Sunday, November 28, 2021

Good grief November is nearly ended – it just flew by and it seems like it only just started.

And it’s Sunday so I need to put aside the First Thanksgiving chart (which needs to go in time out anyway because I’m irritated with it). So many errors in the chart like mirrored images not being the same spacing on one half of the chart as the other, spacing/charting not the same as pictured in the stitched photo, extra stitch symbols that shouldn’t be there, missing stitch symbols – it is just a mess. Everyone makes mistakes, yes even me 🙂 but the list keeps getting longer on this chart of things I need to change as I go along. It has now become my mission to complete this chart despite the fact that the designers have made it difficult to enjoy this stitch.

On a brighter note – here is a finished project and I’m just so pleased that it turned out exactly as I had originally pictured it in my head.  I can’t wait to gift it to “my chauffeur” who is an avid bike rider.

And also a voracious reader so I think it will look good standing up for display on one of her many bookshelves.

I have last thing to fully finish that will be a Christmas gift – the Prairie Schooler santa with snowshoes – not only does she chauffeur and bike – she’s also an avid hiker and snowshoes too so I need to get that small stitch finished into an ornament.  I think I may just do it as a flat (not stuffed) ornament and may work on that later today.

I’ve done mostly fun things all this long weekend so I think it’s time I tossed in a load of laundry and loaded the dishwasher.  And I’ll finally be baking my “thanksgiving” cornish hen today so am already looking forward to dinner.  I did pull the flosses (which I finished organizing last night and now they are all neat and tidy back on their rings alphabetically) for a new project that I want to start when I finish one of the ones already in progress.   The chart is Winter Rose Manor – many people have stitched this and it’s such a pretty chart and has those cardinals I love on it.  

  I have all except maybe two of the called for colors and will just substitute something from my stash for those and I do have the color called for to stitch the house in (Conch) which was nearly impossible to get all of last year when everyone was stitching this cart and with supply issues but like can  happen with hand dyed flosses, the Conch I have does not look like what is in the photo and is more tannish – so I’m just going to switch that to a color from my stash as well.

And finally – congratulations to Nancy Hager who is the recipient of the chart adoption for Prairie Christmas.

Yesterday’s Flash Adoption Winners

The winners have been picked by random number generator for yesterday’s flash adoption and the recipients are: DAMASK – Elaine Wibben ; 14 LINAIDA – Sue Hoover; 18 LINAIDA – Jill Smith. Congratulations ladies and if you email me at justquiltin@charter.net with your mailing addresses I will get them out in the mail in the not too distant future.

Since I sorted fabrics yesterday, on to the pattern sorting/organizing today which shouldn’t take long (if I ever get started – I’ve been puttering away the morning since I stayed up late stitching and slept in a bit later), and then to get floss from a couple floss rings for completed projects back into the stash where they belong, and finally to get all the smalls and other finished stitched projects collected in one place so I can find them when I’m ready to do some framing / finishing of those items.  I may possibly do a little framing later tonight too.

If you are a regular reader you will recognize this chart – I used it to make the four little stitches that I put on the wooden colored pencil holder I made as a gift.  I’ve stitched all of the ones I want from this chart so am happy to pass this along to someone else as today’s Flash Chart Adoption (FCA rules are at link at top of blog).

This is one of the re-released reprinted copies so not the original cardstock version but a paper version. 

 

Updated – Flash Challenge concluded 11-28-21 10:05AM

 

And as you can see, yes I folded the chart while stitching from it.  If that bugs you, then you don’t want this chart.  It’s a nice collection of charts for ornaments or pillows or other things but just a word of warning they are not all exactly the same size.  Some are a couple stitches wider or taller than others so if you are making them separately not an issue.  I had to adjust a few things on the four I chose for the pencil box to make sure they all finished the same size.

 

Lastly – sharing some photos of the last of the new project bag acquisitions I made.

