Block(head) of the Month Club

Happy Sunday! Thank you so very much for welcoming me back with your kind comments on last week's post. Since I had nearly a full year to accumulate some projects and progress, I thought I would do another post. I've decided, partly thanks to Carol at Stitching Dreams (because who can look at her inspiring blog and not decide to immediately get cracking on next year's Christmas ornaments?), that I need to spend more time stitching, stuffing and embellishing smalls. First I thought I'd do birds and hang them from the limbs of a bare-branch tree which Pier 1 USED to carry. Honestly, every time I went in there, there were bare-branch trees: gold-tone, silver-tone, phony birch-like. Trees everywhere. Yesterday I went in to purchase one, and nary a one to be seen. What the heck! Never mind, I'm sure I'll find one online somewhere. I have started the first bird. This is a week's worth of work, and of course, I picked up some additional birds, and some valentine's smalls last week at In Stitches when I was there for Stitch Night. Question: why doesn't Glenna sit and stitch with everyone else? Answer, because she's cackling and snatching things off the shelf to stitch. I got my hands on some birds, as I said, but now I've decided to add some Christmas ornaments and some flowers to the pile. It had better be a really large tree, I guess. At the rate I'm going--one-ish a week without breaking a sweat--I might have 50 things dangling from the branches of my theoretical tree in no time. I subbed a different color, as you can tell, using Belle Soie Cranberry from my stash instead of the called-for WDW baked apple.  This is stitched on a 40-count piece of Lakeside from my stash (mystery color, but likely light exemplar).  Oh, yes, it's "Bird in Hand" by Blackbird Designs. 

Next up is a project I've picked away at for a while, from JBW designs. I'm stitching it on a very light piece of Lakeside using a very pink Thread Gatherer color from my stash--perfect use for a left-over skein.

This is a long-running project for me--I started it on a larger count fabric once before and didn't like it. For whatever reason, I lightened up the parrot (there's another one to be stitched). Everything else is as charted. This will take quite a while. It is, of course "Charlotte Clayton."

This is the larger needlepoint project I got recently. I love this designer and hope to stitch other designs by her: Pippin Studios in British Columbia, Canada. I have sent you to her "what's new" page so you can see what I'm excited about. The needlepoint show was this weekend, and I got all thrilled about some of her new designs (a series of small fish, to be stitched and stuffed and hung to to fill a bowl). I ordered 3 of the fish--I'll show you when they arrive.

And my first installment of this Block of the Month club arrived. I am not a particularly experienced quilter, but I am experienced in applique, so I thought I could tackle this. We've had lots of cloudy, gloomy days here, so I jumped on it because of  the colors! I ordered it from Quilting By the Bay, which has been a great experience. If you enjoy working with wool, they sell some great wool applique kits.

Here are the fabrics that arrived in the first installment. I also ordered the matching Aurifil cotton threads, which came in a nifty box. Quite an antidote to the dull days of January.

Next weekend is a three-day weekend. I have a little trip to Culpeper planned. Culpeper has a quilt shop and a fabric store called "Exquisite Fabrics," which used to be located in downtown DC--right across the street from each other. Let's see what kind of mischief I can get up to.... Happy week!