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.

More than a bit late this time

Once again, I had post ideas running through my head and photos downloaded and all I had to do was sit down and put it all here.  It just didn't happen (obviously).  No reason other than time got away from me again.  So without further ado, here is:

,  Heather at Stitching Lotus hosts this SAL.  No strange rules or special patterns to purchase for this SAL.  Just stitch a small  and post your finishes on the last Friday of each month.  Simple right?  The rules are simple, actually finishing something has been the challenge for me, but I finally had a finish in February. You've seen it before but as it took me sooooo long to finish it I am showing it off again.

The more I look at it, the more it looks like it's been sucking lemons or forgot to put its dentures back but something just looks off about the mouth.  I think I'll stop looking at it too hard and just move onto the next small. 

Not close to a finish, but a little more progress.  You can really see where I frogged in this picture.  I need to invest in a lint roller to get all those bits of frog fuzz off the piece.

The second SAL I am late for is .  Melissa at Measi's Musings hosts this SAL.  Not only does this SAL help me focus on finishing up those pesky WIPs, but Melissa provides prompts for us in the event we can't figure out what to blog about.  This month's is:  What is your favorite stitch other than the standard cross stitch?  That is easy.  I love doing Rhodes stitch in all its variations.  Squares, circles, rectangles, hearts - the more the merrier.  This http://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/rhodes-stitch.html will take you to a site that has instructions on square, heart and a few variations on the Rhodes stitch.  I like it because it adds a bit of texture to a piece without being too bulky that and I LOVED doing string art pieces when I was a kid and it seems to have stuck.

I had progress on three of the projects on my WIPocalypse list this month.

First It's About Time went from here:

to here:

It's only 200 stitches, but it was a hard won 200 stitches.

Shakespearean Fantasy was here  at last month's check in.  Today, it's here:    I had more progress on this one than I thought as there is a column finish and about 400 stitches into a new one.

Santa and the Mouse went from here  to here 

I finished two columns and got a bit of a start on the next one.  I'm still not completely settled in with this one.  I am not used to starting in the center and I feel all discombobulated.  

And Sentimental Heart looked like this in January  and today it looks like this  While I like doing Rhodes stitch, those little spiderweb roses are a very close second.  I finally, finally, finally, have the wording changes all figured out and drafted.  I should get to them this weekend. So all that muttering and swearing you hear on the wind is me.

I am not sure how much stitching I will get done in the foreseeable future like so much stitching has been getting done anyway as my telework schedule was changed from Thursday and Friday to Friday and Monday.  Same number of days but not the same amount of time.  I can stay up later on Thursday knowing I don't have to get up at 4:00 Friday morning.  Unfortunately, I do have to get up at 4:00 on Tuesday morning, so it's an early night on Monday.  I think I'm going to lose two or three hours of stitching time while this is going on.  I'm very happy to pass along my knowledge but ugh. Oh well, at least they didn't take the telework day away.