Reading and stitching in IL

TAST Week 6: Chevron Stitch

2012-02-12T18:23:00.002-06:00

I continued my TAST sampler and free embroidery experiments this week with the Chevron Stitch.

Kimono sections 1 to 13

2012-02-12T18:22:00.000-06:00

I am working on a needlepoint Kimono that was originally designed by Maggie Lane. John Waddell is offering a colorful version as a course through the Shining Needle Society. Although I really want to make one that is black, red and gold on black canvas with the color spacing like the one Teresa Frank entered in the exhibit at the 2004 ANG Seminar in Reno. I would like to use red in place of the blue and black for the cream portions, but I have been seduced by all of the colors that everyone is posting. So I selected colors from my stash:

The threads include two colors of Caron waterlilies, a couple of skeins of Walsh silk and wool, some Needle Necessities, quite a few Gumnuts "buds", some stranded metalics, a couple of rayon threads, and some other stranded cottons. I added DMC to expand the range for each of the main colors and to give me more stranded fibers to work with. Using John's random color selection method, I stitched the first 13 sections of the Kimono:

I am delighted with the results.

Cyberpointers Menagerie

2012-02-05T18:13:00.000-06:00

The year long project for 2012 at Cyberpointers this year is a sampler project called Menagerie. I started mine this weekend and stitched the first two blocks. I have a bag full of red, white and blue fibers that will provide a perfect assortment of threads and textures for this project in a limited color scheme. I also had a piece of 18 count tan canvas that was large enough for a 12 x 18 sampler which will allow for twenty four 3 x 3 squares. The first two squares are shown here. They are Hilton stitches and Rhodes variations.

TAST Week 5: Herringbone Stitch

2012-02-03T21:38:00.000-06:00

This is week 5 of the Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge. I have two new pieces and one old one to share. I think that I stitched the first piece for a previous challenge. It is closed herringbone with french knot accents. It contains a variety of different sizes and orientations of the stitches.

I also created a new free embroidery sample using herringbone, straight stitches, and a wrapped spider web for the eye. A group of photographers went to take pictures of eagles last weekend. I went to a high school basketball game instead. The photos that they shared inspired this bird -- based on the colors of the threads it is really a Phoenix, not an eagle.

I continued with my stitch variation sampler this week using some new threads, adding beads, and using new combinations of stitches to show different herringbone variations.

TAST Week 4: Cretan Stitch

2012-01-25T21:29:00.000-06:00

After a weekend of snow, freezing rain, and cold I was ready to think warm thoughts. I looked at samples of Cretan stitch in several books and on the web and found a lot of crewel embroidery leaves and flowers. So here is my tropical interpretation of leaves and flowers -- an island palm tree complete with coconuts. I also added some Cretan stitch samples to my stitch sampler. Some of them are kind of pretty but they were not very interesting to stitch.

Family Photos

2012-01-22T21:39:00.000-06:00

I love this picture of my mother as a little girl. There are two others, one of her mother and one of her Grandmother all dressed as little cowboys at about the same age. This one is from 1944 and it makes it easy to see that she came from Texas.

I also finished some stitching, a small needlepoint bookmark for a friend. I need to sew the ends together and put it in the mail.

Take a Stitch Tuesday Week 3: Feather Stitch

2012-01-18T21:57:00.000-06:00

I layered feather stitch in different threads, thread weights and colors for my free embroidery piece this week. The rock at the bottom is an overdyed linen thread. The stems are soy silk and perle cotton, the flowers in french knots and detached chain stitch are in soy silk.

The even weave variations on Feather Stitch show differences in stitch length, stitch width and stitch orientation. Feather stitch is combined with french knots, detached chain, and buttonhole stitch. Colors are combined to create different effects.

The final picture is a picture of the stitch sampler so far. There are five rectangular blocks: arrowhead stitch, backstitch, fly stitch, buttonhole stitch and feather stitch. The first two were stitched before this round of TAST started.

Take A Stitch Tuesday Week 2: Buttonhole Stitch

2012-01-12T06:46:00.000-06:00

This week I continued with my even weave sample. I varied the size of the Buttonhole stitches, changed their direction, and layered them on this sample:

My free embroidery piece this week is a fish which is all in buttonhole stitch.

Take A Stitch Tuesday Week 1: Fly Stitch

2012-01-07T10:44:00.000-06:00

Here are samples of Fly Stitch on an evenweave background. French knots, detached chain stitches, and cross stitches were also used.

Here is a free embroidery sample using Fly Stitch embelished with French knots, detached chain stitches, cross stitches and straight stitches.

Welcome 2012

2012-01-02T11:29:00.000-06:00

A new year always brings with it promises of new beginnings and resolutions. This year I hope to procrastinate less and to finish more. I am going to participate in the Take A Stitch Tuesday Challenge and use it as an opportunity to stretch my creativity. I am going to try to finish more projects and to improve my skill level as I work on them.

That said, over the holidays I started two new projects. They are mostly traditional cross stitch and both are fairly large. On Christmas Day, I started working on Chatelaine's Rose Lights. It was a gift several years ago and I thought it was appropriate to open and start on a gift at Christmas time. My New Year's project is Lavender and Lace's Autumn Angel. I have always loved the angels and mermaids and the golds and oranges of autumn are some of my favorite colors.

New Year's Eve 2011

2011-12-31T20:14:00.001-06:00

This has been a year of significant change in my life and I have had to figure out how to navigate a number of new realities. Some things have stayed the same -- I read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies, and completed some needlework projects. I watched a lot of high school lacrosse and basketball and went to 5 karate tournaments. I traveled, I took pictures and I explored the forest preserves. I got brave and started walking both of my dogs at the same time -- they are large, strong and easily distracted so this took a lot of courage.

I have posted pictures of some of my finishes for 2011, but I finished some needlepoint projects that I started many years ago and some projects that I started this year. I did some of my own finishing. I have some new works in progress and some new class pieces. I had fun with the 15 starts in 15 days challenge and have worked on some pieces that I would have left untouched otherwise. I have also taken an active role in some face to face and on line needlework groups. Overall, a good year.

Jim Wurth Versailles Frame Weight Finished

2011-11-18T12:12:00.003-06:00

I finished my version of Jim Wurth's Versailles Frame Weight this week. It is beautiful and the bright gold and copper look every rich and opulent. I used larger beads than the pattern called for but the triangular beads sparkle more than the other shapes did. The threads are the Rainbow Gallery and Kreinik metallic called for in the pattern except for one of the coppery orange colors. I found a skein of Gumnuts that was the perfect color. This was an on line class through The Shining Needle Society. I finished it myself and used a piece of wool felt on the bottom.

Versailles Frame Weight Progress

2011-11-06T18:06:00.001-06:00

It is fall. Daylight Savings time has started, it is getting cooler, and the leaves are turning color and I am working on Jim Wurth's Versailles Frame Weight. This was a class offered through the Shining Needle Society two years ago. I picked out the colors, bought the stretcher bars and canvas, and put everything away. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled it out and started to work on it. It fits in with the Hilton Stitches theme for the Lake County Chapter of the ANG and it is fun to work on. I like the bright gold and darker copper color selections, they mirror the colors of the fall leaves.

Large projects

2011-10-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

I like working detailed projects on high count even weave and have a collection of started projects, large and small. This photo shows one quarter of the design, stitched with gloriana silk. The color is beautiful, the piece is intricate and detailed and it looks beautiful. I love the colors and I love the design. It is fun to stitch on for a while and then becomes boring -- it may be the only large monochromatic piece I will ever stitch.

My other large project is just the opposite, it is a large needlepoint rug on 13 count canvas. The colors are vibrant and full of life. It was someone else's UFO and was brought into an ANG meeting and offered to anyone who wanted it. I have been working on large count, straight forward needlepoint this year so I brought it home. I am working my way through the flowers one color at a time and am almost done with the pink ones. It is possible that if you calculated the total stitches in the two pieces that they are the same, the only difference is one of scale. Working on both pieces is a relaxing, almost meditative activity and finishing each flower and each medallion gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Completed some old projects this summer

2011-10-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

Over the summer I worked on some old stitching projects. I finished two of them, an Erhman Tapestry Project called Fireworks was the first one. I purchased this kit in 1989 and have worked on it a couple of times since then. This time I was determined to finish it. I love the vibrant colors and the abstract pattern. I am going to have to block it because I worked most of it in hand while on vacation. I think it will make a great looking pillow or if it is the right size a great cover for my antique footstool.

I also finished a Vanessa Ann Porcelain Doll. It is a Christmas pattern that I started when I was pregnant with my daughter in 1994. She is not impressed with the finish, but I am. She reminds me of the porcelain doll that I had as a child. It had belonged to my mother and had a wardrobe of clothing that her grandmother made for it. The clothes were all hand sewn and elaborate in their details. Even more magical because they were made by a woman who did not like to sew.

Monday stitching

2011-10-11T12:50:00.000-05:00

I finished another Ornament yesterday, Joy to the World by Fancy Work. This was my second attempt at stitching this ornament, for some reason I had trouble counting out the words correctly and the Smyrna cross stitches were not easy to rip out. I spent the weekend working on the Ann Marsh Sewing Roll. All of the over one tent stitch is beautiful.

2011-03-12T09:50:00.000-06:00

I have finished 2 more ornaments from the Just Crossstitch Christmas Ornament issue. La-D-Da's 'Tis Red and JBW Designs French Country Star. My son helpfully pointed out that it is not Christmas yet but I enjoy working on small pieces. I am thinking about scheduling a finishing weekend in July so that I will have finished ornaments by the holidays instead of a stack of small stitched pieces.

I have also been finishing some of the smaller pieces in my 15 starts in 15 days. I finished Sam Sarah's Rise and Shine and almost finished The Trilogy's Winterology. I ran out of Weeks Dye Works Whitewash and am waiting for my order to come in so I can finish the snowman. I really like the vibrant colors in Rise and Shine, they show up very well against the dark linen. Once I get a collection of small pieces finished, I am going to frame them. If I use pre-made frames and get the mat board cut for me, I should be able to do the framing myself. Then I will have seasonal and fun pieces to use to decorate throughout the year.

