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....)