Best stitchy decision I made was to abandon my prior start, wait for this lovely floss and restart on a new fabric color. I made excellent progress yesterday.
I love the little Christmas Mushrooms sprinkled throughout this sampler. When I saw the chart I wondered why red mushrooms other than they are cute and looked up the symbolism regarding red mushrooms. Did you know there is a Christmas Mushroom? It is red and white, it grows at the base of pine trees, and similar to the tradition of putting a pickle ornament on your Christmas tree, the Christmas mushroom is for good luck. I think I will forgo working on my Sunday Stitches today and just work on this one. It’s so fun finishing each motif and moving to the next. It’s possible I just might get the first page of four completed today – or darn close.
Finally a restart on this project! Judy and I started the New Year Sampler from Owl Forest Embroidery as our Christmas starts. After stitching on it to this point, I just wasn’t loving it (my fabric choice, the Victorian Motto flosses I had picked, the fact that the white wasn’t showing up on the fabric, etc.) I absolutely love the chart so at the end of December I put this aside, ordered the Owl Forest flosses for this kit which have such great shading in them and are gorgeous, and awaiting shipping of those from Russia. Owl Forest was closed for the holidays for a while when I ordered it so I knew i would be several weeks before they were shipped and arrived but I found them in my mailbox last night! They are such glorious colors.
So after getting them on floss drops I pulled out the last stack of fabric I got from ToDyeForFabricsNMore (Etsy) – I knew I had several choices that would work. I decided to go with something other than the usual tan/cream/taupe colors and settled on a color called Pale Olive Drab. It’s a greenish gray with blueish cast to it and looked great with all the flosses. I think the white will show up well and the fabric is light enough that that my greens won’t fade into the background. So about 9PM last night (when normal people might think about going to bed soon – I have never claimed to be normal) you know that I just had to hoop this up and get started!
I decided I didn’t want to start in the upper right corner of the chart like I had done the first time – I wanted to start with some new motifs I hadn’t stitched previously. The chart, which I ordered from an Etsy shop (so it was printed for me and not a pdf download) is printed on ledger size paper so it’s a really nice big chart split on four pages. I started at the top center of the chart and am working on the center to right edge quarter section so started with that blue letter B.
Here’s what I got done last night. (My fabric is slightly washed out in this photo but those flosses are true color – so gorgeous.)
I am SOOOO happy I started this over. I’m totally in love with it and can’t wait to get back to stitching on it later today.
I hadn’t intended to do a post tonight but as I was moving the work laptop off the stand and switching it out for my personal one, I knocked the camera off the table and sent it flying into the wall (who put that camera there anyway?!). So decided I needed to take a photo to see if it still worked – yes, the camera survived the experience and I survived stepping outside the door (into the -1 degree weather) to snap a photo of my progress on First Thanksgiving. You got to be quick so that the camera lens doesn’t fog up! (hmm and I just had the thought – what if I use the eyeglass de-fog cloth that keeps my glasses from fogging up while masked and going in and out in cold weather on the lens. It might not fog up then. I’ll have to try it.)
Here’s what I’ve accomplished since the last time I posted a photot of this.
The words were added, the start of the gold border added, that star motif on the gold border done, and I’ve started on a basket of flowers. I put a basting thread in to mark the center of the piece. Since I changed the placement of some things to make it symmetrical, I’ll be working my way from center out to each side as I work my way down the chart. That’s why I didn’t just stitch the entire gold border in – it may or may not end up being the same number of stitches in my piece versus as charted.
I would feel bad just letting you wonder for a whole week what project I actually started on yesterday evening when I had finished off my prior SS project earlier in the day. 🙂 Your suggestions were all good but I really wanted to see how Frosty would look on this glittery looking fabric.
The snowman is sort of in shadow – that’s the only way I could get the sparkles to show up. The fabric is 16 count Picture This Plus and the color is Crystal Whirlpool. The sparkles are sort of an irridescent aqua/blue color. I had about half the called for colors and just picked some others that were similar – most DMC. The chart called for all DMC except 3 overdyeds and I happened to have those three. And I was happy I also had all the snowman shades – he has about three colors of cream/light taupe type colors in him. I may change a few of the colors in the kids clothing as I go. And I will leave the words to last. If I use those words – I would replace “christmas” with “winter” or maybe change it to “Embrace the Magic” or something similar but I think I’m leaning more towards no words and adding more snowy swirls in that area, maybe some snowflake charms, etc. It’s going to be a fun little stitch with the stitched area only being 4-3/4″ high and 7″ long which means it might be a good candidate for a brick finish.