I have been watching a lot of movies and old TV series while I stitch. I finished watching I Claudius, the BBC series that was shown on Masterpiece Theater in the 1970s. Some of the movies have been gems including The Balad of Little Jo and Chop Shop.

Square dance progress and vacation

2011-02-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

I was ambitious at the beginning of the month and I completed the first few lessons on Square Dance, an ANG Cyberworkshop taught by Orna Willis. I love Orna's use of color and the ways that she finds to combine threads and stitches in her designs. Square Dance is no exception, it is made up of small squares filled with detailed, layered stitches. The photo shows my progress so far. (The neon orange basting threads will be removed before the piece is finished.)

I also went on vacation, my first cruise, my first trip to the Caribbean, and my first trip with my sisters in law. The islands were beautiful and it was wonderful to be away from the snow with nothing to worry about. On the ship, everything is taken care of for you, on the islands, the weather was perfect.

Eight more starts

2011-01-31T21:38:00.001-06:00

Winterology by The Trilogy

I continued to start a new cross stitch piece for fifteen days. The rest of these projects are Little House Needleworks Curly Q Ewe, The Needle's Prayse The Spanish Sampler, Sam Sarah's Rise and Shine, The Examplarery The Hannah Norton Sampler, Winterology by the Trilogy, The Angel Sampler by Lavendar and Lace, Mary Jones 1801 by The Scarlet Letter and Deep Peace by Forget me nots in Stitches. I have had some of these pieces for a long time and it was fun to get them out and see how they will come together into finished pieces. I practiced patience basting all of the stitching areas in The Spanish Sampler and enjoyed all of the colors in Deep Peace.

I also finished seven kissing pillow tops. They will be made into small pillows and given to the children and loved ones of Military members who are deploying overseas. This outreach project started with the Yellow Rose Chapter of the EGA in Houston, Texas.

A start a day and another finish

2011-01-07T18:23:00.001-06:00

I have been starting a project a day since January 1. Participating in this challenge has given me an opportunity to pull projects out of my stash that I have been saving for the right time or that are waiting for me to finish another large project. January 1, I started the Ann Marsh Sewing Roll; January 2, I started Paradise Lost by Plum Street Samplers; January 3 I started I give my heart to thee by Ewe and Eye and Friends; January 4, I started Eve by La-D-Da; January 5, I started Plaid Heart by Shepherd's Bush; January 6, I started the Small English Band Sampler by Fibers to Dye For; and today I started Noah's Needle by Just Nan.

I even finished stitching one of these designs, I give my heart to thee by Ewe and Eye and Friends. I like their designs and have stitched a number of their small cross stitch pieces. I have also stitched one of their painted canvases, a pig for my daughter. This particular design was dated 1995. I updated the date and personalized the initials to make it into a nice Valentine.

A New Year's finish and a start

2011-01-01T19:26:00.000-06:00

I spent this afternoon stitching and watching movies. I finished this ornament while watching Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood. The movie is a lot of fun but the costumes are horrible, the styles are not as bad as the colors and fabrics. The bright, brash technicolor highlights the use of colors that could only be achieved using modern chemical dyes (or digital retouching of the original print) and the lavish use of lame makes every scene sparkle. The ornament is Angels Sent by Susan Greening Davis from the 2010 Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornament Issue. I used the suggested Gentle Art color on a greenish linen and had to cut out darker sections for the lettering.

I also decided to participate in the 15 starts in 15 days challenge. I am not making any commitments to finishing these projects in 2011 but I plan to have fun getting them out and starting them. The first one is the Ann Marsh Sewing Roll Kit but Joanne Harvey for The Exemplarery. I have had my kit for 4 or 5 years and I have just never gotten started. I started it today and completed all of the basting, which you can't see, and started the tent stitch outlines of the lower part of the outside of the needle roll. I was able to watch American Dreamz and most of Funny Lady while I worked on it.

New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T22:07:00.000-06:00

One year ends and the new one begins.

This year ended with one transition -- my mother died at the end of November. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease and has not known who I was in at least a decade. I really lost my mother long ago but her death is still very final.

The new year will bring other transitions, my son is a senior in high school. He plans to go to away to college in the fall. My daughter will be sixteen in the fall and able to drive herself places. My carpool and taxi service days will be over.

Winter Roses

2010-12-30T18:29:00.000-06:00

Rose Hips and Melting Snow

Today was a cold, damp day. It was warm enough for the snow to start melting but cold enough to still feel like winter. Tomorrow, the temperature is supposed to drop, making it clear that the weather was just trying to fool us into thinking that spring was coming.

What is coming is a new year -- 2011 is just around the corner. All over the internet, people are making plans for the year to come and posting new challenges, goals, and resolutions. I am not ready for that yet -- I am savoring the end of this year.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-26T16:53:00.000-06:00

It was a white Christmas Eve in Chicago on Friday. After watching the Joffrey Ballet Nutcracker, we walked up Michigan Avenue and visited the Lions in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. This year the traditional green wreaths have been replaced with new wreaths that are made up of 2,011 cranberry colored, solar powered spheres. They looked very cool in the snow.

Charity project and a UFO

2010-11-07T20:37:00.000-06:00

I finished the sugar cookie for Lake County ANG. It will be finished to look like a three dimensional cookies and donated to the ANG Seminar auction.

Now I need to work more on Lynn Tomlinson's Cabin in the Woods, it has been a UFO for a long time and it is now my challenge piece for the Lake County ANG.

Another trip to the botanic garden

2010-11-07T20:32:00.000-06:00

I went to the Chicago Botanic Garden this afternoon to see the Fine Art of Fiber exhibit and to take some pictures. I enjoyed the exhibit and was able to take pictures of the changing leaves and interesting seeds. Here are some of my favorites:

Fall color and some stitching progress

2010-10-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

I have been stitching and have made some more progress on my sampler. I realized that I did not have enough thread to finish the sampler and ordered more. That way I can start mixing the dye lots early in the piece. It is fun to see the patterns emerge as I stitch. I also like the effect of the back stitch areas.

Yesterday, I went to an estate sale for a woman who had been part of several of the needlework guilds in the area. I bought a few things including the Plimoth Plantation Sweete Bag and the accompanying Accesories. This piece is from The Examplarery and is an adaptation from a sampler that is in the collections at Plimoth Plantation. I started on the scissors sheath. It looks like it will be fairly quick to stitch and fun to finish. I love the attention to detail in the design, the order of the colors are different on the sides of the scissor sheath and there are different designs for the front and back of the sweete bag.

The weather has continued to be nice so I took advantage of it and went to one of the nearby forest preserves this afternoon. I took my camera instead of the dogs and took some pictures of the changing leaves and the end of season seed pods.

October at the Chicago Botanic Garden

2010-10-06T20:28:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoon, it was warm enough to be outside, it was not raining, and I did not have to drive anyone anywhere so I took some time to go wander around the Chicago Botanic Garden with my camera. In addition to the obligatory fall pumpkins, gourds and colored leaves, there were some beautiful flowers, squirrels and birds.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

2010-09-20T20:04:00.000-05:00

I picked up a recording of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the Fremont Public Library and started listening to it in my car this morning. I haven't read this book in almost 30 years, and I remember details from this book better than I remember things in the book I finished yesterday or the newspaper I read this morning. They are odd details, like going to the store to buy a paper collar or the story of the blue baby that survives because it is born in a hospital. I don't remember reading this book more than once, I also don't remember it as being a particular favorite but these details have stuck with me.

It could be because I was a girl who loved the library and wanted to read through all of the books in alphabetical order. It could be that I was Francie's age when I read the book. It could also be that Betty Smith was very good at describing the details that make a place or shape a life. The soup bone with scraps of meat attached to it that with some tired vegetables makes a rich and nourishing soup flecked with meat, the bowl of nasturtiums on the librarian's desk, or the immaculate linen and threadbare tuxedo jacket on Johnny Nolan.

I am not sure, but it is a bit magical while driving on the Illinois Tollway to hear something that reminds me of being 14.

Rose ATC

2010-09-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

I finished and mailed my rose artist trading card last week. It is now on its way to its new home in New Zealand. I used some wool felt picked up at a quilting show, DMC color variations stranded cotton and Mill Hill beads to make my rose. I modeled it on some of the wild roses that I have seen.

Cherries for Cherie finished

2010-09-10T22:35:00.000-05:00

I finished a small crewel piece the other day. Barbara Jackson of Tristan Brooks Designs taught this small piece for the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild. I enjoyed stitching it, although it took a while to fill in the sheep with all those French knots.

Barbara finished hers as a small case that could be folded in half. I am thinking about making mine into a small pouch instead.

Late summer means tomatoes

2010-09-09T22:20:00.000-05:00

On the last Sunday in August, Sandhill Organics lets share holders pick their own tomatoes. Walking the fields and picking out my own fruit reminds me of all of the weekends we spent picking fruit in the orchards and vineyards around our home in Tempe, Arizona, when I was a child. It is also an opportunity to spend some time on the farm that provides my produce year after year. This year, I went by myself and brought back a bushel of heirloom tomatoes and large red slicers.

In addition to fruit and vegetables, there are more animals on the farm than there have been in the past. I spent some time watching the chickens. It always amazes me how many different colors and types of feathers there are on the different types of domestic chickens. I watched the pigs too. It was a hot day and this pig looked like it was having a wonderful time trying to keep cool.

We have been eating tomato salad, home made salsa, and BLTs for the past week and a half and no one is bored.

Stitching Progress

2010-08-15T20:21:00.001-05:00

I have continued to work on a small project and a large project every day. I finished a small project that has been languishing in my sewing basket for a long time this week. Finished actually means finishing the stitching and finishing the stitched pieces into a block shape that I can either make into an ornament or use as a pincushion.

