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2006 Finishes

Flower of Courage

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Flower of Courage
Wild Heart Designs
Esmerelda’s Friends Piece from December 2005
NPI on 32ct R&R Awareness Pink Linen
Beaded ruffle with gold beads
Finished into a needleminder
Stitching done 6/19/06
Finishing done 7/24/07

I finally did the finishing on this piece. This is my second piece to stitch from the Esmerelda’s Friends pieces from Elegant Stitch. I stitched this up super quick in June of last year. I am just now getting around to the finishing, and I have no idea why it took me so long to do it. As with the previous piece, In the Pink, the finishing was really not as bad as I was imagining it would be. This has been finished into a needleminder. I think it’s a really cute piece, and I am so pleased with how it came out. I tell you, though, the whole time I was doing the finishing on it I felt like I was holding a French macaron.

Here’s the back. Love the polka dot fabric. The loose magnet sits on the back of the piece, but I removed it for the photo so you could see the fabric.

And here’s a closeup of the ruffled beaded edging. I think I’ll definitely be making more of these in the future.

Thanks for all the compliments on Veneto. I have made a start on Liguria and hope to finish the border on it this week. I’ve also been stitching along on Their Song. I also hope to get that bottom right hand corner finished this week. I’ll post a progress photo soon.

I’m behind on my blog reading, because in between doing the finishing on this piece, I’ve been reading Harry Potter and working on a gift. I hope to get caught back up soon. I also have a couple other things I need to get back on track with – namely my Walk to Rivendell. I hope to have an update on that this week. I’ve been slacking off.

I am greatful for being honest with myself and making new choices.

Happy Easter

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Happy Easter…a day late. We are back from San Antonio and had a fabulous time. I definitely needed the time away. I will fill you in on all the details of the trip when I have a chance to look at our photos and organize my thoughts. For now, though…here are a couple of old finishes that I thought I’d share since I hadn’t before. The first one (above) is from 2002. This is Happy Hoppy Easter from Lizzie Kate. The next one (below) is March Hare, a Limited Edition Whimzi from Just Nan that I stitched last year right around our wedding.

Here is my egg tree and glass bunnies. I need some more egg ornaments, but I like the idea of collecting them individually so that they are all different. I have three hand-painted glass eggs, a cloisonne egg, a paper mache egg, and a feather egg. I’ve been enjoying this little tree from February until now…so glad I purchased it! It is the same tree I had my Valentine Hearts on.
With a five hour or so drive each way to San Antonio, I did take stitching with me to do in the car. I’ve never stitched in the car, so I found it to be a little more difficult than I imagined. Every time I would count over or have my needle in the right hole, we’d hit a bump or something. So, I did almost completely finish my April sheep blanket. The only thing I didn’t finish was the French knots. I wasn’t confident I could do them in the car. So, I will finish that up today probably, and get the finishing done so that you can see it!

After I finished stitching on my sheep blanket, I switched over to my Mystery Sampler. I finished up the first motif and started on a second. By that time, I was losing my light, so I put it away. Today, at lunch I am off to the post office to mail my Biscornu exchange piece for the FGBB and my Just Nan RR. Happy Monday!
I am grateful for my amazing husband.

Sweet are the flowers…

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Eric brought home these beautiful roses for me on Thursday to celebrate 11 months married. I can hardly believe we’ve almost been married a year! These are called Freedom. I stitched some on Barnabee last night. Not as much as I would have liked, due to book club. I did finish up the row of clover and stitch the wording, with Lady Scarlet making her cameo appearance. This was a fun little band. Next week, I should be able to finish up Part 1. I just love this piece!

And my productivity last weekend paid off. Last weekend I sanded and painted and stained to my little heart’s content. And today, I was able to assemble all the pieces. Here is First Snow, now with stained hanger.
And here is Winter Snapperland all laced and framed.
I love the way both of these turned out. I went ahead and bought frames for the other three Snapperlands (Spring, Summer, Autumn) since I already have them in my stash. And the frames were super cheap…I think I paid like $3.99 or something for them. They didn’t have a white frame, like I wanted, but they had a natural wood frame. So, I sanded it lightly and painted it myself. You can’t beat $3.99!! I am glad to have the finishing done on both these pieces…a little late for Winter (since it was 80 degrees here today), but finished nonetheless. And look at me, getting all crazy with the angled photos. LOL! I had hoped to finish off another little project today, but I still need a couple of things, so it will have to wait awhile. I’ll be stitching more on Mystery 9 this weekend. I hope to finish up at least one artichoke. And the next piece for the Just Nan RR showed up today, so I will probably start stitching on it Monday. I really hope the piece I mailed shows up soon…I am getting concerned about it because I sent it over a week ago, and it was only going like 300 miles. Ack! Well, that’s it for now. I’ll leave you with a quote from Snow Country, that we discussed at my book club last night. It was wonderful, and seeing all the Japanese scrolls and screens was amazing!

“The Milky Way. Shimamura too looked up, and he felt himself floating into the Milky Way. Its radiance was so near that it seemed to take him up into it. Was this the bright vastness that the poet Basho saw when he wrote of the Milky Way arched over a stormy sea? The Milky Way came down just over there, to wrap the night earth in its naked embrace. There was a terrible voluptuousness about it. Shimamura fancied that his own small shadow was being cast up against it from the earth. Each individual star stood apart from the rest, and even the particles of silver dust in the luminous clouds could be picked out, so clear was the night. The limitless depth of the Milky Way pulled his gaze up into it. “

-Yasunari Kawabata, from Snow Country

I am grateful for art.

