April's Gifted Gorgeousness

Not an imaginative post title, but accurate.  Once a month, Jo at Serendipitous Stitching wants to see what we're stitching that was gifted to us, either whole or bits and pieces, or what we're stitching that is a gift or whatever we can shoehorn into the category of a gift.  She does this under the mantle of the  SAL.

I had dreams of massive amounts of stitching progress during my weeks working from home; however, last week was more famine than feast.  I was so much more tired after the surgery than I had anticipated that I was thrilled to stay awake until 9:00.  Because the surgery was laparoscopic and the incision was in my belly button, there is no visible evidence of me having had surgery; therefore, in my mind there was no surgery.  If I have to have surgery in the future, I'm going to ask for a big, ol' bandage so that it at least looks like I had something done and will maybe remember that I'm supposed to be taking it easy have to say I'm still trying to figure out how they got my gallbladder out through that tiny cut.

Back to Gifted Gorgeousness.  I have three Heaven and Earth Designs pieces that fit in the SAL, Shakespearean Fantasy, It's About Time, and Santa and the Mouse.  I don't have any progress to show since my last post, but the background of how these fit in the SAL is:  Shakespearean Fantasy's pattern was a gift from Pull the Other Thread; It's About Time's pattern was a gift from Kate at Needles and Haystacks; and, Santa and the Mouse is a retired freebie from HaED so I'm counting it as a gift.

I have two gifts for other people, Sentimental Heart from The Sweetheart Tree is a wedding gift for DNiece and  A Glimpse of Santa from Stoney Creek is a Christmas gift for DNiece-to-be and the fabric was a gift from The Hubs this past Christmas (he bought me a 10-yard bolt of 28-count antique white Monaco - okay I found it, bought it and gave it to him to wrap).  Here is Sentimental Heart again   and A Glimpse of Santa is here

My last SAL piece is Gold and Purple Corner from Scarlet Suen.  This is another freebie, this time from The Sample Life SAL:

Now that I am not quite so tired, I hope to get more evening stitching done this week.  

A start, a finish and other stuff

Another finish!  I am as shocked as you!  Sentimental Heart is now hanging on the "Admire Me" curtain and will be off to the framer sometime this week. 

It took a while to get the beads figured out on the modified areas, but I am happy with how it turned out.

With that finish, I have one commitment piece to go.  A Glimpse of Santa is one the frame now and looks like this:

Someday this will be a Christmas stocking.  The pattern is from the Stoney Creek Collection and is done on antique white 28-count Monaco with DMC.  There will be a few modifications for this one also as the pattern is so old (I just found it but the copyright is 2001) that most of the called for bits and bobs are no longer available.  I see some time at the jewelry/bead sections of the big box stores in my future and am looking forward to seeing what I can find.

I also got some time in on Santa and the Mouse and Shakespearean Fantasy this week.

Started his glove and did a bit of a curtain.

More black here, but I should be back into the greens when I pull it back out Friday evening.

And last for this week:

Gold and Purple Corner by Scarlet Suen for The Sampler Life SAL.  I have a couple more gold motifs to add and then onto the purple.  I am fairly confident I will finish this one this month. I do need to unroll this so I can get a photo of the whole thing and remind myself what it looks like.

I should pull It's About Time out and get a few stitches into it this evening, but I am beat.  I had some minor surgery last Wednesday.  Few days off work and, because of my killer commute, a couple weeks of telework just to be sure everything stays together and where it's supposed to be.  I had no trouble getting up and getting going this morning, but around 2:30 this afternoon my energy level fell through the floor and I almost fell asleep on my computer.  Granted the project I'm working on isn't the most exciting thing ever dreamed up, but it isn't something that normally puts me to sleep.  All that round about to say, I don't think I will be doing any stitching tonight.  But as I have two weeks of evenings ahead of me, I'm not going to be too upset about losing tonight.

April?

April, huh? Well, happy April everyone.  I'm not sure where the last two weeks have gone or what I've been doing.  I know one thing I haven't been doing is blogging or reading blogs.  Some stitching has been happening but not a lot.  Despite the lack of stitching I do have two SALs, and , to post about.

is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings and focuses on finishing up those WIPs that we have hanging around.  I have a list of pieces that I would like to finish or make progress on up top in the "WIPocalypse Project List and 2017 Stitching Plan" tab.  Right now I am focusing on wedding gifts, but I do have several other pieces going on too.

The first on my list is It's About Time.  Not a lot of progress on this one since my last post, but as of today, it's here:

Next is Shakespearean Fantasy.  I finished another column and am slowly working my way to a page finish.

And the last one for this month is Sentimental Heart

All that is left is a bit of stitching below the date, the vine frame and lots of beading.  If I can get myself focused I should make good progress this weekend.

The next SAL is  .  The Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus and focuses on smalls.  Small is defined by you, so no special patterns to buy or find.  I am currently finishing up The Sampler Life SAL pieces as my smalls and they are mostly 50X50 stitches. This month's finish is from Golden Circle Designs:

I also started my next block.  More on that one in a later blog post.

Sentimental Heart is on the frame this weekend with a bit of time out for the new small, so hopefully there will be lots of progress to show next time.