I have also made some progress on my Permin sampler in a week. I have stitched more than a thread each day as you can see.

Monet ATC and other stitching

2010-08-10T21:51:00.000-05:00

My Monet ATC is now on its way to its new owner. I based it on his Parliament paintings and I think it conveys the general idea of his work.

I decided to take Gay Ann Rogers challenge to stitch at least 12 stitches a day on a project. I picked a large project, the Museum Celle Sampler 1826 by Permin of Copenhagen, a small project, Frightfully Fun by the Trilogy, and I have been stitching one thread's worth of stitches on each per day. I finished Frightfully Fun on Sunday.

I took a progress picture of the Museum Celle Sampler on Saturday, I will continue to document my progress week by week.

Three new Temari

2010-08-01T22:43:00.000-05:00

I finished three Temari balls today. They are for the EGA Correspondence Course. I am actually done with them in time to send them in for evaluation. In the back is Fourth of July, to the right is Quaker Ladies and in front is a bound star.

Pictures from the National Botanic Garden

2010-07-31T15:48:00.000-05:00

Last week I was in Washington DC and I took the time to go over to the National Botanic Garden with my new camera. I am particularly proud of this butterfly on the orange zinnia.

Fiber Weekend

2010-07-18T18:27:00.004-05:00

I spent quite a bit of this weekend at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Fair. It helped that the fair has moved to the Lake County Fairgrounds which have moved to a new location which is very close to my house.

Saturday, I took two classes from Franklin Habit on lace knitting. Between Franklin and studying Diane Thornton's video on Left Handed Knitting, I think I have finally mastered making flat lace fabric with all of the decreases and increases slanting the right direction. On Sunday morning, I volunteered as a greeter and I finished wrapping all but one of my Temari balls. I also went shopping and bought beautiful yarn, wooden tools, and yarn bowls.

The fibers in the bowl at the top are from Knitting Notions, Wolf Creek Wools, Socks that Rock, and Mountain Colors. They are a combination of sock and lace weight yarns in wool and silk combinations. This beautiful yarn bowl is full of sock yarn from Happy Hands Yarn and Fiber. It is part of a package of 24 colorways in a Toe Candy Sock Kit. They looked like a lot of fun to knit and wear. I have to decide whether I want two socks that match or two different socks -- two different ones might be fun. The lovely bowl was from The Fold's booth.

I also bought some beautiful wooden tools including a sock darning egg and a nostepinne. My mother had a lot of sewing tools, some of them may have come from her grandmother. They included tools for pressing things including a sleeve board, a point presser, a tailer's ham and a clapper. I missed them the other day when I was trying to alter the sleeves on a karate gi to fit my daughter but I don't do enough sewing or alterations to collect my own set of pressing tools.

Back from vacation

2010-07-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

We are back from our vacation to Greenville, SC. The kids competed at the USA NKF National Karate Tournament, my husband spent his first year as a Judge. I took pictures with my new Nikon camera and explored Greenville and some of the surrounding area.

Specifically, I visited the Biltmore Estate with its huge house, beautiful gardens and winery. After the tour of the house, I wandered in the gardens until I thought I would melt and then went and tasted wine. Down in the wine cellar, it was very cool. I bought a rose, a dry Reisling, and a very good Tempranillo to take back. I also went to Ashville where I visited the Grove Park Inn, and Thomas Wolfe's house. The Grover Park Inn was in the middle of an exterior rennovation so no pictures there but you can see Thomas Wolfe's house below. I also wandered around Asheville and visited three yarn stores, three book stores and saw many quilts. My main purchase was an autographed copy of Erica Wilson's Embroidery Book and the wine I brought home from the Biltmore.

Copper River Canyon progress

2010-06-26T18:54:00.001-05:00

I have been listening to Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire mystery series and watching movies while working on Copper River Canyon. This design by Mary K. Campbell was offered as a cyberclass through Cyberpointers. I loved the idea of combining beading, blackwork and surface mapping techniques in order to produce a piece of needlework. I also loved the copper colors in the piece.

Today, I finished beading my river. I think it is a bit wider in parts than it should be but that will be fine. Randomly applying the beads to the canvass was a meditative act that went fairly quickly when I sat down to work on it.

Fishy Fishy

2010-06-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

I finished the small project from the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild meeting on Sunday -- it is Fishy Fishy by La D Da. It was fun to stitch the small design with Belle Soie Silk on Weeks Dye Works linen. It was easy to finish as a small ort box lid using glue and binder clips.

Name tag and trip to Scarlet Letter

2010-06-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

I finished my name tag for the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild last night. The threads are a combination of Olde Willow linen, Vicki Clayton silk, and Crescent Colors cotton floss. I adapted a Guild Anniversary Pincushion design for the name tag. Today, I went to the open house at The Scarlet Letter near Sullivan, Wisconsin. It was a nice day for a drive despite all of the dire weather forecasts and I was able to admire samplers and hooked rugs and shop for as long as I wanted. I came home with two sampler kits and a chart and copies of Amy Mitten's Autopsy of the Montenegrin Stitch and the new book about Sweet Bags by Jacqui Carey. I also had an opportunity to admire the multicolored alpacas before I left.

Artists Trading Cards

2010-05-18T21:47:00.000-05:00

I finished some ATCs today for exchanges. First, Spring Flowers -- a little late for the April Stitching Fingers ATC Exchange based on Landscapes. AT the beginning of April I had Japanese dwarf Iris, Hyacinths, Daffodils and Tulips blooming in my garden. Stitched in soysilk on hand dyed fabric.

The second is Undersea Life for May. This time I am not behind. A small school of fish swim along with a sea urchin, some rocks, a shell and some sea weed. Stitched in soy silk with found objects and agate beads.

Lake County ANG Year Long Project -- restarted

2010-04-13T22:19:00.000-05:00

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I really did not like the color scheme for my Year Long ANG project so I went to North Shore Needleworks and picked out new threads. You can see the green and burgundy color scheme here:

I started out with the Laid Filling Stitches -- the next four photographs show the results:

Spring Flowers

2010-03-25T19:47:00.000-05:00

The snow melted and the first of the spring flowers are blooming in the garden -- dwarf Japanese Iris.

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2 Week 1

2010-03-24T21:55:00.001-05:00

I am a bit late with my TAST 2 Week 1 sample. I tried to use Diamond Stitch on my evenweave sampler but I could not get the stitches to lay correctly on a grid. After looking at some of the stitched samples on the web, I decided that a free embroidery piece was called for. The sample is stitched in Crescent Colors floss on a piece of hand dyed fabric and includes French knots and bullion stitches in addition to Diamond Stitch.

First Temari Ball

2010-03-16T22:01:00.000-05:00

When I was in second grade, my father went to Penn State for a year's sabbatical and we lived in an apartment in State College, PA. While we were there, my mother made friends with two women from Japan. One of them taught her how to make Temari balls. I always wanted to learn how to make them myself and when Barbara Seuss started offering on-line classes, I signed up. Yesterday, I finally finished my first Temari ball. It is a Morning Glory design based on Barbara Seuss's beginner class. The top and bottom look really good, the sides are a bit crooked but it is still beautiful and I don't think very many people will notice.

Afghan is finished!

2010-02-02T22:23:00.000-06:00

I finished my afghan tonight. It looks wonderful on the floor and even better on the new couch with, of course, a cat sleeping on it.

Partially finished objects

2010-01-24T21:00:00.001-06:00

I am almost finished with my afghan. All of the squares are done and joined together. The top lace border is completed, I have the bottom lace border and i-cord on the two sides left. I am out of Rowan yarn in noir, so I can't finish until I get more. The yarn shop is also out of noir but they have it on order, so I will have to wait until they come in. I am very happy with how the afghan has come out. I enjoyed working out the color combinations and charting the bird in the center. I am knitting another afghan this year but I selected the colors and ordered all of the yarn at the start. I ran out too many times while working on this one.

While I wait for my noir yarn to come in, I am working on some old projects. These include my UFO for the Lake County ANG Chapter which is Lynne Tomlinson's Cabin in the Woods. I started it 13 or 14 years ago and never finished. Now, I have a year to finish or I will have to pay the guild $10.00. You can see from the picture how much progress I have made so far, I think finishing is feasible. There are two more trees, a top and bottom border and a very simple background. I am hoping to finish a number of projects this year, I selected two challenge pieces for the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild as well.

Almost finished objects

2009-12-12T19:58:00.000-06:00

I finished all of the embroidery on my Chatelaine Rose Sweetebag, now I am adding beads. I supplemented the beads in the kit with some from the local bead store and I think it is coming along quite well. Now to decide what to do for the back of the bag. I don't want to stitch a duplicate of the front on the back but I do have a lot of thread left. I am thinking about a back that is done in solid embroidery -- a color pattern in queen stitch would look awesome but I don't know if I am up for around 500 of them. We'll see.

I am also continuing to work on my skill building afghan. I had hoped that the cat would not take it over as hers until it was finished, but as you can see, she had been sitting on the squares as soon as they
are blocked. I need to finish the complicated lace square, finish my duplicate stitch, put the squares together and then knit the mitered square in the corner. I have been putting off the mitered square until I could really see what it looks like with the multicolored afghan squares. While I was at the Afghan Party, admiring the finished ones, someone suggested that I use a neutral and multiple colors left from the other squares for the second color in the mitered square. I am really excited about that idea -- now to get my project back from the cat. . .

ANG Chapter Project

2009-11-15T17:59:00.000-06:00

The Lake County ANG Chapter is doing a Yearlong Project. I joined the chapter this year and finally started my project. I decided to use a fall color scheme using some of the threads from the Halloween treat bag exchange and others I had in my stash. The colors are some of the ones I saw at the Chicago Botanic Garden last weekend.

I started stitching the first border, using Norwhich stitch in the corners and a series of Herringbone stitch rows on the sides. The green and orange are Gumnuts buds, the brown is a Walsh Silk and Wool. I am not sure I like the green corners. I am going to stitch the border down the side and then see how a brown corner looks on the other end.

