Monday, August 29, 2016

I Actually Hermitted!!

  I signed up for IH&S weekend for the first time in a while hoping it would get be back into blogging a bit more.  Not only did I manage to do the hermitting part but I am managing to post about it in a timely fashion as well.  I may be able to get this thing back on track after all!
  As you know from my last post, I am scurrying around trying to get my deadline stitching in a more comfortable place.  I have several pieces to finish before the end of the year and we all know you can't count December.  Anyway,  I managed to get my other October birthday present finished over the weekend!!!!
   This is what it looked like when I picked it up Friday afternoon...



And this is what it looks like now!  Please excuse her wrinkles and folds. So glad to have this one done and dusted.



So, checking Agness off the list and moving on to something else.  Right now I am working on the next section of All Creatures but will have to move on again pretty quickly.  Until next time...

Hope you are enjoying your stitching as much as I am,  Laura






Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Catching Up Part 2

   I have been staying in, hiding from the heat, and stitching for the most part.  We did manage to have a 'cool down' the last couple of days.  If you can call the high 80s and low 90s cool.  Temps back up into the upper 90s by the weekend so I guess I will continue to stay inside and stitch!    I really need to do that too since I am starting to get a little anxious about the big pieces I am working on the deadlines they have for them.
   I have taken the summer off from the majority of my stitching groups to make more time to stitch and to recharge.  It always takes more time than I think to get a piece done and although I have been working like a madman on this rotation, I am still not sure I will have it all finished in time!
   I really needed to make some progress on Jane Tindall.  It is for a November birthday and I'm not sure how much time that bottom is going to take.  So out she came and I worked on her until I had the top section with the verse all in.


It went pretty quickly so that made me feel better about the time factor.  So then, I moved on to the next piece in the rotation.
   I started a new piece for one of my other fall birthdays.  It is a Scottish sampler and although the colors seemed very bright at first, it is growing on me!

Agness Horsburgh 1844 by Samplers Not Forgotten
40 ct Lakeside linen w/ overdyed threads

The eyelet band is the half way point and I am back to working on this again so I hope for a finish by the end of the month.
  At this point, I put this one aside and I really wanted to work on All Creatures again so I put another section on it.  I am down to the verse section so it went pretty quickly.



I would love to have this finished this year but I'm not sure I can manage it with the others that HAVE to be finished.
    Then the Quaker Mystery did another turn through the rotation and I added on another page here.


This is only through page 2 and has a long way to go but I really like the way the colors are coming together.
  I am also working on a Catherine Theron piece that is a pilot class.  I pulled it out to work on it in the middle of all this and realized I had an error, near the beginning of the vine, which all had to come out.  Then, since I had referenced the outside border and the inner border off of the vine, the whole right side of those borders  had to come out as well.  I was having a lot of difficulty with long armed cross on the diagonal, both ascending and descending, and keeping up with the count (obviously) and so I had a lot of ripping and rework to do on that.  Not a lot of fun but I got it all back in and started on the alphabet too.  I am feeling the most pressure about this one since it has to be finished by the end of February.  It is a tremendous amount of work and I can't really concentrate on it until after I have the other 3 done.  Keeping my fingers crossed for a shift in the space-time continuum!!!
  So that's me, caught up again.  As I said before, I am back to work on Agness and want to finish her before I move on to something else.  I hope to have her finished by the end of the month because the
schedule has me starting a new piece the first of September (a Christmas present) and too many things in the rotation gets a little crazy!!

Hope you are enjoying your stitching as much as I am,  Laura


Friday, August 12, 2016

Catching Up Part 1

   I had intended to make this post in July.  I even had these pictures taken.  But once again, life conspired to keep me away from the computer and it didn't happen.  In the mean time, I have been stitching away so in order to catch up, I will need to post in 2 parts.  Hope you all can stand it!!
  So,  in the period covering this post, I had 2 small finishes.  I have borrowed several OOP charts from the Facebook group Blackbird Lending Library this year and was able to stitch the 2 pieces below.  They are older patterns and I just pulled from my stash for colors and linen and just made them my own rather than try to match up the old dye lots.

Evergreen by Blackbird Designs
40 ct Lakeside linen
w/ overdyed threads

Wild Garden by Blackbird Designs
40 ct Lakeside linen
w/ overdyed threads

  Then I worked through a rotation of most of my SALs and made some progress on each of these.

All Creatures Great and Small by Barbara Ana
Love, love, love the chickens in this new section!!


Jane Plews  from the Facebook group Sampler Heart
This is so pretty and I really like that strawberry band!


Old Glory by Rosewood Manor
Bet you didn't think you would see this old nugget again!  I did pull it out and work on it a few times but those stripes take forever and it doesn't look like anything for the time involved.


Quaker Mystery Sampler from Facebook

   Last but not least, I made a start on the Quaker Mystery Sampler from Facebook. Stitched on 40 ct. Lakeside linen with the colors from Ann Bowers.  I gave Ann away and I thought it might be nice to stitch something with the threads I had left over from that finish.  There are a lot!!  So when this came up, it seemed like the perfect thing.
  So, that's my catch up for July.  I will post the newer  things in a day or so. Hope you come back for part 2!!


Hope you're enjoying your stitching as much as I am,  Laura