Two Birds Crewel Work



My class progress



A closer view of Mrs. Bird

Or as some of us said, Two Cruel Birds.....for those of us that are cross stitchers exclusively it is hard to make that transition from structure to total free form.  Crewel is just that, it is what the instructed called, painting with thread.    This is part of my discovery from the crewel class yesterday with my guild.   Funny thing is as we all chatted we found many of us started with crewel work in the 70's when the patterns and wools used were limited.  For me, this is a fun project. 

I liked adding the leaves and berries

What a differnece adding the eye made and I am loving the beak

  Since it was a 'pilot class' and they were trying to keep the costs down I don't have color pix of the completed project.  Before week's end I should be receiving them by email not only to share but for my (much needed) benefit.

And now because I have been a crafting fool for two days and nights, I need to get my butt in gear and get some things done around here.

Thanks for visiting and I really enjoy the comments.   For regular followers make sure you check out the photos I uploaded of My Trash and Your Treasure.......Have a great week everyone.............

Fall Frenzy Shop Hall

My daughter and I took a bus trip yesterday for our first Fall Shop Hop Frenzy!  It was great fun and we got great stuff.   We traveled from Delaware to PA and back visiting 9 of the 10 stores on our 'passports'.   In addition to getting to visit some great shops and getting sensory overloading, we enjoyed the day with a great group of ladies......hmmmm, a new guild membership maybe in my future.  

Since I am just a beginner, I was the apprentice to their vast knowledge, terms and techniques.   Of course, there was SEX - Stash Enhancement eXperience going on.

Some fat quarters from the "civil war" fabric section -except for the snowman one on the bottom!

I love this Moda collection - complete and ready for a quilt!

And then there is my daughter. She is the self-described ...."Whiskey swilling, sailor talking, motor-cycle riding, spinning and knitting librarian"...... off early this morning, while the thermometer still registered 38 degrees outside.......she is returning to Philly to be at work by 8:45 this morning. Brrrrrrrrrrrr......she is going to be chilled to the bone after that 40 minute ride on the interstate! Kids!

Bundling up

My little alien

Her BMW model of choice

Believe it or not, she managed to pack all her stash in her trunk bag and tank bags.  Drat, none left here for me to play with.

Off she goes

Be safe my little one.....hope hubby has hot coffee for your arrival! and don't forget to text your MOM when you arrive!

My TRASH could be your TREASURE II ***UPDATED WITH GIVEAWAY PHOTOS***

As I was cleaning and picking up the house yesterday, I came across no less that 25 little floss cards.   Each wrapped neatly (kind of) and numbered with DMC floss number.   Some were in a tin on my coffee table, some in a zip lock bag in my stitching basket, some in my bill box, some in my basket I put coupons in in the kitchen and one was even in my jewelry box. 

I piled them on the stairs for a trip to my sewing room at a later date.    Yesteday, I knew I would have that date today.   I put the kitchen timer on for one hour otherwise I would be up there all day and headed upstairs to start to work.    First I put away my floss in the little plastic boxes I have but what did I find?   The floss box had a couple of sections filled with beads and one with buttons.  

Now, my motto is.......put like things together!   I am compulsively neat about somethings and a complete mess about others.   So of course the filing of the floss lead to the sorting of the beads and then the folding of the linen and the re-setting of the kitchen times 2 mores times and you get the picture.   Sorry to say, but it one of my favorite ways to spend a few hours on the weekend.    Not every weekend mind you but now and again is alright. 

So that leads me to my Trash and Treasure event!    I came across a lot of stuff that at one time I liked.  Or stuff that I have no idea how, when, why I have it.   If I am honest with myself, I know I will never use some of this stuff.   Tastes change or worse, I forget I have it and buy it again.    I was going to pack these things up and store in the YARD SALE box for the yard sale that never happens.   I thought it better to just pass it on.  I don't have photos yet but I have made a little pile of things I want to get rid of.  I didn't do anything when I hit the 100 mark on followers so I guess that is what I will be my celebration of passing 100.  

