The weight is lifted

Wubbzy is home at last....



The words never again come to mind. On to the pirate map and my Jackie Du Plessis pieces!


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FINISHING finishing

My least favorite part of needlework. Still, I stitched the thing so I should go all the way and make it presentable for my nephew. By the end of this week. No pressure.







I haven't forgotten about his pirate treasure map, but since it's now a Christmas gift I of course started something else. I have a good excuse--it's for a Jackie du Plessis class in November (Chocolat):





Not quite halfway through the candy wrapper motifs. The 'legs' have a nice stitching rhythm. It also doesn't take long to notice a goof--a very nice feature for those of us who yell at watch TV while we stitch.

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Up late partying?

Don't be ridiculous--I was cross stitching! Finally one desert island finished:




I'm also finally beginning to face the reality that this will be a Christmas present instead of a birthday one.

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Still delusional but...

...PROGRESS!








Still hoping to have it done & framed by the end of September--that would be quite a record for me.

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Coming soon (I hope)

Too busy trying to finish A Dance with Dragons this weekend to do much stitching, but I'm still under the delusion I'll get this done in time to be framed before the end of September (mostly Crescent Colors on 40ct cream to be aged when finished).






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I'm back!

I finally have time to stitch again! And I've finished something!






It wasn't the most pleasant piece to return to since it's V-E-R-Y far from my usual style, but my nephew will like it. And now I get to start his pirate map which will be MUCH more fun :)

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Squirrel!

I had intended to use my stitching time this weekend to finish this flower on The American Sampler:



I didn't touch it. Why? Because I worked at my LNS Saturday and they had a silk gauze class. There were so many fabulous pieces I HAD to break out my silk gauze stash and start another new project. After all, I've already been working on The American Sampler for ten years--what's another ten....

Note the FINISHED piece (The Pumpkin Sampler from Threads Through Time) on the right. I can't remember how long it's been there, but I wasn't going to do anything with it until I used the other side. After a bit of stash fondling (and determining one chart is MIA...hmm...) I decided on The Mermaid Sampler (also Threads Through Time) because I'm a sucker for ships and mermaids:



I stayed up waaaay too late working on it last night--it's too much fun!
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You know things are out of hand when...

...queen stitches on 40ct are a stress RELIEVER....

I've had very little time to stitch, so it took forever to get the little strawberries done.






I'm fooling myself into thinking I can get the queen stitch flower in the upper right finished this weekend.






Place your bets now, folks....

Also, the Madness has taken me, so GO OHIO STATE, U OF A (men), ASU and UCONN (women)!

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Well this is embarrassing

I've been looking for this for 4 months. Turns out it was in my stitching bag all along....



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Meeting in the middle

There are very few things more satisfying to a stitcher than having a border actually meet like it's supposed to:



This would be the Stacy Nash companion piece I meant to stitch over 1 but forgot at the last minute. Ah, middle aged brain....

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I haven't forgotten my blog again....

Really, I've wanted to post, but life has been in the way (I know you're wondering 'how could life get in the way of 3 sentences and a picture twice a week', but you have no idea how many attempts it takes me to get a coherent sentence out ;).

Big news (and now on display at my LNS)--I made a start and a finish of the same project in 3 days :-D









I'm using a 6" ruler for scale and I still think you don't get how small and cute these bonbons from Just Another Button Company are. Those are real candy papers they're sitting in! cute Cute CUTE!!

A normal person could finish the project in an afternoon....

And now...NEEDLEPOINT!

My needlepoint friends were over today, so I once again bowed to peer pressure and worked on my JustLibby Snowflake Santa. I've just put the finishing touches on his fluffy pom pom:









All that's left is the background and some snowflakes in the toe.

That's a lot of 'all' for me.

I've made progress on some cross stitch projects but that will wait until next time....

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Look, it's a bird!

And the 10-year-old mistake on the right has been fixed too :)

The American Sampler on 40ct New Khaki with NPI.

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Stupid software

The #{]<€ software on my phone ate my post. Here's the picture:




I'm not going to bother with the rest--it's past my bedtime.

Blps.
:
It crashed again, but this time I outsmarted it and saved it. HA!
:
3rd time's the charm?
:
So will it work now it's rested all night....

