Floss Frenzy

Look at all these lovely flosses all hanging on their rings and hanging in their new home in the sewing room rather than on the outside of the sewing room door.  The search for the flosses for Winter Robins led to pulling out the box of flosses that needed to go back on these rings, gathering the rings of floss for projects I had finished and pulling them apart and sorting into piles for DMC, Weeks, Gentle Arts and Victorian Motto and then pulling all the rings and getting the back in numerical order or alphabetical order.

That was how I spent many hours this afternoon/evening but it is done and it will be so nice next time I have to go look for flosses.  Of course now I need to go back and see how many I have in my pile for Winter Robins.  I know I don’t have any of the called for orangey/rusty colors for the robin’s breast but found other DMC colors in similar shades so will pull some fabric and see if I can get a start on it tonight.  I think I deserve a new start after all that reorganizing.

The top row is Weeks, 2nd row 2 rings GAST and then 3 rings Classic Colorworks/Colour & Cotton; on the wooden hanger is DMC and then the bottom right is almost all Victorian Motto with a few special hand dyed variegated flosses, some Owl Forest Floss and some Valdani.

More of Three Things

I did make lots of progress on Three Things the last two nights.   And I got really lucky on the border I modified.

On the border of what I am calling oak leaves (above the words) that was supposed to only have six leaves starting at each outer edge and working towards center and then the words started in the space left between them like show in the photo below of that section.

Since I’m changing the way my words are arranged (two lines of text from chart becomes one line of text in my sampler), I wanted to continue that border line all the way to the center.  What I usually do when trying to work both ends to the center is stitch a motif or two on one side and then switch to the other side to so I know when I’ve gone as far as I can with an entire motif, keeping both sides even.   Living on the edge with my cross stich, right? 🙂   Well this time I got carried away and stitched four motifs on one side all at once before remembering – hey, I’m supposed to be working on the other side too!   I thought maybe I had added one motif too many but there is exactly one stitch left between them.  Whew!   When I stitched those I did not yet have the center basted line put in place.  I added that after the border so I could get my words centered properly.

I counted all the spaces necessary for each line of text, marked the middle stitch in each line, and I am starting in the middle and working my way to each end of text to make sure it’s lined up the way I want it.  I also changed the text color to DMC 730 Moss Green – which is my favorite DMC green.   I may or may not finish off the current line of text I’m working on before switching to a new project.   My plan for this sampler is to pull it out every couple of days to do a bit of work on it, or at least once a week.  I’m totally enjoying working on this but it’s a big sampler so I don’t want to get burned out on it.  I had thought about pulling out a WIP, but then thought maybe a little Valentine-themed project.  I was looking thru some pdf charts I had saved, when I came across a different chart that had caught my eye (and I still have Valentine stitches to finish into smalls from last year!)  These birds – aren’t these just the most wonderful robins!   They totally depict how I feel – hunkered down against the winter wind and cold and trying to stay warm.

Robins are the Wisconsin state bird so we have a lot of them spring to fall but most of them are smart and go to warmer climates in the winter time so it is very rare I see one all winter.   But those you see after a rain storm or during the cold usually are all puffed out with their feathers like this to keep dry and warm.  I like the bleak look of the hint of landscape behind them (that’s what it looks like outside today).  The chart is by Lucie Heaton and its called Winter Robins.    I’m really hoping I have most of the DMC for this design so I can go pull some wintery looking fabric and get started on this.

I was able to print out the floss list and one page of the chart before my printer ink ran out.  Only had a new color cartridge so Amazon will be bringing more printer ink tomorrow as well as a couple other things I had waiting in my cart till I need to place an order – like a new waffle maker! 🙂  I had one that stopped heating which I replaced with a small round one but that jumped out of the cupboard the other week when I was trying to get something a week or so ago and hit the floor (it did NOT like hitting the floor and breaking into a couple pieces).  It can be difficult to find a classic waffle maker – the vast majority these days are Belgian waffles and I don’t care for those.   So I think I can foresee some waffles in my not-too-distant future.  I don’t have them a lot but when you want them, you need to have a waffle maker and I don’t like eating them in restaurants because they are always the Belgian ones.

Enough rambling – I need to pull out the DMC and see what I have for Winter Birds.

Three Things – progress 1-12-23

You may not see as many blog posts from me for a while – at least not the daily ones like there have been since before Christmas when I started the FCAs.  But never fear, it will only be because I’m working on a couple big projects and you really don’t need to see how much I accomplish on them every single day.  But here’s my progress at the moment on Three Things that I’ve been stitching on the last two nights.   I finished the second row of alphabet.

