Sunday, January 30, 2011

Skates!

My stocking dude now has skates, thanks to a tip (and a very kind offer) from Lee, who gave me an alternate color suggestion from what is called for in the chart and what I didn't have and was having trouble getting. So the stitching on the stocking is now complete and I am just waiting for the charm pack from the LNS. Once I get that and put on the embellishments, I'll be ready to take a deep breath and dive into putting it together. I don't have backing or lining yet; a trip to JoAnn's will be in order for that.

It's a good thing about those skates, because they'll be needed around here this week, if the weather gurus are anywhere close to correct in their forecasting. I guess there was so much whining about snow last week that Mother Nature decided to try her hand at some ice for us. I'm hoping that the forecasters are very much mistaken and that we'll just get snow.

I did a good bit of stitching this weekend. I did the afore-mentioned skates this afternoon, then I finished the Holly Reindeer (bottom picture) from Daffycat. I changed it up a bit and used beads for the holly berries instead of colonial knots. I also re-did the mistletoe on the Mistletoe Reindeer; I took out the knots and replaced those with beads also. I wasn't happy with those knots from the get-go. They just looked flat and messy. Beads are a pain to work with but these look way better than my knots did.



I put in several hours on This Is the Day yesterday afternoon and evening. I got quite a bit more of the alphabet finished along with some more fill-in behind it. I tried to upload a picture but blogger was being uncooperative. I can't figure it; the other three pictures uploaded in a jiffy.
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I also finished reading Sweater Quest, by Adrienne Martini, this weekend, and I recommend it. She wrote the book to chronicle the year she spent knitting an intricately-patterned sweater, but there's much more in the book than just knitting the sweater. She explores the reasons people knit, looks at the creative process, discusses the connection that knitters have with each other. In so many places, the word "knitting" could easily be replaced with "stitching" or "cross stitching"; I found myself nodding, thinking "yep, I understand that completely" or "exactly!" Excellent book.
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Hoping that everyone has a good week. Happy stitching!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Some Goodies, Some Stitching and, BTW, Go Steelers!

Brrr! It's been sooooo cold here; I turned on the Weather Channel this a.m. and they were telling me that the temp was zero. Brrrr again!

I did venture out to church and when I got home I had the urge to bake up a batch of shortbread cookies. I didn't have enough flour to make the full recipe, so I cut it in half and ended up with 15 cookies.
You only see 13 there? Gee, wonder how that could be..... Just call it quality control! And for those who are counting, now there are 11:

What could be better on a cold Sunday afternoon? A good book (a very good book, in fact), a nice cup of coffee, and a couple of fresh-baked shortbread cookies. Ahhhh, sweet bliss....
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Football started around 3pm and football time means stitching time. I pulled Robert's Stocking out of the WIP basket and am happy to say that it is almost finished!

I still don't have the right color of perle coton for his skates; I totally forgot to look for it at the LNS last weekend. I also have the embellishment packet on order at the LNS and it hasn't come in yet. I'm going to give her a call tomorrow about that because it's been since about September that I asked her to order it. Hmmmm.
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Here's a closer look at the reindeer and the little checkerboard. The reindeer weren't bad but the checkerboard was a pill to stitch.
And I just gotta say, Go Steelers! I watched both games and I think the Super Bowl is going to be a dandy. Green Bay is hot (metaphorically speaking) and if they play in the Super Bowl like they played today, they'll give Pittsburgh quite the game. It'll be fun.
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Wishing everyone a great week -- happy stitching!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Weekend!

It was a stitchy kind of weekend around here. I got up at o-dark-early to take my guy to the airport Saturday, but since it was Saturday I didn't have to worry about going to work and I went back to bed instead. I slept until after 10 -- something I never do! -- and when I finally got up and got moving, I decided that a trip to the LNS was in order. I have two that are about the same distance from here but I hadn't been to one of them in a while, so I headed out that way and came home with this:

The stocking chart is Sophie's Stocking from Shepherd's Bush. I had got the chart for Tina's Stocking to do for myself when I get Robert's Stocking finished, but when I saw this I had to grab it. The colors and some elements of the design look similar to Robert's, so I thought it might be a better one to do than Tina's. Although I do like Tina's Stocking....decisions, decisions.

I was flipping through a basket of Carriage House charts and came across The Gingham Dog & The Calico Cat so of course I had to have it as well (all your fault, Glenna, you enabled me with your pictures of this!) I love the bright reds and yellows and it's not a large design -- I think about 5" x 10" (more or less) on 40-count fabric. And I've always liked the poem.

After I came home, I settled in to watch some football (go Steelers!) and worked on This is the Day. I put in a few rows of background and all the letters to the left of the u, the H and the X.

Today was more football and some serious stitching on Robert's Stocking. This piece stitches up so quickly; I got most of the little patchwork blocks done as well as the reindeer on the left. I'm planning to make this my Sunday focus piece for the next few weeks and get it done.
I also made this today:

It's banana bread with walnuts; I had some chocolate chips in the fridge, so I threw in some of those also. Yummy!
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Here's hoping everyone has a great week -- happy stitching!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Enough

That's how much snow we have. Enough.

I realize that it's not much in the grand scheme of things and that, compared to what other places have, our piddly little 5 or 6 inches isn't a lot at all. And, after all, this is western Pennsylvania and it's January and snow is what happens here in January. But I had enough snow last winter to last me for a couple hundred years. This is enough for me for this winter.

Whining aside, I took the picture because I thought the snow looks like cushions on the porch furniture. Kind of pretty, actually.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Out of the WIP Basket and Onto the Finished List!

I got my first finish of 2011 tonight and boy, am I glad to be done with it! It's Moon Garden from Blackbird Designs, stitched on 36 count "Tundra" from Lakeside Linens with the called-for Sampler Threads. I looked back through my stitching journal and discovered that I began stitching this piece on January 12, 2008 -- almost 3 years to stitch a piece that ended up to be about 8-1/2" by 4".
I think it would have been an easier stitch if I had either stitched it on darker fabric or stitched it on the fabric I used but with 2 strands of floss rather than just 1. The colors look better in real life than they do in the picture, but they still don't really pop. I think I'd like it better a little brighter, but by the time I identified the reason for my dissatisfaction with the piece I'd done too much to want to start it over. So it's out of the WIP basket and it'll go live in the finis pile and maybe I'll do something with it one of these days.

Next on my list to get finished is Robert's Stocking. I'm pretty close to having it done and I need to get it finished so I can start another one for me!

Stay warm and happy stitching!