Beacon

It was a busy weekend for sure this weekend. Saturday I got up early and went for my usual three mile walk, went to Target and bought a couple of tank tops, had an appointment with my aesthetician, repotted some plants for my kitchen window (so happy with how they turned out in some pretty new pots), gave Romeo a bath, baked some cookies, and then finally sat down to watch some West Wing with Eric. Whew! I decided to work on my Mystery Sampler again. This is a piece by Papillon Creations that was in the Gift of Stitching back in 2006. It was charted for Vikki Clayton silks, which I am using and I'm stitching it on 32 count Silkweaver Sandcastle. I actually started this in March of 2007. Hopefully that answers all the questions you may have had! Anyway, I really love this piece - the colors are vibrant and it has a mix of cross-stitch and specialty stitches. I'm working on part 3 now (there are five parts), and I've almost hit the bottom corner. It's just really a fun stitch.

On Sunday, I did my normal house cleaning and laundry, as well as brushing both cats and clipping their nails. Two of my girlfriends came over for a stitching afternoon, which was thoroughly enjoyable. I of course did more talking than stitching, but I did manage to get the motif with the Q finished.

While they were there, I did a little show and tell of some of my WIPs. There was one piece that they both insisted I get out and work on immediately. So, after dinner, Eric and I sat down to watch more West Wing and I did as they suggested.

Anybody remember this piece? I was surprised, actually, when I got it out that Eric said "wow, I haven't seen that in awhile". Most of the time he pays no attention to what I'm stitching, so it was kind of a shocker for him to make that comment. I stitched most of that little lighthouse on the shore last night, but my head started hurting (I'd been wrestling with a migraine all weekend), so I laid my stitching aside after a little while. But, oh, how can I resist stitching this beautiful piece? The silks and the colors are just luscious. I'm glad I was given some not so gentle nudging to get this piece back out. And, I was shocked to see that the fabric I'm using for this is Picture This Plus. I thought my first and only experience with PTP was Earth Sampler. But, no wonder I love this piece so much - it's on a gorgeous piece of Sterling by PTP.

So, that's it for my weekend stitching. It will be so nice when I can stitch more than just on the weekends. But, I am enjoying what I'm stitching nonetheless. And thanks to the suggestion insistence that I get out that pretty piece again, I think I've fallen in love with an old favorite.

I am grateful for an afternoon with friends.

Snakes on a Plane!

It's Monday again and time for another update. Since the weekends are pretty much the only stitching time I have, it seems to make sense to provide a little weekly update on Mondays. And really, anything to make Mondays better is a good thing. So...look what I did yesterday. Snakes! With spots! Of course it looks like those putti are about to conk them on their little heads with their batons, but still...they are pretty cool. I think I will name them Fred and George (the snakes, that is). And I thought I'd show you a little perspective on how small this is on 40ct by putting my brand spanking new scissors in the photo. Yay for snakes. Next time I will either do a little more on my border or get started on the infamous UFO-inducing cloud. I figure if I can get past that cloud, I will be home-free so to speak. Love this piece. It's so bright and colorful. I'm stitching with the recommended GAST. Oh, and someone asked on a previous post about how many skeins to buy - in the chart it does tell you which colors you need multiple skeins of and how many. So, when I ordered my thread, I made sure to order the recommended amount of each color (I think there's only a couple of threads that require multiple skeins). Since I'm stitching on 40ct rather than the recommended 35, I probably won't need everything I bought, but I wanted to be on the safe side just in case!!

So, what else did I do this weekend? Well, on Friday night I flailed around trying to pick up something I wanted to work on and nothing was really calling to me. I finally decided I would stitch on WMHB again, in an attempt to do some mindless fill-in of the side of the house. I didn't get very far and finally just gave up and did nothing.

On Saturday, something happened. Suddenly, I was in the mood to stitch and suddenly the book I'm reading for my book club got interesting. It was like the sun came out (which ironically it didn't, as it started raining Saturday morning). But, for some reason on Saturday it seemed like everything came together for me. So, Saturday night I stitched on my Mystery Sampler a bit more. I finished the M and went to work on the next motif. Eric and I went out Saturday night, so that was all I could get accomplished in the few hours I was home. Love this piece so much.

