February Finishes!

I have 3 finishes so far this month!  Two are stocking ornaments for my two young brother cats Finn and Tali, stitched on CharlesCraft Mini Stockings. Patterns are from a Leisure Arts leaflet by Mary Ellen Yanick called Cats, Cats, Cats!, c1987. Now all the pets have stocking ornies for next year!

The other February finish has a story....my husband's sister is married and lives in New Zealand with her hubby and 3 kids. We went for a visit way back in 2000 when my daughter was 5. While visiting the Lake Taupo region, Ann and I went to a needlework store and found this New Zealand Map pattern by Susan Ryder for Heritage Stitchcraft, and she wanted me to make it for her. Never having done anything so large before it languished in UFO-dome for a decade! They have come home a couple of  times for visits and will be here again in April and I wanted to finally finish it for her! Since I started it in 2001, I have had TONS of experience on large projects (RE: Chatelaines and TWs!!) Apparently, this was a good thing because I managed to take it from one outlined island to complete in about a month!  It will be made into a door banner so she can take it back more easily. Here are some progress pics since my last update.....this is the North Island (South Island is pictured in an earlier blog post).

The Coat of Arms, or Seal of New Zealand is also on the piece....

....and here is the final map, before ironing and finishing!

This week I'm working on my next freebie release, so check back in the next few days!

Christmas in July!

Wish we had the weather to go along with Christmas!  It's HOT in North Carolina right now!

My rotation interlude turned out to be a Christmas ornament, the 1990 Schooler Santa by Prairie Schooler.
It is stitched with DMC on 18ct putty khaki davos over one. I started stitching them around 2000, and decided to go back to the year my DH and I met in 1989 and make one a year onward as well. I am almost to the end of the oldies!  I will finish them all as ornies and will have a Schooler Santa tabletop tree at Christmas (along with our artificial tree...we have cats). This one I have dubbed the Wildlife Santa.

Now I get to go back to a large piece, Chatelaine's Holland Landscapes, to finally stitch the last of four tulip rows! At that point I will be 75% done on it. Think cool thoughts in this hot summer!

Final stitching of 2010

Christmas and the week after were busy as I had relatives in town so I didn't have much time to stitch. I dug out a little NeedleMagic kit that I could carry around with me and stitch whenever I had some time. Finished just before midnight on December 31st! Here is my little Christmas Cardinal, with a bell to ring in the New Year.....


I have a hockey game to watch tonight, my Carolina Hurricanes against NJ Devils....go 'Canes!
Tomorrow I'll post my wrap-up of 2010, and my goals for 2011, in the stitching category anyway! Other resolutions hardly make it a month, but somehow I keep on stitching....;-)
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and may you all have a productive and safe New Year in 2011!!

Christmas ornaments!

I can now show off the three Christmas ornaments I made for my small stitching group!
The first one is from Elizabeth's Designs, A Dog's Christmas. This is an older one I believe, because I don't remember ever seeing it before. Stitched on 18ct davos. I used a different finishing technique on each one, the first being the easiest!


The other two are from JBW Designs, French Country Mitten in red, and A Nordic Mitten (with greeting added) in green. The French Country one has a beaded edge, and the Nordic one has been mounted (front and back) on mat board and whip stitched together.



Now, I only need to finish assembling about 3 dozen more ornies.......maybe next year!

Christmas is sooner than you think!

Yep, I just realized...only about 3 and a half months till Christmas! I just recently got the 2010 Schooler Santa, so stitched him up over the first few days of the month...this year Santa is a skier! Eventually I'll have a whole tabletop tree of Santas when I get around to finishing them all into ornaments. ;-D

Meow! Another ornament done!

I have been trying to catch up on all the JCS ornament issue favorites for a while! This one is from the 2004 issue, by Chessie & Me. I left off the border and smyrna stars so it would match her other cats. There have been several, and they are in my Webshots ornament album if you are interested. I am going to ornamentify them with the same holiday fabric....sooner rather than later I hope!

Last finish this month, as I am getting back to Castles in the Air today!

Wrapping up 2009...ornies, a dragon and more!

Just a couple of days late on wrapping up my 2009 stitching year! First, I stitched a couple of Mary Englebreit mini kits that Santa brought....Topiary Wreath and Christmas Wreath... on Dec. 30th and 31st.