That’s how far I got after pulling all the floss last night. I put it away this morning and got back to stitching on First Thanksgiving for the 25 or so minutes I have time to stitch before leaving for work.
Tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day of the year so far – double digits below zero. Glad it is a work from home day for me!
I did in fact get all the stitching done on Love & Joy before the sun went down so I could take a photo today. Here it is. This makes three Sunday Stitches done in 2022 and four projects total for 2022. This one is a bit quirky and asymmetrical but will make a cute pillow and I’m thinking I have the perfect batik fabric in the stash with that same mix of colors as the floss to finish it.
Love & Joy -1-23-22
Now to pull some fabric and floss for my next Sunday Stitches project.
Love & Joy – Heartstring Samplery, Victorian Motto Floss – My Tapestry
I picked this up last night after midnight – officially waiting until the start of Sunday Stitches day – and added the words Love & Joy and started on the three little berry/leaf motifs that go along the bottom. Once the three berry/leaf motifs are done it will be completed. I absolutely love how this looks in that variegated floss. This is a pretty quick stitch – I started it last weekend so it will be a two-weekend Sunday Stitch. Then the tough decision will begin – what to start for my next Sunday Stitches project. You can see all the Sunday Stitches charts I have gathered if you click on the 2022 – Sunday Stitches button at the top of the blog. And if you scroll down to the bottom of the charts, the two I have already finished in 2022 are pictured. So which of the charts would you start on next if you were me? I’ve sort of got it narrowed down to two choices but need to make my final decision.
I just couldn’t stay up long enough to finish off the Plymouth Plantation scene but it’s so close to being done.
I stitched the left and bottom border around it, added the tree in the middle, the ship’s mast/sails behind the house on the left, finished the roof of that left house and worked on the two rows of “ground” just above the bottom border and got those done from th right edge to the middle of the house. So all that’s left to do in this area is finish those two rows of ground to the left border, add the “ground” between that open fence and do some backstitching to add the sail lines on the masts. I do love it even tho the coloring is different than what I thought it would be. The worlds “Plymouth Plantation” go below this area and I was wondering – I’ve of course heard of Plymouth Colonies but not Plantations so of course I Googled it. There is a Plimouth Plantation (spelled with an “i”) in Plymouth MA – which is a living history museum and the designers absolutely nailed the look of the buildings, etc from there. Here’s a couple photos I found of it. That blue in the background is water so all that’s missing is the ships.
So next I’ll work on those words and continue to work down on the chart to start on the Thanksgiving prayer on the bottom of the chart since I think I’m going to need to make a few more spacing changes on the bottom and need those words in first to make the changes easier. And I’ll save the flags and other stuff in the top section to later because I know there are spacing issues there and I just don’t want to have to think that hard today. 🙂 The American Flag has rows of stars but in the middle of those rows it’s kind of helter skelter and not neat rows so I need to take a look at that to figure out why they don’t continue in rows in the middle area and see if I can adjust it to get all 50 stars on it instead of a random number. Even if all 50 can’t fit in the blue field, then I think they should at least be straight rows so need to investigate that a bit more.
Today’s plans – need to get some laundry started, waiting on a grocery order to be delivered in an hour or so and, depending on whether the ingredients are actually fulfilled in my grocery order, I’m hungry for quiche and hopefully I’ll be making an asparagus, ham, mushroom one – my favorite.
I lied yesterday – I was actually able to get the monthly Cottage charts out in the mail today for everyone who had given me their mailing address to date so they are on their way!
I worked from home today so didn’t have to venture out in the below zero/windy temps. but I popped out to take a progress photo in daylight before the sun went down and holy smokes it’s windy and frigid. I did have to keep turning the heat up through the day since the wind was blowing on my corner of the apartment building (the wind usually comes from the other side of the building) and the normal temp I keep it at was definitely not warm enough today.
I got a couple emails today wondering if the Cottage of the Month giveaways had been mailed out. Nope – with the holidays and being busy, I haven’t gotten them in the mail yet. I mail on days I’m actually in the office (since I’m not going into a Post Office and standing in line) and I knew I didn’t have all he addresses yet. Plus I’m just incredibly busy so by the time my lunch break rolls around I’m not wanting to print out labels and get more stuff in the mail. I did actually remember to take the charts into the office yesterday so at least they are in the right location to get mailed! 🙂 All that to say – nope they haven’t been mailed yet, it won’t be this week but maybe by the end of next week they will be in the mail.