And Saturday during the day, what was I doing then, you might ask? Well, my guild had a tea to celebrate our tenth anniversary. I've posted about the tea over here. Last weekend, I may have mentioned, I was helping to put together the goody bags for the tea. Well, of course, I was pleased as punch to bring home my very own goody bag on Saturday after seeing all the, well, goodies. Each person got a kit for an anniversary tin designed by our own Gloria of Milady's Needle. We also received a handmade bookmark and the item below in the blue paper tied with a ribbon held tea. Another person made felt Tudor Rose scissor fobs and needlebooks and also included a little bag of Jelly Bellies. There were also some freebie charts that designers had donated.

You may be asking yourself about the chart and the scissors in that photo. Well, designers from all over and local needlework shops donated items for our guild to use as door prizes. I ended up coming home with the Adam & Eve chart and the gorgeous matte black Dovo scissors (which are also in my ATS photo at the top of this post). So generous!

The tea was wonderful and I had a great time. Another full weekend! So, until next time...thanks for stopping by!

I am grateful for my needlework guild and all the members who make it wonderful.

Tesoro

Over the weekend I was a bit restless. And with our fourth anniversary on my mind (you can see a post on that here), I decided to pull out an old WIP to work on. This is Tesori d'Italia. Some of you may remember that I started this piece with the intention of giving it to Eric for our second anniversary. Yes, we are now at four and I'm still working on it. I love this piece so much, except for the border. That border I am not overly fond of. It seems so simple and quick, but when you realize that you have to go up and down that small stretch of landscape that you're working on five times, it doesn't look so simple anymore. That is probably why I stalled out on it after completing several of the inner blocks rather quickly. The photo above shows what the whole thing looks like after I started working on that corner on Saturday. Each block has accents of gold metallic in it, which you really can't see in the photo above, but can see a little bit of in this photo.

This is where I left it on Sunday afternoon. You can see I still have a way to go on the border, but it's getting there. These corners just require a lot of stitching. Thank goodness there are only four! I'd really like to work this back into my regular stitching again, because it is such a stunning piece that deserves to be finished and hanging on the wall. I am stitching this with DMC on white linen.

I wasn't in the mood for ATS this weekend, and WMHB wasn't holding my attention either. So, Sunday night when I needed to find something I could stitch in front of you-know-who I decided to pull out another old WIP, the Mystery Sampler by Papillon Creations that was in the Gift of Stitching magazine...a long long time ago.

Excuse my blurry and rather dark photo. This is what the piece looked like when I picked it back up to start stitching. I've finished parts one and two and am now moving on to part three. I stitched about fifteen stitches on the M when I put it down. Again, my restlessness set in and I didn't end up doing anymore stitching. I'm stitching this on Silkweaver Sandcastle with HDF silks. Really a lovely stitch, but I just couldn't focus.

So, that's it for me. Hope you're all having a lovely week.

I am grateful for learning to "dial it down". Thanks, my friend.

New Beginnings

This past weekend we had a lovely spring weekend here. I do love this time of year, and of course with our anniversary coming up this week and Easter this past Sunday I always think of being in Rome. Maybe one day we'll go back. But aside from some family time and an amazing pre-anniversary dinner this weekend, I did manage to squeeze in some stitching time too.

Where My Heart Blooms is moving along, slowly but surely. I mindlessly worked on the side of my house. I have been watching that show on Friday nights called "Who Do You Think You Are?". I am finding it so fascinating. Of course, Eric and my father are both knee-deep in genealogy, and I've done some research on my own family too (prior to my dad taking it over). So, it really is interesting to see these shows. Plus, with it being Census time, and having done research by looking into the Census Records, I'm very excited to fill ours out and be counted. If you haven't filled yours out yet, please do it! Anyway, I'd finally convinced Eric to watch the show with me, but our DVR thinks it is smarter than we are and didn't record the new episode on Friday. I was so disappointed, because I really wanted to see Brooke Shields, since she goes to Rome to research her family history. Well, Eric to the rescue, he was able to find the show online and we watched it through our tv last night - how cool is that??? It was a good show, and not only did I get to see a bit of Rome, but also Villa Torlonia, which Eric and I had actually been to while we were there! It's all making me want to get out my Tesori d'Italia again and work on it asap! But, for now...here's WMHB...

I also worked on bit on ATS on Saturday. I knew I probably wouldn't have time for it on Sunday, so I got my weekly stitching in a day early. This is a horrible photo because I didn't take it off the scroll frame to photograph it. Just use your imagination that it's a better photo. I finally got both of those pikes done, which was a good stopping point. The tops of them remind me of the Tin Man's funnel hat. But, I digress... Next week - SNAKES!

So, that's it for me. I hope to have an anniversary post up on the other blog later this week, if you're interested. Enjoy your week!

I am grateful for a romantic dinner and memories of Italy.