That area in the middle has some berry bowls but I don’t really like stitching berry bowls so I’ll put something else in there later on.  I also added a second border line under the second row of letters  – that one wasn’t charted (only the one above it was) but it’s fun to stitch and it’s in my favorite DMC green.  I was going to leave out that next border that I’m working on  – reminds me of oak leaves and vines – becase in the chart cover it looked orange and yellow but when I looked at the acutal floss it is two shades of gold – and I love gold – so decided to try it and I like it.  My colors aren’t showing up as vibrant in real life because – same old story of nighttime indoor photo – but those colors are really pretty together.

But need to fix a stitch or two on that border before continuing on.

Seven Swans – finished

I now have two of the PS 12 Days of Christmas charts finished.   I put the final stitches in Seven Swans A Swimming (tho clearly four of them must be submerged under water because you can only see three).

Prairie Schooler – 7 swans a swimming S-1-6-23 / F 1-10-23

You really can’t see the fabric under the red and black like it is showing up in the photo – that photo was taken at an angle rather than straight on.  I love that big swan on the bottom that looks like he’s going to take a bite out of Santa’s boot.

So I put this project away for a while and have gone back to working on Three Things Sampler for a few days before I switch to something else.

Sunday Stitch progress from yesterday

I nearly have my project I worked on for Sunday Stitch yesterday done so I think I will just go ahead and finish it off tonight.  It’s also part of the 12 Days of Christmas Judy and I are stitching one chart every two months on, so I’ll be ahead of my plans on that.

Here’s where I am on Seven Swans a Swimming.

The only thing left is to fill the container Santa is holding with bird seed and then there’s some sprinkled in the air above the swans that he’s tossing to them, finish the grass and add the number and border backstitching.  I think I can get all of that done tonight.  I like that this Santa has a jaunty little hat that he can pull the earflaps down on.

And thank you to all the FCA recipients for getting me your mailing addresses so quickly.  All the charts were put in the mail today so they are on their way.  Enjoy.

Cross Stitch Plans for 2023

Since we’ve now completed the first week of 2023, I think I have figured out my stitching plans to be moving forward with.  There are WIPS, start alongs with Judy (which have started), projects I want to start but haven’t assigned a particular start date and I will likely just start them when the mood strikes and lots of variety of sizes of projects along with my Sunday Stitches projects. So here’s what I’ve got planned below (which can also be found on the 2023 stitching page at the top of the blog where I’ll be updating with photos as stitches are finished and then photos when fully finished.  

• New Year’s Start – Three Things Sampler  (start along with Judy) – STARTED 1-1-23
• Prairie Schooler, 12 Days of Christmas (start along with Judy – our goal is to finish one day’s chart every two months)
  • Five Golden Rings – STARTED 12-31-22 — FINISHED 1-5-23
  • Seven Swans a Swimming – STARTED 1-5-23 — 
• Cardinal Points Sampler Christmas 2022 start —STARTED 12-23-22 — 
• Hometown Holidays – I’d like to get started on this series of charts at some point this year. 
• Noel en Bleu and Noel en Rouge – sweater shaped ornaments I’ll be stitching on perforated paper for Christmas gifts this year (six different sweaters in total)
• Crow’s Corner by the Scarlett House STARTED 1-7-23 — 
• Woodland Yule – a christmas tree stitch
• Several other ornament charts that are themed with certain recipients in mind for this Christmas.  My goal is to finish at least one ornament per month  (exclusive of the sweater ornaments or 12 Days ornaments)
• Finish some of the WIPS I worked on for NYE
• Continue my Sunday Stitches on the theme of Christmas Song
• NOT buy floss, fabric or charts 🙂

 

One of the charts that came yesterday was Woodland Yule.  I plan to start this one soon – maybe next Sunday as my Sunday Stitch.  I need to take a closer look at the chart to decide what size fabric I want to stitch this on, which will decide how large the tree will be.  I haven’t looked to see what size it is, but I think larger could be more fun to display.

 

 

A change of colors

I spent a whole lot of time trying to kit up this project last night.

This first photo is from the website where I ordered the chart.  I’m blaming it on my monitor and things looking different than they truly are – we all know how that goes.  But in this image the house looks like it is done in grays to me and I really liked that with the pinky/coral color around the crows.  I may have only looked at the small image of the chart and not a larger image so that could account for why it looks different too to a certain extent.

