Button Button progress

I made some good progress late last night and a little bit today after I finished a couple hours of of working again this weekend.   Last night I put in 2 hrs; today just under 4 and I think I might be making some progress in wrangling all of it….maybe.  But I got both the birds done.  I made the back wing of the front bird darker – they were supposed to both be the same color but I may stitch over a few of those darker stitches where they meet the neck with the lighter color because the front wing looks like it’s at a weird angle.  Also, I’m going to stitch over the beak with a different color because the front bird’s beak doesn’t show up.

I’m going to start a new project tonight once I pull threads and fabric that will be a gift but won’t be showing you photos of that because the giftee might see it.   Plus, until I get a new camera it might be difficult to take any photos.  A piece on my camera broke so it’s really tricky to try to take a photo with only two hands! LOL.

Saturday June 3, 2023

As I typed the date I thought to myself – how did it get to be June already?  But here it is a lovely June day.  Upper 70s and sunny with a little breeze – that’s a perfect day for me.  The 90’s of yesterday were not!  but that has passed and we should be back to “normal” temps for a while  I woke up early this morning and for an instant thought I should log in to the office and do a bit of work but decided no, I’d take today off and maybe do just a little bit tomorrow (we’ll see if that really happens).

So, after making the coffee I did a bit of stitching on my patriotic stitch, paid a few bills, loaded the dishwasher and got that going, remembered the load of laundry that has been sitting in the washer for days so now needs rewashing and got that going, and decided to place a grocery order for later today.  Yes, it’s been an exciting start to my Saturday. 🙂   But then I remembered – hey I could have started my 2023 Cross stitch camp project two days ago!  You can find all the info at the link on the Colorado Cross Stitcher site.    And amazingly, I have not changed my mind from the initial project I had planned to do – usually I change my mind multiple times, order multiple supplies, etc.   This time, I stuck with the first project I had thought of when a bird theme for June’s camp was announced – Button Button by Brenda Gervais.

It will have old buttons on the front from my Granny’s button tin which contains some very old buttons since she used to cut the off of any clothing that could no longer be worn/used and would string the buttons from one garment on a thread to keep like buttons all together.  I plan to make it into a needle book to keep my favorite cross stitch needles inside.

The only thing I brought with this project in mind was these floss drops – all the rest came from stash.  I decided with all the extra hours I was working I deserved a little treat and happened across these from TeamEgner on Etsy.  I love all things birds, and these were so pretty.  I also got a vintage owls set and a cardinal set.

The fabric I will use is an 18-count hand dye from Atomic Ranch Fabrics and the color is Aslan.  I used a few of the called for flosses but didn’t have most of them so substituted.  Oddly enough, it called for three or four Valdani threads and I probably only have about a dozen of those, and I had all the called for – except I decided to substitute one of those colors for something else as well.  So, I ended up with a mix of Valdani, Weeks and Victorian Motto.

So, more coffee drinking which I await my grocery delivery in a couple hours (which contains a breakfast treat so clearly I cannot eat breakfast/brunch until that arrives) and I think I will get started on this project in the meantime – okay right after I give a quick clean out of the fridge and wipe it down.  There was a soy sauce incident – bottle tipped on shelf and leaked – that I need to take care of.

I hope you are having a lovely, soy sauce incident-free day!

Patriotic Sampler

This is where I was when I picked up this last of my May 5 x 5 projects – a patriotic sampler I’m doing  by adding a bunch of small individual charts together.  Since the charts are just slightly different widths, I have the center line marked (you can see a blue basting thread to the right of “4th” so I’m starting each chart at the center point and stitching to the left.  and I will go back and extend a few border lines to all match up but that’s about all I’ll have to do.  Each chart is printed on two pages and the first page had the center line marked so it’s easy to get them aligned.  I’m changing the spacing between some of the motifs to make it shorter (top to bottom).   And boy did I make great progress this week despite working late a couple nights.  I think I picked this back up Sunday night, forgot to switch to my Thursday Three Things last night but I put in several hours of OT last night so just continued on this one.  But look how far I got!

Bad photo but I’ve nearly completed the left side of three more sections.  The bottom one I just have to finish the motifs partially stitched under the letters and then a dividing line before starting the last section to add.  This is going to be one long sampler – I think it’s about 16″ or so now.  Then when that’s done I can go back and add on the right half of each of those charts.  But I’m loving how this is turning out.