So after I put away my Sunday Stitching project Monday morning (it’s turning out pretty and I nearly got it finished last weekend but will finish it this weekend), I pulled out The First Thanksgiving to work on that a bit again. Now we all know the issues Judy and I have had with the that chart – errors, many things the designer replied were purposely not spaced the same (even tho it looks like it should be a symmetrical design), spacing not the same in the chart as in the cover image done by the model stitcher (don’t know if the chart was changed or if the model stitcher just didn’t follow the chart). Don’t get me wrong, I generally love Twin Peak Primitive Designs and am working on others where there are not these same issues. But can I grouse about one more issue…………..
Here’s where I am at the moment. Let’s see – this week so far I finished both fence sections on the left side, added the water and tree on the left, and added the house on the left which still needs the roof finished.
One of my favorite sections of the chart is that Plymouth Plantation scene. Mine is turning out fine but it is really nothing like the coloring on the chart cover. I knew mine might look different – I was using the overdyed flosses and not DMC but the thing is the model was stitched with different flosses in many instances than either the DMC or the overdyed listed for the chart. I of course discovered this after ordering all the floss called for in the chart. So the cover image was done with changes made by the model stitcher — those charges are all listed in the chart book but seriously – the grapes were stitched in this color, the large leaves this color, the shoes, this color, the acorn bodys…. – you get the idea. A huge separate list of what the model stitcher did different than how it was charted. So many colors were changed – and not a total substitution by chart symbol – just by specific motif sections. And as I was comparing the DMC colors charted to the overdyed charted – the overdyeds are no where near the color of the DMC. Some of that could possibly be due to overdyed colors looking a bit different over time but there’s too many that are “bad choices” in my opinion. Now all that just that annoys me. I expect the chart cover image to reflect the chart (as charted – both in placement of stitches and in called for flosses – or at least one of the called for floss lists if more than one conversion is given).
Whew – now that I’ve “said that out loud” (you know what I mean), I can move on. I’m just going to continue to use the called for overdyes as charted unless there is something really bad looking and see how it all ends up. (one of the colors is Jack-O-Lantern – a very distinctive orange/blackish brown variegated which is the conversion for one of the pumpkin colors. Yeah – that is so not going to happen – it would look like there was a rotting pumpkin. Despite the pain this chart has been from day one, I still want to finish stitching this. I’ll probably stitch on this thru Saturday and then set it aside again and pick up one of my other WIPS to work on for a while.
I was digging thru the project bag of all my Sunday Stitches chart to decide what to start on next, I decided I didn’t feel like searching for lots of floss and there are several one color projects in my Sunday Stitches bag so I pulled out Love & Joy. I also realized I didn’t have a photo of that one included on my Sunday Stitches page (which you can find in the top of the blog header) that shows the charts I have to choose from and shows the finished Sunday Stitches. This was bought right before the “no buy 2022” moratorium went into effect. It’s called Love & Joy and is such a pretty design. The called for color is one of my favorite reds but I’ve got several red projects in the works and am getting kind of bored with red. I knew I wanted a very mottled or variegated shaded thread and went to the group of Victorian Motto Floss from the variegated collection to see what I might have.
The floss is called My Tapestry and goes from dark blue to purples and the fabric has a light purplish hue to it – Sprite by PTP.
I do kind of want to start the chart that I got to reflect the “Frosty the Snowman” song.
I think that is so cute. I think I will change the word “Christmas” to “Winter” so it’s not Christmas specific or I may just leave off the words and put more swirls. But I have the prettiest blue fabric with sparkles in it that I think will look so good.
But, I want to finish the current snowman chart I have in the works before I start another one. both are Teresa Kogut designs and the other one, which I started last year, also fits my Sunday Stitches theme for this year. I was working on it ab bit last night – Up on the Housetop. Last night I finished the house color between the top row of windows and the icicles and got a few more rows on the roof done. I need to finish off that roof so I can get on with those three dancing snowmen on the roof.
I stitched the left and bottom border around it, added the tree in the middle, the ship’s mast/sails behind the house on the left, finished the roof of that left house and worked on the two rows of “ground” just above the bottom border and got those done from th right edge to the middle of the house. So all that’s left to do in this area is finish those two rows of ground to the left border, add the “ground” between that open fence and do some backstitching to add the sail lines on the masts. I do love it even tho the coloring is different than what I thought it would be. The worlds “Plymouth Plantation” go below this area and I was wondering – I’ve of course heard of Plymouth Colonies but not Plantations so of course I Googled it. There is a Plimouth Plantation (spelled with an “i”) in Plymouth MA – which is a living history museum and the designers absolutely nailed the look of the buildings, etc from there. Here’s a couple photos I found of it. That blue in the background is water so all that’s missing is the ships.
Justquiltin with Denise Russart 