Halloween Costume progress

Here is my progress on Halloween Costume. Top Gun was on last night on AMC and so I got quite a bit done. I am stitching it with the requested Weeks threads and trying to use them to show dimensionality. I don't know if it's evident or if I'm just making things difficult for myself. Oh well . . .




This is what it will look like when it's finished. Can you understand why I find this irresistable?

http://freebiegallery.blogspot.com/2009/10/halloween-costume.html

Another finish

I completed All Hallows Evening 2010 today. Very fun and I'm glad I got it finished. I liked it as soon as I saw it.

I am working on Halloween Costume right now. Will try to find a picture of the finish as soon as I can. All those old BOAF freebies are HARD TO FIND. I even found the pretty blue hand-dyed fabric from Dovestitch that I wanted to put it on. Yay for me! This is stitching up fairly quickly, so I may have a finish to show soon.

Back stitching!

I finished the March Inky Dinky SAL block from Sanman yesterday. This time the snowman is surrounded by clover leaves. Pretty quick stitch, it was. I'm still plugging away at the trees on the right hand side of the center panel of Sleepy Hollow. They're done in Weeks. Either I got pale skeins of the colors she used, or rinsing them affected them, but the colors of the trees aren't popping like I'd like. Though, to be honest, my issue is probably that I hate doing large area of colors in overdyeds more than anything else. I know, that is wierd considering the ring pillow is monochromatic in GAST, but I think the difference is just that, in the latter, it's one or two blocks, maybe 10, where the trees are just large blobs of color. And crossing each stitch takes SOOO MUCH time. I am plugging away though. I have five more lines of carrot to do, and maybe 20 of the yellow. Trust me, I'll be happy dancing when that is done.

I realize I'm letting my freebie stitching fall to the wayside for now. I fully intend to get back into that as soon as I get that center panel and the ring pillow done. I know now that it would be impossible to stitch up all the freebies I wanted to get done this year, but I have to say this is, midway through the year, really been an enjoyable time. I knew for sure I'd have already cheated and done things that weren't free, but so far, except for UFOs and those LHN Ornaments, all I've done is free stuff. And the urge to stitch retail charts is not as bad as it was. I haven't felt trapped or that the things I'm doing are any less "worthy" than their retail counterparts. I'm glad about that. It's been a refreshing revelation.

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.

Reader I married him!

is finally finished. I put the last stitches in and popped it out of the hoop for a picture. It's stitched pretty much per the chart, though I did change out the flower centers--otherwise the red in her ribbon makes no sense. Now it makes little sense, but a little is more than none. Right?

We did debate about her shoes. I didn't like black. Especially since the dress color is the shade range my bridesmaids' dresses fall into. The girls and I are wearing silver shoes, so I thought about that, but I didn't have any silver thread at hand. I stitched them in white, but that looked cheesy and "80s" to me. I thought about leaving her feet off, but HTB said she needed feet. He said the black was fine, because "that's the only color they had back then." We then launched into a discussion of Jane Eyre, because he didn't understand what the writing meant. I tried to explain, as much as I remember from something I read in middle school. I admit, that is not on my list of life-changing books, so I stitched this more because I thought it was cute than from any real connection to the story. He liked it; now to wash it and mount it and wait for my dad to get my box back to me. I keep thinking how cool it would be to line the box with the scraps from my bridesmaids' dresses, but it would only work if things need to be highly altered, and I don't think I'll have enough. So I told him I'd have to go to G Street Fabrics (the big awesome fabric store for the serious sewer here) to find something that worked.

I don't know what I'll work on next. I need to finish our ring pillow. But I have some other stuff that is tugging at me to do. Hmmmm . . .

Pssst . . . we've got pictures!

I had time to take photos today. I think I haven't shared these before.

Christmas Carrot from a 1990 issue of Country Stitch. Stitched on marbled DMC aida (why don't they make marbled evenweave?)I did switch out the color of the inner border. It was calling for another shade of green, but I thought the red would look better.


An older finish-Fa La La. I know I talked about it, but I forget if I posted this one. It was a freebie from Plum Pudding.


Irish Kitty from Kustom Krafts. Stitched with the recommended threads on a piece of Charles Craft aida.