Fall at the Botanic Garden

2009-11-08T21:10:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, I went to the Chicago Botanic Garden for the Fine Art of Fiber show. After looking at all of the different fiber art pieces and vendor, I went outside and took some pictures and am thinking about ways to interpret them as part of Sharon B's Stitch Explorer challenge.

I think that the wooden forms in this picture lend themselves to an interpretation using laid filling stitches.

The fall colors are also magnificent.

Witch Cats Hat

2009-11-02T21:10:00.000-06:00

I finished my Witch Cats Halloween Hat. Just in time for next Halloween.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T19:35:00.003-05:00

Trick or treating is winding down but not over yet. We had quite a few kids at our house, I think partially because it has been raining so much that people came here because we have sidewalks and some of the older neighborhoods do not. In addition to children of various sizes we had at least 3 dogs come to the door. I thought about putting some dog treats by the door with the candy, maybe next year.

I participated in a Halloween Exchange this year. I chose to use a Secret Needle Night piece as the basis for my exchange and I made it into a bag using several colors of calico and some trims that I had. I think it came out rather well. I filled it with various treats -- some stitching and some not -- and sent it on to its new owner. I hope she enjoyed her Halloween treats.

Various updates

2009-10-25T18:28:00.000-05:00

I have been sewing, knitting, and even doing some stitching. This has resulted in a nice looking Halloween bag for an exchange, a pair of socks, a beaded scissor fob and a lot of unfinished projects. I can't show off the bag yet, it was just sent off to its new owner, so I am going to share my completed Golden Darner Scissor Fob by Fern Ridge. I really enjoyed doing the peyote work, but got tired of the fringe at the bottom long before it was done. It looks great though. Now, I am working on the needle book to go with it.

I am also going to share my Cookie A Summer Sox. They are knitted out of Eat your Vegetables Claudia's Handpaints sock yarn. I love the name of the yarn and the socks are beautiful and very comfortable. I used slightly smaller needles than the pattern called for and the socks fit perfectly. This is a wonderful thing because a lot of sock patterns come out too large for me when they are knitted up. Since these socks went so well, I bought Cookie A's new book of sock patterns, Sock Innovation.

New needlepoint project

2009-05-27T20:44:00.003-05:00

I stopped at a local needlepoint shop, Needle Pointe in Palatine, on Friday and bought a new needlepoint canvas. The idea of working on a Christmas piece appealed to me on one of the first warm days of summer. The canvas is shown on its own and with the threads I pulled.

Next Banner Sections

2009-05-25T17:03:00.004-05:00

Here are the four sections of the banner on the right side, from top to bottom. Starting with Friends. Some of Perry’s friends are pictured here. At school, Perry and her friends have created their own holiday, “Cupcake Day”. This year she missed it to go to Boston with the Affirmation class, but although they are very hard to see in the photograph, there cupcake ribbon on her banner.

Interests. Perry loves entertainment. Some of her favorite music, books, movies and television shows are represented in this section of the banner along with her favorite places to shop and her favorite clothing designer, Betsy Johnson. Her life would not be complete without Starbucks, her cell phone and ice cream. The tv shows reflect her varied interests ranging from CSI and the Secret Life of an American Teenager to American Idol and Pimp my Ride.

Travel. Perry loves to travel. The patches represent some of the places that she has been including Florida, Arizona, New Orleans, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Boston.

Animals. This area includes animals that we have (two dogs, two cats), animals that have lived at our house (a rabbit), a pig (Perry collects pigs and was born in the Year of the Pig), and a lizard (the pet she wants but that I would not let her have). I found patches of a blond shar pei and a black lab to represent our two mixed breed dogs, but could not find a black and calico cat. Instead I settled for two cats that are shaped like ours.

Banner details

2009-05-24T19:55:00.005-05:00

Here are more detailed pictures of the individual sections of the banner with descriptions. I am starting in the upper right and proceeding clockwise around the banner. The first three are in this post, the next four will be in tomorrow's post.

Family. This section includes pictures of Perry and different family members along with charms that spell out the word "love" and jewelry from different family members. The coral and gold pin is very old and came from my Great Grandmother, Grammy Baugh. the piece of Zuni inlay and the cat pin belonged to Perry's Grandmother Berman. The Celtic tree and the silver and citrine piece are mine. The ceramic mask was made by one of my father's friends.

Church. North Shore Unitarian Church is represented by the sanctuary windows, two pictures of Perry’s Affirmation Class (one at the beginning of the year and one in Boston), and a picture of Perry delivering the clothing she collected during her service project. The word "faith" spelled out in charms and some pieces of jewelry that belonged to her affirmation mentor finish out this section.

Sports. Perry is quite the athlete. She tried gymnastics and ice skating before discovering karate. She was a cheerleader for several years and has played soccer since she was 5. She also plays basketball. This year, she ran cross country for her middle school. The tiger is her middle school mascot.

Banner finished and presented

2009-05-23T17:13:00.004-05:00

I have neglected this blog for a couple of months. It has been lost in the normal, and sometimes unusual events associated with a family of active teenagers and adults who work and travel. I have not been neglecting my needlework. I recently completed a banner for my daughter, Perry.

The 8th graders, and a few older 7th graders who like my daughter slip through the system, participate in a coming of age program at our church. The young people are paired with an adult mentor for the year, participate in a number of activities, complete a service project, and go on a trip to Boston. In the spring, they are honored by the men and women as well as their families and have a chance to speak in Church on Sunday morning.

The girl's receive a banner or gift of some kind from their mothers and mentors. I have made or helped make banners for other girls and over the years Perry has told me what she liked and did not like. Here is her banner:

The basic design on the banner is a stylized chalice, the symbol of Unitarian Universalism. The chalice is surrounded by 7 areas containing things that are important to Perry: family, our church, sports, pets and animals, travel, popular culture, and friends. I designed the quilt using EQ6 software. It is machine pieced, hand and machine appliqued, and machine quilted. The pictures were printed using an ink jet printer on satin and sheer fabric. The beading and embroidery were done by hand. I bought some of the beads for her banner; others came from old pieces of jewelry. The tin letters that form her name were purchased on a trip to New Orleans in 2004. I will post more about the individual areas over the next couple of days.

Butterflies and Dragonflies

2009-03-18T19:37:00.004-05:00

I continue to work on my UFO (unfinished object) list. Now that my Lizzie Kate ornaments are done, I have been working on Chatelaine's Elizabethan Sweet Bag. I finished all of the over one dragonflies and butterflies. I need to finish the bees and leaves and then add all of the beads. I have not decided what to do about the back. I have enough threads to stitch the back, either with a complete or partial repeat of the front. I could also use the threads to make a tassel to close the bag. I will have to see how it looks when I am done.

I have also been knitting and have worked on my koigu socks. I am using the same toe up sock pattern that I used for the Kaffe Fassett self striping socks. This time, I read the needle size before knitting a sock and a half. They fit snugly and have more pooling than I thought they would but when they are on my feet, they look pretty cool.

Lizzie Kate Christmas Ornaments

2009-03-16T18:34:00.004-05:00

I started stitching this group of 12 Christmas ornaments in 2006. I finished 6 of them, misplaced 4 and then put them away in a basket of works in progress. This year, I found the 4 I had misplaced and finished the other 6 including the tree topper start.

I am very happy to have them done and plan on finishing them to hang on the feather tree this Christmas.

Backstitch

2009-01-26T21:11:00.004-06:00

I completed another portion of my sampler last night. It is composed of bands and motifs in backstitch. I am continuing to use Crescent Colors cottons and to experiment with different ways of using each stitch. I enjoyed including blackwork flowers and frogs in addition to the traditional backstitched dividing bands. This sampler is inspired by Sharon B's Stitch Along Group. There are a lot of things to do with a simple back stitch. The next block will include whipped and laced variations, including Pekinese stitch variations. There are also a lot of pulled thread variations on back stitch. I might use them in a different block.

I also completed my first UFO for the year. One of the Lizzie Kate Christmas Flip Its. It represents a small amount of progress in the UFO stitching challenge on the Legacy Board. It is also my first finish of 2009. I hope to finish the whole set this year and be able to hang them on my feather tree at Christmas time.

I have been knitting, watching movies, and reading much more than I have been stitching. I really enjoyed Red Doors about a dysfunctional Chinese American family and I also had fun watching Around the World in 80 Days. The costumes and dance scenes were a lot of fun to watch and it was fun to try and pick out all of the cameo appearances by famous actors and actresses. It is really an extravaganza and was nominated for and won a number of Academy Awards.

Toe up and other cold weather pleasures

2009-01-15T20:28:00.002-06:00

It has been very cold here in northern Illinois -- the thermometer in my car registered -7 F on my way home. I tried to buy gas and the card readers at the pumps were frozen. The dogs have been hesitating before they go outside and my children have been complaining about having to go to school.

All this cold weather has me thinking about knitting warm things. I bought Janet Rehfeldt's book Toe Up Techniques for Hand-Knit Socks at Christmas time and made my first toe-up sock. I found her directions easy to follow, even for a self taught left handed knitter like myself. I used Regia 4-Fach Haltbar yarn in one of Kaffe Fassett's Exotic Colors. Clay contains a number of my favorite colors and created an interesting pattern on my socks. Now I need to knit the second one.

The weather has also been great for sitting at home and reading -- especially when I have unexpected free time because all of the basketball games are cancelled. I am re-reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, I love how she captures domestic details. In the book Mrs. Ramsey knits socks for the light house keeper's son. In The Voyage Out, one of the main characters works on a large needlepoint tapestry.

Snow, snow and more snow

2008-12-19T20:08:00.004-06:00

We are very behind on all things holiday this year but it smells like Christmas at my house now. I took advantage of my snow day to check out the favorite cookies through the decades on Gourmet's website. I made three: thin chocolates, molasses oatmeal, and brown sugar ginger thins.

