Work leads to Stash

I had to go to Atlanta last week for work meetings. Honestly, you don't want to hear about them. I'll just say that on the whole, they were productive and move to what you really want to see and hear about....new stash!

I had to stop by my favorite needlepoint shop In Stitches to pick up a canvas I had ordered and the next in a series of small canvases they had for me. The canvas was the first to be found and brought out. I had ordered this after seeing one in the shop that is similar, only the bunny is pink and sitting. Blue is more my color and I can't wait to figure out how to stitch this one. I'll be saving it for a class sometime later this year.

Isn't it adorable?!?!?!? The gold is a bit sparkly, which is really cool. No idea how I'd finish it were I to ever get it stitched, but I'm sure I have plenty of time to figure it out.

While I was waiting for someone to find my tree canvas I got to looking at the table full of canvases from two, yes TWO trunk shows. I found two Raymond Crawford canvases I really liked. One is a small state canvas for Florida...

Very bright and has lots of potential for sparkly goodness.

I don't have any Thanksgiving canvases, so I decided on Give Thanks and found threads that I liked to be able to start it at some point soon.

I'm going to do some thinking and digging in some stitch books before I do anything. Try to figure out what fun stitches I should use.

Finally I found a cute insert for one of the luggage tags so I went ahead and got that as well.

I'll stitch my initial in the center and then it can be put in the tag that I bought but forgot to take a photo of.

The rest of my stash enhancement consisted of buying some stretcher bars that I needed. And I might have had them order me another canvas that will hopefully be there when I go back to Atlanta next month. All in all a fruitful and fun trip after  a week of work. I mean, I earned it right??

Figurative February check-in

Figural February 

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated Projects some face time this month. 

This month's ornament challenge, in keeping with the regular theme, was to stitch a snowman (or snow woman). I choose a kit from my vast stash. I think it turned out adorably.

"Snow" by Glory Bee. I still need to make it into a proper ornament. 

One of my EGA 2013 Finishing Challenge pieces is "Christmas Adam & Eve". I made a little progress the few days I worked on it. At least it got the date in the bottom part so I can work on it at stitch-ins and I did put some more of the wording in. Although its on 40 ct so that might not work out well either. This pieces looks larger in pictures then it actually is.

Since my RA decided to drive me crazy this month I decided to work on "Noah's Mantle". Didn't get a lot more done, but it's progress. I'm looking forward to seeing how this will look as it progresses. It's on 18 ct. fabric and is worked with perle cotton fibers. 

That's the round-up for the month. Sorry for the lateness. I keep blaming work, but that's really been a lot of the problem. I just got home from a week in Atlanta for work and maybe a few hours of fun. 

March Madness is here and that's going to be fun. I won't have TONS to show, but hopefully a thing or two. The ornament is 3-D...I'm still debating this one. I have an ornament I'd like to stitch that's in my stash of ornament kits. I'm going to pull it out and see how far I get on it. Hope everyone enjoys stitching in March!

Jardin January (late) Month End

Many of my friends will tell you I'm usually running a bit behind, late if you will. I will admit that this is a little extreme. I really meant to be on time with my end of month round-up but as you can tell I didn't make it. I actually didn't have a lot more to snow from my mid-month post but here goes.

I decided it would be fun to try and stitch an ornament a month with the ornament themes. I still have a few, ok closer to hundreds, of the kits from the Oranment Exchange I was part of with a group of far flung stitching friends. Since the theme this month included a tree I decided on this one..

The kit came from DF Heather, yes our own Theme-a-licious Heather. She used the free pattern from Rainbow Gallery and included all the really interesting fibers used. The fabric has a metallic thread though it.  I can't wait to get this one finished. I had some lovely fabric in my stash for the back so now I just need to decide if it should be a pillow or flat finish and the embellishments.

Another piece I decided to pick up was Christmas Adam & Eve by Notforgotton Farm. I purchased this at The Attic on a trip and changed the fabric, sorry I don't remember to what and I can't find the bag it was in. It calls for Antique White, but the people didn't show up so I liked this more khaki color. Another one I think will be fun when it's finished.



Finally I made a start on Ellen Chester's Quaker Sampling III. I bought this to be a sort of companion piece to the other of Ellen's I did for my parents 50th Wedding anniversary. For those familiar with this piece you will immediately notice that I changed the fabric and the fiber color. The fabulous Drema at Needlecraft Corner helped me find the perfect blue fiber and a fabric to make it pop.

I'm stitching on 36 ct Very Light Examplar with 1 strand of Gloriana 12 strand silk "Velvet NightSky". I'm in total love.

That's all folks. As a review, I only touched these 6 pieces...

