Catching Up

It's been a month since my last post and I really can't imagine how the time managed to slip by so quickly.  It was a busy month.  There was a family wedding: my niece/goddaughter married a very noce young man.  My husband and I took my mother on a four day Fall foliage vacation.  I finally got my glasses and all vision problems have been corrected.  And the usual routines seemed to speed up.  Halloween came and went.  I'll take things in chronological order.

First:  My niece made a beautiful bride and the whole family is delighted to welcome Steve into the fold.  The wedding ceremony itself was beautiful in the fine old church of St. Ann ... a Romanesque building with lots of gorgeous stained glass windows.  The weather was perfect, sunny but not too hot.  A beautiful Indian Summer day!    It was a truly joyous occasion.

The reception was a different story.   At the beginning of the month, my ever so slowly healing eyes did not do well with the dj's strobe lights and the photographer's and videographer's hot white lights [on poles, yet, the better to blind everyone across the room].  My husband and I ended up leaving the reception early because the pressure in my eyes was becoming intolerable.  I am getting to be quite a crank about wedding receptions. One would think it  a great time to reconnect with scattered family and friends but the incessant loud music makes it impossible to have a conversation without shouting at even your nearest seat mate.  And while it is fun to watch the energetic young dance to hip hop and rap music, that pales after a while, especially since I don't really care for that sort of music.  Since none of my remaining single nieces and nephews [5 are married, leaving 14 possible brides/grooms] are likely to plan a sedate reception featuring an elegant meal with a string quartet playing chamber music in the background, I expect I'll just have to endure.  I do have a year's reprieve before the next one in October of 2016.  I'll be popping Ocuvite daily in preparation. 

The next weekend we took my Mom to our favorite spot in the Catskills, the Bavarian Manor Inn, to enjoy the fall foliage and some peace and quiet.  We did a lot of driving through beautiful country with spectacular views overlooking valleys and rising hillsides and Hudson River vistas.  Unfortunately, I was so busy enjoying the sights, I never once pulled out my camera.  I did remember to take a few shots at the inn, though.  The first is a shot of the porch, all dressed for Fall.  We spent a lot of time on the  porch, sitting, reading and talking.

I took another shot of the lawn but that's about it for the Fall color photography.  A pity since the color on our mountain drives was so much more dramatic.  We took Mom to a few antique and collectible malls.  And we ate like lords at the Inn's wonderful German restaurant.  As usual, the schnitzels and wursts were fabulous but the potato pancakes outshine every other item on the menu and are a small taste of heaven on earth.

And, of course, I have been stitching.

I finished the small PS promo design, started a week ago on Sunday and finished on Monday.  This was stitched on 30ct WDW Periwinkle linen using two strands Belle Soie Poison Apple, Oatmeal Scone, Ocean Tide, Espresso and DMC 783.  I'll finish it as an ornament.

Then I went on to do a lot more work on The Goblin Market.  When last seen, it looked like this.

But several hours of stitching daily have yielded this progress.  I am more than halfway through the piece.  The last project that I stitched to have such an extensive color palette was The English Band Sampler.  I must say I am really enjoying all the color in this piece.  To describe a goblin-themed chart as bright and cheerful must seem odd but that's the way this design strikes me.  Please excuse the poor indoor photograph.  I'll do better with the next one.

Then, I took a break with this one day wonder from Prairie Schooler, a 2013 complimentary chart of a Queen Bee. It was meant to be stitched on 18 ct black Aida and I did start it on some 36 ct black linen.  It was slow going till I decided to spare my eyes and switched to a 32 ct raw linen.  Then my needle flew.  I substituted Belle Soie silks for the recommended DMC cotton, using Buttercup, Creme de Menthe, Ocean Tide, Old Crow and Vanilla Pudding.

And, while not quite another one day wonder, the PS Year round for October is stitching up relatively quickly.  I am using a 36ct natural linen and Belle Soie silks: Carrot Cake, Collard Greens, Old Crow and Wheargrass.  I have only the leaf and stem to stitch, making this year round entry a two day project.

And finally, here's a photo of my last harvest: enough spearmint to make a large pitcher of iced tea, enough basil for a quick pesto sauce, some eggplant and some tomatoes in various stages of ripeness.  There was  enough eggplant for a small tray of eggplant parmigiana.  The green tomatoes ripened on the kitchen windowsill, keeping me supplied for two weeks.  The days are still relatively warm but the nights are getting colde.  I was afraid to leave anything on the vines much longer.

A few small finishes

Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler

Aury.s Patriotic Quaker Heart 2013

As for the rest of the day:

Piper's stocking comes up in the rotation today.  I am going to try to stitch two square inches every week on this piece until I am done with it.  If I keep that pace I should have it done in time for Christmas of 2014.  Of course, the goal is to have both Piper's and Rocco's stockings completed by Christmas of 2014.  There will have to come a time, probably in July, when I start working on both of the stockings as the main focus of my rotation.