The winter storm is mostly gone but it left behind plenty of fluffy snow that should last until Christmas. You can get an idea how much by looking at our evergreen. The first year after we lived in this house we bought a real tree for Christmas. It worked out great because Matt and the dogs could not reach over the top of the root ball to take any ornaments off. It has been thirteen years and the tree has grown a lot.

Arrowhead Stitch

2008-11-30T19:31:00.005-06:00

Here is a sample of my experiments with arrowhead stitch. Looking through my needlework books, I found that there are a number of stitches that are called arrowhead stitch. In this sampler, I have stuck with just those that had no other name. There are several variations of stitch size and orientation here as well as two distinct kinds of arrowhead stitches. One is used as a linear decorative band, the other is a stand alone embellishment that is described as a decoration in fine tailored garments. The samples are stitched using Crescent Colors cotton floss in three colors and Mill Hill beads on an even weave linen.

I also finished my inchies and am ready to send them off to swap. I used Ultrasuede scraps for the backing and sewed it on using nylon filament thread. They are exactly 1" on each side and look very small.

Elements inchies

2008-11-24T21:53:00.004-06:00

I have been looking at stitching blogs and web sites over the past few days which has inspired me to do some more creative stitching of my own. (It could also be the monotony of rows of monochromatic satin stitch motifs at the bottom of Anne Depauw that is motivating me to be creative.) This evening, I sat down and made a set of inchies that represent the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

All four are stitched in Crescent Colors cotton floss on 28 count linen using Algerian Eyelet variations. They will be included in the Cyberstitchers Inchie exchange.

Even though I have not been able to keep up with Sharon B's Take it Further Challenge this year, I love looking at her blog and admiring her energy and creativity. The idea of a stitchalong to experiment with different stitches started on her blog at the beginning of the summer, it is Take a Stitch Tuesday working at your own pace. I started with the first sitch, Algerian eyelet, and experimented with different variations of stitch alignment, color and size in this set of inchies.

Glad Tidings

2008-11-16T17:41:00.003-06:00

I have been stitching again and finished Glad Tidings this weekend. The pattern is from Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly. It is stitched in silk on lambswool linen. I like the colors and the flam stitched bottom band. It will be a nice addition to my holiday decorations once I get it finished or framed.

It seems right to feature a holiday finish during the first snow of the year. The big flakes are actually sticking to the ground tonight, bringing an early winter. The dogs are really excited -- they love to go wrestle in the snow.

September

2008-09-14T22:16:00.005-05:00

It is hard to believe that it is September already, this year has flown by. It sounds like it has finally stopped raining but I am waiting for the 10 o'clock news -- delayed because the football game ran late -- to tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow. We are not flooded and there is no water in the house but everything outside is wet and the dogs are muddy. When I was at church this morning, it felt like we were sitting in a rain forest.

This is the third time that a hurricane has hit a city that I recently visited. Earlier this summer, we stayed in downtown Houston. I haven't seen pictures of the Hyatt but I heard that it was damaged. We also visited New Orleans before Katrina and Fort Lauderdale before and after Wilma. This time, my husband and daughter benefited from the hurricane, they went to see the Cubs play the Astros in Milwaukee this evening. They called earlier and told me that it was a perfect game.

I have a finish to show off -- my Tudor Rose Scissors Fob is finished. It was designed for the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild Anniversary Party last year. I continue to work on Anne DePauw, one day I may finally be able to post pictures of a completed sampler.

Six word memoirs for pets

2008-06-25T20:49:00.009-05:00

I read the book Not Quite what I was Planning which is full of six word memoirs collected by Smith Magazine and I have been writing some of my own for my pets. Holly, the beautiful, long-haired calico cat wants only to be waited on and left alone. However, her long, soft fur and beauty make her irresistible -- everyone wants to pet her.

I know I'm beautiful, don't touch.

Gambit on the other hand is extremely tame, to the point that we have sometimes wondered if there is something wrong with him.

I am shameless; rub my tummy.

In addition to the pets in the house, we have animals outside the house. I apparently did not scare Mama Robin off by cutting down half the tree and exposing her nest, she has laid her final egg and has taken up residence. She stays put when the dogs are out but gets up and scolds us when we get too close. I suppose we are lucky that we don't have a nesting red winged blackbird -- they apparently dive bomb people who come too close to their nests.

I made up some six-word memoirs for myself as well, they include:

Iron low, thyroid low, very tired.

Mother, manager, engineer, artist -- hired housekeeper.

Teenager driving, parents gray and broke.

Red, white and blue . . .

2008-06-16T20:59:00.010-05:00

All of the snow this winter, and spring, and all of the rain an cool weather have made my roses very happy. My favorites are the firecracker roses. Since I hurt my back last fall and did not get them cut back, they are starting to climb the porch railing and are very happy. The buds and flowers are just beautiful.

We also have a bumper crop of white alpine strawberries. When they are ripe, they taste like the essence of strawberries and I think they look very pretty against my blue glass bird bath.

The real blue in my garden are the robin's eggs I found in a nest. I was afraid that I disturbed the mother too much when I pruned the tree her nest is in but when I got home from work today, Mama Robin was sitting on her nest. Unfortunately, every time I get close enough to her to take a picture, she flies off. Maybe she will stay put once she lays another egg or two and has to stay on the nest to keep the eggs warm. I think it is cool that we will get to watch the babies grow up.

Summer is here

2008-06-08T20:54:00.004-05:00

At the end of March, I posted pictures of my garden covered in snow. I spent part of this afternoon weeding and then took some pictures of my garden today. In another couple of days, I will have roses as well. They seem to like all of the wet, cool weather as well as the fact that I did not get them cut back as far as they should have been in the fall.

Right now, the garden is full of blue and purple flowers -- the red and yellow columbines have bloomed out but the blue ones are still blooming along with lupine, chives, Russian sage, and iris. Soon I will have white, pink and red roses, yellow and orange day lilies and red hollyhocks.

We are enjoying rhubarb and asparagus from my farm shares as well as a variety of beautiful greens. I am very spoiled by all of the bounty available to me this spring and summer. Soon I will be enjoying strawberries from my garden. The one white alpine strawberry plant I planted several years ago is taking over.

Reading, Stitching, and Blogging and a really cool gift

2008-05-31T20:23:00.003-05:00

I have been reading, knitting, and watching high school LaCrosse games rather than stitching and blogging during the past couple of months. The reading has been rather obsessive -- I keep track of the books I read each year and last year I read fewer books than I had in any of the last 5 years. This year, I set a goal to do better and so far in 2008 I have finished reading 30 books; I listened to another 10 in the car. You can see the results on my Shelfari shelf at the bottom of the blog. I really enjoyed Graceland by Chris Abani. My local library had two more of his books and I am looking forward to reading them.

I have also been knitting and have finished the back and 3/4 of one front on my Noro sweater. I made the front of the sweater a little wider than the pattern -- both to make the pattern come out even and make it easier to knit and because I want the sweater to cover my chest without strain. Now it looks like I will need one or two more balls of yarn to finish the sweater. I have also started a new pair of socks. I visited a new local yarn store, Prairie Arts and Fibers, and bought a ball of borroco sox. I have started the Roman Rib Socks from the Little Box of Socks. I also got sock yarn from the Webs Skein of the Month club this month.

I have found a way to combine knitting and reading. I am moderating the discussion of Middlesex on the Ravelry Book Club and have joined a Don Quixote summer knit and read along. I fell in love with Annie Modesitt's Corset Tank, a Dulcinea like knit along project, and fell off the stash wagon to order the Art Yarns Regal Silk to make it.

The high school LaCrosse season is over. We are making plans for summer karate, summer basketball camp, summer football camp, and, of course, summer LaCrosse. I started yoga last week and got the blood work results back from the Doctor's office. It appears that I am anemic which may explain why I have been so tired. It will be a couple weeks before I can see the Doctor, so I bought some iron supplements at the store. Hopefully I will start to feel like I have more energy if I take them.

To finish with the really cool gift, my father sent me a Hopi Kachina. It is a clown with two dogs carved by Robert Albert, Sahkomenewa. If you look closely, you can see that they are my dogs -- Cain and Abel the lab/shar pei mixes.

CSA Shares Start Today

2008-05-08T21:42:00.003-05:00

I picked up the first share of the CSA growing season this afternoon. It contained baby greens, pea shoots, new potatoes, tomato puree from last season's tomatoes, green garlic and chives. I bought a dozen eggs from free range chickens to add to my share. I thought about an organic, free range soup chicken but decided to wait until a different week.

It was tempting, especially since I have been reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma again. I finished the section about organic farming and have started on his discussion of foraging.

In addition to reading, I have also done some needlework. I finished SamSarah's Embrace and have been working on my Noro Sweater. Embrace was fun to stitch once I really got started on it. It will be added to my collection of snowmen. I posted progress pictures of the sweater on Ravelry. I will post here when I make some more progress.

March Take it Further Challenge

2008-03-30T21:13:00.005-05:00

This month the Take it Further Design Challenge theme was about details. I cut my left thumb at the beginning of the month in the kitchen. Since I am left handed, holding a needle was out for most of the month. So I started thinking about machine patchwork. I have also been thinking about small pieces this month, particularly inchies. Since a 1 inch square has to be about details, I made a series of inchies using fabrics that match the month's color scheme. When I was done, I decided that a bookmark would be more useful than a pile of 1 inch patchwork squares. The end result is shown at right. I am also including some close up pictures of the inchies -- blogger would not cooperate with positioning all 5 so if you want to see them all, you need to take a look at the Flickr group for the Take it Further Challenge.

I mentioned in my last post that I have been listening to podcasts. One of my favorites right now is The Classic Tales podcast. B.J. Harrison reads classic stories and short works in this podcast. Right now he is reading Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness in installments. I have been sampling different knitting podcasts that I find on iTunes as well. Cast-on by Brenda Dayne is one of my favorites. Another is Faery Knitting by Spinning Erin. Please share your favorite podcasts with me.

March Take it Further Challenge and Spring Snows . . .

