Sunday Stitching

I whipped up a little project yesterday, "All You Need is Love" by Sweetheart Tree. The design called for silks that I didn't have on-hand, and I couldn't see buying all of them for something this tiny. So, I converted the colors to DMC that was already in my stash. I'm not sure what the original is supposed to look like, but I suspect my color choices were a bit brighter.


I'm hoping to use this as a tin topper for this month's finishing challenge, provided that it is the correct size. I don't have any tins in the house, so we'll have to get some Altoids to find out. ;)

Thanks for the comments on the animals. Zoe's mother was a purebred chinchilla. It's strongly suspected that the father was a Maine coon, but we don't know for sure. She definitely has the Maine coon coat. You know... a double coat that is a horrendous pain in the summer because she sheds horribly and has a tendency to develop mats. And yes, she is chatty! She starts her squawking first thing in the morning, voicing her list of demands, which begins with "pick me up... NOW" and moves on to "worship me, you peasants". LOL I wish I could get a better picture of her, but she really doesn't like cameras. The result is that she is always scowling and looks p***ed off in just about every photo. She's not really as cranky as she looks. ;)

Sadie is getting over her dramatic phase, but I'm sure it will return next week when I have to take her back to the V-E-T to have the stitches removed. Oh, what fun!!

Tough Week

I haven't been particularly busy, but I also haven't had time to do much. How did that happen? Well, Sadie had to go to the V-E-T this past Tuesday to be spayed. Most of my free time since then has been devoted to nursing the poor girl. At her first vet visit, the vet warned me that beagles tend to be "drama queens" when it comes to things like surgery. She wasn't kidding!

As far as I can tell, Sadie's surgery and recovery has been perfectly normal, but she has demanded a LOT of attention. The first day or so was absolutely miserable, for her and for me. She was on pain meds, but was still clearly uncomfortable. It has improved quite a bit since then, although she continues to be rather clingy and needy. She also can't go on any car rides until the stitches come out (in another 8 or 10 days). She doesn't like this one bit, as car rides are one of her very favorite things.

I've gotten some stitching done this week, but don't have any photos to show for it. Tradewinds got a little attention... not enough to photograph, though. The only real progress I made this week was on a Christmas ornament. I completed the stitching on Friday, but can't show a picture of it, because it is for an exchange. I still need to put it together, along with a bunch of other projects in the FUFO pile.

Since there are no stitching pictures to share, here's a gratuitous kitty photo. The box had been used to move a few things from my condo to the house, and little Zoe took possession of it before we had a chance to get it out of the room. She likes it so much that we've just left it where it is. Maybe she'll tire of it eventually, but for now, we have a new "cat box" in the den. LOL


And of course, I can't resist posting a photo of Sadie with her favorite toy. She doesn't know that it's meant for the cats. LOL

Their Song Chart Update

Rosa in Iceland was the first to email me about this chart. It will be on the way to its new home this week.

Happy Dance!!

I finished Their Song this morning! I was expecting to finish this on Friday, or at least over the weekend. I was so close that it really didn't need much work. But life (read: "gardening and animals") got in the way and I didn't have time or energy to stitch until this morning.



This was such a fun stitch that I put everything else on hold and worked obsessively on it until it was completed. I rarely stitch anything straight through like that, unless it is something tiny. If you would like to stitch this, send an email to me at flosslady99 @ yahoo.com, and I will be happy to pass the pattern along.

With Their Song completed, I plan to get back to work on Tradewinds and Adia, plus a few small things that I want to start. I need to spend some time clearing out a few FUFOs, too.

A New Project

Joanie was kind enough to pass along her pattern for "Their Song". It arrived a week or two ago (I've totally lost track of time recently) and I couldn't wait to start it. I went through my stash and found a lovely piece of fabric for it-- Antique Gold 36 ct. Edinburgh from Silkweaver. After selecting fabric, I set about pulling threads. I changed the colors just a bit, so that they would show properly on the fabric. I started on Monday, and here's what I have so far.


I really don't like the way this photographed. It's so pretty IRL, but doesn't look so great here. The photos I took of Adia today aren't much better.

Speaking of Adia, that project got a few beads recently. That's about the only thing that is left on this project, and it is slow going.


Here's how she looked before my most recent beading session.


Sadie is still settling in. We've had a few "accidents" since bringing her home. I do believe that she is house trained, but I don't think that I've gotten the right schedule for her yet. (Obviously. LOL) This is made worse by the fact that she gets very distracted when she goes outside. There are so many new things to see and smell! We got a kennel for her a few days ago, and that has helped quite a bit.

