Now I Know My ABC's....

Yesterday I went to In Stitches and picked up my framed Alphabetissimo. I love it; they did such a wonderful framing job. (Alphabetissimo, by Papillon Creations, stitched in 2 colors of NPI on 32 count Picture This Plus (don't remember which blue), 2 over 2.)

It's hard to tell from the above photo that there's some blue in the frame; here's a close-up of the frame.

While I was at In Stitches, I picked up all the remaining stuff I needed to do the Prairie-Schooler ABC stitch along. I bought 6 of the charts, the fabric and DMC. If you want to see what the finished project will look like, click here,. Vonna set up a separate blog for the SAL, which also tells you how to join if you're interested. Thanks, Vonna! If you need any of the supplies, you can call In Stitches in Alexandria, Virginia, and they can take care of you; when I was there yesterday, they had all but one of the charts, and they say that the charts take just a few days to get to them generally (assuming they are in stock with their source). The charts are $7.50. The final project, if you're doing all the letters on one piece of fabric will be 646 x 307 stitches. No need to do the whole thing to join; you can just stitch one letter if you prefer--this is a no-sweat/no obligation SAL.

Without further ado, here's the beginning of "A is for Anchor." I'm doing the entire project on one piece of 45 count Graziano linen in ivory, one over two using the recommended DMC.

I didn't forget "Squirrel!" Here he is looking a little frizzled; I had to frog out some stitches and there are some threads hanging off him. Also stitched on 45 count over two using DMC.

Here's Peaches, saying that she thinks my blog post is boring because it doesn't feature enough rabbits. Don't worry, little girl; we'll be back on Thursday with the First Annual Rabbits' Thanksgiving. Let's see what kind of mischief we can get up to. See you then!

Happy week ahead!

One Thing Leads to Another

I can't tell you how excited I am that this semester is winding down. This is the big weekend for schoolwork with a research project, interim exam and heavy homework. After this, it pretty much fizzles out except for finals. That's odd, but it's most welcome, because it means I can turn my thoughts to the holidays: at Thanksgiving it's just the two of us this year, and we can actually plan to do something fun that weekend since I won't have to fret over a school assignment. (I'm planning on a Thanksgiving weekend needlework start--see details below).

In spite of everything, I picked up Plymouth Sampler a bit this week:


And started The Squirrel. The designer suggests stitching it over 1 on 40 ct. Instead I'm using 45 ct Legacy Linen from my stash [edited to add: and stitching over 2]. It's hard to photograph because it's so small and my hands have a bit of a caffeine shake.


I was going to start Squirrel at Thanksgiving, but then I saw this at 123stitch. I don't normally stitch Christmas-specific projects (although I'll be working on Christmas at HRH for the next year or so), but I thought this might be fun to try. It's a Mill Hill kit called Winter Wonderland. You can't go wrong with something that has tons of beads AND a white-bunny button! (I also bought the little frame--together they were very affordable!) Speaking of beads and buttons, I picked up the Nora Corbett Christmas Tree kit at In Stitches when I was last there. I concluded it would take me too long to do, so I put it back, but I'm severely tempted...the colors of the CC threads and all the different beads are so much nicer IRL. If you're contemplating it and have only seen it online, go for it! Oh, and speaking of In Stitches, they have sold out of Sarah Salter now.


To show you how one thing leads to another, when I was searching for the picture to show you of the Mill Hill kit, I put "Winter Wonderland" in the search engine, and this picture popped up. I'm a huge Papillon Creations fan, having just finished Alphabetsissimo, and I know their photos don't begin to do the projects justice, so I'm convinced this will be just gorgeous. For one thing, there is the option of doing the little snowflakes in bead clusters. I ordered it from ABCstitch.
So what should I start on Thanksgiving, hmmmmm?


Pink says white-bunny buttons aren't nearly as good as the real thing, and if you lean close to the screen he'll give you a little pink kiss to see you through the week.

Happy week ahead.

Cold November Rain

Because today is a government holiday, my commuter bus ran at inconvenient times, and since I had a doctor's appointment in Arlington, I decided to take the day off. Well, of course, my path to Arlington took me past the town where In Stitches sells their goodies, so I had to stop by and see what was new. My pictures aren't all that great, because at 3 p.m. when I took them, it was already sort of getting dark. So here's a commercial photo of Sheepish Designs' Sarah Salter. Don't you dream of stumbling upon a needlework shop that has a bunch of forgotten stuff in a drawer that they put up for sale the day you visit? This is almost as good: original charts, not exactly forgotten, but overlooked by customers because they were on the bottom of the rack perhaps. And for their original price ($5.50), not the inflated ebay prices these designs go for now. Call In Stitches in Alexandria, VA if you want one--they still have a couple left.

Here's my photo. It's charted for AVAS, which I purchased. It's also charted for DMC. I have a nice piece of pinkish 40 ct. Lakeside I've been saving for just such a project.

They had this design, which I'd seen on the 'net. It's tiny and comes with 40 count Lakeside. Note the huge pile of DMC needed to complete it--35 skeins and 1 skein of WDW. I figure the project probably calls for 2-3 stitches in each color. It's done over one. (I'm stitching the squirrel.)