 

Not a great photo of this one but it’s such a cute dog christmas print and the back is  the gray snowflake print.  It also came with a needle minder made from the gray fabric with a snowflake centered over a covered button base.  

 

And the other three are all wintery ones.  One is not a vinyl front – I love the fabrics in that patchwork one.  The middle one is a wintery scene (but you can’t see all the other trees, rabbits and deer in the woods on it (this one will hose my deer ornament stitch I’m working on) and of course the cardinals bag is for my red bird stitches.

The sorting……

I got some new storage containers from Fat Quarter Shop last week for some of my cross stitch supplies since the one I was using the handle ripped off of and the large basket that had all my charts in it had leather handles at each end and last time I took it off the shelf, one of those handles pulled right out of the side of the basket too – clearly they were more decorative than functional but I didn’t think about that.   Anyway, I now have a couple containers that fit nicely on the shelves where I store them and I can easily grab and pull out and if I ever empty them 🙂 they are collapsable so easy to store if empty.  Okay and the fact that some of them are red and some are red and white polka dots just makes me happy when I look at them – and will look nice on the shelves which are out in my sewing room and not in a closet.   It’s the little things that make me happy.   

Anyway, as I was moving all my Aida fabric, I pulled out three pieces, purchased because I wanted to try something else other than cotton Aida, but after seeing them in person, I don’t care for them and won’t stitch on them so time for a flash adoption of these three fabric pieces.  Usual Flash Adoption rules for  participation apply (see link in header of blog for those).  Instead of the name of a chart you need to list ONE of the key words below. 

The fabric above is Damask Aida – 18 count – in a very light gray color.  Damask is a cotton/rayon blend. Leave a comment with the word Damask in it if you are interested in that one.

The fabric above is 14 count Linaida –  which is woven like Aida but made of linen.  The color is called Kid Glove – a light off-white sort of color. If you are interested in that one leave 14Linaida in your comment.

Lastly is 18 count Linaida in Tallow White.  If you are interested in this leave 18Linaida in your comment.

Lots of people love these fabrics.  Damask is a Zwiegart fabric and the Linaida is made by Legacy Linens.  to me they have a bit of a sheen to them which I don’t care for and I don’t like the feel of them and prefer 100% cotton.  But if you like stitching on these or want to try one of them, leave a comment for which one is your choice.

FLASH ADOPTION ENDED 11-27-21.

Friday 11-26-21

When I poked my head out the door this morning — it’s a chilly one out there as its 22 degrees at the moment when two days ago it as 50 but it looks like this is the chilliest day for the next week.  I need to get outside this weekend and do a bit of straightening up, getting the patio table stored against the side of the building for the winter and get the pine garland up above my door.

Did some more stitching on First Thanksgiving last night.   Judy had emailed me about an error in the top border (luckily I’m leaving the outside border out) and I also came across a missing stitch symbol in the flag pole for the British flag (which is pretty obvious when you are stitching that part).   I never did get around to stitching yesterday until after I had dinner in the oven but here is my progress made yesterday.

Sled Finishes!!!

The sleds are all finished.   I also have the book cover finish done but it’s currently sitting under something heavy waiting for the glue to dry so I’ll show that tomorrow – I absolutely love the way it turned out.

But here are all the sleds I stitched and finished.   I still have one large sled, one medium sled and four small sleds left in my stash so at some point I can stitch some to keep for myself maybe. 🙂

These are so cute. So much quicker to put together witth the wider double-sided, acid-free tape I had posted about. I also found these great boxes to pack them in and present them as gifts – no wrapping paper needed. Pretty box that doubles as storage box. The ribbons are attached right into the box so you just untie it and the lid just flips up . Each box will get one large sled (which just fits in on the diagonal, and then I think I can get five or six small ones in each around the large sled as well. I plan to take them to work Monday to gift them early so they can be used for this Christmas.