She's still learning about her new home, and has started to investigate her "room mates", also known as The Cats. This has been entertaining for me, but I'm not sure the animals are finding it quite so humorous. We've also discovered that Sadie likes to open our mail... with her teeth. She chewed up part of an envelope today. Fortunately, it was junk mail and not anything we needed. I'd hate to call the phone company and explain that the dog ate our bill. LOL

My First Biscornu... and a note on the cardinal nest

I completed the second piece of stitching, Green Moroccan Tile from BH&G, this week. Both designs were stitched on 28 ct. colonial blue lugana, with "Waterfall" floss from Carrie's Threads. This was my first time using these threads, and I must say that I really like them. The variegation is nice and there were no tangling issues. I only have a few of these threads, but I will definitely be getting more of them.


With the stitching completed, I immediately got started on the finishing. It was really easy. I understand now why other stitchers say biscornus can be so addicting.





As for the cardinals, I think the eggs must have hatched, but I haven't actually seen the babies. The nandina bush that contains the nest has gotten a bit thicker since I photographed the eggs, and it's nearly impossible to see anything now. Getting a view of the nest at this point would require too much disturbance for the birds. I have seen both the female and the male back and forth a lot around the bush, bringing food for their offspring.

Meet "Sadie"

She's the newest member of our family. I brought her home from the pound on Tuesday, when I went in to drop off some blankets that we were donating to the shelter. I had been planning to get a puppy, and they didn't have any, so I thought it would be "safe" to go there that day. Wrong! I was just going to look at the dogs, but the instant I got to this one's cage, I thought "that's my dog!" It wasn't a puppy (she's 2 years old), but I was sure it was supposed to be MY dog. The big concern was how she would work out with my cats, so the shelter workers took her into the room where all of the kitties are kept... no reaction whatsoever. The only time she paid any attention was when one hissed at her, and she scrambled away as fast as she could. :)


Sadly, this poor little dog has been at the pound before and was adopted. Apparently, she got loose a couple of times and was recently picked up, but her family didn't want her back. :( She's well socialized though, and was clearly treated well, except for the fact that at two years old, she still hadn't been spayed. (We'll be "fixing" that in two weeks.)

She has done extremely well with our cats, and oddly enough, they've done quite well with her. They've never actually encountered a dog before, so they didn't know quite what to make of her. They don't seem afraid, just a little cautious, and I think with time that they may actually become friends. She doesn't bite or chew, and hardly barks. The only "negative" we've noticed so far is that she loves to dig. But, she's a beagle mix, so we expected that.

Tradewinds Update

I haven't worked on Tradewinds in a week or so, but it has been even longer than that since I've posted an update. During my last Tradewinds stitching session, I completed the ship's compass.







I've also made some progress on the biscornu for May's Monthly Finishing Challenge. I completed the stitching for the first side last week. The design is Orange Moroccan Tile, a freebie from BH&G.



Side two will be the "Green" tile from the same series. I'm stitching them with "Waterfall" floss from Carrie's Threads. The fabric is 28 ct. Colonial Blue lugana.

Brace Yourself!

I have a feeling this is going to be a long & rambling post. Lots to share today. LOL

Thanks for the comments and emails regarding the "Family Heirlooms" question. I knew I couldn't be the only one who didn't really have immediate family to pass these things on to. ;) I do have members of the extended family who would probably be delighted to have my stitching, and of course, there are always my stitching friends.

I also realized that I posted a pair of assembled needlerolls and neglected to give any design details. So, I'll try again...

The one on the left is Pansy Sampler, by Victoria Sampler. I finished it some time ago, but the assembly was on hold until I could find something to line the hardanger area with. The one on the right is Little Gift Sampler, a freebie by Indigo Rose. It was a recent finish.

Speaking of FUFOs, I finished another one today. This is a Sweetheart Tree heart that I stitched ages ago. At my used-to-be LNS, there once was a little Christmas tree decorated with all of the Sweetheart Tree hearts stitched and sewn into ornaments. The patterns were on little cards that didn't have photos, so this tree really helped to sell those designs. I collected most of them, but have only stitched two so far. This one was meant to be a Christmas ornament, until I found a little heart-shaped box at a craft store that looked about the right size. It was perfect!! Unfortunately, I only got one of the boxes. :( I may look for more of these, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find them.





I finished the box using coordinating paint colors and simply dabbing it on randomly. It took some time to get it just right, but I'm quite happy with the end result.

The last of the tulips are blooming. The blooms on the doubles are so large and heavy that they fell over. Can you believe this is a TULIP blossom?



Happy Generation is also in bloom. It's the one with the red stripe. Daydream is fading, but a few are still holding on. I've really enjoyed watching the colors change on that one. I really need to find more bulbs for these and the doubles this fall.

SBQ - 4/30/08

This week's SBQ is from Jennifer:

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future
generations as family heirlooms?