Then, a progress report on my Dragon Feathers Afghan (rescued from UFO status in December)
I only have four more blocks to go!


Finally, a recap of the year in stitching! 40 total finishes, 2 being former UFOs!

2009 Stitching (reverse order)

~Christmas Wreath, Mary Englebreit Dec.30
~Topiary Wreath, Mary Englebreit Dec.31
~Yo Ho Ho Ho, Sue Hillis Dec.22
~Winter Whitetail, Something In Common Dec.19
~Lynne Biscornu, Maria del Valle Dec.4
~Pumpkins, Little House Needleworks Nov.29
~A Christmas Partridge, Serendipity Nov.27
~17th Cent. Italian Garden, LizT.Diehl Nov.25
~Fabulous Fall Biscornu, Cats Whiskers Nov.4
~Owl Biscornu, Stitch Creations Oct.31
~Coffee Crossword, Primrose Needleworks Oct.28
~Midnight Magic, Mill Hill Oct.10
~2009 Schooler Santa, Prairie Schooler Oct.5
~Boo Club, Lizzie Kate Sept.27
~Floral Biscornu, Alice Okon Sept.9
~Alla Turca, Pelin Tezer Aug.22
~Cheetah Biscornu, Cross Stitch Happy Aug.11
~Bluebird Soap Dispenser, Cathy Livingston Jul.15
~1991 Schooler Santa, Prairie Schooler Jul.11
~Summer Butterfly Biscornu, Alexandrina Jul.3
~Kitty Frame, San-Man Orig. Jun.19
~Going Bananas, San-Man Orig. Jun.18
~Assisi Kiwi, CraftsWeb NZ (gift) Jun.15
~Beaded Roses Biscornu, Just Nan Jun.6
~Frog Biscornu, Casey Buonaugurio May 19
~Butterfly Motif, My Aunt's Attic (gift) Apr.29
~Pansy Biscornu, Dinky-Dyes Apr.15
~Peacock Heart, Gift of Stitching Apr.12
~Peacock, Papillon Creations Apr.1
~Roberta's Cats Fob, Cross Stitch Happy Mar.27
~Growth Rings, Ink Circles Mar.25
~Ohio Heart, Victoria Sampler Feb.25
~XS Cat, Margaret Sherry Feb.21
~Blue Bayou, Northern Pine Designs Feb.10
~Garden Biscornu, Kissy-Cross Feb.4
~Cherry Blossom Biscornu, Sweetheart Tree Jan.22
~Dream Tree, M Designs Jan.16
~Memory Wall Quilt (gift) Jan.16
~Floral Motif, My Aunt's Attic (gift) Jan.11
~Winter Bird Delight, Praiseworthy Stitches Jan.7

Best wished for a very Happy New Year to everyone in 2010!

Last minute ornament

Aargh! Meet Whitebeard the Pirate! (you know, Blackbeard's alter ego...) ;-D

This Yo Ho Ho Ho freebie is from Sue Hillis, stitched on 28ct raw linen and mounted as an ornie.

I made a Biscornament!

If you are wondering what a biscornament is....I was stitching an ornie from the 2003 JCS ornament issue, Winter Whitetail by Something In Common, and noticed it was square (well it stitched on point so strictly speaking it's a tilted square). I thought I'd try making it into a biscornu without the dimple in the center. Look.....it uploaded sideways but you get the idea!

It took me a little bit of time to figure out how to make both sides be right side up (the back is just my initials and the year), and it was a tad fussy on the whip stitching since the back stitch outer line was on the diagonal, but in general I love it! It really looks like an ornament, all roundish and such! I have decided to call it a biscornament, and will be going thru all the backlog of ornies waiting to be finished to see which ones will work for this technique....no diagonal ones this time, however!

Prairie Schooler Santa ornament

A little Christmas in July stitching, this one being the 1991 Schooler Santa from Prairie Schooler!

I'm stitching backward through them all to the year I met my DH, which was 20 years ago last weekend! Two more, and then I'll just stitch each new one as they come out every year. Eventually I'll finish them all as ornaments and they will have their own tree. If you had to finish 20 ornaments how would you do it? I have some nice backing fabric, but I'm not really looking forward to 20+ little pillow ornies. Suggestions welcome!