Now I’m headed to the kitchen to start slicing onions and lots of potatoes so I can assembly the Cornish pasty and get it in the oven. I’m cheating and not making my own pie crust. Oh and darn I need to get the rhubarb out of the freezer so I can mix up some rhubarb crisp once the pasty is in the oven. Once that is all baking – quality stitching time will commence for me.

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s that time of year to post the photo of one of my favorite turkeys — quilted turkey that is.

This is what it looked like when I opened my door this morning.

Just a bit of snow had fallen earlier. I was also pleasantly surprised to see an Amazon package sitting on my patio table. It was allegedly delivered Tuesday and according to tracking “handed to person at door” rather than left outside door. Yeah, that didn’t happen since I was working from home that day. And I always know when I get a delivery email and it does NOT include a photo of it sitting outside my door, that they have NOT delivered it to MY address. I did check the usual apt it ends up at and not there. My hope was that it was just sitting outside one of my neighbor’s doors and they weren’t home at the time so it would show up later this week after they discovered it. Or, if some unscrupulous person really did accept the package thinking they had scored some free Amazon stuff they were going to be sorely disappointed to find it was a box of styrofoam bricks to do some stitching finishes on. My Mom and I did have a good laugh about that when I told her about my missing box and what was really in it and how disappointed some thief would be. 🙂 But it must have been at a neighbor’s door because it had a layer of snow on the top of the box and was unopened when I found it on my table so it made its way back to me. So now I can work on that finish I needed the bricks for.

I got a small start last night on my Thanksgiving start – The First Thanksgiving.  I’m stitching it on Fiber on A Whim fabric – 18 count Caramel Macchiato in all the called for Weeks flosses.

The night before last I also started on a small winter stitch  – could be an ornament, could be a little pillow, could be a brick or framed finish – won’t know until I get it done.  It’s from the new Twin Peaks Primitives Ornament Book 2021 with 14 ornament designs in it.   Unlike many ornament books where I only like one or two or three of the collection, I think there’s only one I likely wouldn’t make in this collection – just because I’m not into cutsey penguins.  The rest I will all eventually make.

Here’s the one I started on.

Any guesses as to what it is???  Well if you guessed a deer you are correct!   I love this one.

  The fabric I’m stitching on is not as gray as showing up in the photo – it’s more green with darker specks.  But here’s is what it will look like.  I had a floss ring of colors from a prior stitch that I hadn’t put away yet and the colors on there will work for this so saved some time having to figure out what floss to use.      

 

My stitchy tip for today if you stitch with a hoop that allows your fabric to sort of loosen up as you stitch and you have to tug at the edges outside the hoop to get it taut again — this tape solved my problem.

No affiliation – heck I have no affiliation with any of the places or things I suggest – they are just products I have found very useful.  It has a peel back paper so is adhesive on one side so you just run it around the outside of your inner hoop and it will adhere to it.  The outer edge is sort of a rubberized feel so it helps grab your fabric and hold it in place extremely well.   I like using squareish or rectangular hoops but they still have rounded corners that tend to gap a bit and this solves that issue perfectly.  I will definitely be putting in on all my hoops.  Okay – that’s my public service announcement for today.

Today – well I just might go get dressed – maybe.   I’m going to save my usual thanksgivng meal (cornish hen and all the fixings) until later this weekend sometime.  Today seems a perfect day to make a favorite fall/winter comfort food – Cornish pasty.  And I need to grab the rhubarb from the freezer – I’m going to mix that with some fresh raspberries and make a Crisp to dollap my Cool Whip on for dessert.   I’m thinking about finishing some sleds now that my wider tape as arrived, may fully finish the Noel stitch now that my foam bricks have found their way to me, and maybe work on the book cover finish for a stitch before I go back to actually stitching.

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving no matter what you are doing. And may I just say I’m feeling old and out of touch watching the beginning of the Thanksgiving Day Parade — all those singers and musical acts, I have no clue who they are. LOL   Time to go find some good movies to fill my day.

