Start of winter

 So, in my last post, I said February was either the end of winter or just the start - this year it's just the start.  Like most of you, storms have lined up with little respite in between.  Unlike many of you, it hasn't been Arctic cold (although much colder than average) and we haven't yet lost power (although we were as prepared as we could be in case we did).  The latest winter storm warning has been lifted and it looks like we'll warm up into the high 30s F for the next couple of days so the ice should all melt off before the next storm hits on Monday.

The birds have been mobbing the feeders all week.  Most of them are seed eaters and the ice has covered all the grasses they rely on through the winter.  No unusual sightings this week, but a couple of robins (American robins are in the thrush family while European robins are in the flycatcher family so same name/different birds) are hopping around in the yard right now.  They will appreciate a bit of a thaw.

Before we get to the making, I have been very remiss in showing pictures of this young lady:

Cassie is almost 8 months old now and is a very happy, smiley little girl.  She is also very much a little night owl.  Although today she seemed to be much more of a morning lark - I guess there's just too much going on for her to miss any of it.  

Sooo, making happened and it all aligns with the two SALs that I'm also doing check-ins for.  

First, the easiest SAL you'll ever participate in   TUSAL is hosted by Sharon at It's Daffycat (clicking there should take you to February's post).  If you want a no stress event, this one's for you.  If you craft there are always little bits of leftovers.  Save them up in a container rather than tossing them (or wearing them to work on your pants) and every month on the new moon (I said "full moon" in my last post - sorry for any confusion), post a picture and then link over to the check-in post.  Here's the bits I've generated since the beginning of the year:

My actual stitching fits perfectly into  Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  It is the perfect way to say "thank you" to people that have given you stitching goodness or to highlight gifts you are stitching or show stitching that you can shoehorn into the theme.  Stitch, take a picture and post around the 15th of each month.  Jo said she keeps the check-in open through the end of the month so plenty of time to get your check-in done.  My two focus pieces fit the SAL perfectly Goldie and Japanese Zen Garden.

Goldie was charted by Heaven and Earth Designs from a picture my SIL took of my in-law's dog and will be a Christmas gift some year for the in-laws.

In my last post she was here and now she's here

I decided that as there was miles and miles of blue stitching once her head was finished that I would complete one color in the head and then do one or two lengths of blue.  I am afraid that if all I have left is all that blue, I'll stall out and I really would like to get this finished sooner than later.  She's done on 28-count antique white Monaco with DMC - 1 over 1 with full crosses.

The next piece is Japanese Zen Moss Garden by Chatelaine.  This will be my son's when it's done.  When I finished in January, it was here  and today it's here

I'm stitching this on 32-count Summer Sky Jobelan with Martina's DMC conversion (except for a couple of threads that didn't have a good substitute) and the called for PTB and beads.  I was making very slow progress on this one.  I thought it was just a lighting issue, but it ended up being a magnification issue (guess 32-count is now my limit with my current glasses).  I moved my magnifier over and things are now moving along nicely (after I fixed all the miscounts).  Zen is on the frame through tomorrow.  

Even my knitting falls into Gifted Gorgeousness as this is for Baby W.  I was not happy with the way the blanket was looking so I ripped it out and started again.  I am much happier now.  Here is the whole blanket and here is a closer look    I have some work to do on uniformity but I suppose an individual bubble won't show up in the hundreds (thousands?) that will be in the finished blanket. This is three full repeats of the pattern, so only 20 more to go.

As I mentioned, Zen is on the frame until tomorrow.  I hope to finish the corner bit and maybe do some of the specialty stitches in the center before it goes away until next month.  Temperature Tree by Stitchin' Mommy will be going on the frame Sunday.  I hope to finish the branches and get caught up with the leaves fairly early in the "leftover" days in February.  I'll spin the wheel of projects to fill in the rest of the time.

Hope you are all well, safe and warm.

January Smalls

I am thrilled that I have kept up with my SAL check-ins this year.  Yes, I know it's only January, but given my last week or so, I am all for celebrating anything I can! So today, I am celebrating the January .