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Today is a lovely day outside.  I can remember so many Memorial Day weekends when I went camping with friends many years ago and we froze at night or got rained on.  That would not be the case this weekend – its upper 70s and just a lovely day to be outside – except for the purple and white flowers that I am surrounded  by.    That’s the fence line farthest away from my door where there’s not as much undergrowth so you can see the mass of flowers easily.    Again I thought maybe I could pull the screen across and leave the inner door open to let in some fresh air but no, that air is just too perfumey from those flowers.

I lied when I told you how much I had done on this stitch on Friday, and was surprised when I pulled it out again yesterday to work on that I didn’t in fact have the window curtains stitched in.   🙂  I did change the curtain color, because it was a called for color I didn’t have, and used DMC B5200 which is a very bright white.   It didn’t matter so much for the curtains since they are surrounded by window panes and have the darker interior so any light color would have showed up.  But the conversion for the called for to DMC was the same shade as my fabric and it’s really annoying to try to stitch the same color on the fabric color and make sure you don’t miss any stitching.  Just seems like a waste of time to me and I probably could have left the curtains unstitched and once it was framed and on the wall unless someone had their nose right up to it, could never tell I had left them unstitched.

But I didn’t – I promise they really are filled in in the photo above, the roof has been filled in and the flower pot of strawberries on the roof is done – and then some!   I got off on placement of vine/leaves in one area but it doesn’t matter, and then when I was placing a cluster of strawberry blooms I got that in the wrong place on the opposite side so decided to add a few more blossoms throughout so it don’t look like they were all clustered in one area.

I used one strand in the curtains (as I have been doing on all the rest of this stitch) but I used two strands for the white on the blossoms since it’s not surrounded by another color here and wanted it to stand out a bit more against my background color.  Plus, it gives it a bit of dimension on those blossoms too.   The center of the blossoms was charted for Algerian eyelets (which are more linen friendly than Aida) so I switched those to smyrna crosses.  This one will get put away now for a while and I’ll pull out the last project to work on to finish out my May 5 x 5 stitching – which will be the patriotic piece I showed Friday.

Need to switch the last load of laundry and put away the folded pile and I think my chores will be done for today and need to find some lunch.    Then to find some new movies to watch while stitching.  And speaking of movies – two really cute ones I watched recently if you are just looking for some fun entertainment (family friendly).  Not new, but  I love a movie with Judy Dench and this one also has Dustin Hoffman:   Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot.    And the other Roald & Beatrix : Tail of the Curious Mouse.  (and no it wasn’t planned that both are  based on Roald Dahl’s stories  – I just happened to come across them when scrolling movies.  Dawn French (of  BBC Vicar of Dibley) fame among other things , please Beatrix (as in Beatrix Potter) in this one and I really like her as well.  So those are my movie suggestions (very much unlike the mystery/suspense/paranormal haunting/horror movies I usually watch). 🙂

Saturday happenings

Yesterday, a vacation day, was pretty much a bust.  The headache and stiff back lasted most of the day and I just kept dozing off and on all day and didn’t accomplish much.  Not that I had anything planned so in the grand scheme of things I shouldn’t complaint.

But today started out much better, having breakfast out with a friend to catch up on what’s been going on – can’t remember the last time we had breakfast out – so that was a great start to the day.   And it’s a lovely day out today.

I did stitch a little while yesterday (between naps) on Three Things and got the second color in the roof added (it’s a light blue so may not show up well in the photo but it does in real life)  and a bit more than half the house filled in.  I left the house color as called for (it looked a bit more dirty tan in the cove photo (which I didn’t really care for) but the actual DMC color called for is a bit lighter/creamier.

So I’ll put this one away again until Thursday and go back to working on Rejoice Evermore later today.

Fourth Project for 5 x 5

The project I picked for my fourth 5 x 5 project was Rejoice Evermore.  Here’s where I left off when I last worked on it.

And here’s how far I am today (Friday) but truthfully this has not gotten as much stitching on this week as it should have.  It’s been a crazy week and  I have a day off today and all day Wednesday I kept thinking it was Thursday so when I got home on Wednesday night, I pulled out my Thursday Three things Sampler to work on so that took one night away from Rejoice.  Then, I decided to keep stitching on Three Things last night, when it was actually Thursday.  But I still made  good progress on Rejoice Evermore in just the two nights I worked on it.  Here is the progress as of now:

Finished the red of the house, filled in all the window curtains and “dark” space in the windows, outlined roof and added chimneys and got that pot on the roof partially done.

And here’s where I left off on Thursday – Three Things Sampler stitching last week

and after two nights

I finished the rest of the alphabet/numbers row and then moved down and got the house all outlined, roof tiles half completed.  I stitched the door and then ripped it back out again.  Here’s a close up of the house.