I didn't make any further progress on the pieces I showed at the mid-month point. Oh, for those wondering, yes all of these are also part of my EGA chapter's finishing challenge. I'll show you the final ones later this month. The ornament will have to be completely finished before it can count as completed for the challenge, but for purely stitching it's my first finish of 2013!

My RA has decided to flare up so this first part of February hasn't been as full of stitching. I have embraced the new monthly ornament theme and should have one finished with a snowman on it by the midpoint check in. Hope everyone else is having a better stitching month!

Jardin January Theme-a-licious Check In

Jardin January

 The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or garden.

Another year means another try at Theme-a-licious with my DF Heather. This year I'm getting off to a fairly decent start.

Toccata #1 progress so far:

This piece is a tad addictive. You pick it up to work on a square and boom, you finish that square and think "Ohhh, look I've accomplished something! Lets keep going!" I'm waiting to get bored with it. Hopefully that won't happen since this is the SAL (Stitch-a-Long) for 2013 with my EGA chapter.

Daughters of Longbourn Hall progress:

Look! A person! I'm excited I made so much progress on this piece. I'm amazed. This is one I'm planning on working into each month's theme. I'll have to be creative, but hey, that's the fun of Theme-a-licious!

Well I meant to get this posted right on the 15th, but work and life conspired against me. I'm headed for a weekend of fun with friends in Atlanta later today. I doubt I'll post anything before I return, but you never know. I have some catch-up posts I need to get finished, but I really doubt I'll have time this weekend. But I will return to post another day...soon...I hope....

What's this "finishing" they speak of?

Actually I have finished a couple of things during 2012, and I plan on trying to finish a lot more in 2013. Let's get to what I actually accomplished...

Ok, so it's not a ton of stuff, but that's ok too. I finished one thing that had been in my WIPs for a very long time and two new things. Plus there's the "finishing-finishing" I did!

From left to right starting at the top: Winter Garden Gate (Moss Creek Designs), FSU seal (no idea the designer), Noel Ornament ( ??? ), Rose (no idea the designer), Feathered-Friends Santa (HeathStrings/The Artists Collection, JSC 2005 Orny edition), HallowEden (Plum Street Samplers), Noel (painted canvas), Long May She Wave (Ellen Chester).

I included some things that I'm fairly certain I finished stitching before 2012 but did the actual finishing this year like the FSU seal and the Rose. The other ornaments I finished stitching this year and wow, even did the finishing for two of them.

Winter Garden Gate has been in my WIPs pile for a long time. I even tried to finish it as a SAL with DF Heather a few years ago. Getting it completed in 2012 was fantastic. That makes 3 of the 5 Gates that Rae designed are complete and a wall in my house. When Heather came down to go to the Sun Region EGA stitching weekend with me last year we started another gate. Sadly I haven't worked on it since.

With everything that went on in 2012 I'm pretty impressed I managed to do all this. I'm looking forward to 2013 and getting a few other things out of my WIP pile and hopefully some more ornaments finished. I've actually got a box full of ornaments I've stitched but haven't finished. I think I need some "finishing" days this year.

Thus ends my look back at 2012. Now to look forward!

On the first day of 2013 my needle managed...

(Disclaimer: It took me forever to upload my pictures so you'd have something to look at and not just a lot of words. I blame work.)

To actually stitch a few stitches. I decided to make a start on the SAL my EGA chapter decided on for 2013. I have to admit that Toccata #1 was not my first choice, I was hoping for the canvas piece we had on the ballot. But that's ok, I'm game for a new project and this one looks interesting so I ordered my kit and got it before the New Year. I actually didn't have a lot of time to stitch. I spent part of the morning getting the linen ready, it needed a good ironing and then had to be mounted on some scroll frames. I decided to go ahead and put it on scrolls since the piece is pretty good size and there's pulled work in it. I need some tension for that kind of stitching.

Then I was distracted, in a good way, by lunch with a friend. We decided to try out a pizza place in Orange Park that brews their own beer, and has a lot of other interesting craft beers on tap. We haven't had a chance to catch up and talk for awhile so that turned into a 4 hour lunch. That's my excuse  reason for not having more done. I really only worked on it for a few hours.



I figure this will count for Theme-a-licious as well since there are flowers in this one, somewhere in those multitude of squares. I'm also going to pick up Daughters of Longbourn and see if I can't make some progress on it. I've decided that the Bennett sisters will be included in my Finish Challenge list so hopefully I'll make some progress and **gasp** even finish it this year. A look at it at the beginning of the year...



So, that's the first 2 items on my Finish Challenge list, there will be 8 more before the month is through. We'll see what else decides it wants to be finished to hang on the walls, or sit on a shelf, this year.