And my new WIP, Reader I Married Him, aka The Jane Eyre Tribute. I am enjoying this a lot. I did get a bit of a stain on it, but I think it will come out with washing--it's either iced tea or dog drool, no biggie. I have to take the wooden box I bought to mount it on over to Daddy and see if he can stain it for me. He is a woodworker and refinished a lot of furniture in his time, and so, is better at these things than yours truly, plus he can probably find use for a container of stain after the project is finished, whereas I won't and it will just take up space in the garage.


I hope everyone is having a good week. This week is much better for me, though I am so saddened by the devastation of the floods in Nashville. I think I've posted that I work in flood insurance, and I would like to think I've developed a bit of professional "distance" due to what I deal with every day, but this is different. I love Nashville; I've loved it since I first visited 15 years ago and it's my favorite bigger city to visit. Five years ago, Best Friend Brea and I were at the Opryland Hotel for CATS, and it was so pretty. A fairyland. And it causes an ache to see water in the building, and to know the Country Music Hall of Fame has been flooded, and the new concert hall. Not to mention the sports complexes. I am asking everyone to keep the people of Nashville in your thoughts while they recover from this horrible event.

Picture update

I realize I haven't posted in what feels like forever. Last week turned out to be not such a good week. Nothing major happened. Just everyone was out of sorts, some people close to me said some things about some choices I made for the wedding that really really upset me (apparently, I looked so pi$$ed off, HTB asked me if I lost my job--I told him I didn't want to talk about it, and gave that ol' elliptical a beat-down), and, on top of all of it, our theatre patrons were acting like nasty spoiled children on Saturdaay, and I had about reached my limit; if I wanted to deal with kids, I would have stayed in school those extra years and gotten an education degree. I just don't understand why some people thrive on being nasty; I try not to be like that when I go in stores, but I guess it's too much to think other people want to extend that same courtesy to those who serve them. I came, drooping, home at Saturday at 10PM and told HTB I have to get out of customer service work.

We did see Avatar finally. I bought it on Thursday, and we just LOVED it. I had been convinced that I wouldn't like it, because I don't like fantasy that much, but it was amazing. The story was beautiful; maybe it will inspire people to realize that we do share a connection to our world and that we need to respect that and honor it. I think this goes high on my list of favorite movies, but it's one I won't be able to watch again right away. I want to savor it and think for a while.

I did finish Irish Kitty on Wednesday. I have managed to misplace it in the middle of organizing my freebies--I keep coming onto caches of stuff I've printed off, LOL. I do have fabric for a tuck pillow for it that looks good. It's shamrocks in colors that match the shamrocks on the design. It also has ladybugs, which the design doesn't have, but, when I look at it, I decided it needs a ladybug button. It makes sense to have the kitten looking at something, and it ties the design to the fabric.
I bought ladybug buttons, and have to have HTB cut off the shank and drill a hole for me to sew it on to the design. I think it will be a lovely, whimsical addition to our spring stuff.

The pictures above are my new WIPs.The first is Christmas Carrot from a 1990 edition of Country Stitch magazine. It's not the best picture, but there are a lot of ornaments in the set, and the magazine photo is far away. To get any better, I'd have to show the chart, and that's illegal. I'm maybe a third of the way done. It's pretty fun to stitch. He looks like such a determined guy in the picture, lugging his dinner home, LOL. I'm not sure about two shades of green in the border though. I may switch it out to a red for the outside. I'm not sure yet.

The other one has been kitted up for FOREVER. It's a Sanman Halloween freebie from 2007 called Pumpkin Pie. I've never seen a finish of it . . . I can't imagine I'm the only one who liked it? It has the CUTEST verse--"A little ghost flew through the sky and crashed right into bat/Bat went swirling to the ground and smashed poor Jack flat/Frank came by and made pumpkin pie/ and that is that." I'm playing with the last part a bit, depending on how much fabric I have left at the end. I may change it to be, "And that, my loves, is that." I bought a fat quarter of Carnival PTP linen to stitch it on, and I think it's so neat. I am trying to do it as a bellpull, I think it would be pretty cute. Or maybe I'm just twisted?

I am hoping this is a better week. We're going up to Pennsylvania to order one pair of my wedding shoes (I want low heels for the service, higher for the reception, it probably won't look so good if I'm constantly shifting because my feet hurt), and to get some flowers. Hopefully that will go well. Any week, I don't work 6 days in a row is a good week.

