Daily Progress photos - round 4

And here are the final progress photos.  Yes, that means that I finished it!  While I did get it done in time to show in my county fair, I didn't bother to frame it in time.  That's kind of sad, 'cause I already have the frame and mats!  Oh, well, at least the stitching's done.

Ta-da!  Here it is completed:



I did sign and date it, I just didn't bother to photograph that bit.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Images from the Past: Smalls

Here are some more pictures of items I've finished awhile ago.  All of these are smaller items.  While I prefer HUGE projects, every once in a while, I just need a finish.  ;-)

I stitched a bookmark for myself.

 

I stitched a coin purse to hold my nickels for my bowling league.

This was for my grandmother.  She kept it on the top of the couch so no one would lean/sit on it.



 This was for a friend's wedding.  Her theme was hydrangeas and this matched her invitations almost perfectly.

This little ornament hangs on my mother's Christmas tree every year.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Images from the Past: Wedding Samplers

Images from the past refers to items that I finished some time ago and were on my personal webpage but not necessarily on my blog.

Today I thought I'd post photos of the various wedding samplers I've stitched.  No, I never stitched on for DH & me.

This one was for my younger sister and brother-in-law.

 

This was for my youngest sister and brother-in-law.

 

 

This was for my pastor's daughter.  This is one of only a handful of project to have no mistakes.  The mirror image effect of the pattern made any mistakes glaringly obvious so I frogged quite a bit.

 

This was for a good friend and her husband.  She was my matron of honor when I got married.

This one was the only one that I've done a major modification on to fit the couple.  The original was for two white hands and cream colored roses.  I was matron of honor in this wedding.  Unfortunately, none of the bride's other "friends" would stand up for her because she was marrying a non-white man.

I did this one for my cousin and her husband.  I modified this one slightly by extending the borders and adding their names and the date.

This is one sampler that I've stitched 3 different times.  I stitched it for the lady who used to be my babysitter (now divorced); my uncle and his 2nd wife, the image shown, (now divorced); and my niece and her husband.  The third time was the charm with this one - the niece and nephew are still together!



 

 

I have also stitched one with swans on it but never had a photo.  I stitched one called United in Love as well but since they got divorced, I guess they weren't that united.  Never had a photo of that one either.  Oh, well.

 

Happy Stitching!

 

Stacy





Finishes and WIP photos!

Whew!  I've finally gotten 12 Days of Christmas framed!  I was going through some old computer CDs during the last couple of days and I found my first WIP photo of 12 Days.  It was taken on Jan. 9, 2006!  Well here's the finished product:

I also had another, much smaller, finish recently.  It's an ornament, Let It Snow.  This is a Dimensions kit.  No, I don't have a Christmas tree up year 'round (DH won't let me), I just started my Christmas shopping in January this year.  It's hanging on a small tree with a snow family at the base.  The tree and the ornament are both going to be presents for my mother.

 

And finally, here is my current progress photo for PTP Floral Arrangement.  I've finished page 8 which is the right edge and am filling in page 7 now.

 



As I mentioned, I found some old CDs with photos on them.  I also "lost" my personal webpage when we changed from a business to a personal account with my ISP.  I'm going to start posting photos of my completed works that were on my webpage to my blog for "posterity".  ;-)

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Daily Blogging?

Well, it appears that I'm not so good at doing the daily blogging.  I don't know why, I'm on the internet for hours every day.  I think I'll drop the daily attempt and just try to be more frequent than previously.

Anyway, I've been doing okay on the Flying so far.  I'm at the stage where I'm just trying to create the "habits":  get dressed, make the bed, pick up the laundry, swish & swipe, etc.  So far, I've got those 4 down.  The laundry habit has had a side-effect.  I won't do laundry unless I have a full load (whites and reds are the only exception - we don't have a lot of them).  Well, I've had 2 days this week where all the dirty laundry was collected and sorted but there wasn't enough for a full load!  And no, I didn't have enough of our whites or reds for a load either.  Actually, today makes 3 days.

On the stitching front, I have made progress there too.  Here is where I was on PTP Floral Arrangement after Thursday evening:

I also received a couple of frames in the mail this week.  One is for my 12 Days of Christmas and the other is for my whitework sampler (the actual name escapes me at the moment).  I decided to work on framing the whitework piece first because it was going to take less effort.  Here's a photo of it in the frame. 

It's not quite framed yet, though.  I had to make my own spacers since I wasn't using any mats.  I just pinned and laced the piece, popped it into the frame and took a picture.  Then I took it out, popped in the acrylic, and glued in the spacers.  I left that to dry overnight.  Tonight, I'll most likely finish off the framing.

Since I finished 12 Days of Christmas which was my focus piece, I had to choose a different piece to focus on.  The new star in my rotation will be La Belle Dame Sans Merci.  I figured I'd been working on it the longest so it needed to get finished...eventually.  ;-)

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

A thoughtful post...

This post is full of my thoughts while stitching.  In particular, with regards to TW's 12 Days of Christmas.  As my loyal readers know, 12 Days has been the focus piece in my rotation.  Every other time I've rotated, I've switched back to this one so that I would eventually get it finished.

Well, 12 Days got it's turn again last week.  It was time to work on Day 10: 10 Lords a Leaping.

