Winners and Quotas

Draggy. She included her e-mail address, so I'll be able to inform her immediately and request a snail mail address. With luck, the charts will be on their way tomorrow morning.

And, on another front, I have used up my self-imposed quota of purchasing only 5 charts this year by buying Workbasket's Quaker Polars and Quaker Halloweens which arrived from 123stitch yesterday afternoon along with another three packages of Piecemaker Tapestry 28 needles. This year, I have vowed to stitch from stash and buy only five charts. And, furthermore, even those five must be charts needed to complete series I am already stitching. I have reserved the JCS Christmas and Halloween ornament issues but I count that as purchasing magazines, not charts ... a jesuitical distinction perhaps but one that keeps me happy. Any further Workbasket Quaker animals, the 2009 Sue Hillis Charmed Santa and the 2009 Prairie Schooler Limited Edition Santa will just have to be purchased in January of 2010, if ever. I have enough charts that I genuinely want to stitch to last at least four or five years and since I am nearing my 60th birthday, I do believe a little judicious restraint is in order. In any case, purchases of fibers and fabrics and embellishments to stitch what I do have on hand will keep me fueling the stitchery market quite exuberantly ... so, no guilt trips there!

WIP Progress: Photos to follow

Well, I have added some cross-stitching finishes to my accomplishments this month:

Homespun Elegance's 2001 Santa Christmas ornament Toy Noah and 1999 Santa Christmas ornamment Great Good Cheer. I'll post photos once they are assembled and finish-finished.

I have also made some progress on Workbasket's Quaker Pig. I rather like the Caron fiber I am using: Wildflower Camouflage. The perle adds a certain texture to the piece. The colorway of saturated rose-beige and olive green will work well in the final quilt and still has enough of a pig color to give a hint of realism. It suggests a pig that's been doing a bit of wallowing in the mud. Once I get the central Quaker motif fully stitched I'll post a photo since it really doesn't look very interesting at the moment.

And I have kitted up two more Christmas ornaments using the remnants of my Silkweaver 40 ct. Mississippi Mud limited edition linen. Love that fabric :>) and I'll really miss it when it's used up. But I do have some 40ct in another limited edition linen [Alabama Clay which is a few shades darker] that I'll enjoy as well. Lately I have been ordering 36 and 40ct fabrics in my FOTM plan since I have all the 28ct that I'll be needing for the forseeable future.

Christmas in July Giveaway

In honor of Independence Day, I'll be doing a special giveaway this month. It's July and time to start stitching for Christmas soooooo... I'll be giving away the five gently used Homespun Elegance Christmas charts pictured below. Since I have stitched all of these myself, the giveaway is "chart only" and any charms called for in the designs will have to be purchased by the winner or left out of the design entirely [which would look just fine, in my opinion]. The two stocking charts were meant to be stitched on pre-finished stockings available from Homespun Elegance but I stitched my own version of the Christmas Night Stocking ... I have used the pre-finished stocking for Merry Olde Christmas and, as a semstress trained by a highly skilled amateur [my mother] and by a professional seamstress [my grand-mother], I was not impressed by the either the quality of the sewing or of the fabrics. In addition, I find stitching on pre-finished items a very awkward affair productive of badly cramped fingers.

From the Bits and Pieces series
Oh, Snowy Night and Christmas Night Stocking

From the Christmas Ornament series:
1999 Santa
2001 Santa
And this stocking chart, called Merry Olde Christmas

All five items will go to one lucky winner. The giveaway is open to stitchers from both the US and international communities. All that is required is that you post a comment saying why you'd like to stitch these small treasures. I would ask that the winner commit to PIF [passing them on, free of charge] to another stitcher rather than offer them for sale in an album ... though, of course, it'd be unenforceable and strictly on the honor system. I will choose a winner on July 10. Good luck to all who enter.

Finishing Frenzy: Day 2 & 3

Well, my finishing frenzy devolved into a mere finishing flutter ... the injury to my foot was aggravated by using the sewing machine pedal ... I had to start all over with elevating my foot and sitting still ... I would have been driven stir crazy if I hadn't been able to stitch and watch a few DVDs. I did finish one more Homespun Elegance Christmas Santa ornament, 2001 Noah Toy and am three quarters of the way through the 1999 Great Good Cheer ornament ... so the weekend wasn't a total loss. And I am keeping my "finishing center" set up in the dining room until such time as I do actually get caught up.