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather over at the Stitching Lotus.  This one, like all the others I participate in, is very low stress.  Pop on over to Heather's blog and sign up, you can join in at anytime, stitch a small (you define what's small) and post a picture on the last Friday of the month.  Simple right?  The SAL is designed to encourage us to love those small designs too and for me it's a chance to actually say I've finished something.  For the next few months, I will be working on The Sampler Life's SAL from a few years ago.  I have five or six more blocks from that and then I will start the Joyful World SAL.

This month's finish is Fountains from Lori Laughlin of Rainbow's Daughter

Not my favorite piece because, well, backstitch!  But I do like the color combination.  If I did it again, I would probably use beads instead of French knots in those diamonds.  As I mentioned, I have a few more blocks to stitch; however, only a couple are 50X50 like all the rest, so a bit of fiddling and math to figure out how to make them fit best.

Zen is on the frame for the rest of the weekend and I just got a notice that my order of PTB is on its way so I may actually be able to fill in some of the blank bits soon.

January Gifted Gorgeousness

I held off a little doing this one as I wanted THIS one to be seen by the central Atlantic folks.  Anyway, today is the first  post for 2018.  If you haven't heard of Gifted Gorgeousness, it's hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching and is a way for us to thank the people who have gifted us stitching wonderfulness or to show things that we are gifting someone or whatever you can shoehorn into "gift".  If you're interested in stitching along, click on over and join.

I am only working on three pieces this year and they all fit Gifted Gorgeousness' parameters.

The first is a gift to my MIL and her husband (or will be). 

This is Goldie Christmas stocking as charted by Heaven and Earth Designs.  It is stitched on 25-count Antique White lugana with DMC threads. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I don't need a magnifier with this one, even though it is over-1.  Yes, I still need my glasses but not the extra help that I need with my 28-count, over-1 HaEDs.  She's back on the frame but I have yet to put a stitch in her tonight - see "Plans", "best laid" and see the results and you'll understand. :-)

My second piece is Japanese Zen Garden by Chatelaine and it is a gift for my son:

Not a lot more done since my last photo, but progress.  I am stitching this on 32-count Summer Sky Jobelan with Martina's DMC conversion except for a couple of variegated silks that had no conversion number and the Petite Treasure Braids.  Despite my lack of progress I am loving working on a Chatelaine again.

My third piece is a gift to me, The Sampler Life SAL from a couple years ago:

The hosts at The Sampler Life contacted designers and asked them to donate a 50X50 design to the SAL  As these were donated, I am calling them a gift to me and shoehorning them into the SAL.  This is stitched on Vintage Autumn Gold from Lakeside Linens (yes really!) with the called for fibers - usually DMC.  This particular block is Fountains by Rainbow's Daughter.

And those are the three pieces I am stitching this year and the three pieces that you will see, hopefully with lots of progress, on February 15th for next month's check in.

Good Bye 2017

2017 was a year of big occasions in my family.  The year started with a surgery (my gallbladder removal) and ended with one (The Hubs had his rotator cuff repaired on Thursday).  In between, my parents celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary, DSon moved from Vermont to Michigan and started a new job, DNephew and DNiece were both married, DSis and DBIL celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and The Hubs' niece announced her engagement.  Phew! I'm ready for a bit of a rest.

As it's the end of December as well as the end of the year, it's time for the final  check-in for 2017.  WIPocalypse is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings and is a personal challenge, not a contest, to stay on goal and finish some of those WIPs that most of us have hanging around.  She gives us topics each month for discussion and December's is to recap what we've done through the year.  This is going to be long and picture heavy.  

So for 2017....  I had the same number of finishes, 12, that I had last year.  You can see all my finishes in the tab labeled "Finishes" but I am going to show them here too.  You can see all my small finishes in my last post those I'm not going to reshow.

So first up was wedding samplers. I finished To Have and To Hold Bridal Sampler and Sentimental Hearts both by The Sweetheart Tree.  There are changes made to both samplers - mostly color changes on To Have and To Hold  but a little bit of chart reworking as the names were a bit longer than would fit.  A verse and names were added to Sentimental Hearts.