Well, yes... all of them!! Everything I've stitched, or that has been stitched for me, has a special significance to me. That said, I don't that any of them will become family heirlooms. I don't have children... and I'm not going to have them in the future. And I have no siblings, which means no nieces or nephews. I do have a very large extended family, though, and some of them may appreciate my stitching after I'm gone.

I just hope none of my stitching ends up at a yard sale.

More FUFOs!

I recently joined the Monthly Finishing Challenge blog, and it has already had a great effect on my FUFO pile. This month's challenge was needlerolls. I had already completed two just before joining the blog, so I felt that I should do at least one more. Doing "just one more" led to doing three more.



These were the last of the pieces in my FUFO pile that were designated to be finished as needlerolls. Now, if I want another needleroll, I'll need to stitch it! :)

May's finish is supposed to be a biscornu. I've never done one of these, and I don't think I have anything stitched that will fit the bill. So, I'll be stitching one soon. It's a finishing technique that I've wanted to try for a while, so I think it will be fun. I'm not sure yet if I will pull a freebie pattern from the internet, or if I might go ahead and design something original. I haven't spent nearly enough time designing since leaving work, so maybe this will be a good opportunity.

I had a nice surpise a couple of days ago. For the third time in a week, I had a female cardinal fly out of one of the nandina bushes as I was making my "rounds" through the flower beds. Detecting a pattern, I decided to do a bit of very careful nosing around. Yep, it's spring, and the cardinals are making new birds. :)



I couldn't quite tell if there are 3 eggs or 4, but as of yesterday, they haven't yet hatched. I'm able to see the nest from inside our sunroom, so we're able to watch without disturbing the little mama.

MY babies are doing quite well! The garden still doesn't look like much, but the bits that I've planted there are growing and appear to be happy.

Tulips!

The laptop is currently out of town with BF, which means I can't post any stitching progress. So, I'll share some gratuitous flower pictures instead. ;) I had excellent results with the bulbs that I planted last fall-- 100% success! They're blooming in stages, so we've had continuous color ever since the first crocus peeked through the ground.

One of the first tulips to bloom this year was Fosteriana "Red Emporor". The petals of these were so shiny that it made the flowers difficult to photograph. I did the best I could, but had to do it in a hurry. Then, we got a lot of rain, and the blooms were ruined before I could take more pics.



"Orange Emporor" came next, followed by a Darwin hybrid "Daydream". Funny thing about "Daydream"... it has turned sort of orange. It was a sunny yellow when I took the photograph below, but the color has changed considerably as the bloom has matured. I'll need to take another photo, if the rain we're getting doesn't ruin them first.



These are more Darwin hybrids, but I can't remember their name.


Gardening chores are multiplying quickly around here. I'm exhausted from it most of the time, but the results are worth it. The weed patch is slowly starting to look more like a garden. I got the tiller out the other day and worked on another row. Ordinarily, we would have worked the soil for the entire garden at one time, but it was neglected for so long that we can only manage it piecemeal. I doubt we'll get it entirely back into shape this year, but at least we're making progress.

SBQ - Week of 4/23

This week's SBQ is from Christine:

How do you handle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you start a piece, or do you grab what colors you need and blend when the need arises? If you kit up the blends beforehand, how do you store them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

I blend the threads when I need them. If it is a project with a lot of different floss, I put the threads into Floss-Away bags by number and pull from there as needed.

For projects that have a lot of blends, like Tradewinds, I create a sheet with all of the blend symbols. Then, when I don't use a full length of a given blend, I can "park" the threads in the sheet of paper. It saves a bit of time on projects where I need to change threads frequently.

My "To Do" List

Sometimes, I need a reminder...



Completed April 20, 2008
Design: Big Girl Panties
Designer: Janlynn Kit
Fabric: replaced the 14-ct. aida with 28-ct. something-or-other from my stash
Floss: DMC

This has been such a busy week. I'm exhausted from it, and even managed to sustain very minor (but painful) injuries in what could only be described as a freak accident. A large glass measuring cup fell, hitting me in the head before landing on my thumb. It would be funny if it wasn't so painful. >:( Nothing serious, but painful enough that it disrupted my sleep last night. So, instead of throwing a pity party for myself, I finished BGP. Much better! LOL

I'm also feeling very pleased with myself for a "work" acheivement today. I *finally* got around to trying the new body cream formula that I've been working on. I still have a hard time thinking of these things as "work", but I suppose that's what it is. The cream is a basic Shea & Cocoa butter and jojoba oil combination, lightly scented with lavender essential oil. It's really thick, which is what I was going for. It turned out GREAT, if I do say so myself.

FUFOs and Gardening

Spring has definitely "sprung" here. The daffodils have mostly faded, except for a few strays. Our poor little gnome is looking a bit beaten. The oddly-painted concrete yard art isn't really my thing, but my mom had a few of them, so they sort of came with the house. I guess I'll need to touch-up some of the paint this year, before they look any worse.