2008-03-28T18:32:00.004-05:00

It is almost April and Spring has officially started but someone forgot to tell the weather. Last Friday, we got 9 inches of very fluffy, wet snow. That melted and then more fell last night. This picture is of my front flower bed this morning. Normally this time of year, you would see green here but not this year. I am ready for spring but the dogs are loving it. They should have been sled dogs but since they are not, they go out and eat snow, throw it at each other and wrestle in it. Then they come in and track water all over my house.
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I am procrastinating working on my Take it Further Design Challenge piece until the end of the month. This has not been intentional but it is how it has worked out. The theme is details and I decided that I would try making some inchies using fabric colors from the color scheme. The fabrics I pulled last night are in the picture. In real life, they match the color scheme pretty well. Sometime this weekend, I am going to work on my inchies and if all goes according to plan, there might be some samples before April starts.

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I did finish some knitting -- I made two clutches using the Webs Skein of the Month. This is the smaller one. It is the perfect size to hold my IPod and headphones. I have been listening to podcasts for the past two weeks and have been trying to decide which are my favorites. The larger one needs to be blocked before I finish it.

My pictures on the web

2008-03-17T19:21:00.003-05:00

I had an interesting experience yesterday while checking out the referrers that had led people to my blog. I found a photograph of an original piece of free embroidery by me, on another web site. You can see it here by the Free Embroidery Workshop. It is flattering to know that someone thinks highly enough of my work to steal an image of it for their own use, but it is also a bit disturbing that someone would do this. It surprised me because they obviously know where it came from but did not contact me to ask if they could use it.

My March TIF piece may be delayed a bit as I may not be able to stitch for a while. I cut my left thumb while chopping spinach in the kitchen yesterday. Cooking with sharp utensils and open flames is not always a good idea in a small kitchen with two large dogs and a 15 year old who wants your attention. Since I stitch left handed, you may continue to see knitting for a while unless I get creative with my sewing machine.

I did have a beautiful idea to go along with the March theme of details -- I was going to make a series of beaded borders into a sampler. However, I think I am going to have to think about something that requires less hand work and use of my thumb -- maybe this is the time to try to make some inchies. Just based on their size they would be details. . .

February TIF finished

2008-03-10T21:29:00.003-05:00

Here is my finished February TIF piece. I finally decided to leave the agricultural areas plain and unembroidered and to embroider the other areas to show the development of the urban areas and their movement into the agricultural areas. The detail does not show up well in the photo, I will have to play with it some more in photoshop and see what happens.

February TIF and more knitting

2008-03-02T21:13:00.004-06:00

I know that it is March, but I am posting another progress picture for my February TIF. I printed the image on fabric using a computer ink jet printer. I layered the fabric with a purple hand dyed cotton and am embellishing it with surface embroidery using over dyed cottons from Gentle Art. My original concept was to embroider the agricultural areas but upon further thought, I decided to embroider the urban and recreational areas instead. The embroidery shows growth and movement since the urban areas continue to overtake the agricultural ones.

I have also been knitting and finished my Elfin Hat in time for the temperature here to rise to 50 degrees. The hand spun yarn really looks excellent in the hat. I am working on a boucle scarf to match. I added several other projects to my project notebook in Ravelry, I will show off pictures when they are completed.

4000 hits

2008-02-24T20:48:00.002-06:00

This weekend, the stat counter registered 4,000 hits on my blog. Since I have been posting regularly for about a year now, that means that there are at least 10 visits a day to this blog. Now some of them are from my own visits but most are not. About 20% are from repeat visitors which shows that some of you find me, or my needlework interesting. As you can see from the map on the side, the visitors are from all over the world. I am flattered that you are willing to spend some of your time with me. Please leave a comment when you find something you like.

Finished knitting

2008-02-17T09:45:00.003-06:00

I took pictures of my finished sari silk scarf and the mermaid's tail evening bag. I am going to embelish the bag with small brass bells that I took off an old shirt, they are sitting on the bag in the picture but are not attached.

I also finished my farrow rib scarf and made a hat to match. The hat is my own pattern. Both are made out of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarn in black but they look very different in the pictures.

My next project is going to be the elfin hat and scarf set from the Fall 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. The yarn is handspun that I bought at the Chicago Botanic Garden during the Fine Art of Fiber show last fall. The hat will be in the brown and the scarf in the boucle. I hope that I have enough of the brown for the whole hat and that the pattern stitch shows up in the boucle yarn. I will have lots of time today to find out since I am going to spend it at a karate tournament.

February Color Scheme Experiments

2008-02-13T20:57:00.003-06:00

I have experimented with the February TIF color scheme and the results are shown here. I can't decide whether I like any of these well enough to stitch them or if I will stick with the colors from the original map. The green in the original ties in with the concept of agriculture more than the blues. I have been carrying the pictures around and thinking about them. Now you can offer your opinions as well.

I finished some knitting projects this week too but I don't have pictures yet. The Sari Silk mermaid's tail evening bag is complete. I also finished a farrow rib scarf that I started several years ago. I used a cashmere and wool yarn in black. I have two more balls of the yarn and am thinking about making a hat -- I need to work out a pattern for it because I want to have farrow rib for at least part of it.

I was able to finish the scarf because I spent 9 hours traveling from Chicago to Cleveland yesterday. Both airports closed last night due to snow and ice on the runways. I spent several hours knitting and watching the primary election commentary with a man from Munich, who was also on his way to Cleveland. He had a copy of Der Spiegel with Obama on the cover and told me that the Democratic candidates are getting a lot of news coverage in Europe. He was amused that I find parts of our primary system difficult to explain and amazed when I told him that Huckabee made Bush look like a moderate.

February TIF Photoshop Experiments

2008-02-09T11:12:00.000-06:00

I spent some time this morning playing with the land use image from 1975 in photoshop. Here is the original photo and here are some of my favorite results:

The yellow in this photograph shows the urban area in Maricopa County in 1975. The green is agricultural and the pink is recreation. I cropped the picture to select the southeastern portion of the county to include South Mountain, the urban areas of Tempe and Mesa and the agricultural areas that I remember from that time. Then I started modifying the image in Photoshop resulting in the three versions below. I used the color scheme form the photo without modification. I could make it bluer to match the color scheme in the challenge.

Random Thoughts

2008-02-07T20:55:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking about my February TIF Design Challenge Piece. Even before this topic was suggested I have been looking at aerial photographs that show the changes in land use over time. These changes have accelerated over the last 50 years as urban areas expand and more land is turned over to commercial agriculture. I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and I remember going to farmstands to buy produce grown in nearby fields and picking fruit in orchards and vineyards in Gilbert and Queen Creek. Now, the areas where I picked, and ate, peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, and grapes as a child are full of adobe colored houses with desert landscaping. When I say I miss the orchards, my father points out that houses take a lot less water than agriculture and I am reminded that the fresh produce of my childhood was grown by mining water in the desert and crop dusting large areas of land. I found some land use maps on the internet that I want to use as the basis for my February TIF, unfortunately they are in a powerpoint format and I can't figure out how to upload them to my blog but you can see them here.

While thinking about TIF, I have been knitting with Sari Silk. I finished the scarf and have started making another Mermaid's Tail Evening Purse. A sample of the finished fabric is pictured. I don't like knitting with it that much and it doesn't look as cool knitted up as I thought it would when I bought it. I am thinking of donating both pieces to the auction at the Women's Spirit. I am sure that there is someone else that they are perfect for.

I did recieve the perfect gift today. My kit for the Forget-Me-Nots in Stitches Album from Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly came today with the gorgeous scrimshaw pieces. I ordered it at the end of last year. It is a great early birthday present. I am a fan of Lauren Sauer's designs. I have five of her floral designs stitched and hanging on my dining room wall and her Secret Garden needlecase is one of my favorite projects.

The Pink Artist and a Lacrosse Cat

2008-02-02T08:51:00.000-06:00

On Thursday, I made a 2 inch square beaded and embroidered piece for the The Pink Artist Community Art Doll Project. The title "Hopeful Heart" came to mind as I finished the piece pictured here using hand dyed fabric scraps, gumnuts silk threads, and beads from my stash of leftovers. I will be mailing it off to Alabama today.

The February challenge for the Take it Further Design Challenge is "What am I old enough to remember?" I have brainstormed a surprisingly long list of things that I am old enough to remember and am playing with some ideas for my challenge piece. There are a lot of things that I remember that we don't have any more -- tv sets with tubes, transistor radios, slide rules, rotary dial phones, library card catalogues with real cards, programming computers using punch cards and printing information off on tractor feed printers, etc. There are some things that we used to have that have come back -- I remember that we had a milk man who delivered milk, now you can have Peapod deliver your groceries and in some parts of this area Oberweiss will still deliver milk to your door. I also remember places when they were different -- when we used to go on vacations each town and city had different restuarants and stores -- now they are all the same and they look the same.

Last night, my son left his Lacrosse Goalie Stick out on the couch and our calico cat took it over. Doesn't she look like she is ready to play?

Knitting Ministry Shawl

2008-01-30T21:13:00.000-06:00

I finished the easy traingle shawl and am ready to donate it
to the Knitting Ministry at my church to give to someone who is in need of comfort. I hope that they get a lift from the bright blue color. The crocheted loops on the bottom edge were much easier than I thought they would be and went very quickly. It was hard to get a good picture of the shawl. Maybe I should have made someone wear it and taken their picture in it.

I started a new knitting project, a Sari Silk scarf. I am making up the pattern as I go along and I tried to add some lace elements but you can't see them so I think that I am going to stick with a simple pattern and let the colors come alive. I plan on a long, relatively narrow (6 inches) scarf with fringe on the ends.

I also got yarn and a pattern in the mail from the Plimoth Plantation. I had signed up to be a volunteer knitter before Christmas and I got my yarn and glove pattern in the mail today. Now all I have to do is locate two sets of size two double pointed needles -- either that or finish my Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks and take the needles from that project.

January TIF and more knitting . . .