I have also been working on stash organization and clearing my hobby room of extraneous "stuff". Right now it's chaos as I have been putting everything into an Excel file (being a former librarian has it's advantages, and obsessions too!). All the charts and leaflets are done, and most of the kitted stuff....saving the magazines for last as they are a whole other "obsession"! I'm eventually going make a list of stash up for adoption, so stay tuned.

Not to worry, I'll leave time for stitching, or go crazy!

Latest finish!

My latest finish is another peacock design...a freebie handout at my LNS from the Gift of Stitching magazine. It didn't have a name, so I'm calling it Peacock Heart. Stitched over one with 1 strand of Weeks Peacock on 28ct cashel and mounted in a gold heart ornament frame.

Finish It February

On one of the boards I frequent on Yuku, it is Finish It February, wherein we all endeavor to finish things, be it UFOs laying around too long, or ornaments that have been stitched but never "ornamentified" (a word my friend Heather coined!). My goal was to finish at least one thing a week, and since I have no quick finishes in the UFO or WiP categories, I've been catching up on my finishing in other ways. This is my last one for the month, an ornie I stitched in 2006, and now it's tree-ready! It's a design by Dragon Dreams, from the 2001 JCS Ornament issue, called Not a Creature Was Stirring.

I also stitched up another heart from the Victoria Sampler series Hearts of America, this time Ohio. Eventually I want to make a quilt with the hearts as the centers of blocks. This is obviously a loooong-term project since this is only #17! I have an album on Webshots for VS designs, so if you want to see the others, please visit me there! These are really quick stitches...I did this one last night in about four hours.

Tonight I'll finish up the second skein of silk on Growth Rings and post a picture tomorrow. That still leaves me two days this month to work on Holland!

Busy week!

Since my last post several things have gotten done...the cupboard my DBIL built for me was installed on Thursday, I started Growth Rings from the latest JCS issue, filled up the cupboard (after much sorting and some discarding of "stuff"), went to the After Market open house at my LNS, and had lunch with my friend Carolyn, and finished an ornie I stitched 3 years ago! I'm one tired, but happy camper!


First, here's the cupboard...I still have a bit more sorting to do.

This is my sewing corner...

This is my work table...


And here is my haul from the LNS.....like I needed more stash! How could I say no to the Britty Kitties, more biscornu, Crossed Wing's newest hummer, Halloween cuties and SILK from Dinky-Dyes?


And finally, the finished ornie (I swear it was square when I was done sewing!)
It's from one of the JCS ornament issues. Raccoon's Visit by Something in Common.


I'll post a progress picture of Growth Rings tomorrow....I'm loving it so far!

Slow week...so far

This week has started off slowly because I'm fighting off a winter cold....yuck! Last week, between stitchings, I've been working on cleaning out my hobby/sewing room of all the non-stitching related *stuff* that's been piled up over the years. My DBIL is building me a couple of pieces of "furniture" for the room, and came over Sunday to dry fit a shelf for next to the laundry sink in the hobby room.

Maybe I should explain...this room is former attic space near the laundry room upstairs--the prior owners finished it as a model train room, but it's perfect for my stitching and quilting hobbies, with a long central table complete with underneath shelves. I'll put some pictures up once I get it "presentable", don't worry!

At any rate, he is also going to build me a counter cupboard with sliding doors for storing fabric and such, and for that I have had to get rid of all the *stuff* to make room....not that I'll miss 5 boxes of old 90's era tv shows on vcr tapes (why did these even get moved in 1996?). I will have a new project to work on after this, as I also uncovered all the boxes of family photos dating back to my high school days....that will be a chore to sort, but fun too I think. Plus there are a lot of old files to be shredded.....DD gets paid by the bag to shred!

I'm worn out with all the cleaning and the cold, so Sunday and Monday I worked a bit on a quilt, and finished an ornament (from the pile of 35+ that need to be ornamentified!).
Here it is...it's called Seasons Tweetings, an OOP chart from San-Man stitched over one.



In the evening, I started the M Designs Dream Tree to do while watching TV. I should get to finish that up in the evenings with games to watch...Carolina Hurricanes play tonight and Thursday, and Duke b'ball has a game at Ga.Tech Wednesday. Stitching keeps me from getting too nervous watching my teams! (Don't worry Carolyn, Holland is coming out soon...I'll post a "Before" picture soon!)