I did a bit of planting this morning, starting with this "Bag o' Blooms" kit that I picked up at Wal-Mart a while back. I'm not sure it's going to work... the plants in the kit looked pretty sickly. But, I just had to know. It will be a fun experiment, if nothing else.


Experiment #2 for today was rhubarb. I remember my dad growing it when I was a kid, and I don't think it was particularly difficult or demanding. I got a pair of roots and we've planted them behind the garage. The next task will be finding or making space for tomato and pepper plants. I went a little overboard in my seed starting. I didn't really expect them to grow so successfully, so I planted lots of them. We currently have 72 tomato plants (4 varieties), and around 100 assorted peppers, both sweet & hot. There's no way that we'll have the time or energy to make space for all of these plants. And if we did, we'd have to open a farm stand at the end of the driveway. LOL

The weed patch is slowly starting to look more like a garden. It has suffered so badly from neglect over the last several years that it is going to take a LOT of work to get it back into shape. This year's garden is mostly experimental, more learning experience than actual garden. We're feeling pretty successful even now, just for having cleared some of it off and setting a few tiny plants in.

Stitching has been practically non-existent this week... too much other stuff to do. I did manage to hemstitch a couple of needlerolls, which I assembled this morning. Two less projects in the FUFO pile. YAY!!!

Home Again

We spent last week in New Bern, NC... our annual trip to BF's timeshare. I always look forward to the trip, but we keep finding more and more to do down there, and it seems to become more hectic each year. Yesterday I arrived home feeling like I needed a vacation from my vacation!

I managed to stitch a little while we were away, but not much. I dutifully worked on Adia Tuesday-- my weekly UFO stitching commitment. PIG also saw the light of day, but again... not much. I didn't get around to photographing them yet, but I'll post some updates soon.

We've been extremely busy since we got home yesterday. There's a ton of garden work to do, and we're also trying to get one of our northern VA properties converted to a rental. It doesn't look like I'll be doing much stitching this week.

Little Gift Sampler

This isn't actually a gift-- Little Gift Sampler is just the name of the design, by Indigo Rose. I wanted this to feel a little more like spring, so I changed all of the colors. I started with the fabric, 32 ct. Carnation Pink linen. I used Waterlilies "Confetti" for the alphabet, then chose coordinating DMC for the rest. I'll finish this one into a needleroll. Which reminds me... I really need to assemble some of my finished projects. Currently, they're sitting in a drawer, waiting for attention.



In the meantime, I've pulled out PIG once again. I haven't actually started stitching on it yet, but I plan to do that this evening. Tradewinds is still coming along nicely. Perhaps I'll have an update to both of them in the next few days.

A FUFO!!!

The finishing fabric that I had in mind for Candy-Stick Noel was really calling to me, so I bit the bullet and pulled out the sewing machine this morning. This fabric is actually what prompted me to stitch the design. The pattern wasn't something I'd ordinarily choose to stitch, but I couldn't resist because I had the perfect fabric to go with it.



I'm really happy with the way this turned out. And, now that the sewing machine is out, I just might go ahead and assemble something else if I can find the time. I've been pretty busy over the past couple of days filling soap & lotion orders. I think I've earned a break, though. ;)

Yesterday's soap was a fragrance called "Lick Me All Over". I'm not crazy about the name of this, and may decide to call it something else, but it smells delicious! It's a sort of fruity scent... almost good enough to eat.

WOOHOO!!!

I am happy to report that I am back in the land of high-speed internet surfing. YAY!!! We're online now via a laptop and wireless connection. MUCH better than the dial-up that we had been using for the last few months.

This means that I can FINALLY catch up on my blog reading. I wasn't able to view many blogs using dial-up, because it was just so darned slow. And forget leaving comments! I just couldn't do it, even when I could manage to read content. So brace yourself, folks... I'll be visiting AND commenting now that I'm able. It's also much easier for me to upload pics now, so maybe I can keep my own blog a little more up-to-date.

Off to check out blogs and all your stitching progress!

Adia Update... and SOAP!!!

Last week, I finished stitching the blending filament and metallic braid on Adia. YAY!!!!! It felt so good to get this bit out of the way, especially after my horrible frogging session. I was supposed to work on her again today, but I discovered that I am out of B5200, which is about all that is left of the regular stitching. I also have a lot of beads to attach, but those are all in our other residence. So, Adia will not be getting any further attention toay.

My stitching and blogging time has been seriously cut into by soap business stuff. I *finally* took some photos and uploaded a few things to Etsy. I haven't put much up there yet, mostly because I've been too busy filling other orders and haven't had the time to take more photos or write up the descriptions. Here's one of my soaps, Island Sun.



If you'd like to see more of my soaps, check out my Etsy shop! I'll be posting more items later this week.