March Came in Like a Lamb

Yes, March came in on 70+F temperatures and sunny skies. We're supposed to have thunderstorms and rain for the rest of the weekend and given the weirdness of the weather, who knows what will be in store for us.

When I got home from the grocery store this morning, my front yard had a very "The Birds" look to it, except instead of seagulls and crows it was robins.  There must have been 100 or more hopping around the front yard and I could hear more in the trees. The feeders have also been inundated with finches, both gold and house, and grackles.  The red-winged blackbirds should be showing up soon they are my favorite summer birds.

Welcome to my new followers and thank you to everyone for the comments.  I am really enjoying having some of my older WIPs come out of hibernation. I noticed when I was working on Secret Victorian Garden that I hadn't done any of the beading. I think that the next rotation will be a beading only one as there are, as usual for a Chatelaine, a ton of beads and spending days and days beading at the end is not appealing. And yes, I use scroll rods and bead as I go. I run a strip of quilt batting/wadding right up next to the scroll rod before rolling and that provides enough padding that I have yet to crack or break a bead and it also keeps the tension more even. I only do the Delicas as I go, the bicones, cubes and other assorted bling are added last.

Cover your ears as I am going to SQQQUUUEEEEEEEEE here! I won a give-away! I was so shocked, I don't usually enter drawings on blogs but Doris at A Pause in the Journey was looking for good homes for some of her mother's projects so I gave it a try and won two beautiful The Drawn Thread kits Summer into Autumn and Winter into Spring.  I LOVE The Drawn Thread's patterns and really couldn't resist.

Thank you so much Doris.

Serengeti? Did someone ask about Serengeti and my crazy "treasure hunt"? Well, my first thread showed up! Thistle Needleworks came through in amazing time with the Fiesta Impressions from the Caron Collection.  Here is the thread on my chosen fabric which is fairly close to what the fabric color really is although not quite as bright - the fiber is a bit washed out as it is much more in the brown/orange range. 

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my other fibers and the beads.  Part one has been released and while this won't be in the rotation for a bit I'd really like to have everything on hand. I have already pulled the called for DMCs and somehow I was missing four. That might not be unusal for some people, but I swore I had at least one complete set with duplicates of most of their colors. I stopped into A.C. Moore on the way to the grocery store this morning and got the missing four.

So on to the stitching...

My focus piece this week was Shepherd's Bush's Holy Night. The colors are a bit brighter than other Shepherd's Bush I've worked on but it could be more a factor that it's done with two threads over two instead of their usual one.  I'm using the recommended fibers, with the exception of the called for Rainbow Gallery Alpaca - I switched it for The Gentle Art's Simply Wool as that's what the shop had, but have a 28-count fabric instead of a 19-count. I don't have the name of the fabric, but given the coffee smell, it's an R&R Reproductions piece which makes sense since I bought the chart and fibers at Dyeing to Stitch  in Virginia Beach which is their shop the fabric is brown/gold despite what the picture shows but by now you should all be used to my craptastic photos.  All I had done when I started last week was the "A" and the top vine border.

Holy Night by Shepherd's Bush
Stitched on unknown 28-count R&R Reproductions fabric with TGA and Crescent Colours fibers

I am going for a new start today, Blackbird Designs 2011 Birds of a Feather.  Karen at Wasatch Needlecrafts had this one as an automatic so I will be using the recommended 30-count Irish Creme from R&R Reproductions and GAST and Crescent Colours. The ones I have seen finished across blogland are beautiful and I can't wait to get started.

Next week's focus piece will be Just Nan's Christmas Elegance which is, as the name implies, very elegant and very much an "old style" Just Nan.

I hope everyone has a great week.