An almost finish............

For the past 3 days I stopped work on the camper and stitched Heartstring Samplery's Festive Little Fobs, Seaside Edition.  I mean really, this was a must for our theme for August, beach, ocean, etc., and I wanted to do it in a different way than shown.  I fiddled with the idea of doing them over 2 on 20 ct. linen and make it into a pillow, but just couldn't nail that down.  Then I thought....over one on 32 ct. and stitch it altogether, just as she shows it on the chart.  The result is so cute, but created another problem...how to finish it.

As I had to work in the office yesterday, I brought it with me to get Sara's opinion on finishing.  She stared at it for several minutes with each of us giving our opinions and then she said, I can't see it as anything other than a pincushion.  Since my brain is barely working these days I decided I would just go with that, but....of course I'll add more to the pincushion ....I'll stitch a fob, perhaps a spool, oh who know's what I'll come up with, but first I'll make this into a pincushion....I was thinking boxed, but Sara said, just a plain pincushion Mom (with eyes rolling) so at this point I'm not too sure which I'm going to do but it will be some kind of pin cushion for sure.  Now I'm going to look at the other Festive Fob patterns and develop more projects using the entire chart as a mini sampler.  So cute.  I used the colors recommended, except around the bottle as it blended in too much with the fabric, as you can see on the ships sail.  I changed it to WDW dolphin because it was sitting next to me (you didn't actually think I'd get up and look through a lot of greys did you?  As usual, my thing is to look at what's around me and pick something that will work out of it- the last resort I force myself to get up and go to the stitching room.  Unlike a lot of you I am obviously not as neat and tidy.  Wish I were, but I've got threads sitting on my coffee table, under the coffee table, in project bags surrounding my sofa....I don't know how it all ended up here instead of in the stitching room.  Anyway, because of that I seldom get up, just search around beside me.  I did add the fish bead because I don't like empty spaces and there was one beside the alphabet.  I did have to get up to search my bead container and couldn't believe my luck in finding the silver fish bead.    I'm so thrilled when my habit of always adding to my bead and charm collection works out.  Now it's back to the camper.  I can't believe it's almost August.   And I still have a drum, Beach Dreams, from Praiseworthy Stitches that I want to start and finish for display....I think I'm running out of time, but I'm determined.  I'm off until Friday....whoohoo....semi retirement at last (at lease for this week)...talk to you next week.

I'm feeling snarky today....

Can't help it, I'm on my 5th day of working and I'm not loving it at all.  Yesterday I kept telling myself I only had to make it to 4 p.m. and then I had 3 days off in a row.  But I looked at the schedule and noticed no one was scheduled for Sea Trader and I let Sara know and asked if she needed me to work and she said no, she just forgot to write who was working on the chart.  In her defense, she does schedules every Thursday,  and if you need a special day off the following week you are suppose to write that on the schedule and Sara makes sure you get it.  But as always happens, she gets calls Thursday night, Friday, etc., saying a certain day was needed so then she scrambles trying to change the schedules that are already done and put in the shops.  So I understand when something happens and we're caught with  no one on a shift.  So I went home somewhat jubilant thinking I had  3 days off, but at the same time weary and unsure.  And later on just when I was in full relax mode I got the text...no one was in the shop could I work.  And she added, "Mom if it helps you will be working with me."  Let's think about that....home sitting on the sofa, watching t.v. and stitching, or working in the shop with Sara, not sitting on my sofa, watching t.v. and maybe stitching?  I'll let you know after 4....but I'm thinking it doesn't help!  I'm too exposed in the shop to tenants in the hotel and some I don't even know.  I was sitting on the hotel porch trying to find my apartment key in my tote before starting the walk home.  I become aware of someone standing over me...I had my head down looking through my tote...so I looked up and a man I'd never seen before said, "Hi, I recognized you from T.V.  I'm checking in today where do I do that?"  As soon as he said T.V. my head almost exploded.  For heaven's sake how long do I have to deal with that episode on T.V.  But I put the Lankford Hotel smile on and directed him, thought that would do it when he came in for the hug, and if that wasn't bad enough for me, kissed me on the lips.  While I should have been thrilled, he was a nice looking gentlemen, and  certainly younger than I am, I just don't want that happening.  So I was looking at him  like a dear caught in headlights as I was so taken back and got on the phone to Mary to tell her what she had coming for her, but luckily for her Joneal was on the desk and I don't think the man would kiss Joneal.   Anyway, the gentlemen came over from  Hawaii, and brought a big box of pineapples, so in the end I got a fresh pineapple for the kiss, so now Steve and I are BFF's, and he has kissing and hugging priviledges.  Yes I can be bought with food. Anyway, my day has just begun and I'm praying it goes quickly.  Several hours have passed and it's now Tuesday after 4 p.m.  It's actually almost 8 p.m. and I am at last sitting on my sofa, T.V. on and about to start stitching.  The day went pretty quickly as I was busy....the weather here is windy and cloudy so some people are going on the beach but for others the wind .  and choppy water is not conducive to laying on the beach so they shop....Thank God.  About noon my little Izi came over and stayed with me until 4 showing me all his newest games on his I Pad.  He also informed me he was coming home with me.  I know these boys won't want to come over when they get older as much so anytime they want to come now I let them, no matter how tired I may be.  So at 4 we headed to my house.  Brian insists that the boys do 2 hrs of homework every day and Izi hadn't finished his so we decided to start with that first.  He had 1 1/4 hours left of homework so we got down to that first and then of course we had to spend the rest of the time not playing games but watching Dan from England on You Tube play games.  I don't understand the fascination of watching someone else play, but I'll watch anything.  Thankfully around 6:30 Brian came over to take Izi home for dinner so I'm home alone....I have 2 days off, thank you Jesus, and you won't hear from me again until Friday.  Hopefully I'll have a finish by them.  But first a nap.  Have a great week and a fabulous weekend.  I pray you find time to stitch. 

