What Is This?

Well this would be my second finish of the year. Yes, I've managed to finish something else before the month ended. I couldn't be more surprised than any of you are I'm sure. I do have to admit that I had most of this done so finishing wasn't really all that hard, or take all that long. I figure I worked about 10 more hours on it. Oh and by finished I mean I've finished stitching it, not that it's completely finished and ready to be displayed somewhere in my home.

This is one of those pieces that has been buried in my stash for way too long, it's called Simple Elegance. (There's actually a Simple Elegance II in my stash as well, not sure if it will see the light of day this year or not, stay tuned.) I went to Spirit of Cross Stitch, or at least I think it was Spirit that year, back in 1996 and signed up for classes, including the Sunday Sampler. I remember that I thought it was a great idea to learn new stitches and meet teachers. Of course it was on the last day of the seminar, but still I'd meet teachers that I might want to take a class with the next year. I was lucky enough to have both Ginny and Ken Thompson each teach a different stitch. There are some interesting stitches in the middle part, and some are made with some interesting fibers. It was a great introduction to all those things at a time I was just learning specialty stitches. But it got buried and put aside for something more "shiny" until I saw it this weekend and thought I should just bring it out and get it finished. Why not? It's pretty, it will look pretty as a cube-it and it made me smile when I saw my booklet with the pattern and stitches signed by Ginny and Ken. I'm looking forward to finding just the right fabric, maybe in my mom's extensive stash of fabrics, and items to put on the top to make it look even more beautiful.

Now on to finishing the stitching for my Linen Needlework Book from Stacy Nash that we got last weekend. DF Jackie wants to do the finishing together next month which means I've got to "get er done" as they say. It's actually going fairly quickly. Plus I've been working on my parent's surprise 50th wedding anniversary sampler at night when I "go to bed". I finished another of the half motifs at the bottom. I need to get a picture but haven't had a chance to do it in the daylight. This sneaking around is harder than it sounds! Not much knitting going on, just worked on my sock lately. Still no knitting mojo. Well that and I can't find the bag with my Tour de France shawl that I want to work on and I refuse to pick up anything else until I get that in my hands and get something done on it.

Happy Stitching & knitting & whatever!

PS - 18 days until the Budweiser Shootout in Daytona. Now that I officially don't care who wins the Super Bowl I'm just waiting for "the dark days" to be over and cars to go fast in what looks like circles.