Finishing Frenzy: Day 1

I started with some easy pieces for a quick jump start and lots of immediate gratification:

Primitive Needle Salem Witch Halloween ornament

Bright Needle's Sauce for the Gander Needlebook

and the inside of the needlebook

Homespun Elegance's Christmas Night Stocking: since I didn't think snowmen would show to advantage on the country cream linen scrap I used, I stitched a whole bunch of trees and added a checkerboard toe to match the top since I didn't have the called for charm.

Imaginating Inc. Cardinal Ornament

The Shaker box has two coats of paint, inside and out. The cardboard circle for the Rabbit Rondel is covered in batting and ready to assemble tomorrow morning. I have the backs for Homespun Elegance's Oh Snowy Night and the Poisson du Avril Scissor Fob covered in batting and fabric, the fronts are covered in batting and ready for assembly tomorrow. I also started assembling the Rabbit Rondel pin cushion but had to put it down when my eyes started to cross. It'll be my first project tomorrow morning when I am fresh and well-rested. I am a little disappointed that I didn't get further today but my decision to bead the edge of the Cardinal ornament slowed things down a bit. Another disappointment came when I sent my husband to JoAnn's at the Palisades Center Mall for some mattress ticking I wanted for a tote finish ... only to have him call me from the mall to inform that the shop was no longer there. Now the nearest JoAnn's is either in Paramus NJ [40 miles south] or Middletown [40 miles north] ... curses.

The tally for today is four finishes and three more projects at the half-way point. Not too shabby for a lazy day of putterring about. I think I'll stitch on my Quaker Pig this evening and forget about finishes for a while.

Hobbling along

Both figuratively and literally.

I don't know what it is about a wonderful vacation that makes me more weary now that I have returned to work. I guess I haven't yet made the adjustment from leisure mode to work mode. I return from work too tired to stitch for more than an hour or so before vegging out in front of the TV ... Bill and I are re-visiting Quantum Leap from our own vast TV on DVD collection.

The result: I am moving a little more slowly than I had planned on my Homespun Elegance Christmas ornaments. I am nearly finished with the 2001 Santa ornament and have yet to stitch up the 1999 Santa ornament, but I am sure I'll have it done soon.

And, to complicate matters, I injured my foot last Sunday. While stepping out of the car at church, my sandal slipped off and my foot landed on said sandal crosswise. At first, I thought I had just pulled a muscle so I kept my foot up for the rest of the day and figured that would be that. Well, it is now swollen and painful. My primary care physician has diagnosed it as "severe trauma to the soft tissue" ... which I assume is medical jargon for "I'm not sure what you did so I am sending you to a podiatrist and I'll let him figure it out." In any case, walking on my injured foot untreated for four days was not one of my brighter ideas. But I have always been one to try and tough out an injury/illness rather than run to a doctor at the slightest discomfort. More fool I! Well, my injury has turned a three day weekend into a four day weekend so things are not really so terrible after all.

Sewing finishes

I really need to get working on these ... while gathering up all my Quaker pieces for a post last month, I found another 15 pieces awaiting sewing finishes in addition to the 7 pieces I listed in my "Breaking the barrier" post. If I am not careful, these pieces will start taking over the house. And while on vacation I have added another six projects to the sewing to-do pile. So, I have converted my dining room into a temporary finishing station: bringing the sewing machine, ironing board, iron, and fabric/cording/lace stash all downstairs. With any luck, I'll get a lot done during the summer months since I enjoy a normal 9-5 schedule during July and August as opposed to the wildly fluctuating school year schedule of 9am-9pm Mon & Tues, 9am-3pm Wed., 9am-7pm Thurs as well as 8am-Noon Saturday ... for a total of 42 hours /week on the normal weeks. I am not even going to contemplate the weeks with special events and meetings ... those run into 50-60 hours, at times.

Here is a photo of what I hope will be the site of much productive activity ... note the huge basket of 28 projects requiring some degree of sewing finishing.