To Have and To Hold

Sentimental Hearts



After the wedding samplers, I moved onto a Christmas stocking, A Glimpse of Santa from Stoney Creek:

And around those finishes, I also had Winter Wonderland from The Silver Needle which was my first finish of the year and Snowgirls from Country Garden Stitchery:

Winter Wonderland

Snowgirls

I had progress on my Heaven and Earth Design projects.

Shakespearean Fantasy

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

Santa and the Mouse

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

and It's About Time

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

The Enchantment of Winter was a new start:

And Santa's Magic made an unexpected appearance in December.

January 1, 2017

December 31, 2017

I finished his beard with about 5" of Wisper thread left - if anybody is keeping track it will take more than two cards of Wisper White to finish this piece.  Rather than put in another order for a thread that I didn't really like stitching with, I made an executive decision that any other areas that were charted for Wisper would be done in plain old DMC white.  If I were to do it again, I would probably use B5200 for the charted white and white for the charted Wisper.  I think that would give just enough shade difference to keep it from looking flat.  I got my order of Kreinik in today's mail, but I won't be pulling this one out until I finish my two obligation pieces.

After putting Santa away, I pulled out Japanese Zen Garden.  Yes, it's a little early to start my 2018 rotation, but it kept calling.  It went from here:

To here:

I needed the green border to hold those gold swirls in place.  As they are off center I kept thinking I was off on my count.  Now that everything is neatly contained it is going much better.  I had planned to work on this all day today, but my phone's battery has been acting up (not holding a charge, heating up while charging, etc.) and today was the first appointment I could get.  Word of advice - do NOT go to an Apple store at anytime around Christmas - it was mobbed.  Between the waiting and the fixing and the grocery store my afternoon was shot. I am not planning on going anywhere tomorrow so there should be more swirly bits by tomorrow night.

So those are my finishes and progress for 2017.  I will be participating in WIPocalypse in 2018 and will be back in a week or so to post my goals and hopefully show some progress on Zen and Goldie.

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.  

March's Gifted Gorgeousness

I'm sure I mentioned that we recently had 80 F temperatures here in central Virginia.  WELL, we are paying for it in spades.  If you're on the East Coast of the US you know what I am talking about, if you're not, there is a major storm moving up the coast with lots of snow, ridiculously cold temperatures and strong winds.  In other words, it's a good ol' Nor'easter and we should have had it in January or February, not the middle of March. We missed the snow at my house, but when I got up this morning, there was a coating of ice on everything.  They called a 3-hour delay into work or unscheduled telework.  As that kind of delay doesn't fit in the train schedules even on a good day, I teleworked again today.  It was nice to be inside and warm (except for that 10 minutes at lunch when I went out to fill the bird feeders).

DSon lives in Vermont and his last text to me was that he can't remember a storm like this one. At the time it had been snowing several hours and he had 7" with up to 20" predicted (just got another text and there is just under 12" right now). Before it got too bad, he went out and made

Yep, snow angles.  He figured this was so much better than getting snow down the back of his jacket and besides as you can probably tell, there wasn't that much snow at the time, so falling into it would have meant a painful thunk on the frozen ground.  

Any way, onto stitching and March's .  Jo at Serendipitous Stitching hosts this SAL to give us a way to say thank you to everyone that has gifted us stitching goodness or to show off pieces that we are doing as gifts or anything you can shoehorn into the term "gift".  The link will take you to the Gifted Gorgeousness page where you can find all the information you need to participate.  While you're there, click around Jo has a wonderful blog and lots of beautiful stitching.

I actually have quite a lot to show so this will be picture heavy.  First up is Santa and the Mouse.  This is a retired freebie from Heaven and Earth Designs.  It's taken from a Scott Gustafson work.

I finished two columns and another 300 or so stitches into the new one.  As this was a freebie, I count it as a gift from the company/designer.