I’m using the called for DMC but the house colors don’t look like the cover image.  The coral-ish color looks more draft tan on the photo (I kind of like this better because I thought the house looked rather dull in color).  The tiles and windows – the color looks more gray but the DMC is definitely a more blue-gray .  The outline around the door that I did in the blue/gray was supposed to be in “tan” but the DMC color they called tan was definitely more gold to me and it when it was stitched the panels and outline all sort of blended together so I redid it with the blue which makes it stand out more.    I may end up changing the actual color of the house but will wait and see.

I may continue to work on this one for a bit yet today before putting it away and going back to Rejoice Evermore.  It’s nice to have a day off work after all the OT I’ve been putting in and how busy it has been but I woke up this morning  with a headache and stiff back (rats!) but headache is nearly gone.    So I’ve  been slowly doing some laundry, sit and stitch a bit, get up and do some other small task, stitch a bit – but it’s a vacation day so I don’t want to do too many chores. 🙂

My plans for the fifth project for 5 x 5 has already been decided and I will likely skip the Sunday Stitching project (or only work on it for part of the day) and then pull out the next 5 x 5.   I haven’t decided if I’ll work on this the whole of next week or if I’ll start my  Cross Stitch Camp project on June 1.  Anyway since it’s Memorial Day Weekend, my next 5 x 5 will be a patriotic stitch I started last year.  A series of similar sized charts for pillows/pin keeps from SubRosaDesigns (Etsy) that I will be stitching all as one project. I don’t know if I’ll use all of them , bits and pieces from some of them – but I really like all the designs.  I can’t even remember when I left off on this one but I don’t think I was very far.  Okay – enough rambling – I need to put the coffee on and decide what’s next on my agenda.

One more maybe finished WIP

This was the third Christmas ornament I had pulled out today when looking for what I might need to finish.  I have one or two more ornament WIPS but I think those I want to keep for myself so no rush to get them finished.  But this one will be gifted or at least go to the gifting pile.  It’s part of the 12 Christmas Vintage series from Crocette a gogo and this one is called Home for Christmas.

I finished off the lantern, added gold metallic baubels on the edge of the Christmas tree, added metallic ribbon and bows to the packages.  Thanks to Judy for telling me about Petite Treasure Braid – it’s the metallic I used in this stitch – in red and gold and copper and blue – and it is so much nicer to stitch with than other metallic threads I have used.

Pe

So here’s where it’s at right now.  I say it is a “maybe” finish because when I saw this chart I knew that I wanted to finish it on a wooden house I had so it will stand up on its own.   The only thing missing is the words “Home for Christmas” are stitched at the top and I needed to go pull the wooden house to see if I can room to add them or not.    I need to count the stitches high they are and do some measuring, but I think I might have room for them.  I may also go back and add a bit of backstitching around the door and some other things.  I had to backstich the cardinal at the bottom of the door because it didn’t show up so I backstitched the other one as well but I will likely add more in so that those two birds don’t stand out as the only backstitched items.

Here’s the wooden piece I will finish this on.

But I will set this one aside to figure out whether to add the words or not another day.  I had pulled a chart to start a new ornament stitch so will get that started tonight.  It’s nearly 8PM – this afternoon has flown by – but I did just jump in the shower and once I make myself a sandwich, I all set to  get several hours of stitching in tonight which watching what looked to be a couple of good movies I came across earlier this weekend.

Finishes 15, 16 and 17 for 2023

I had said I was maybe going to start some Christmas ornament stitching today and I did pull out some charts I want to do for gifting ornaments but also pulled out a couple ornament WIPS that were nearly completed and I got two of them finished this afternoon.

The first was Peppermint Bark – which reminded me I discovered this chart under a pile of documents on my desk at the office.  Cathy H – I’m sorry – I thought I had mailed that FCA long ago.  Now that I’ve looked up who should have received it and confirmed I still have your address, I will get it out to you soon – REALLY! 🙂   And no I still have not mailed the fabrics from the last big FCA.  Hopefully this week or next I will get everything packaged up and in the mail.     Correction – Peppermint Bark had been sent out – it was a different chart Little Dog that I found at the office and have just put in the mail (5-22-23) to Kelly Smith.  Sorry Kelly that I misplaced it and thought I had already sent it.

So here’s my Peppermint Bark.  I just had two of the white stripe sections to fill in so got that taken care of.  This is the chart where after starting to stitch the words Peppermint Bark I decided it would make too large of an ornament for a Christmas tree on the count fabric I used so I’m going to make a little stuffed ornament following the shape of just the dog.  It will be the perfect addition to my friend’s all dog ornament Christmas tree.

PeppermintBark -S-10-2022 / F5-21-23

It was stitched on 14 count PTP using two strands of floss.