11-21-21 Sunday Stitching Change and a stitching finish

First off – the stitch I finished last night is Merry Noel by Brenda Gervais.  If I didn’t have the called for color, I changed it to something similar from my stash.  The fabric is the color Fawn from my favorite Etsy dye-to-order place, ToDyeForFabricsNMore.   I am awaiting an order of several colors of aida from her shop I placed earlier this month.  She currently is not accepting new dye-to-order orders until late December so she can get all her current orders out early December – you can check her Etsy shop for complete details if interested.  I’m a repeat customer of that shop and the fabrics are always wonderful.  I stitch mostly on 18 count and it can be hard to find color choices in that count.    Okay – so back to Merry Noel – I love the Fawn color – sort of a light terra cotta.  The stitch is supposed to have little snowflake like doo dadas spread around in the background but after stitching two of them I took them out since you couldn’t see them anyway and decided to leave them off.

Before I put the floss away from this one I will likely go back and over stitch a snowflake like the one on the letter E someplace on each of the other letters.  I wanted to do this as a foam brick finish so had to order some larger ones since the stitched area of this measures about 10″ long and I still need to be able to wrap it around to the sides.

Then after I finished that last night I pulled out my Sunday Stitch.   Last week I had decided my new Sunday Stitch would be Mother and Child.  That plan has changed.

As I was stitching just a bit on it I decided it was not the “relaxing stitch” that I want my Sunday Stitches to be.  It has lots of confetti stitching and it has backstitching  – lots of backstitching.  The backstitching lines that cut across a stitch means they put a small version  of that chart symbol above and below the backstitch line.  Even tho you just do a normal cross stitch – those two symbols and the backstitch line make it event more pesky to read the chart.   I will definitely need to pull out my metal chart holder and use the magnetic strips to keep track of which line I’m stitching on  for this one.  So, it got put away for the time being.  I will work on it but not until after the holidays.  

So I pulled out  Up On The Housetop by Theresa Kogut.    This is going to be a cute little stitch.  The stitched area will only be 5-7/8″ x 7-3/8″.  I’m using 18 count PTP and the color is Mystic – it’s not the called for count (since it calls for linen) but it is the called for color form the chart.  The chart calls for a mix of DMC and Weeks. 

I had the Weeks colors but not DMC so I just subbed in some similar Weeks colors for the rest of the floss and got a little start on it last night.  That little snowman head is so adorable; it’s only about 3/4″ across and 1/2″ tall. 

As you can see I started at the bottom center.  For some reason I prefer to start most things at the   bottom.  Maybe just be different since most people start at the top?  Heck I don’t know but I tend to work bottom up on most, but not all, things.    I also love the needle minder I’m using on this one.  It’s larger than most – 2″ across – so you can really see the graphics on it.  Many of the smaller ones you can’t really tell what the pretty design is on them.

So this is what I’ll be stitching on later this afternoon and then put it away until next Sunday.   

All the Thanksgiving holiday supplies

I think I have all supplies for all activities covered for the long Thanksgiving weekend – or I will once my grocery order arrives today with the whipped topping for whatever dessert I might decide I need to make.

My chauffeur saved the day (who you know is also one of my best friends) and she found the last thing I was missing from what I wanted to make for my Thanksgiving dinner.   I had put Cornish hens on my grocery order the last two times and they were out of them.  We had been talking about that and I got a call from her one day this week while she was at the store where she usually shops and that store had Cornish hens so she picked one up for me and I’m all set.   So for the holiday weekend I have lots of sewing room organization planned, pulling out the change of season clothes so I have something to wear now that the weather is getting colder, find those mittens, etc., and of course lots of stitching planned and working on getting some stitching things fully finished.

My stitching plans, starting Thanksgiving Eve (yes I have managed to hold off starting it ahead of schedule so far), is of course The First Thanksgiving.  Judy and I will both be stitching on this one. I pulled fabric for it last night and am waiting for just one floss color to arrive.  It’s charted with DMC and also has a Weeks Dye Works conversion – I’m going to be using Weeks.   My fall project bag is at the ready.  Isn’t that pretty!  It has the same fabric on the back and a little scissors charm on the zipper pull.