Once I get caught up on sewing finishes, I think I will use the same strategy with UFOs ... gathering them all in one place so I can see what I am dealing with and plan accordingly. Of course, the truth is I will never really catch up on sewing finishes since I currently am working on the cross stitch elements for two quilts ... so those pieces will have to be stored and listed as "to sew someday when all the elements are completed". I don't think the UFO pile will be nearly as daunting ... but then who knows what lurks in all the baskets, bureaus and boxes scattered about the house? I expect I'll find things long since forgotten.

June Goals Assessment/Setting July Goals

JUNE GOALS:

• Finish Fertile Circles: Almost. Just a bit of the back cover to stitch before it is ready for assembly.
• Finish Workbasket's Rabbit Rondel: YES and I even stitched the accessories: pin cushion and scissor fob
• Kit up TW's Woodland Angel Stocking: When I realized how many DMC flosses I had to pull for the Autumn Faerie and how much cross-over there would be between the two designs, I decided to put this on hold till I had finished the faerie.
• Stitch 1 Christmas ornament: YES ... actually I stitched two, both from the Homespun Elegance's Bits and Pieces Series: Oh, Snowy Night and Christmas Night Stocking
• 10 hours on TST Holly and Hearts Sampler: I am consigning this to UFO status for the remainder of the summer. I seem to need more vibrancy and color and less delicacy and finesse at the moment.
• 10 hours on TW Autumn Faerie [my UFO-WIP for this month]: well, to be honest I only spent an hour on this project and that involved re-kitting it with all the floss needed.
• 5 hours on backlog of sewing finishes: All I did on this front was set up a finishing "center" in my dining room ... more on this in a future post.

And, in addition, I stitched the following

• Primitive Needle's Salem Witch and 1692
• Workbasket's Quaker Turtle and Quaker Rooster
• Keep Watching [... Maybe I'll do a trick] from Baby Bibs with Attitude
• and began another design of my own: Beach Find Pansies
• as well as starting the Homespun Elegance 2001 Santa Ornament

JULY GOALS

• 10 hours on TW's Autumn Faerie
• Stitch two more Workbasket Quaker Animals: Pig and Cow
• Stitch a Christmas ornament
• Stitch Glory Bee's Which Witch
  
• Start Workbasket's Quaker Sampler
• 5 hours on backlog of sewing finishes
• UFO>WIP: The Peacock biscornu
• Finish the Fertile Circles Needlebook
• Finish the Beach Find Pansies panel

Sunday Stitching

Just some photos of the past few days' stitching progress:

Some WIPs
Homespun Elegance's 2001 Santa ornament

Workbasket's Quaker Pig



And some finishes:
2005 JCS Christmas Ornament issue's Guardian Chessie


From Baby Bibs with attitude: Keep Watching, Maybe I'll Do A Trick

I have a few other baby bibs on hand and plan to stitch at least two more. A third, and of course, my favorite bib seems to have picked up a stain while in storage. Since it was stored in a perfectly clean cloth bag with other unaffected fabrics, I can only conclude the chemicals used to treat it by the manufacturer [sizing, mordants, etc.] are responsible for the discoloration. The stains lightened with one washing but were not completely eliminated. I'll try again using bleach applied with an artist's brush since the affected areas are all white. I figure that at this point, I have nothing to lose and may manage to salvage the bib for stitching.

A new grand-daughter

Liam welcomes his baby sister, our latest addition who was born on 6/19/09, checking in at 7lbs.11oz. and 19 1/2" long. She is beautiful, strong and healthy but has been saddled with the unfortunate name of Piper Ann. God knows, as a good ex-hippie, I raised my boy to avoid all manner of yuppie-isms but, clearly, I have failed. I fear that with a name like that, my poor benighted little grand-daughter will be condemned to a life of twin sets, pearls, birkenstocks and Beemers ... God save her, she might even marry someone named Chas [pronounced in the snootiest of "old money" accents]. I have been practicing saying her name over and over again so that when I finally meet her I'll be able to say it without wincing. My only hope is that Liam will give her a good solid nickname that the rest of the family can adopt without aggravating my daughter-in-law unduly. I know, I know ... I am a terribly unnatural grandmother ... but I have always considered names important.

Sleep well, little one, and enjoy only the sweetest of dreams.