Next to finish this afternoon was Barbara Ana Designs Holy Night.  Here’s what the chart looks like.

I changed all the colors for my blue version.  I just had the reindeer, Santa and one of the trees to add.  I think it may fit into one of the tart tins I have.

Holy Night S-11-2022 F-5-21-23

And the last of my stitching finishes was the Prairie Schooler 12 Days of Christmas #10 that I finished last weekend.  I should have smoothed it out a bit more but eventually I’ll show the fully finished piece.   I don’t iron my projects until I got to fully finish them so this one is laying a bit wonky.

PSSanta#10 – S4-30-23 / F 5-14-23

This one I believe the only called for colors were for the pear and snowflakes.  I changed up all the other colors and where the snowflake is above the roof there was supposed to be a crescent moon but I left that off and put a snowflake there.

3rd Week progress for 5 By 5 Stitchin

---

Okay – second time writing this post because WordPress decided to not save the first one.

So for my 3rd week 5 By 5 stitching I picked up Cardinal Points which I last worked on in early February.   I didn’t have as much stitching time this week for several reasons (1) working O.T. and (2) riding the bus and fro from work again.  So three days a week I get up earlier to get out to catch the bus and arrive home a bit later but I still made a lot of good progress.  And added benefit, I generally do my book reading only on the bus – I need to keep my hands busy when I’m at home so don’t do much book reading here so have been enjoying the reading time on the bus.

Here’s where I left off on Cardinal Points when I last worked on it in February.

I got all the motifs (except the dog that was done) to the left of the center cardinal/basket motif added,  cardinal at center left and extended the inner border down a bit there,  first line of text (I changed the color of the text) and parts of the top right and left border area and green border line extended there as well.

I do love stitching that border.

Then on Thursday – Three Things day (when I had the least amount of time to stitch), I still made progress.

Here’s where I left off last Thursday.

And below is where I left off.  I finished adding the vines/leaves (remembering that I had to reverse them for that side of the section), added the border line below and started on the row of alphabet.  I’ll go back and fill in the rest of the flowers with their lighter shades of each color when I want something easy to do.

As for the books I have been reading this week on the bus – these two were given to me at Christmas by my good friend who has excellent taste in books (and is very clever because despite the covers looking like they have been cross stitched /embroidered -which she knew I would like- they have nothing at all to do with cross stitch.)  But they are fictional sort of murder mystery collection of stories about an 88-year-old woman who may have had to commit a bit of murder throughout her lifetime.  Very quick little stories – I finished the first book this week and started the second and they will be put to good use after I finish reading them because they are tiny books – only about 4″x6″ and I will definitely be mounting some little cross stitch finish on the back side  of the book so that the front covers with the stitching designs will  still be visible on the back of the finished pieces.

What project will I pick up tomorrow for my 5 x 5 project?  I’m not sure yet.   I’m still debating whether I want to work on my Prairie Schooler 12 days Santa today or if I want to start working on some ornaments that will be x-mas gifts.  I’m ahead of schedule on the PS Santas so may switch it up to some other ornament today once I get my “chores” done.

Second project of 5 By 5 progress

Stitching on my second 5 X 5 project has come to an end.  I stitched on it for just a bit this morning wanting to see how the church color looks and it will be perfect.  And I had a fiasco on this project last night!

Here’s where it was before I started stitching on it this past Monday.

I made really great progress.  All the leaves got their second  shade of green added, the house on the right got finished and windows completed, my initials and year were added, the words “friendship”, “blessings”, “peace” and “joy” (joy was added and the ripped out to change the font and restitched).   The hearts above Joy were added and the little heart under Hope added also.  I’ll be spreading different heart shaped fillers here and there.  And I started filing in the church.

The fiasco occurred last night after I fixed a berry smoothie for dinner.  My stitching was sitting what I thought as a safe distance away from my glass but as I reached for the glass, I somehow flicked the straw which spit two little dots (luckily very little) of purple berry smoothie on my stitching!!   But even tho I could not get it all piped off, the little gold heart covers the remains of one  and I just had to make a leaf a few stitches larger to cover the other so crisis averted.  Whew!

Here’s a close up of the church steeple.  I wanted it to look like the bells were hanging in a bell tower that had an arched opening for them so outlined the area of the arch around them and will let the blue fabric show thru within that area.

Stopping for a lunch break and then I will be pulling out my Sunday Stitch – Praire Schooler 12 Days of Christmas Santas.  I should be able to finish the 10 “santas leaping” block today.

Hmm….. what to pick next for my third 5 X 5 project to work on starting tomorrow?