So to be entered, you don't have to do anything, just be a follower as of mid-night November 7, 2010.   I will post photos shortly under  this same posting and will use the random generator thing-a-ma-bob to select a winner on Thanksgiving Day!  

I think I will go through patterns after the first of the year and do the same thing.   I mean seriously.  If I were to live another 54 years and be of sound mind and eyesight and able to stitch that long, I might, just might run out. 

Some navy 28 - 30 ct, a printed 18 ct, a hand towel ready for x-stitch



2 1-yard each 28 ct. great for bell pulls.  Some 16 count pink and a whole hunk of 24?? ct. Aida



Just Nan Little Whimsy frames

Cone shapes Aida (I used one in cream for a flower girl bag) and a little wire hanger.

Assorted beads - great for embellishing some Christmas Ornies!

Oh, and another find, about 50 skeins of floss that I have never wound onto cards but rather were stuffed here there and everywhere!  So, on my November list of objectives is to wrap three or four each night and get them wrapped, numbered and filed away neatly in their proper order in my little floss boxes!   



This is the tangle of floss I gathered ............



....and here is where I hope these skeins reside in the near future!

My TRASH could be your TREASURE

Stay tuned for this one..........I've got something up my sleeve but no time to post about it now.   I have to run out to a community event my Arts Board is hosting.......ta ta for now!

My TUSAL

I have missed a new moon or two but here is my ort mug!  It sits in my basket with my smalls and my wash cloth I am knitting and my tablet I take to guild meetings for notes.  These are all the things that surround me (or rather sit on my coffee table) as I stitch.

Just to give you an idea of how LARGE my mug is.....that is a stanard size bottle of nail polish next to it.

New Start

My latest start - JBW French Country ABC's.

I am working on my Drawn Thread Love and Wisdom sampler which was a group project with my guild 2 years ago.   I kept up with them through the first 6 to 8 months but all my stitching time was devoted only to it and I got frustrated by all the other projects calling to me from the stash pile!

I am more than halfway but even after two nights of stitching, the progress looks minimal but I am committed to keeping at it so I can make that WIP list shorter.  I decided to work on a WIP and alternate with a new *smaller* project at the same time.    I seem to get discouraged when I have a larger project and I get closer to completion in invisible increments.......ergo, a smaller project at the same time.  The smaller stitch with be my *traveling* stitchie thing that I take to work, take to a friends, etc. instead of the big bohemeth of a scroll frame and a Ka-billion colors.  

I'm curious, what does everyone else do?   One at a time?  Do you have bags labeled for each day of the week (just like our underwear used to be LOL!!!)    and stitch from Tuesday and Tuesday?  Do you have 'traveling' projects?  Do you have an array of starts and work on whatever your mood? I guess there is no one size fits all and it is whatever works for you.    Whatever your method, I hope you get in some stitchie time this weekend and are able to see some progress.

Out with the old, some if it anyway

 
 Time to change my header and time for all the jack 'o lanterns to be put away. Fortunately I am leaving up what I need for fall decorating. Silly me keeps a tree up year round and decorates it seasonally.  Here is the Halloween version.  After some minor 'tweaks' it will ready to be  my fall tree.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.   I think because I remember the fun of the Thanksgiving football games which maybe at the time the teeth chattering temps I didn't think were so much fun.......A little history, I was the HS Band Booster President or Secretary or Treasurer or plain old Booster for over 8 years.   Anyone who has been involved with high school band knows that they practice more hours per week than the football team.   Not only that, their season runs from July to June.   Each year there were 60 to 100 kids that we spent 3-4-5 days each week with.   Everyone needs to belong to something and these were the kids that weren't necessarily atheletes........except for that year when our Drum Major was the Capt of the football team and at half-time Carl jumped on the scaffold to conduct the band in his football uniform.  (I need to dig up a pix of that out of the old shoebox!)  Over the years we had a girl with bi-lateral hearing aids on the flag team and a boy who was blind who played the tympany and carried one side of the banner in parades.  I loved those exhausted years....which accounts for the low stitching turn out in the 90's.   But anyway, enough of my soapbox......