I hope everyone else has a lovely week.

irish kitty WIP

Or should I call it Irish kitty and frog? I spent last night frogging on this. I had a bad night at my part-time job--we had a rental, which is always "special" (the theatre is historic and it makes my eye twitch when I see how some of these groups treat the space), one of my co-workers was being a pain, and my sinuses are acting up. I probably shouldn't have been stitching, but I did it anyway. And so I frogged.
It won't be the first, it won't be the last, and it was all fixable, so no harm, no foul.

I apologize for the not-so-good photo. I'm stitching it on blue Charles Craft 14-count aida, but it's not as blue as the picture makes it out to be. I went back and forth about what fabric to use for this. Should it be a green, or a blue, or a cream or a khaki? I just couldn't find a green that went with the shamrocks, thought, and the neutrals would have just blah'd it out. I wanted a color to make the kitten pop and it really does pop off this. So do the shamrocks, so I'm pretty pleased.

I haven't quite figured out how I want to finish this. I initially thought as a cube, but now I'm leaning towards a tuck pillow. I don't know. I have quite a bit of St. Patrick's Day fabric that needs to be used up, but I'm not sure if people who make tucks would be willing to make it with this fabric. Maybe it would be better as an ornament, though. I'm not sure.

I hope everyone is having a pleasant morning. Enjoy the day!

Picture post

Two finishes to share.

Joy, a freebie by LK, stitched with DMC on linen from my stash. I found some cute fabric to back it with, so can't wait to get it finished. This was a superquick stitch. I started it last night, finished it just now. I got this from the Lizzie Kate stitchers group on Yahoo.


And my finished One Flag over Chessie, renamed to One Flag over Gussie, by Chessie & Me. I love tabby cat charts (along with bunnies, and horses and black cats, and everything else) and this chart has been high on my "to-do" list since my LNS kitted it up last summer;I am pleased with how my customizations turned out. The LNS changed out the stitched stars for buttons, which I am grateful for. I stitched his body color in Whiskey, and the stripes in the darker color called for in the pattern. His whiskers were supposed to be black, but my orange tabby doesn't have black whiskers, so these match my guy a bit better. I think Gus would approve of his stitched self! I want a patriotic-style basket of smalls and I think this will be so cute in there, probably as a pinkeep, but I may make it into an ornament so I have more choices of how to display it.

An update

It was a crazy busy exhausting weekend for us. We were running all weekend--he had to get the camper inspected, and I had work on Saturday, then a family party on Saturday night. Yesterday, he went dirt bike racing, and I went to church. The early service. I had some errands afterwards, so didn't get home til noon, and then it was time for a nap. LOL. Of course I didn't get to the quilt store, but I figured it's probably for the best. I have enough fabric for right now.

I did get some stitching done on my "One Flag Over Gussie." It's actually almost finished. I think it's so cute. I messed with it a bit. The kitty was supposed to be done in one strand with black whiskers. I changed him to two strands so he stands out a bit better. And his whiskers are white, since Gussie doesn't have black whiskers. I think I'll be done with this by this evening. It's been a fun fast stitch.




And I finished my humbug. I didn't fill it with lavendar. I used maybe a teaspoon full; a little goes a long way and that was enough to scent it nicely. I hung it on the closet door when I was finished, and I could smell it all night. I am really pleased with the way the ribbon looks on it; it matches the lavendar perfectly! It took a bit of fiddling to get it finished. Mostly my fault. I clipped the corners too close, and this is a finish that does not tolerate that. But it wasn't a bad technique. I think it took me maybe an hour start to finish.I will definitely be making more of these. It was a nice finish.

A finish and a WIP

Here is what I've been working on.

The finished lavendar humbug. I am happy with it. It should be fun to sew it together.



And One Star over Chessie/Gussie. I did find a picture of the finished freebie. She got it the same place I got mine. Isn't it cute? My start is just barely started.

The chart for my current WIP

can be found here.

I started this on Monday night, after stitching like mad on Betsy and I'm about halfway-finished. It's my project for the Bride's Tree SAL for February. I took it over to Mom's this morning while I was dropping off the twins' dog food, so I stitched a bit while we watched People's Court (my mother is bickering with Comcast over getting converter boxes so she has extremely basic cable). The four-legged crew was overjoyed to see me, Robbie moreso for the cookies that I brought than anything else. He had a heck of a time eating the one I gave him, so he ignored it and ate the one his sister started. I guess she had to tame it down a bit for him to start--that is what sissies do, right? I then handed her the one he had ignored, and of course, he was out of sorts because I gave his cookie away. She, in turn, took the cookie and hid it away. My darling little Song is a hoarder. Great . . .