Here's my photo, with floss.

The Plymouth Sampler is working up quickly:

Off I rush to get some stitching in before dinner and homework. Happy day, all!

Sing, Sing, Sing

Thank you all for your well wishes during last week's stomach ailment--I'm much better now and tearing around in my usual scatty way. I've given Sarah McP a little vacation because I got tired of looking at all that pink and green and yellow. Plus I wanted to do something a little more Thanksgiving-ish, but without the turkey specifically, since I'll finish the sampler long after that holiday is over (it's in a little over two weeks! Can you believe it?) So I restarted the Plymouth Sampler by Brenda Keyes of the Sampler Company. This is about the 4th time I've started this. I've tried it over one with cotton (too hard to work on), over two with cotton on a couple of different fabrics, and didn't like the effect. Now I'm doing it over two on 40 count Graziano linen (puro lino, it says, stamped in gold on the selvedge; it's a very heavy, luxurious fabric, and it's thick enough to conceal any carrying of threads across the back), with NPI silks from my stash that I'm converting on the fly.

Here's the photo--I'm sure you've probably seen it. I purchased it at the Sampler needlework shop in Plymouth, Mass. a few years ago, literally just down the street from where the Pilgrims landed the second time.


I've been listening to some alternative music lately, and particularly, a song by the White Rabbits called Percussion Gun. It features a pair of drummers. I love good drumming, and they're ok, but nothing like Gene Krupa of Benny Goodman's band. Now that man could drum. (Photo courtesy of www.drummerworld.com.) The White Rabbits perform in hoodies, rather than suits or dinner jackets....



"I think that the White Rabbits is an excellent name for a band."


I'm off to find some appropriate music to play while mopping floors. Happy week ahead, all!

The Apocalyptic Invasion

Yesterday I awoke a 4 a.m., uneasy. Half a second later I realized: Whoa!! Sick! BF has it too: his started just a few hours after mine. So far, we've skipped both versions of the 'flu, either version A or version Swine, which rage on around us at work, on public transportation, in the grocery store line, causing us to consider friends and neighbors as carriers, but this stomach thing has embraced us in its greasy arms. Ugh. It's not completely debilitating, but it certainly is depleting; I was able to stop briefly at the mall yesterday afternoon to do an errand, but I held my breath and scurried past the food court. Why, oh why, put a Wendy's and a Chik fil A across the aisle from each other in an enclosed, badly ventilated space? And I stopped to pick up something I'd ordered at the lighting store across from my LNS, so I dropped in for a quick visit but was too tired to pick up the two cute Christmas designs I briefly considered. One was Just Nan's Christmas ribbons (came with the beads), and the other was a Christmas sheep thing. I didn't need them anyway, but too tired to shop for needlework? Definitely sick.
Just Nan:


Post Halloween, since we still have lots of candy around: when I visted In Stitches last time, they gave me this freebie by The Cricket Collection. This is the finished model in the store, and while you normally stitch the "Kisses" tag, someone at the shop had inserted a paper tag. It's stitched in DMC and Kreinik braid. I love the expression on the little frog's face.


More on Sarah:


Elvis suggests taking to bed with a book; here he's working his way through The Apocalpytic Invasion, which is somehow appropriate.


Happy, healthy week ahead!

Vacation's End

I am glum today because my vacation is ending and I'm headed back to work tomorrow. There's so much that I didn't have a chance to do! I did stitch some more on Sarah McPhail. I put some stitches into Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow, but not enough to show yet.

On Friday I made it to In Stitches and picked up some threads I needed as well as a few charts. This is "The Governor's Palace," a Williamsburg design by Homespun Samplar. I first saw it on Tanya's blog.

This came as a four-pack of Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly magazines. The four magazines had the "old Aviary" series of charts, which I'd like to stitch up some day. I have no immediate plans to do so, but there's no guarantee that the magazines will be available when I'm ready, since they're already a few years old. Of course, I'd like to stitch this cover project as well.

This is a cheery framed model in the store. I don't know if you can tell, but the stuff bubbling out of the pot and the lettering over the pot are sparkly fibers. There's nothing like a framed model to suck you in--I really wanted to get it, but realizing Halloween was only 8 days away made me rethink that.

Diana has a hilarious video of her bunny, Amelia, devouring a pumpkin. Go see it! Inspired by that, I bought our bunnies a pumpkin. No devouring ensued.
"Are you out of your mind? What is that!? Go get the phone so I can call for a pizza!"

Happy week ahead!

Foliage and Waterfalls

Foliage (the entrance to my neighborhood):

Foliage (Sarah McPhail). I had to frog out a couple of the smaller bright-green trees, but no matter. Onward.