I had the majority of the called for colors and as I was pulling them thought – these aren’t gray at all they are all browns.   I hadn’t actually looked closely at the chart cover right in front of me and yes, that cover shows the house in shades of browns as you can tell by the photo I took below of the chart this morning.    I really liked the gray look and had that stuck in my head so decided to see if I could find floss to switch the colors to gray.   By the way – that pinky peach color around the crows, which shows up a little bit more towards orange in the photo I took, is in reality when you pull the floss a very carrot-colored orange.  All the colors when pulled are very Fall looking.  I love Fall but that’s not what I want to stitch right now and you know how it is when you get a certain thing stuck in your head.

Alas, I pulled many grays – brown grays, gray grays, but none of the shades I had were right together and since it’s “no buy” on stitching stuff I decided to take another approach.  I would just pick a totally random color I loved and start with the house and see if I could find enough shades of that color to do the front and bricks of the house.   I had recently used WDW Peacock which is a lovely tealish color so wanted that as the door side of the house.  Found other shades to go with it and then decided that the roof/window sashings should be brown (because I like teal and brown together).  That was enough to be getting on with and I’ll decide about the other colors as I get to other sections.  So after 2 hours or more playing in floss last night, I finally got started and here’s my progress so far.   I think I will be changing that “pumpkin” the squirrels have to red so it looks like an apple.

The fabric I picked to use is one of the ones which just arrived yesterday – Fortnight Fabrics , 18 ct. Heirloom.  It has a grayish/blue tinge which plays nicely with these flosses.

As it’s Sunday Stitches day, when I get to stitching a bit later, I think I will go back to working on the 12 Days PS – 7 Swans a swimming since it’s sitting out and fits into my theme for Sunday Stitches of Christmas Songs.  If I can get it done today, I’ll be ahead of the game since the plan was to stitch one every two months.  But darn it’s lunch time and I haven’t even made any coffee yet.  So I think I need to mix up a batch of muffins  to go with that coffee.

Epic FCA ………

BUT FIRST!, if you are listed below to receive a chart.  My email address is under my photo on the blog – last line of text below that photo –

• please send me a PRIVATE email at that address – do not post your address to the blog.
• in that email to me, please put the name of the chart you are to receive in the subject line
• in the body of the email please type your name and address in three separate lines as it would appear on a mailing label so I can make quick work of this and just copy and paste the information you email me into a label form without having to format it into proper order and without having to change written out state names to the two letter abbreviations, etc.
• I’m hoping to get these all mailed out by the end of the month but things are busy, I’m only in the office (where I stick them in the mail) on certain days each week and I have some time off this month so that’s my plan, but I will announce on the blog when the last one has been put in the mail.

• The Huntsman – Carol P
• The First Thanksgiving – Kathrie
• Christmas Preparation at the Barn – bfiresheets
• Winter Rose Manor – Linda Enneking
• Strawberry Fields Forever and also Love Birds – Karen Seitz
• Robin’s Favorite – Tracey
• Center Point Sampler – Linda B
• My Peaceful Home – Donna V
• Basket of Cherries – Quilting Tizzy
• New Year Sampler – Pam B
• Deck the Halls – Joy B
• Fly By Night – June Canders-Cloutier
• Spring is Hare – Terry
• Pumpkins & Bittersweet – Marsha B
• Liberty Lane – Dottie Wahlers
• Metamorphosis – Christine

Congratulations to all.  Hope you enjoy the stitches.

Saturday Stitching – 1-7-23

I made really good progress last night on Seven Swans A Swimming.  It looks like Santa feeding the swans has one big green foot but that’s the outline of grass next to the pond the geese are swimming in.  I’ll just be stitching these randomly on one big piece of fabric and then cutting them all apart to finish.  I think for the swans I’ll be using one of the blue shades to stitch in the number and border backstitch line.  I was going to do them all with the lighter green number/backstitch like in the other one, but I think I will just change it up as I go along.  I’ll pick this one back up for my Sunday Stitching but will be starting a different project today as soon as I kit it up.

The mailman dumped a couple packages outside my door a short time ago.  More fabric, a few charts, some trims  🙂

I got a couple of colors of skinny rick rack, some eyelash chenille, and the fun vintage metallic tinsel chenille in the photo (LadyDotCreates).  I wish I would have had the tinsel trim earlier because I think it would have looked so pretty around the santa and reindeer stitches I finished on the wooden snowflakes. I may need to restitch that chart for myself and use this on it.