I remember getting up at the pre-crack of dawn to stuff the turkey and get it in the oven before I made big igloo coolers full of hot chocolate for 100. Coming in the house from the game, having spent time with my band family, entering the house filled with the delicous smell with your cheeks rosey and so cold they hurt always made me feel like I was walking into a Norman Rockwell life.

Thanksgiving, to me,  is just that simple.....it is a time of Thanksgiving. To appreciate family and friends and tradition. There is no pressure, just good smells and good food and good fun with family and friends. I don't know whether I am cooking this year or if we will all travel to the City of Brotherly Love to my daughter's, but I know there will be good food, good smells, good family and friend time and then the food coma that follows. And no, my good feelings of Thanksgiving do not carry over to Black Friday. No good memories there!

Update

Thank you all for the well wishes on the ole back-a-roni.   I guess I zigged when I should have zagged.    Feeling a bit better (not!) which could be a result of the hot shower or the glass of wine.   I figured the wine might work as a muscle relaxer and thereby save myself the trip to the friendly neighborhood doc.

Just an update as well on the Steig Larson books.   The first book takes forever, I mean FOREVER, to get into.   There is a lot of background; probably the first third to first half and then............it gets interesting.   The second book picks right up without all the laying the groundwork and the third book starts with the morning after the second book stops.   Those of you that are reading it and getting discouraged.......hang in there it does get better. 

If you like this trilogy and the sort of don't know who done it and cheer for the good guy books with twists and turns along the way, I recommend reading Greg Iles.   Same sort of concept but his stories are set in the modern day south.  Easier to follow(at least for us Yanks)  because there is no need to try to remember all those foreign names, towns and highways.  lol    I have read Turning Angel and The Quiet Game.   I think I finished each in a week....definite page turners.  He has several books out...maybe 8 to 10.   All seem to center around the same characters.   I plan to pick up one of his when I am finished Hornets Nest as my next read.

So far 6 Halloweeners which means there is a whole lot of candy left for me.  Oh No!

A finish but than what else could I do....

I have been stuck on the sofa all weekend with an out of whack back.   Ohh!  Hurts to move!  Don't know what I have done but have been using some Yoga stretches to help get vertical.   I managed to finish my Pumpkins on a Hill while marooned with the remote control.   I also finished "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and started "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest".   Lounging around is not what it is cracked up to be.....I have a few things I intended to do this weekend and they are not getting done.   Like this stuff-a-lanche of crafting (and otherwise) things that need to go upstairs to my sewing room.   [Oops! didn't photograph when I was up and about]   Good thing is they are also not going anywhere.  

I have been so encouraged by my recent several quick finishes that I am inspired to pick up my Drawn Thread Love and Wisdom Sampler to finish.  It will be progress on the shortening that WIP list I have going on. However, ever try to send your husband into your craft/sewing room to retrieve something????   Well, I might be destined to just work on what I can get my hands on downstairs rather than send Mr. W. into the foreign land of stash-dom.   Or worse, have him discover the extent of my stash! I think I'd rather not *expose* him.

From the center looking towards the top/top half completed.

From the center looking towards the bottom/bottom half to do.  I need to pull the chart out but I think I am actually a little more than half-way.

Now for more anti-inflamatories, a hot shower, a cup of tea, a blankie and the remote.............HGTV here I come.

Progress Update

I am off to a quick start (and finish) with my Pumpkins on a Hill.  I am happy with how quickly I am moving along.....because of course I have anything stitchie goodie in my sites.....

I have to just share this with you......I found this cutey patutey on Twisted Stitcher, Vonna shared this.   She has a much better pix of her finish.

This is to ADORABLE......I clicked right on the link Vonna provided and I ordered it before I even posted about it.