Ugh!   Until it heals I shouldn’t be doing things like pulling vines or lugging cider blocks and logs or digging holes.  I’ve got to tell you I was really jonesing for the first few days....taking laps around the yard and seeing things that needed to be moved or picked up or dug up; unable to focus on anything.  Some may say I don't  know how to relax.....but I love to garden, it is relaxing as well as rewarding to me.     Mr. Wonderful threatened if I didn't do as the doctor said and had an issue he would be picking the clothes I would be wearing.   The thought of that and him doing my make-up leads to the strong possibility of me looking like Mimi from Drew Carey Show, I decided to behave.  I think Mr. W is secretly happy I need to stand down from yard work.  He told the neighbor I was wearing him out.   You’ve got to remember this is the first summer in 20 years that he has spent at home.

He cut the bushes with the new hedge trimmer and I'm not  saying a word.   They will grow just like your bangs grew after your mom cut them to within a 1/2 inch of your scalp on the morning of school picture day.    


But enough of that.

Last week he about pushed me out the door to go to the beach for the weekend.   No yard work caused me to be a sad lost puppy just moping which forced the issue.  A friend was going to her condo for the first time of the season and since we both had been staying away from people we felt it was safe for us to spend the weekend together.   I’ve got to say that contrary to what you see on the news about beach towns, for the most part OCMD people were behaving and doing the right thing......unless of course if they were  under 25.

It was nice to get away and of course I went to Salty Yarns.  My friends and I are doing our best to keep the needlework stores in business.

For stitching, I let my 52 weeks of blackwork slide partly because I temporarily deactivated my Facebook account and partly because I was working outside.   This week I logged back in,  printed the latest pattern and finished 6 weekly installments.   I think I am one square away from being on schedule.

I got a goodie in the mail.   I received my Prim Stitchers Bag from Carolina Stitchers.   Put a project in it right away.




 

I started work on Summer House Stitches Workes Ladies Garden Journal.   If I can’t work in the yard, at least I can stitch a garden.   Ornaments Ala Round is just sometimes bigger than what I feel like working on.  My Thursday group has started to meet again sitting on each others patios when weather permits.  Ladies Garden Journal is a  piece that is easy to take along.




















I also started a Terri Bey Lotus Box.   It is an EGA project for my guild.   We are to stitch it twice; once for the inside and again for the outside.   I don't need it until the fall but I was worried it would be difficult and take a lot of time.    Not so, this is about an hour and a half of work.   A fall meeting will be dedicated to learning how to assembly it.    I will only be able to stitch so much because I need No. 5 perle cotton and with the Corona virus some fibers have been hard to come by.

For Ornaments ala Round, I sort of took a break.   I haven't worked on it in ten days.  It is too large to carry to the beach or even at home on the deck.   My plan is tomorrow morning I am back on it.   We all agreed we hate the branches so I decided to start each stitching session with one length of each of the three greens in the pine boughs.  I refuse to put it aside other than for a brief hiatus.   This piece is not landing in a UFO pile!

It sparkles so much in the sunshine!

So that's all I've got.  I hope to get caught up on all your posts since I am temporarily a lady of leisure.....sitting on my deck with nothing but time.....it's not that bad, we have beautiful weather here at least for the next week, the birds are chirping, the breeze is blowing the wind chimes, I can smell all the flowers and I can just stitch away.  Going to have to set my watch to remind to get up every hour and take a lap!

Thanks for stopping by and keep on stitching.