The fabric is 18 count Fiber on a Whim in the color Caramel Macchiato.  This is going to be a big project and according to the stitch count would end up with a stitched area of 18″ x 18-7/8″.   I plan to make a few changes to the chart.  I plan to NOT stitch the vine outer border.  I want this to be a bit smaller and that will cut the size down to about 16″.  I’m also going to to change the last line of the verse.  As charted it reads:

Heavenly Father, on Thanksgiving Day

We bow our heart to You and pray

We give You thanks for all You’ve done

For joy and health, friends and family.

It totally bugs me that the last line does not rhyme with the line before it.  The first two rhyme and that last line  – while a lovely sentiment – it just throws the whole thing off for me.   So my plan (at least at this moment) is to change it to 

Heavenly Father, on Thanksgiving Day

We bow our heart heads to You and pray

We give You thanks for all You’ve done

For joy and health, friends and family.

Bless us Lord, your faithful ones.

“grateful ones” or “faithful ones” – I’m still dithering between those two but  will figure it out before I need to chart it to stitch.

Last night I was working some more on Merry Noel.   Finished off the “N” and got a start on the “E”.

And another project bag to share that I got to house my Christmas Eve stitch-along that Judy and I will be stitching – Owl Forest Embroidery’s New Year Sampler.  This bag is so gorgeous and the vintage Santa/Christmas look is perfect.   (And unbeknownst to each other,  Judy and I ordered the exact same bag.  I swear she has a hidden camera watching my every move – our likes are very much alike and that happens alot!)  🙂  But what is not to love about this bag.

It has a large poinsettia print on the back and as I was taking photos this morning I noticed that the thread pal (it opens and has flannel on the inside to hold threads or needles – I plan to thread up several needles with some of the different colors so I can just quickly switch between them since this stitch will have a lot of color changes and keep them in the thread pal) – but what I noticed is the snap on the thread pal.  It has a candy canes on it.  Just another lovely little touch from  Dot Dot Goose on Etsy – I do love her bags (and she has a great first name – yes her name is Denise) 🙂

And here’s the back of the thread pal – love that Santa – and the back side of the snap is red.

I also received a couple other bags from various Etsy shops this week to house some of my longer term projects and will show those when I get the projects all kitted and ready to go. I made a mess pulling flosses for some other projects so need to get that tidied today and I got some collapsible/foldable fabric storage boxes to move my charts and maybe x-stitch fabric into that will fit better on my shelf (and one of the handles came off on one of the prior containers I was using – not a good thing) so hope to get that organized one and for all.

I cleaned out the fridge this morning in preparation for my grocery order and may see if I can get the stitching finish I did to mount on the front of a book all put together today.

2011 Prairie Schooler Santa

I have finished the stitching on the 2011 Santa ornament but made a few changes and confirmed a thought I had about the future Prairie Schooler Santa ornaments I want to stitch.

This one will be a gift  – perfect item for a snowshoeing friend.  I made a few changes.  First I didn’t stitch it in the called for colors.  The charts call for DMC but I was too lazy the other night to go pull them out and the hand dyed floss was sitting right next to my chair.  Plus I wanted to see how they would look in “fancy floss.”  This one is fine but the rest of them that I will make for myself I will use the DMC because I like the more vintage look of that.   Other changes I made are:

• I added some backstitching around face because my colors were not as bright as called for so his nose sort of disappeared into the background; same with the hand holding the pole so I backstitched both hands.  I also backstitched part of the outline of his arm holding the snowshoes – just to make it show up a bit more since the red  floss shading made this a bit muddled.
• The bag on his back is supposed to have a bunch of snowballs sticking out of it and there’s supposed to be a single snowball next to his pole on the ground – left those out.  I like that his bag without the snowballs looks more like a backpack.
• I stitched my snowshoe lacing with long stitches (not short little stitches all the way across) and there were supposed to be just two red x’s among the greens on the pole but I added a bunch of french knots to make lots of red berries there instead.