OMG...I'm all about the Needlepoint right now

I was discussing with Sara the possibility of making Ashley Dillon's Halloween March my shop project ( needlepoint) as I've got the stitch guide for it and fibers already gathered together, and then she gets in Ashley's Beach March and it looks like Halloween March and Thanksgiving March may have to go on the back burner since Beach is too darn cute and of course perfect for Salty Yarns.  But all of her canvases are just what I love so it really is a hard decision.

Beach March will be daunting because I won't have the stitch guide, but I'm willing to throw all caution to the wind and figure out stitches to use on my own.  And yet while I was having this argument with myself over which one of these to do, Deux Bijoux Bijoux arrived yesterday.   OMG...The trays are to dye for and so well made and painted, and the canvases they show in them are perfection.  So now I'm fighting over what to start with. Tray or March...the mind battle will go on, however I need Sara to put whatever I choose on stretcher frames and when I mentioned her eyes started to roll to the back of her head so I moved on.

Nagging always helps but in the meantime as I was looking at new stuff I realized I loved the way Beth put the Festive Little Fobs charts into a 100 x 100 chart.  So instead of stitching them individually, I'm stitching them altogether.  And because, with the wind and rain outside, very few are walking and Kathy is in Salty Yarns pricing things so I'm in Sea Trader blogging,etc but have pulled all the fibers etc. for this and will spend the rest of the shift stitching.  Obviously I find this more fun that working on the project I brought with me which I started over a month ago and only put about 10 stitches in it.  The Festive Fob design works into August's theme better, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Sara's eyeballs just rolled again I'm sure.

Almost like being retired.....

Yes last week I only worked one day in the shop and one day in the office....and the rest of the time my behind was firmly settled into my sofa along with linen, needles and plenty of charts.    Had two finishes last week, the third part of The Laundry Company, "Irony" and now that series is complete.  I framed them all alike because I liked the washboards, but also love the way the original model was finished so I debated a lot about that finishing, but once I ordered the washboards it was go time.  I felt it should have been a two day stitch, however, it was more like a five day stitch since I kept working on other things at the same time.

Then it was time to move on to the finishing of Hands on Designs newest short stack, "Where Liberty Dwells."  Another easy stitch which I had finished on the 4th of July, but didn't put it in it's final form.  

I stitched in the colors shown on chart, but I did use Lakeside Linen, 32 ct. Magnolia since I had a piece of that at home, and I didn't want to wait to get into the shop, I'm all about instant gratification.    An easy stitch and love the short stacks.  Can't wait for the next one...could it be Halloween?  I sure hope so!  And finally my last finish done this week, in fact the stitching was finished 2 days ago but I didn't get around to the finishing until 5:30 a.m. today.  I'm so motivated in the morning, early because by 10 a.m. I'm working on a nap...Ah, retirement I can barely stay awake.  Anyway, part 4 of the Noah's Christmas series arrived in the shop last week and in my goal of actually finishing the entire series I'm trying to take the chart home and get them done right way....so far so good.  So here are Panda's and Parrots, Part 4 of "Noah's Christmas Ark."  These are a two day stitch at most I think so it's a good fast project for those times you just need to finish something.  And if you start now, you will have a complete set by Christmas! (I'm sure she said there would be 12, so that would suggest there are two more chart packs to come, but she also said the final chart would be delivered in February 2019, so you might not have the complete set by Christmas.)  And now I get to pick out new projects. 