Mom asked if I'd seen the Schipperkes on the Westminister dog show. I told her no. She said she hadn't seen them either. Robbie was apparently out of sorts over that too; his sister's probably been telling him he isn't as pretty as the dogs on TV. I told him he was just the most beautiful boy in town, and that if his gramma would get the situation with Comcast dealt with, he could see his relatives on TV. He advised me he no longer cares about other Schipperkes, he is retired, he has his sisser, he has his mummy and gramma, and his cookie, and his lamby toy, and his life is complete. If he could only see the grass, he'd be a blissful dog. (BTW, I'd say he's cuter than the Schip who won the breed, but, really, they all look pretty much alike. I'm biased, but I'm not stupid.).

They multiply like rabbits

I got the brilliant idea the other day of bringing my floss in from the garage. It's not the best storage solution out there--dust blows in around the garage door, it's precariously stored, and it's cold out there--and I've been buying new floss instead of getting it out of what I have. Which is not a good idea all around. So I went to bring it all inside.

While I was hauling the box of floss down off the top of the pile, I realized one of my other drawered storage units was damaged, to the point that the drawer wouldn't go back in it. Since it's pretty dusty in the garage, and since there was good fabric in that box, I cleaned that one out, too. I brought it all inside and went through it.

Bad idea. But in a good way.

I had at least 10 UFOs tucked in that box. I guess they're UFOs since I haven't worked on them since I moved in. There are a couple that I'm not sure if I want to work on them anymore, but I had put Kustom Krafts' Ghost Wind in there, and I like that one. I even found one I kitted up during a trip to the LNS in Fredericksburg, VA, a few years ago (we took Chancey along that trip, just to show her where she came from, the town, not the LNS), Simple Gifts by Told In A Garden. There was even hand-dyed floss in some of the envelopes. No wonder I walk around, telling myself I KNOW I bought a specific color of WDW and wondering where in the heck it could be. I have it, I just shove it in the most idiotic places, like in with the Brittercup Fox I started as a SAL with my friend Kathy a couple years ago--she stitched both designs, and I'm not half done with the first. I am an evil person. I showed HTB the envelopes--I don't know if he was stunned, impressed or if he has just given up trying to understand me.

I'm trying to figure out a better way to store kitted up WIPs and UFOs than the system which I currently have, which, as you can clearly see, is not working. I have a little cart filing thing I nabbed from the office when we moved that I put some in. That's full to the bursting. I looked at baskets at Michael's the other day, but I think my UFO/WIP pile would overwhelm those baskets. Maybe a hamper? Maybe a storage unit? I am renewing my efforts to work on them, though--HTB thinks I should maybe stop the year of stitching freebily and make it the year of UFOs. I just gave him a look. If I can intersperse small finishes to satisfy me with larger UFO finishes, I think I'd be a lot more satisfied.

A finish and a Summer Ball update

I meant to post yesterday, but it was a long day at work, and I was exhausted when I got home, so I didn't have the energy to post. Not that I'm complaining--it feels kinda good to know I worked 25 hours at my part time job since last Friday. The money at least feels good. We watched football all afternoon. My teams won this weekend. The Cowboys of course, my first and dearest love, and also the Ravens. I grew up in Redskins country, and was never a fan, but it feels so good, now that I live closer to Baltimore, to have a team worth being a fan of!


I finished Midnight just now. It took a bit longer than I expected, but I like him! I don't know if this huck towel feels finished, though. It needs some writing at the top or something. Or else I won't be using any more of these for these, and will use the ones with the thin band, and use the huck towels for something else.



And this is my progress on Summer Ball. It's slowly moving forward. The main girl's face is done now, and there is more floor, plus, let us not forget Seth Rogan's head, all the way over there on the right. I'll get it finished. One of these days . . .

The Millennium Cats

In case anyone was wondering what these looked like, I found this link to an album with them in it.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/308568208APKMru

Midnight is really a fun stitch and it's amazing to me that the shading is so well done with so few shades of floss. I was never a Pam Kellogg fan, but lately I've been drawn to her work And these just make me HAPPY!