Now I just have to figure out how I want to finish this one. It was stitched on Vintage County Mocha 18 count so the stitched area ended up about 3″x 4″.

Sunday Stitching – November 14, 2021

We got snow yesterday.  I never really saw it snowing but looked out about 10PM and it apparently had been a very wet snow – not a huge amount – and this morning it is pretty much all gone except little tufts here and here.  I’m not ready for snow yet – not that Mother Nature asked me – so I’m glad it’s gone.  It looks to be a very dark, gray, damp day out today.

Yesterday I couldn’t settle on a stitching project.  I worked on Honest Abe for a while.  I pulled out all my winter holiday type charts try to decide what to do for my St. Nicholas Day start.   When we were little we always  waited for the arrival of St. Nicholas who would sneak up on our porch, ring the door bell, and be gone before we could open the door.  I sort of knew what I wanted to stitch but didn’t find it among my charts.  I wanted to stitch just a small ornament type project  of St. Nicholas – the type of old German St. Nichola wearing a cape sort of garment, the mitre hat and carrying his crozier and I knew I had seen a chart with that image and I knew it was a Prairie Schooler chart (Old World Santas II)  so I went on a search, found it,ordered it, and will start that on St. Nicholas Day – or likely  St. Nicholas Day Eve.

Then I decided to get my floss organized for the Thanksgiving Day start – First Thanksgiving chart – found all those and got them on a ring and chart and floss in project bag.  I just need to make a final decision on fabric but have a couple to choose from.

Worked on a Prairie Schooler Santa ornament that I may use as a Christmas gift for a friend and pulled fabric and thread and put a few stitches in that.

Decided I needed to find a new Sunday Stitches project since I finished the last one.  Pulled a bunch of charts to look thru for those.  Decided on a chart from Heartstring Samplery  – they actually have a series of charts called Sunday Stitches – which are based on lines from Hymns.  I had ordered the fabric called for – Sassy Jacks sells the charts and has the called for fabric in various counts cut to size for the stitch.   So I picked a couple threads to use and decided to do a little stitching on it late last night to see if I liked the colors.  Here’s how far I got.

I decided (1) I hate the fabric. It’s Picture This Plus in the colorway Wren. I know Wren was hard to get for a while and highly sought after but to me this piece just looks like I dumped my can of soda over on the fabric – drab and dirty. And (2) this is a boring stitch to me. I’m not fond of repetitive borders and this one is mostly that. I started in the middle stitching the letters but really wanted to work my way down to where the flower buds are since the floss I’m using for the buds is variegated from purple to blue so I wanted to see how that would looked. But after getting in those sets of buds and starting on the stems and leaves – that’s when I decided I really disliked the fabric and all those leaves along top and bottom – easy stitching but since I didn’t like the fabric I’m not going to waste my time. Too many other things I really want to stitch.

So here’s the image of the chart and I’m offering it as a Flash Chart Adoption. If this chart is your cup of tea (and it would be a pretty quick stitch), Read the FCA Rules by clicking the button at the top of the blog header to make sure you don’t render yourself ineligible. In addition, if you would like to adopt the above piece of 16 court Aida, I’m happy to include it with the chart but you’d need to pick out my stitches because I’m not going to waste my time doing that. 🙂 So if you’d like to receive the fabric if you are chosen, please leave a note to that effect in your comment.

UPDATED 11-17-21 – FLASH CHALLENGE HAS ENDED – CONGRATULATIONS TO SHERRY – I HAVE EMAILED YOU PRIVATED.

So the search was launched again for a new Sunday Stitches stitch and I finally settled on Mother Child and put a few stitches in that in the wee hours of this morning after winding all the DMC and getting it on some floss tags.

So now I have stacks of charts and fabrics and floss tossed about. Someone really needs to clean that up!