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American Sampler

Yesterday was very frustrating--I had several hours of stitch time, a large chunk of which was spent RIPPING again ERGH! I think I could have finished the right inside of the Indian Ink needlebook if I hadn't had to rip nearly the whole left side (yes, that would be the side I started with). It's fixed, but I'm still annoyed.

Feeling like I've done my duty this week, and since I've been tortured with TWO American Sampler models on display at The Attic I pulled out my i don't know how many years old WIP (40ct with NPI). I finished off the lefthand queen stitch flower and started the bird on the right.



Of course it wouldn't be a leisurely night of stitching without finding a mistake--in this case one made 4 or 5 years ago (pause for primal scream).

I now have to rip out pretty much all of the right side of the branch/vine thing. I remember not really liking to stitch the big green leaf the first time around....

My new Stitch Blade is getting broken in faster than I drive....

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Needlepoint at last

I love needlepoint as much as I love cross stitch. It doesn't appear here very often because I'm around cross stitchers a lot more than needlepointers, and the peer pressure is AWFUL ;)

I spent a day this week with my friend Alice who taught me how to do needlepoint, and I usually take a canvas project to work on when we get together. This one is in the 4-5 year old range and on Wednesday all that was done was most of his hat and eyes, some of his mustache, very little of his beard and all of his cheeks and nose.




This is the Snowflake Santa by Libby Sturdy. It was a freebie on The Caron Collection's website--I looked for it tonight and didn't see it, but I didn't check the Designer features section. It's a bit big for an ornament to my eye, so I'm making it a stocking. I have plans for the toe to balance things out a bit. The stitch guide also calls for a darker background color.

I've been working on it faithfully since Wednesday as all of Alice's finished pieces make me want to work on a few other things (like maybe one of the 6-7 other Libby canvases I have started). Alas, this is as far as it goes until I get together with Alice again as I have some 'have to' stitching that needs to get done (I should be banned from blogging for egregious use of 'alas' there).

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I have to write tonight....

I stayed up too late working on the dividing bands tonight, but it was Time Well Spent hee hee (insert rim shot or groan as you like; I'm at least three times more amused than I should be).



(Florimel on a gorgeous piece of Vintage Strawflower 45ct--I'm just as surprised as you the Florimel works on 45ct.)

I worked on the linen sewing book as well--did I rip or didn't I? An answer for another night....

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Moving on

I'm living under a false sense of accomplishment. I finished a band in the Mexican Garden sampler that took the whole last week (see previous post) and I finished the inside left panel of the Indian Ink needlebook:



So of course I started a new project tonight to add to my mountain of UFOs. I'm blaming Stacy Nash for this one--it's the second of the class projects, the linen sewing book



As usual I purchased 40ct linen and Soie d'alger to use instead of the kit's 32ct linen and DMC cotton. At the moment mine looks like this:



The question is, will I continue the rip-a-thon from last week and then re-do it over one (which I now remember planning to do, but then middle-age kicked in and I forgot AT THE MOST IMPORTANT TIME ARGH) or do I just push on over two always being half disappointed about not doing it over one?

Also, I'm so hooked on primitives I'd like to start every one I own. I need more hands--being able to stitch on only one thing at a time is becoming an annoyance.

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PROGRESS!

You can see progress without the aid of an electron microscope! And I only spent half this week ripping and fixing ( except for one mistake on the back).

Before:



After:


Now if only I hadn't had espresso at 3:30 this afternoon....

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Let's try this (posting from my phone)

Let's just say excuses for this hiatus will appear later...maybe....

In celebration of finishing this:







in time to do this in class with Stacy Nash:







I took a night off from 'have to stitch' to work on whatever sampler was randomly pulled from the UFO pile. The Mexican Garden sampler from Queenstown Sampler Designs was the lucky winner (my various stupidities associated with this piece have been documented in a previous post to be linked later). When last seen, it looked remarkably similar to this:







In a matter of hours I ripped out the end of the last bit of stitching I'd done months ago, stitched correctly this time around, added a new motif, discovered halfway back I'd mucked up the reversible bit on the back, ripped and fixed it, started the next motif and realized they both looked ridiculous in long arm cross (the motifs are too small, duh), ripped them both out completely and put one back in.

The above explains why hardly anything gets finished...that, and Downton Abbey on the TV....

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(edited to fix spacing and add this:

Now you can see how little progress I made above. Which explains my limited success at FINISHING things....)