Happy New Year

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January Woolly Tyme
Homespun Elegance
Weeks & GAST on 28 ct. linen
Embellished with pineapple charm
Finished 12/30/06

I hope you all had a great start to the new year. As promised, here is my finished January sheep blanket. I ordered my threads for the February and March blankets over the weekend at the Stitching Bits & Bobs sale. I’m risking not getting them in time by ordering from them, but I couldn’t resist the sale. I spent New Year’s Day stitching on my Lemon Meringue Sampler while watching the Rose Parade. I must have been watching the parade more than what I was stitching because that brown “vine” was ripped out twice before I finally got it right.


I picked this back up not only in the interest of finishing another WIP, but also because I anticipated having my next RR to stitch on. It still hasn’t shown up, so I will keep stitching on this for now. I hope that I am not going to be too pressed for time to get the RR stitched in order for me to not send out late also. So, I didn’t want to work on anything too involved since I figured I would have had to put it down by now. Oh well.

I haven’t set resolutions for myself this year, other than to continue working on my 101 Things list, continue my workouts and weightloss and stitching more. And in the interest of keeping up with my workouts, I thought I would join Rosemary in her Walk to Rivendell. As of today, I have left Bag End and made it 1.5 miles “following the hedgerows south”. The gym actually wasn’t packed today like I expected. It was only regulars there…we’ll see what next week will bring.

I am grateful for new beginnings.

Santa’s Got a Brand New Beard

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As promised, here is a photo of my finished December sheep blanket. Santa finally got his Wisper beard. I received my February and March charts in the mail yesterday, so I will have those to start on when I’m ready. I’d better start collecting my thread soon! I am about halfway finished with January’s blanket, so hopefully I will be able to put that on my sheep this weekend. I can’t decide how to decorate my mantel for January…I’m just at a loss. We are going to be taking our Christmas tree down this weekend and putting up the decorations. Our tree is looking a little crispy.

In the interest of starting to look back at 2006 and what I have finished this year, I thought I would add a link in my sidebar to my stitching album. You can see this year’s stitched pieces as well as previous years. So, take a look! My WIPs are not up to date, but the finishes should be.

My finishes so far this year have been:
1. Chalet – Bent Creek
2. First Snow – The Drawn Thread
3. Ze Rink – Bent Creek
4. March Hare – Just Nan
5. The Angels Sang – Shepherd’s Bush
6. In the Pink – Midsummer Night Designs
7. Flower Girls – Just Nan
8. July Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance
9. Quaker Hedgehog – The Workbasket
10. August Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance
11. Quaker Garden – Blackbird Designs
12. September Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance
13. Crazy Cat Lady Exchange Needlebook
14. Texas Cow
15. October Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance
16. Halloween Sweetbag Exchange (Chartlets: Cat) – Sisters and Best Friends
17. November Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance
18. Just Nan RR – Round 1 (Angi’s)
19. Just Nan RR – Round 2 (Kari’s)
20. Harry’s Stocking
21. The Villa – Bent Creek
22. 1st Day of Christmas – Teresa Wentzler
23. Walking in a Winter Snapperland – Bent Creek
24. December Woolly Tyme – Homespun Elegance

I definitely need one more to round it out. This is no where near the amount of finishes I hoped to have this year, and many of those I hoped to finish are not on this list. But, I think it is a good amount anyway. oh yeah, I also beaded my wedding purse. Last year, I only had 13 finishes, so at least I upped the ante a little bit. I would like to have some bigger pieces finished in 2007, including at least one HAED and one Chatelaine. Back to my January blanket now. Thank you all for your wonderful responses to all of my finishes of late, they really spur me on to finish more!

I am grateful for allergy medicine.

Thank You Stars

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I hope everyone has had a great holiday! Mine was fabulous and relaxing. Eric gave me the most gorgeous Venetian glass heart earrings and necklace. They are just exquisite! And aside from that, here is the best gift I received.

My best friend, Julia, who lives in Rhode Island is an amazing quilter. For her birthday this year, I gave her a selection of 200 squares of fabric from Keepsake Quilting. She used those 200 squares and made matching quilts for herself and for me. Isn’t this the most gorgeous thing?! You can see how big it is because that is Eric holding it up. She included a flanged border on it as well that is three-dimensional. I cried when I opened up the package and I have been carrying it with me all over the house (I feel like Linus). She titled the quilt “Thank You Stars”, and I cannot be more thankful for it. My photo here does not even do it justice, it is so vibrant and beautiful.

In stitching news, I finished up Winter Snapperland last night. I am so pleased to have this finished before the end of the year. I started it on January 2nd, so I was determined to get it finished before the year ended. I am so glad I did. It really is cute, even though they used essentially the same chart for the first and last. I also actually signed and dated this (discreetly), which I have never done on a piece before (unless you count Quaker Garden, which had my initials and year in the design). I plan to find a frame for this soon so that I can enjoy it for at least another month. I am now working on my January sheep blanket, in the hopes that I can finish it before January starts. Where, you might ask, is the December blanket? It is finished and I will show it to you tomorrow. I have to break up the pretties…. And Arthemise has decided to join our little Barnabee’s Quest SAL in February. I need to get my fabric on order soon probably, so that I am ready to go! That’s about it for today – have a great rest of the week!

I am grateful for losing 1.8 pounds over the week of Christmas! Go me! (That makes a total of 15.8!)