The only thing left to clean up after Monday was my sewing machine, thread and bobbin case, as I had to work on the finishing of a Brenda Gervais piece. Yesterday, Tuesday, I got the pillow sewn and I thought I was home free and moved the sewing machine. Eureka, dining room almost done. And then this morning, things started coming out of the stitching room back to the dining room. Drat!!! I sure do hate when that happens. And now, "Boo to You" by Brenda Gervais
"Boo to you " by Brenda Gervais has certainly not gone the way I intended. I stitched it on 28 ct. linen so it would be a tad bit bigger than it was supposed to be. But I was alright with the size however as you recall in the last blog, I think, I talked about having to rip out and restitch the head 3 times. Finally back to the original colors and thought I was home free. I had thought about making this into a pillowcase slipcover. But in my haste to get this done, I cut the extra fabric which I felt I needed to do it, so a change was made to a regular pillow. I put the pillow together and remembered I was going to make the necklace out of clay. I love 3-dimensional items added to my stitching to give it some dimension. I use beads or fancy stitches and this time Brenda designed the pumpkin girl with a candy corn necklace. Well, I saw that and just knew I had to make one out of clay and attach it to her instead of stitching it. After all, what could go wrong? Only 3 colors, yellow, white and orange, right, easy, peezy, or so I thought. I eventually got one made, after much trial and error on size, strung it on jewelry wire and put it in the oven to bake. That was the last easy job I had. When I felt it had baked enough, I strung it through the linen and found it didn't exactly lay flat against her as I wanted it to. But I could get it to do that if I stitched it down. So that wasn't a real problem. The problem was the thin wire I was using wouldn't stay straight, because of course, I couldn't leave it alone. It would crinkle every time I touched it, which is not a surprise but it was driving me crazy so I left it alone and decided to look at it the next day and evaluate it then. So the next morning, the first thing I checked on was that darn necklace, decided I couldn't live with it and I then proceeded to make prototype 2. This is "do or die" time people. This had to get done that day as it was a gift that had to be given over the weekend. YIKES!!! Anyway, as you can see the mission was accomplished, although I did decide to use #12 pearl cotton as the necklace and I did use a stain on the candy corn so it wasn't so bright. While I don't think it is reflected in the picture the staining of the candy corn was needed and it then matched the linen and finishing. Then it became time to clean up and put away everything day. Next, it was on to food for our CA Wells Memorial Weekend. My part of the food was my Leek and Potato soup with crusty bread, and my chocolate/peanut butter cookies. Everyone brings food to this event so I was eating hearty this weekend. Stasi Stinson's Mexican Salad or Dorito Salad as Sara named it, is my favorite salad of all time. She's not allowed to bring anything else...that salad has to come or I'm going home. I can report that the weekend was a great success, although we were missing a few key people. Jackie Janovsky who always brings her caramel corn, was sidelined by a shoulder injury and she can't move for a couple of months. Ooh, Jackie we are sorry you weren't there, especially after we realized there was no caramel corn (just kidding, we also missed you). Our Judy Brunclik was still dealing with her mother-in-law's death, and cleaning out her house..(so sorry Judy, you were missed as well). Candy couldn't get a baby-sitter for Jace and her mother forgot (again, you were missed) and last but not least, our Kay Fletcher was sidelined, but she sent us a fruit bouquet that was so beautiful and tasty and I got to bring the leftovers home. Thank you Kaybe...we missed you. But those of us left standing were there and eating, laughing, punching pumpkins and stitching. Yes, I punched a large pumpkin with the sugar skull design....well, I should revise that with I was doing that when I punched a little hard and the drill went through the pumpkin. But Debbie and Stasi and Michelle all finished theirs with no problem. Believe me, we realized why I had the epic fail (operator error) so I've brought more pumpkins home and will be doing it again this week. Sara missed all the action because she had to work, as did Kathy, but they strolled over to grab food, so we did see them. And Sara finished punching the epic fail pumpkin after I showed her what I did. (Eyeballs were rolling when I showed her-I don't know where she gets that habit every time I appear.) Anyway, it was a fabulous weekend spent with stitching friends. A couple of projects got finished, a few more got started and amazingly enough....I did nothing but talk. The closest I got to stitching was I took the fibers out of my stitching tote. I'm blaming that on my pumpkin fail. I was depressed. Monday dawned and Stasi and Debbie left and I took the day off to stitch and straighten up, yet once again. My kitchen and dining room are almost done, but the living room has had stuff I brought home from the shop and office dumped there now....but I'm certain this week I will complete all of it. I was also certain that I could punch the pumpkin and we saw how successful that was. Well as we head towards Thanksgiving and Christmas I'm sure many of us will be busy stitching and finishing, so I will wish all the stitchers a big "Good Luck" with getting things done and I'll be letting you know how it's going for me. So take care and try to keep those needles moving through the fabric.
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