2008-01-28T21:49:00.000-06:00

I finished my Take if Further Design Challenge piece. I used simple stitches and a variety of overdyed threads, some stone beads, and ribbon to stitch the spirit bear and flow visualization lines on a piece of silk dupioni. I still need to add backing to the piece. I think that I will make all the pieces the same size so that they could be made into a book. I used the theme from the challenge and chose my father as the person I admired. He is featured in the "Collectors Corner Column" in the Heard Museum Shop News. He shares his love of dogs and contemporary Native American Art in the article. You can see more TIF Challenge pieces on the Take it Further Challenge blog or in the Flickr group.

I also won the first contest I entered on the Knit the Classics Blog with my pocket for Belinda. I enjoyed reading Belinda and had fun making the Mermaid's Tail Evening Bag. Now I am working on a prayer shawl for the knitting ministry at church. I finished the knitting and now have to crochet 57 little scallops on the edge. I think it may take me as long to complete the crochet border as it did to knit the rest of the shawl. I am using Lion Brand Homespun in Color 329, Waterfall, and a Lion Brand Pattern for an easy triangle shawl. The color is beautiful and the shawl is very soft. However, the yarn seems to snag easily.

TIF progress and winter stitching

2008-01-21T20:45:00.000-06:00

I made some progress on my January project for the Take it Further Challenge today. I have started stitching and have outlined the Spirit Bear and started on the fluid flow lines. I am not using the suggested color scheme because my father would not be able to distinguish the selected blues and greens since he is color blind. I have chosen instead to use colors from the American Southwest where he lives. I am using very simple outline stitches -- stem and split stitch. I have not decided whether I will leave the inside of the bear blank or fill it with stitching. I do plan to add some turquoise and coral beads and the top and some ribbon to tie the bundle of gifts to the bear when I am done.

I also worked on a very simple and quick cross stitch piece today. It is Winter Snows Me, a Secret Needle Night design from The Silver Needle. The different fibers are fun and sometimes it is nice to work on something that can be completed in a couple of hours. While I worked, I watched old movies -- Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More and The Apartment. I love to pick out movies at random from the collection at the public library -- I don't feel like I have to like them or to watch them all because they are free as long as I remember to return or renew them.

Knitting Finishes

2008-01-20T13:25:00.000-06:00

I have finished some knitting projects this past week. The first is Sally Melville's Asymmetrical Vest from The Knitting Experience Book 1: The Knit Stitch. This is the first pattern book that I bought when I started knitting again six years ago. There is enough explanation and instruction for a beginner but the patterns are simple classics that are interesting but not difficult to make. My vest is knitted in Noro's Yoroi yarn which has been discontinued. I like the contrast between the muted colors and the bright, neon flecks. The yarn is very light weight but warm so it adds warmth without feeling substantial.

The second finished project is the Mermaid's Tail Evening Bag from Exquisite Little Knits by Iris Schreier and Laurie Kimmelstiel. I made it for Knit the Classics -- it is my Belinda Project. I used ribbon yarns from my stash. It is pretty and since it is knit in ribbon on size 3.5 needles, it is substantial enough to hold a pencil without it slipping through the knitting.

I also did some more work on my Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks and am planning my next project -- Sally Melville's Best-friend Jacket in a Blue Lopi.

A New Year, Knitting and Take it Further Challenge

2008-01-06T21:16:00.000-06:00

I spent some time wandering around the Internet this evening. On Elaine Lipson's Blog Red Thread Studio she talks about picking a word for the year rather than writing traditional New Year's resolutions. Her word is magic. I thought about what my word would be and I think that it would be abundance. I really have everything that could possibly need but I often find that I need to be reminded to see things that way. Instead of resolutions which I think of as what not to do, I mad a list of goals for this year -- one of them is to stitch, sew and knit from my stash and to try and reduce both my stash and my collection of UFOs.

To that end, I finished the second side of a knitted pillow for my daughter yesterday. This side is worked in a purple fleece yarn with beads on it. The other side is knitted in an eyelash yarn that is purple, pink and electric blue. It will be perfect in her room once she gets her father to paint the walls purple for her.

Since I am done with the pillow cover, I am moving on to some more knitting for myself and am starting Sally Melville's asymmetrical vest from The Knitting Experience Book 1: The Knitting Stitch in a bulky wool, cotton and silk Noro yarn. I started rolling the skeins into balls and making a gauge swatch this morning. I love the subtle and bright variations in color in Noro's yarns. I think that I bought this yarn, now discontinued, 4 years ago.

I have also done some work on my Take it Further challenge piece for January. I made copies of some of the pictures and put them together in a 4" x 6" postcard size. This was my favorite combination.

Then I traced the bear and drew in some of the flow lines on tracing paper. I am going to start to put this on fabric this week.

I have a white silk dupioni remnant and some Impressions in a color called Adobe to play with. I bought the December 2007/January 2008 copy of Stitch magazine at the fabric store today to drool over the stumpwork and goldwork flower on the cover and instead saw the drawn thread and needlewoven panels on the inside of the magazine. I am envisioning a drawn thread bear -- I will have to experiment with taking apart my silk and see what I am able to do with it.

Take it further challenge --January

2008-01-03T21:22:00.000-06:00

The January Take it Further Challenge is to create a piece of fiber art about someone I look up to and admire. I immediately chose my father as my subject. My mother has Alzheimer's Disease and he continues to take care of her at home. He is devoted to her but also makes time for himself and his passions -- playing tennis and collecting Native American art.

He spent his professional life studying turbulent flow and mixing phenomena. I helped with some of his flow visualization studies in his lab. The collection of pictures on the right are from the eFluids Gallery of Images. They are similar to some of the flow visualization experiments that he worked on. I love the patterns that the eddies form along the boundary layer between two different materials.

His other passion is Native American art. He has collected artwork for more than 40 years and donated much of his pottery collection to the Heard Museum. Pieces from the Neil and Sarah Berman collection have been included in museum exhibits around the world. He has been a friend to many artists over the years and currently volunteers at the Heard Museum. He enjoys collecting fetishes and has given us a number of them. The Zuni associate the white bear with healing. The bears come in various shapes as shown in the pictures on the left. Many of them have life lines made out of colored stone and carry bundles of gifts.

I am planning on combining a medicine bear with one of the flow visualization patterns in my TIF challenge piece. I have not decided whether I will include the pattern inside the bear or surround a white bear with one of the patterns. I also have not decided what colors to use. I don't think that I will use blue or green for my father -- he is color blind and can't see them. I have thought about adobe or sandstone colors from the desert or tennis ball yellow.

Getting ready for the holidays

2007-12-19T17:31:00.000-06:00

We have our Christmas tree up. We put up all of the "nice" ornaments, the collection of Hallmark ornaments that the kids have picked out each year, the hand me down ornaments from our parents, and all of the needlework ornaments. In the picture you can see some cross stitch ornaments, some ornaments made with plastic beads, a flying pig, a wooden rocking horse, a carved cat, a glass basketball, and an oldfashioned radio that can be tuned to a North Pole station. The rest of our ornament collection is equally eclectic.

I gave up on the large shoe box of kid-made ornaments. Some of them were made by my children and some of them were made by me and my brother when we were little. With an 8 ft high tree (with a chunk taken out of the back when my husband forgot it was on top of the van and drove into the garage anyway) there just wasn't enough room for styrofoam balls with colored pins stuck in them, pieces of cardboard with macaroni glued on them, or colored foam core creations. They will have to stay in the box and wait and see if we get a larger tree next year.

As it is, about half of our ornaments are hand made. They reflect memories of the people and places they came from as well as my children's passions as they grow up. Each year we have each of them pick out their own ornament to purchase. We have gone from Thomas the Tank Engine, to the Incredible Hulk, to a snowboarding polar bear with my son. Now he thinks he is too old and cool to pick an ornament. My daughter's choices have included a multicolored bird, an American Girl doll, three dalmation puppies, and this year a basketball.

I have been stitching and finished Scary Scraps. My son reminds me that it is Christmas now, not Halloween but it is not too early to start getting ready for next year. Mosey n' Me's story about Scary Scraps is that he was too poor for white linen so he is wrapped in scraps. Considering that his scraps are made up of needle necessities floss and Rainbow Gallery metallics as well as DMC, I don't think that he is really that poor. He was fun to stitch on 28 count over two threads. The different segments of pattern and color were bite sized segments that were easy to work on in the evening and I can't look at him without smiling.

Slow Craft

2007-12-14T09:02:00.000-06:00

Sharon B has a post on her blog today about slow craft. She refers to a new blog called Red Thread Studio that talks about slow craft and sustainable clothing markets. Both started me thinking. I don't make my own clothes anymore because it is cheaper to buy them and my sewing machine is not very portable. This is despite the fact that I do own a sewing machine, am an accomplished seamstress and at one time I made most of my wardrobe. Some of the clothes that I wear the most are things that I made even though I completed my last garment at least 6 years ago.

Instead, I make more things by hand. I like the slow process of knitting my own socks, doing hand embroidery, beading bracelets, or hand appliqueing a quilt top. I have the luxury of not needing to sell my handcrafted items to make a living so I can take all the time I want on them. I love the fact that at the end of the time I spend on embroidery or knitting, I have a finished product. The transformation of a hank of yarn, a collection of fabric scraps, a box of threads, or a jar of beads into something beautiful and perhaps useful is magical in the same way that the transformation of flour, water, salt, and yeast into bread is magical.

I do find that I have to adapt my projects to my lifestyle. Right now, I am better at completing portable projects than ones that require a lot of space, materials, or equipment. I find it easier to follow someone else's pattern or design than to make up my own. I like the challenge of modifying designs and creating my own works but it is comforting after a long day at work and taking children from one place to another to sit down with a pattern someone else developed and reproduce their design. These projects improve my technical skills and often teach me new things about fibers and color giving me tools to use when I have the time to sit down and work on my own designs. I like eating bread that I baked myself and wearing socks that I knit myself.