Also from Heaven and Earth Designs is Shakespearean Fantasy.  This one is an adaptation of a James C. Christensen work.  

I have almost finished another column.  I should be able to finish the last couple of blocks and maybe start a new column on Friday.  The pattern for this piece was a gift from Pull the Other Thread.

And my last HaED is It's About Time by Ciro Marchetti.  

I got another 100 stitch block done.  Don't know what is going on with the lines, they don't show on the piece. Oh well.  The pattern for this one was gifted to me by Kate at Needles and Haystacks.  If you haven't seen any of her stitching you need to check out her blog.  She does the most amazing redesigns and her stitching is gorgeous.  Oh and she's started designing too.

This piece is a gift to DNiece and her husband (well he will be when they open the gift).  It's Sentimental Hearts from The Sweetheart Tree with one modification so far:

It's a craptastic photo as usual.  The area where the saying is was lengthened a bit and the saying replaced an alphabet.  I am going to replace a section a little further down with their names and the date of the wedding. Lots of beads, paillettes and heart beads finish it.  Mostly DMC, but some perle coton and one Needle Necessities that was converted to a ThreadworX color.

And finally another piece that was a freebie:

This is the block from Golden Circle Designs for The Sampler Life SAL.  22 designers donated squares to the SAL, so like the HaED's freebie, I am counting it as a gift.  I am aiming for a finish this month, but it seems to have taken forever to get it just this far.

SAL check-ins

I'm home!  The training I did last week went well (or at least I think it went well, haven't seen the evaluations yet).  There were only two problem "children" but my training partner and I figured them out pretty quick and kept them under control.

As I mentioned in my last post, no new stitching happened this week, but I do have four SALs that have check-ins this weekend, so new words, old pictures.

The first is .  Sharon at It's Daffycat hosts TUSAL and everyone is welcome to participate. TUSAL is not your usual SAL.  SAL typically means "stitch along" whereas TUSAL is a "save along".   All those end bits of thread, dogears from quilting and whatever other loose bits you have when crafting get saved in a container of some sort, you take a photo and post about it on the new moon. Super simple and it doesn't really take any special preparation or supplies either.

A chunk of this is frog fuzz from Sentimental Hearts but the majority is bits from Winter Wonderland. 

And speaking of Winter Wonderland,  it is my finish for the .  The 2017 Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus.  This is another straight forward SAL - stitch a small piece and post a picture of your finish on the last Friday of the month.  You get to define small and you just have to finish the stitching not finish-finish it.

Here's my January small finish again:

This is Winter Wonderland from The Silver Needle's Secret Needle Night.

The third check-in is for .  Melissa at Measi's Musings hosts this SAL.  It focuses on finishing some of those works-in-progress that you may have sittings around.  Up there at the top you can find a tab that lists out my WIPocalypse projects.  I worked on three of them this month.

Santa and the Mouse started the new year here:

and went to here in January:

Enchantment of Winter was a blank piece of fabric on January 1st.  It ended the month here:

And here are Shakespearean Fantasy's before and after photos:

Melissa also gives us conversation starters each month.  This month's is:  What SALs are you participating in this year?  I am currently doing the three that are in this post, WIPocalypse, TUSAL and Smalls as well as Gifted Gorgeousness.  IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) is on the list, when I can remember and I am doing (so far unsuccessfully) Stitch From Stash on Facebook.  I am always open to new SALs, but have cut back drastically from years past as I tend to over-commit myself.

Speaking of Stitch from Stash, here's my report on that.

Budget:   $10.00
Purchase:  15.50 - The 12 Berries of Christmas (colly birds, golden rings and geese a-laying)
Balance: ($ 5.50)

Not a good month.  $10 USD would normally be plenty, but when I set my budget amount I forgot about the auto-ship for the berries.  Fortunately, the balances, good and bad, carry forward so on February 1st I will be back in the black.  There is a provision to give yourself credit for finishes and if I did that, I think I would have been even for the month, but as the finishes don't generate real money, it really doesn't balance out the real money I am spending.