Picture post

A little late but here they.

Kitty and Me ornament from JCS 2000 issue. I think it's an amazing gift that she possesses that she can take 3801, which is a bright flourescent shade of red/pink, as un-cardinally a color as I can imagine, and make it work through fairly easy shading to be the perfect color for a winter cardinal. Very few designers, really, have that talent. Stoney Creek is far more intricate, and Teresa Wentzler is in love with tweeding. The only issue I am having with this is that the blackwork leaves are all in that HORRIBLE DMC Light Effects. That stuff pops and snarls worse than the elastic waistband on an ancient pair of underwear and I hate it. I keep using it because I think the Kreinik would have made it thicker, but GOSH, does it irritate me. I keep expecting it to become easier to work with as I get older, but it's like a bad relationship; you keep going back, thinking, it will be different, and it's not, and it irritates you more because you expected better. I'll get through it, and it will be gorgeous, but, it's a waste of floss.



This is a quick stitch project from the Sanman board, the Inky Dinky Snowman SAL. I did this very quickly over the weekend, probably in 5 hours for the whole project. I like blackwork, something about that being all there is to the project makes it OK. and I really do like the challenge of not jumping across the back of the fabric, and figuring out how to minimize the lines on the back. There will be ten more of these little guys over the coming weeks, and I am really looking forward to stitching them.


Here are photos of the 2011 Keepsake calendar. I hope this doesn't violate copyright. It shouldn't; I'm not showing the charts, just a sample of what they have available. It's maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but there are some nice charts here.

The back cover. It's impossible to get a good photo showing everything.


July. I think this would make a pretty pillow.


September. Probably another good pillow, but you really could leave this out all year. It would be a pretty dining-room picture.


October. I would really leave this out all fall. It's pretty.


And December. The December 2010 is a juggling Santa, so this is, I guess, appealing to the elegance of the season, so you bookend the year in elegance and whimsy. But it would be kinda fun to put these out on a table in an entry way or amongst a buffet at a Christmas party.


I'm starting to embrace the idea of easels as a way to display stitchery, not on the wall. I'm sure this will change when we have jostling children, but it's a lot easier to use them to display little seasonal framed pieces than to try to find places to hang them (we have a patriotic piece up on the wall in our living room that is 4X4 and the normal piece is 12X16 and it grates on me to see that tiny little picture on that big expanse of wall) and they do make a pretty presentation.

Hope you are having a good week. Thank you for your kind comments about dealing with change. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way, and I'm glad people found my comments OK. All we can do, in a changing world, is keep finding humor. And at least I walked out smiling, not crying, and I made Norah smile. I think that girl has a future in puppy blogging, LOL.