Since the borders are done over 2 using blended colors, I've been cutting long lengths of each color then threading 6 needles with all the blended strands.

I started by doing the borders for Day 10 and had threaded needles sitting there so I thought: 
"I find doing the borders boring, so I'll just do as much as I can on the Day 11 & 12 borders with these threaded needles."

When I finished using up the pre-threaded needles, I thought:
"I'm so close to finishing the borders, I might as well get them done.  I'll backstitch them too 'cause I hate backstitching."

After I'd finished the borders, I thought:
"The holly in the corners is easy to do, so I'll do the holly on all three remaining days."

With the holly all done, I thought:
"If I stitch the 'of Christmas' for each of the 3 days left, I can discard that page of pattern."

After I threw away the "of Christmas" part of the pattern, I realized that I didn't enjoy the lettering due to all of the backstitching, so I thought:
"If I get all the lettering done, I'll only have to do the inside area for each day.  That will speed up my progress when I rotate back to this project."

Once I'd finished all of the lettering, I started working on the center of Day 10.  It was going along so quickly, I thought:
"Hmm, why don't I just finish the other 2 days as well."

After all that thinking, 12 Days of Christmas is DONE!

Now I'm heading back to my craft room to see what my next rotation project will be.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

A finish got framed!

I finally got around to framing my finished QS Hummingbird from Heaven and Earth Designs!  It was stitched 1x1 on 28ct. fabric from Silkweaver Fabrics.  I don't remember the color name for the fabric - it was Spring something-or-other.  ;-)

The frame is an unfinished wood frame that I painted Spring Green.  The mat is plain black.  The mat and frame are both from Picture Frames.com.

Here is the picture of the framed piece:

It is now hanging above my desk though I may decide to showcase it somewhere else in the house.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

February choice & New Finish!

Here's the chart I chose as my February choice from the HAED Christmas Raffle that I won:

This one is called Breakfast at the Beach.  Since I do live near the ocean, I've always loved "beachy" things.

I also have a new finish.  You have to love band samplers...seriously, I mean you!  For me, band samplers are lovely and they work up rather quickly.  I love having finishes!

This one is an all-white band sampler from The Gift of Stitching which was an online cross stitch magazine.  The sampler was a mystery sampler meaning that you didn't see anything beyond the section you were given for that month.  It ran in the May, June, July, and August issues in 2007.  The sampler was called:  White Musings Mystery Sampler and was designed by Follow the Leader Designs.

Spoiler Alert!
Anything beyond here will spoil the "mystery".   ;-)


Here's the picture of the completed sampler:

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

A finished finish...

"I'm not repeating myself, I'm not repeating myself.  Oh [no], I'm repeating myself."

Brownie points to anyone who recognizes the slightly edited movie quote.  ;-)

Anyway, a finished finish means that a finished piece of stitchery is also Framed!  Woo hoo!  It is my SAL piece from the 2013 HAED BB.  Unfortunately, they aren't doing a SAL for 2014 but this one was fun.

Drumroll please...

Here is the finished/framed piece:

 

The frame and mat are from PictureFrames.com.  The frame is an unfinished wood frame that I painted with black and silver metallic acrylic paints that I mixed together.  The mat color is a dark green called Black Watch. 

 

The unfinished frame was a really good sale price so I got another one for my QS Hummingbird.  I want to paint that frame before I use it but I don't currently have any green acrylic paint so I need to get some.  Shopping!!  Yee Haw!!

 

Happy Stitching!

 

Stacy

A finish!

Ok, I'm a couple of days late posting this, but I did finish my HAED BB SAL piece!  I finished it the day after Christmas.  Here's the pic:

That means I have a set of scroll frames with nothing on them [gasp]!  What to start next...hmm.  I'll have to get back to everyone with that information.  It is a narrower set of frames so that will be a major factor in determining what I will be starting.

I'm also going to give the idea of a blog hop one more try.  I'll post the question(s) either later tonight or tomorrow.  I'd love to see what my loyal followers are up to regarding their own stitching!

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

2 Small Finishes

I finished a couple of small items recently. The first is a Santa Claus ornament.

• Twinkle Claus



• Charmed Santa Faces - Series II



• kit from Mill Hill

The second is a hen and chick in needlepoint on plastic canvas (ugh!).

• Mother Hen

Curly-Q's needlepoint ornament

kit from Needlemagic, Inc.

Made progress on my 1001 list

Well during the long holiday weekend (Labor Day in the US), I made progress on my list.

I managed to cross off item 65 - Organize greeting cards and gift wrap.
I had no clue how many greeting cards I have!! They are all sorted by type (birthday, anniversary, etc.) now.

I also got to cross off #80 - Organize print photos.
They are in envelopes grouped by vacation, people, etc. The negatives are not stored with the prints - they are stored in a fire-proof box. Some of the negatives have also been converted to digital files and the files are stored somewhere other than my p.c.

I've also started on item #41 - Make a scrapbook of our trips to Las Vegas. This was much easier to do now that I have my prints and digital photos organized!! I had to order actual prints of quite a few of my digital photos so that I could complete my Vegas scrapbook. I got them online through Snapfish. If you are interested, they only cost me 10¢ per print + shipping (cause I bought a prepaid package).

Happy Stitching!!