  

 At first I was thinking beach, because our display for August is anything ocean, beachy, vacation.  But...then I made the mistake of checking out some of my Halloween projects and that led to Christmas and I'm once again in hot water with the amount of projects I've pulled, and I'm not even talking about anything prior to 2017.  And since Sara showed the new needlepoint canvases she got in I'm starting to think Needlepoint might be a nice change.  But I decided to stick with August's theme, Beachy, first since that's what I have at home and picked out Blackberry Lane's "Relaxing at the Beach" camper.  

The picture here is the model, not my stitching.  I started it a couple of nights ago, worked on the bottom of the trailer and it was going quickly and thought I'd be done in no time, but as with all Marie's pieces, there is a lot of detail and shading that has really slowed me down, but I'm loving the stitch and think this camper is so cute, I don't mind the constant  switch from color to color, because the end result is fabulous.  At first I looked at this as an 18 ct. linen piece over two, which would have made it nice for a pillow,  but in the end decided to stitch it as shown on the chart, 28 or 32 ct. and am pleased so far.  Have a great weekend and keep that needle going. 

A few finishes done before 4th of July....Happy Dance!

So bere you see Part 1 (whch I finished last month) joined by Part 2 of The Laundry Company.....one more to go and this series is finished...so cute for the laundry room.  Of course this finish took about 10 minutes and I spent the rest of the day on Liberty Tree which was a complete fail.  I took it apart twice and refused a third time so I'm rethinking the finish altogether and will start agan on Monday.  I've had to work for the past 2 days in this heat and although the shops are air conditioned just walking here is making me ill.  I was definitely not built for this heat.  UGH!  Yesterday after wlking home all I could do was sleep, in between waking up to change channels and going right back to sleep.  About 12:30 I tried to stay up long enough to stitch, but after 6 sttches turned out the light, turned off the t.v. and went right back to sleep.   Today, Sunday, July 1st, I had a special visitor come to say hello, Jace, the newest member of the Salty Yarns family. Just 12 days old and such a good baby.  He never cried once while he was here and let me hold him 99% of the time.  Of course it was great seeing his mother, Candi and his grandmother Linda, but let's face it Jace was the main attraction.  After that the rest of the day was so uneventful.  Business is slow as it's too darn hot to move outside.  I could get a lot of stitching done inside if I would just take it out of the tote, but I'm not feeling quite right...heat I think even though I'm in a/c, so there it sits.  I don't even feel like shopping.  UGH!!! I need cooler temps to live.  I did start the latest short stack from Hands on Design... Where Liberty Dwells...I love these short drums.  While I had seen this in Nashville I didn't remember the colors apparently because it's not red, white and blue which is always how I see Patriotic pieces.  But there is a red, Holly Berry, white-flowers and fence, but the Navy blue is missing.  I started to do the lettering in Navy, and change the flowers to black eyed Susans, but in the end I'm leaving it like it is because Sara tires of me always changing things and it's a great design and the colors are fine, I just wanted it a little more like my idea of Patriotic.  I really should have had it done by now but alas, I am stalled.  It is not July 5th and I have been busy at home.  I instantly felt  better on Monday since I had been out of the heat for several hours (was it out of the heat or out of work...a combo perhaps making me feel better)  so I stitched all day Monday because I thought I was off until Wednesday.  Tuesday I decided I had to get the finishing done on Brenda Gervais, Basket of Summertime which I finished stitching a couple of weeks ago.   I always have things I want to do to finish it and sometimes it just doesn't work out.  But I was happy with it and it's a cute pillow, large enough for a chair since I worked it over two on 20 ct. linen.  As always on large count I used WDW perle cotton, (Teal Frost, Whitewash, Pelican Grey, Oscar, Lancaster Red, Deep Sea, Pecan, Navy))and DMC Black.    Finished size is approx. 10" x 8 1/5".  