July 4th Album Post

I rather like the notion of album posts.  So today, to celebrate the Fourth, I am going to post photos of all my patriotic stitches.

I believe this is a Glory Bee design.  I had it framed and now set it up on a small stand on the antique washstand in my entryway on the appropriate day

In the top right hand corner you can see the July design from the Homespun Elegance Sheepish Designs series.

This a very old freebie that I finished as a pin keep.  It's hard to tell because of the lighting but the flowers are in a white bowl.

And I have stitched all of the Aury Patriotic Quaker motif hearts.  I have finished all of them  as pillow ornaments.

I'd have to look it up to see which came first, but this is my personal favorite

I wasn't as crazy about this design but a set is a set, after all.

This is a Glory Bee design that I stitched up as a tiny pin cushion stuffed with ground walnut shells.  It was the first time I used over-dyed chenille as a trim ... something I do fairly frequently now when I finish tiny pillows.  The pillow is laid on a piece of the backing fabric.

One of the things I liked best about this piece is the tiny brass Liberty Bell charm I stitched onto the branch of the "y" in Liberty.  I sent this as an exchange to a cyber friend.  I used the same design in one of the banners you see below.

                                               

This last ornament  is another ancient freebie embellished with a tiny silver USA charm near the hanger.

This a banner I made from a selection of free designs gathered from various websites

And the final banner is a relic from the time when I subscribed to The Silver Needle's Secret Needle Night Club.

Weekend Progress Report: January 30, 2011

I can't believe it's been a week and a day since I last posted. Normally, I post my Weekend Progress Report on Sunday evening, but I was just too tired to do so last night. It's been a very busy work week with less time for stitching than I would have liked. The usual 12 hour workdays at the beginning of the week were followed by more hours than usual in the later part of the week. I had to give up the better part of my usual Friday day-off to the annual archdiocesan consultation luncheon, a three hour event with an hour commute on either end. And Saturday, which usually ends at 10:30am after morning classes, ended up being extended to 3:00pm for Confirmation interviews. I suppose this balances out, in part, the snow days in the past two weeks. The weather forecasters are predicting another storm for Tues/Wed, adding another 2-5 inches of snow followed by significant icing. Normally a prediction of 2-5 inches of snow would have me concerned but at this point, it seems mere icing on the cake. The "significant icing" is far more worrying since it will cause many traffic accidents and, probably, accidents due to falls and slips, as well. At this rate, I don't expect to see bare ground in my backyard and above the retaining wall till June ... well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration ... but there is already an 18 inch layer of snow in the backyard at present, accumulated over the past three storms ... and it just keeps getting higher and higher. We had two days with temperatures above freezing this weekend, but are back to temps in the teens again today.

The Crazy January Challenge: Sue Hillis' Cookie Santa: The last time I worked on one of Sue Hillis' Charmed Santas, I actually stitched four in a row, picking up the next as soon as I finished one. These pieces are addictive ... probably because they supply the instant gratification of lots of small finishes within a finish. For example, on Tuesday, I finished the cookie jar in one before-work sitting and on Wednesday, I finished the tray of cookies on the same shelf of the kitchen work bench. I like to backstitch discrete sections as I go along which increases that sense of completion. The tray of cookies was a bit of a pain to stitch: 12 color changes in a small area [approx 30x15 stitches], not quite confetti stitching, but darn close. I continued to stitch on this through the later part of the week, whenever I had the time ... and, consequently made some pretty impressive progress. It should be finished early in February and then it is on to the Day 2 Crazy Challenge piece, The Ice Dragon's Kingdom from Dragon Dreams.

Aury's Red, White and Blue Quaker Heart: I managed to finish the stitching on this one Tuesday morning before going into work. I really enjoy stitching Aury's designs ... quick stitches but with just enough complexity to be a challenge suitable to a "travel" project ... neither too hard nor too easy. Since I now need a new small and portable travel piece, I'll be moving one of my UFO's, the Fertile Circle's Needlebook, back into the rotation. The Crazy January Challenge has me a bit worried about ending 2011 with twice as many WIPs and UFOs than 2010, so I am making a conscious effort to keep some of the older stuff in the rotation as well.

And, the continuing back-order saga: no joy as yet on the floss needed to finish Dragon Dreams The Ice Dragon's Kingdom [Day 2 project of the Crazy January Challenge] which was ordered from The Stitchery Row ... I really need to call them and ask how that is going. But I did get an e-mail from Needle in a Haystack, letting me know that all but one of the back-ordered Perfect Palette flosses needed for Primitive Needles' Black'd Skie [Day 15 project of the Crazy January Challenge] are on the way. In both cases, I have enough of the needed materials to make substantial progress on these projects. It's just annoying to know that I placed the orders in mid-December and am still waiting. I blame the economy since I suspect small businesses can no longer afford to carry very deep inventories. Consequently, rarely called-for specialty flosses and new and unproven brand lines tend not to be readily available. I don't think I would have had this problem ten, or even five, years ago.