Note: The two Christmas Stand Ups pictures are Better Not Pout from Shepherd's Bush and Yule Stack by the Trilogy.

Snow (Ice) Day

2007-12-11T07:56:00.001-06:00

With ice storms last night and more predicted this afternoon, there is no school and my office is closed. The ice on the trees is very pretty but it is not so pretty on the roads, or on the dogs when they mix it with mud and bring it into the house.

At my house, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas throughout the month of December. We fit in traditional family holiday rituals with basketball games, karate tests, chorus concerts and work related trips out of town. Many of the holiday traditions that have been handed down for generations involve food. Hanukkah is not complete without Neil's Potato Latkes, although in my house we may eat them while we decorate the Christmas tree.

Peel 4 large potatoes. Grate potatoes and onion, if desired, in food processor. Put grated potatoes in cheesecloth and squeeze out liquid in sink. Put grated, dry potatoes back in food processor. Add 2 eggs, 1/2 cup flour, and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix into a smooth batter. Drop batter by serving spoon (1/4 - 1/3 cup) size spoonfuls into pan with very hot oil. Cast iron pan and peanut oil work well. Fry over moderate to high heat until brown on underside. Turn to brown on top. Lift out of oil and drain off excess fat on paper towels. Serve with sour cream and applesauce.

Another essential part of the holiday season is Christmas cookies. I made some snickerdoodles and chewy gingerbread which have already disappeared. If I get ambitious this afternoon, I will get out the cookie cutters and rolling pin and make one of Grammy Baugh's cookie recipes. The simplest one is Grammy Baugh's Cinnamon Crackers:

Cream together 3/4 lb butter and 1 lb sugar (2 cups). Add 3 eggs and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Mix in 1 lb of flour (4 cups). Using more flour, roll out dough and cut out cookies. Bake at 350 F for 10 to 12 minutes or until brown. Thinner cookies may bake faster.

If you are an ambitious cookie decorator, you can make royal icing and decorate these in very fanciful ways. If you are not an ambitious cookie decorator, you can sprinkle colored sugar on top of the cookies before putting them in the oven to bake. Even better, you can have a small child sprinkle the sugar on the cookies.

More stitching than finishing

2007-11-12T16:48:00.000-06:00

I have been doing some stitching during the past couple of weeks but not very much finishing so this weekend, I picked up materials for some small and quick projects for gifts. I have been knitting hats using patterns from Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick. So far I have finished two "Elf" Hats using one skein of Mountain Colors 3 ply wool in Alpine. The smaller hat will fit a child. The larger hat fits my son who refused to be photographed in it. I am going to make some more "Elf" Hats out of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Bulky in Mixed Berries and then try out the bobble edged Santa hat using Lorna's Laces worsted in Red Rover for the hat and Misti Alpaca's Chunky Baby Alpaca for the trim.

I have been stitching from my stash and have been working on a Mosey 'n Me Pattern called Scary Scraps -- the Mummy. Scraps is stitched on a piece of bright pink linen in anchor floss, needle necessities, and Rainbow Gallery threads. The individual sections of pattern are relaxing to work on and I think that he will be a very fun Halloween decoration when he is done. I also have all the Prairie Moon Halloween ornaments and stand ups to stitch -- if I get them done and finished, I could have a lot of Halloween decorations next year. I tried to concentrate on finishing Christmas decorations last year instead of stitching new ones and have a lot more things to put out. You can see some of my stand ups on the flickr feed on the side of the Blog.

I have also been knitting my second pair of socks. Not much to show so far but I am making progress. These are knit using the first color from the Art Walk Sock Club. I like how the painted colors are coming out in the stitch pattern on the sock so far. I am using the Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks pattern from Cat Bordhi's book.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T19:15:00.001-05:00

I am home by myself opening the door for the trick or treaters. My children are out with their friends -- my daughter decided to trick or treat as herself because I failed as a parent and did not order her the whoopee cushion costume in time for Halloween. My son has been trying to think of things to claim to be as he trick or treats in his regular clothes -- I suggested a high school student but he said that was too obvious. He was trying to decide between child molester and serial killer when he left with his friends.

As the evening goes on, the trick or treaters at my door get older and fewer of them show up in costume -- it is a little cold out so in some cases the costumes may be covered up by jackets or sweat shirts. I have succeeded in giving out all of the candy that no one in the house will eat. So I can feel the evening has been a success. I also made popcorn in a pot on the stove for the first time -- I have always used the microwave bags or an air popper before. I managed to only burn a few kernels on the bottom of the pan.

I am also trying to transfer an address list from Palm format from a Treo to Outlook so I can have it on this computer. I am trying to decide how long is a reasonable time to wait before I assume it froze and will never finish.

I have been reading. I finished Crazy Aunt Purl's book Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair over the weekend and have been thinking about the community of needlework bloggers. I have also been looking at the referrers that show up in my site statistics and found out that there are some blogs that link back to this post. The fact that technorati does not pick them up is a technical issue that I will look into later but it is cool to know that my comments have influenced someone else's work or that someone else has found my blog interesting enough to refer someone else. When I decided to start my blog, I wasn't sure anyone would read it. Almost 300 visitors a month seems outstanding.

Creative Embroidery piece

2007-10-28T14:32:00.000-05:00

I finished my first piece for Susan Sorrell's Creative Embroidery - Organic Design class. The class is offered through Joggles. Her style of embroidery is very interesting -- much freer than anything that I have done before. This piece is supposed to be a Zen embroidery piece -- an abstract design using different stitches and threads. I used a variety of silks, appleton wools, cotton threads, and some DMC linen in various threads on a piece of hand dyed quilting cotton. Quite a departure from the rest of the charted cross stitch that I have done this month.

Stitching for exchanges

2007-10-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

I have been stitching for exchanges. I posted my biscornu pictures last week. Here are pictures of my Halloween Treat Bag based on a pattern in a British magazine and of a pincushion from a Halloween Quaker Exchange. The pincushion is based on a motif in the Tsunami Sampler. I used a beaded border inspired by the fringe patterns in the Bead Embroidery book that I recently bought. The beads are brighter in person but I could not get them to show up properly on the photograph.

I also finished my first pair of knitted socks. I now have two rainbow ripple socks. I have started my second pair of socks using yarn from the Art Walk Sock Club and the Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks from Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. The socks look good so far -- I will post pictures soon. I will have a lot of opportunities to work on my knitting this year since

we have added indoor Lacrosse to our winter sports schedule.

I have even done some reading this week -- I finished Small Island and am now reading the latest Thursday Next mystery, First Among Sequels.

Biscornu exchange

2007-10-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

I made a biscornu using Chatelaine's free pattern Manuela's Sunflowers stitched on 32 count Silkweaver Forest Haven Belfast Linen. This biscornu will be heading out in the mail soon to its new home.

In return, I got this biscornu from Clare. She did a beautiful job picking out wonderful fall colors. She included some thread, needles, a tape measure, straight pins, a Whitman sampler tin and a chocolate bar.

Mom's Macrame Necklace . . .

2007-10-07T18:21:00.001-05:00

After sharing my discovery of my mother's macrame book on the used book shelf at the public library for $1. I thought I would share a picture of my mother's macrame necklace. My mother got the pattern for this necklace from Dona Meilach's Macrame book. She wore it quite a bit at one time and made a number of other pieces of macrame. This is the only one that I currently have. It was last worn by a friend of mine at a 1970's party.

I have purchased some more embroidery books recently including The Encyclopedia of Embroidery Techniques by Pauline Brown, The Royal School of Needlework Embroidery Techniques by Sally Saunders, and A Maryland Sampling by Gloria Seaman Allen.

I also received my autumn exchange package with a needle roll, fabric, various fibers and an weighted bag for the arm of a chair. I will have to check and see if my exchange made it to its new home. I love all of the fall colors and signed up for some other Halloween and Fall themed exchanges. Pictures will be coming soon. The leaves are even starting to change color but the temperatures are more like summer than fall.

September Flowers

2007-10-02T20:42:00.000-05:00

I thought I would share some pictures of the flowers in my garden at the end of the season. The bees and other insects are quite happy that we have so many flowers. This bright green insect shown on the yellow chrysanthemum is harmless, but one of the furry bumble bees bit me on my leg while I was clearing weeds out of the garden. The swelling around the bite took a week to come down. The Firecracker climbing rose is one of the prettier end of season blooms.

I have been stitching too but I don't have any finished things to share right now. I am knitting my second sock, working on parts 5 and 6 of Chatelaine's Elizabethan Sweet Bag and I finished another row of over one stitching on Anne Depauw. I should have some things to share later in the week.

Recently, I purchased some new books. I found a copy of Macrame: Creative Design in Knotting by Dona Meilach on the Friends of the Library used book shelf for $1.00. It has the Berry Knot necklace my mother made in the 1970s on page 150. I still have my mother's necklace. I also bought Bead Embroidery: The Complete Guide by Jane Davis at JoAnn's fabrics. It contains different methods of attaching beads to fabric, beaded fringe patterns and beads incorporated into surface embroidery and pulled thread embroidery stitches.

2000 visits and pictures of stitching . . .

2007-09-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

Some time this week the stat counter registered visit number 2000 to my blog. It is fun to know that I have readers and that some of you come back more than once. I also think it is interesting to see where my visitors are from, the map shows visitor locations from the end of June on.

A stitching blog should sometimes have pictures of stitching. Here is the front and back of a pincushion that I made for an exchange. It is a Whimsey & Wit design from their Charming Elegance Series. I planned to make a biscornu but quickly realized that it would be enormous so I made a stuffed square instead. It is stitched on tobacco linen with chestnut weeks dye works.

I am reading People of the Abyss by Jack London. I am familiar with his animal and adventure stories but I did not realize that he was a socialist or that he wrote social history. His descriptions of life on the East End of London at the beginning of the 20th Century are chilling. I enjoyed his description of the Coronation Parade -- all of the military and ethnic groups that were part of the British Empire at that time are represented.