L-R –The red fabric is actually brighter cherry-ish red, 18 count Merry from Hometown Needleworks;  and then all except the last two are Seraphim fabrics – 16ct Winter Woolens, 18ct. Haunted, 18 ct. Antique Lace; and then the last two are Fortnight Fabrics – 18 ct. Heirloom (more gray that it is showing in photo) and 18 ct. Timeless.  All have very pretty light/dark mottling in them but it’s not translating well to the photo, but I was not going to take them all out of the packaging. 🙂   There is one little package of various charms to finish smalls that is sitting out in my mailbox (at the other end of the apartment complex) but it’s a PJ-all-day day here so I’m not wandering out to retrieve it. So except for two packages, all the last minute (before 2023 no buy started) shopping has arrived.   There’s a couple more pieces of fabric coming from a new dyer who just started selling her fabrics last month and those are dyed to order so I think those will be shipping this week.  And then there’s one other order that who knows when it will arrive.  I placed an order with a cross stitch shop that the one and only time I had ordered from them took forever to ship.  It was 2020 and of course we all know things were a mess but even given that fact, it was a very long time before I got my order and my emails asking if they actually had the items went unanswered.  A couple months later it finally arrived without any shipping notification.  I swore I would never order from them again, but I had been searching for a set of three charts that go together by Lizzie Kate that I absolutely fell in love with, which are pretty much impossible to find unless someone still has older stock of them since they are charts from 2013-2015.  But they had them, allegedly in stock – tho only time will tell if they really did have them in stock.  But since they showed all three on their website, I placed an order along with a couple other things. So hopefully at some point that order will arrive.

Among the charts that arrived today, this is the one I want to kit up and start now. It’s really small.  If I do it on 18 count it will be 5.5″ x 4.25″.   The description said it has some over one (charted for linen) but I couldn’t see where from the chart image but figured I could change whatever it was.  It’s the little pumpkin between the two squirrels but there is an alternate pumpkin charted as well for stitching on aida.

I think from looking at the color names (WDW floss), I likely have most of them so once I pull them I will see if one of the smaller fabric cuts I previously showed will work since I don’t need a very large piece.

Five Golden Rings……

 Since I’m not so sure that the sun will EVER shine again (day started out foggy and then just switched to total cloud cover) I decided to try to get some good indoor photos.  The fabrics are looking true to color – the stitched piece not exactly but it’s close.

So here is the first of the Prairie Schooler 12 Days of Christmas I finished last night – Five Golden Rings.  

So last night I got a bit of a start on Seven Swans a Swimming but it doesn’t look like much yet.     I was determined to find the other two booklets for this series.  They had arrived in the last two weeks but not all ordered from the same shop and I could only find one.  Tonight, I started with the project bags for the WIPS I had worked on for NYE thinking I had grabbed them up and stuck them in one of those (I had looked in them previously and the second time found nada).  Then I have a box of all the stitchy stuff that has come in the last two weeks or so – charts, fabric, floss, etc – that hasn’t been put away yet.  I looked in there multiple times because I was certain that is where I had put them.   Tonight, I realized a booklet I had slid in that box slid over the top of the two I was looking for so they were in that box all the other times I had searched it, just tucked inside something else.  Whew!   Now I have all three books and can send the duplicate book I mistakenly ordered on to Judy.  These are the ones Judy and I are planning to stitch one chart every two months. She posted her progress on the 1st Day of Christmas today.  I had thought about setting the swans aside and working on one of my other WIPS but I think I’ll stitch on them yet tonight and then work on something else tomorrow.

And look at all the pretty colors.  Top Knot Stitcher from time to time has what she calls “ornament cuts / leftover cuts”  which are smaller pieces from cutting other larger sizes from the fabric.  She announced it in her newsletter that she had replenished them and I happened to be on the computer at the right time to be able to snag a bunch of different pieces.  Sometimes you want a different color for an ornament or small but don’t want to buy a larger piece so these are perfect to add to the fabric stash.

Most various sizes from 6 x8 to 8×11 to 9×10, 10×14 as a few examples.

Top L-R:  14ct Wheat Fiber On A Whim; 14ct Stream FOAM;  18ct Slate FOAM; 16 ct Sand FOAM; and 16ct Nutmeg Colour & Cotton (this is a larger piece I ordered separately because I love the color).

Bottom L-4: 18ct Merlot FOAM (I don’t like pink but this I love – maybe I just don’t like pastel-like pink); 18ct Slate FOAM; 18ct Brick FOAM; and 18ct. Peppercorn Colour & Cotton (this is also a color I like and have used before.

I have an idea for the piece of Merlot and the Stream but need to see if the charts will fit on that count/size fabric.