Waterfall (more about that later):

BF and I drove to Richmond on Wednesday and shopped for furniture. Shopping for furniture for any couple could be fraught. Might be even if the couple is in agreement as to style, function, color. For us it's difficult: I am an ultra-contemorary girl; BF is a traditional guy. We've gingerly reached sort of a middle ground, in a furniture store called La Difference, in Richmond. La Diff, as it's called, is in the middle of the loft district of Richmond, where the old factories and tobacco warehouses have been repurposed into loft housing. It'd be perfect for us if only we could live in Richmond, something we're working on. For now we have a typical Virginia two-story center hall colonial tract home--on the outside. Inside I'm beginning to push the contemporary envelope after a lot of negotiation and some compromise.
I liked this. It's a chest of drawers, part of a bedroom set, green lacquer with glass applied over it. I can't describe how the pieces glowed in the light. BF pronounced it "awful."

I tried out this chair. Note: if your feet are higher than your head, it might be difficult to stitch.

This looks uncomfortable but was actually quite nice. I like the look. BF reminded me that six cats and their little claws don't work with white leather. Too bad--I saw a number of white leather pieces including a huge sectional and a round platform bed. He's right though.


Boing, boing, boing. Extraordinarily comfortable for a stool. We explored using them in the kitchen (they're office furniture really), but agreed that the price was prohibitive.


Here's our compromise: Shaker. Clean lines for me, nice wood for him. It's difficult to find furniture made in the U.S.; these pieces come from a company in Vermont.

Stash holders!

Another white leather piece, unfortunately. Because look at his face: no wonder we call it the "happy chair." I'd have brought him home simply because it cheers me up to look at him.

The waterfall: it seems we sprang a slow leak in the master bath shower. Drip, drip, drip. While we were away in Richmond, the dining room ceiling began to sag. Sigh. Today the plumber came and tore a hole in the ceiling to look up above. It was all too reminiscent of the great Pink Flood of 2007, where Pink chewed a hole in a pipe and flooded the bathroom, the guest bedroom and the kitchen. We've isolated the problem, fortunately and will have to have some work done up above. There's an opening around a tile in the shower where water gets underneath the tiles, so water has been seeping down and dripping on the ceiling. It could be worse, right Pink?

Peaches: "It's ok to come out, Pink. They know you didn't do it this time."


When the plumber left with his ladder, I headed up to In Stitches to pick up threads and more stash. I got some interesting samplers--all of them traditional, of course. This is a long and picture-heavy post; more about my trip Sunday. Bye!

Vacation III

I finished up my homework surprisingly early today, so now I'm free for the week. I celebrated by planting my butt on this sofa most of the day. Note the books, calculator, etc. Also note the stitching project bags. That's Sarah McP. in the center. And note my four stitching buddies (look carefully for the feet of #4 stitching buddy sticking out from under a table). Very peaceful, and very productive, but now I have that stale, unexercised feeling you get after eating a large meal or sitting all day. Plus I could use a shower.

I got a third rose completed on Sarah. I'm excited about getting to the river, but I have a large thicket of trees and bushes to pass through first. My goal by the end of the week is to splash around in the river.


I want to thank Kellie at The Stitching Post for alerting me to this sampler. It's called the "Swan Pond Sampler," and it's from the Knoxville EGA. It's particularly meaningful to me because I spent a very happy time at UT's library school. Even all these years later I hum "Rocky Top" in the fall. I'd love to retire in Knoxville or thereabouts. Anyway, Kellie and I purchased this from the Dixie Darlin' needlework store in Pigeon Forge. I called them, and they couldn't have been nicer. It's charted for DMC, but I'll probably do a conversion.


Off to take my shower!
"Phew. I smell something!"

Later!

Vacation II

Although I am not tired of stitching Sarah McPhail, I am tired of looking at her on this site. So she'll be back in a couple of days when I've moved away from the pink roses. I picked up a couple of things to work on last night before I went back to work on Sarah. This is English Whitework. It's fun to stitch, but it's definitely daytime stuff. And I can't get the color right with the camera--it's more purpley than this photo indicates.

And this is something I hadn't worked on for a while. Too Christmasy. Only, it's just two months away now, isn't it? The colors in this are great. I'm forgetting what I'm using on it--a Lakeside I think. Maybe pear. The colors in this photo are pretty true to life. This is almost done.


I've got just one more day of being housebound with my schoolwork, and then I'm free. We're planning a trip to Richmond to look at furniture and go to lunch at someplace fun. And come along with us to Maryland to Captain Billy's for a mess of steamed blue crabs. I'm planning a field trip to In Stitches, always good. And since it's supposed to rain on Friday, I'm hoping to set aside the whole day for stitcher numb-butt.

The bunnies' union says that the bunnies deserve a rest, and the cats' union wants to know why they're never featured here. This is Little Friend, saying good night.


Night, all!

Vacation

I'm technically on vacation, but it doesn't feel like it quite yet. Mostly I'll be doing homework this week because it's midterms, but I will carve out time for stitching and a couple of day trips. Here's a little progress on Sarah McPhail:



And for my bunny-blogger friends, this is entitled "The Hunt for Pink 'Tocktober."


Peaches: "How Dismaying. Here's a shot of the good end of a bunny."

Back to the books! Happy week ahead.