Sunday, January 6, 2019

Sara is off to Jamaica and I'm left holding down the fort for a week....UGH!

Luckily Kathy is here working Salty Yarns so I can work and play in Sea Trader.  With Sara gone I was able to stock up on necessary items like fabric, for projects to be done first, as well as any patterns I want.  I have been working on projects started in 2018 and one that I started about 4 years ago and struggle with since it's 40 ct. gauze, but I'm determined so make myself stitch on it for about 1 hr each day.  Eventually it will be done...I pray!  I started a patriotic piece last year knowing I wouldn't get it done for a while, but I've also picked it up and I work on it each day as well.  Fortunately most of it is over 2, so this shouldn't be too bad, but I'm so used to working on smalls anything that takes over 2 days becomes tedious.  But I'm determined.   I also finished a needlepoint project, Point to Point's Seahorse Wine Bag.  Two days, stitching was finished, but it's going to take forever for me to finish it.  I loved stitching it though and have now picked out a much bigger project that I've been waiting for 3 years to start...let's hope it doesn't take me another 3 years to get it finished.  I had the good sense to purchase a stitch guide with it so it shouldn't be a problem.  With cross stitch I can often tell just by looking at a project what stitches I want to use other than regular cross stitch, but for some reason I don't have that ability with needlepoint.  So until I develop that ability, stitch guides are a must.  Although I used a stitch guide with my last needlepoint Easter Egg last year, but in the end didn't like some of the stitches so I changed them, but it was the stitch guide that kick started the project.  I did decide last week I would do the monthly series from Hands on Design, " A Year of Celebration" and did finish that in 2 days so I'm thrilled but now to finish.  I am not that fond of the clipboard finishing although I do want to use one display piece for all the designs since I will only display them one at a time, and Sara found the perfect hornbook for me to use.  And with some additions to it I should be able to hang a different design each month on it.  We'll see..I plan on finishing January this coming week.  I also finished another Festive Fob from Heartstring Samplery-Harvest Edition.  I love these pieces, however, I was tested with this one.  My fault, Beth did not design this series for me, but as small designs to be used for fobs, etc.  But she displays then on a chart all together and when I saw the chart I realized you could stitch them as they are shown as one piece and they make the cutest mini samplers.  As I said, I've done the Beekeeping Edition, the Seaside Edition and now the Harvest Edition.


I did encounter a problem with this one, as I said, because Beth turned the floral piece next to the turkey sideways on the chart (keep in mind she designed these pieces to be used on smalls so it doesn't matter for that how it's put in the chart, but if you are doing small samplers you don't want one motif to be turned sideways.  So I took one motif out and used it on the scissor fob, and then turned the floral piece so it's sitting properly on my sampler and I did add 2018 down the side next to the floral piece just to fill in space.  And to be  honest, I did stitch a different squirrel as I wasn't fond of the primitive squirrel Beth used.  This is the first time I've done that as I have loved most elements Beth has used on the rest of her Festive Fobs....And as with all of these mini samplers, I added a mini charm in the empty space beside the alphabet...in this case a mini acorn.  There are around 11 of these Festive Little Fob patterns and I'm on track to stitch every one of them.  Great designs and fun, fast projects.  .Since February is right around the corner, I've decided to do the Valentine Edition.  Let the fun begin.   I've also got a Brenda Gervais Snowman to start...picked the fabric today..using 20 ct. over 2 so it's going to be one of the big pillows....such fun to do.

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