Once that was finished I thought I might as well tackle the finishing on Lady Liberty from Little House Needleworks. This was also rather an easy finish, just a stand up, only I needed her to be holding the flag.  Since the linen was large count it was easy to insert the flag pole in her hand, but then it dropped at the top so I looped the thread over the pole into her bodice and that solved that problem.    She stands 12" by 5 1/2" wide.  I thought about stitching a flag to go on the pole (the pattern has the flag stitched) but decided that it was easier to just insert a flag I already had.  She is stitched on the 20 ct. linen using Weeks Dye Works (Garnet, Navy Whitewash, Molasses and DMC Black, 950, and 758.  I made her necklace and bracelet using petite red, white and blue Mill Hill beads, but perhaps I should have used the regular beads for a little larger necklace and bracelet.  

But since I was already using the petite beads for the Liberty Tree, and they were sitting on the table beside me...well, you know I'm not going to get up off my butt to change beads.  

Once those two were done I had no choice but to go back to Liberty Tree by Blackberry  Lane Designs.  I really love Blackberry Lane.  Marie's designs are chock full of elements, which I love, love, love and some of it is over one, also a love of mine.  But I have to tell you this piece did challenge me a bit.  While the tree is over two, all of the ornaments are over one.  Most of them were easy enough to do on 32 ct. Dapple linen, but the faces and the doll on the top branch as well as the eagle were challenging because of the constant color changes.  While she included two charts, one with the garland charted and another with no garland so you could garland with beads, I chose to make the red, white and blue garland with petite Mill Hill beads.  You could also use a Mill Hill Long Bead for the firecrackers on the tree, but I chose to stitch those and I used gold thread to make the lines coming from the lit firecracker.  I thought my challenges were over once I had completed the stitching, however my problems were just starting.  I had an oil can just like Marie had, or so I thought,  After sewing the tree together I inserted the straw and proceeded to insert the oil can, which as it turns out had a spout which wasn't up for the task.  It was way too short.  I fooled around with options using the can until I was ready to throw everything in the trash, instead I put it away and started a new stitch.  On Tuesday night when I told Sara I would see her Wednesday, she asked what I was coming to the hotel for.  I said to work, she rolled her eyes (yes even on the phone I can tell she's rolling them) and said, Mom you aren't on the schedule until Thursday.  OMG, extra day at home, well Liberty Tree and I were going to do combat and I refused to lose the war.  I looked around my stitching room, saw a wooden spool and decided I'd make it into a drum and put the tree in it.  Sounded perfect and easy.  It was not!   So I painted the spool and when it was dry put the tree in to see how that was going to work and the spool fell over because the tree is so heavy.  (I stuffed it with lizard litter and polyfil.)  So then I'm looking around to see what could I glue the spool on so it wouldn't topple and I came up empty so I sat down and started stitching again.  It also looked too plain to me because unlike Marie, I didn't make the beaded garland for the edges of the tree.  But this morning I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and thought, I go to work today and that darn Liberty Tree is going with me.  So I make navy cording which I attached to the tree, then made the red/white/blue beaded garland which I sewed around the cording, put a bottom on the spool so I could fill the center hole with lizard litter around the tree trunk and then glued it in by covering around the trunk with cording.  When all of that was done and I sat the tree down while I looked for something to glue the whole thing to so it would stand alone, it was standing alone without anything else.  Thank God, Liberty Tree was finished!

While I tried adding gold and then white to make it look like a drum...that was a final fail and I just decided I might add a gold star to the spool, but at this point it's done.  While I did stitch while trying to figure out what to do about the Liberty Tree, I am thrilled to say I also finished stitching the latest Hands on Design short stack, "Where Liberty Dwells" and as firecrackers were exploding in the sky around 9:30 p.m. in Ocean City, I was stitching the firecrackers exploding on this piece.  However, while the stitching is finished, I haven't assembled it yet.  Hopefully next day off I will accomplish that.  And that will end my tribute to 4th of July.  Now I move on to other things.  Since I've already got the 3rd part of The Laundry Company, Irony,  I thought I would just work on that, but then Sara told me the minute I got here, that Plum Street  came in...and Part 4 of the Noah's Christmas Ark is here along with  Hen Peck and Cow Pile which are two more of the stacking animal series.  Oh my, I've got my work cut out for me now.  These new charts plus all the charts sitting on my sofa this morning and many started projects to finish.  Well, looks like I have no more time to blog, so I'll have to check in with you later.  Have a great weekend and try to get some stitching in.  I know I'll be stitching up a storm.