My Little LOVE Pillow is Finished!

 It has been a while since I have stitched on black linen OMG! My eyes have gotten worse! 32 count black linen is tough to see, so this is not my best work, but it is finished.

"Love" - Ezia Gladstone - New York Dreamer

The backing is unremarkable, but I had trouble finding something that did not detract.

So, this is my St. Valentine's Day display this year:

I know this is a pretty silly holiday, largely made up by the card and candy companies, but I do love pink, so it is a good excuse for me!

We are expecting to get a snow storm on Monday night. We haven't had much snow this winter, but now frankly I hope we don't get any! We have been feeding some feral cats on our deck, and I always worry about where they go when it snows. They have enough trouble with all the raccoons, dogs, possums, and foxes! We have tried to lure them closer, but they are true ferals and are very afraid of humans. To make matters worse, we think one of them is pregnant. 

I almost forgot. I haven't put this out there in a while. This is my TUSAL! I continued it from last year as it wasn't anywhere near full. A lot of what is in there are snippets from my Nut Border Sweater.

I love seeing all of your stitching feats. It keeps me creative!

A Finish, a Start, and a TUSAL

I finished up S. Wood. She is a pretty little thing.

S. Wood - The Scarlet Letter
Au ver a soie on 32 count tea-dyed linen

Next, I started Celtic Heart, a little project for Valentines Day. I have had this in my stash for ages.

I am using Gentle Art over-dyed threads in Cranberry on 40 count antique linen.
It is a treat to be able to stitch over two threads again! The 40 count is a little tough on the eyes, but it is still better than one over one.

This was the first photo:

Then, I took this one last night.

It's coming along, but it is a bit slow. There is no apparent pattern to the stitches, so you really have to pay close attention to the chart. Atleast the heart came together. YAY! Always good when the ends meet! Now I just have two other borders to match!

Last but not least is my TUSAL, the second one this month.

The threads are all from S. Wood and the Birdkeeper.

Playing Catch-up, and the 1st TUSAL of 2014

Here it is, still in the early days of January, and I am already playing catch-up!

Here is my TUSAL jar the way it looked on Jan 1st.:

I always dump out all the orts on Dec 31st and keep them in a bag. On or around the first day in Spring, I scatter them about outside for the birds to use them for their nest-building.

New Years day I finished up Keith's scarf. It was an easy knit.
Here is my reluctant model:

For my next stitch, I wanted to pick something light-hearted. This one has always made me smile.

I had to make a few color changes here because the suggested colors did not show well on my linen.

I am working on her hat. This is what I have so far:

I will also be continuing with the Scarlet Letter Challenge for 2014. I have several charts in my stash. I need to pick one out today and get it kitted up.

Last but not least, I want to thank everyone for their well wishes for Keith. He is doing very well now in his recovery after surgery, and is starting to get his energy back.

Back soon.
Erica

Mary Eaton and a very late TUSAL

I totally missed the new moon last week, but here is my August TUSAL:

Mary Eaton is coming along. I am following the suggestion on the pattern and leaving the right side and bottom border until the free style embroidery is finished.

Of course Furry had to supervise the photo shoot!
We are actually very worried about Furry. He is a Maine Coon cat and is quite large, but in the last year, he has been losing weight. We have had him to the vet and all his tests came back normal. Not sure how to account for the weight loss.

Here is a better look at Mary:

(Click to enlarge)

I am nearing the end of the cross-stitch part, and will soon be doing the free embroidery part. The counting in this transition is not easy and I have not yet figured out a strategy. I have to be careful and make sure the design doesn't "grow" because there isn't a lot of extra linen here.

I have loved seeing all of your work! It continues to be such an inspiration to me.
I love all your comments too!

Long overdue post

I have been MIA this spring! In so many ways, this has been a weird time for us. All of my normal routines have been torn asunder!

I did manage to finish Mary Baker. Here she is in all her glory!

Mary Baker Sampler - The Scarlet Letter
DMC threads on 30 count linen

I love the bold graphic look with the reds, blacks and greens!

After finishing Mary Baker, I took a break from samplers to work on a long-standing WIP, The American Sampler Quilt. I managed to finish the motifs, but I still have the borders to do.

I am not too happy with the way this one is turning out, but I am going to finish it anyway. I think the problem is in the design. I think there is too much white space.

Keith has been keeping busy during his unplanned break from work. For the first time in years, we have a new garden. We used to have a lovely little gray picket fence around our garden, however, it did nothing to keep out the animals. I was basically left to grow a few tomatoes in pots on our deck. Not very satisfying! Unfortunately though, the new garden is only half sunny. We have some tree trimming to do in the future.

No tomatoes yet!

The poor bees are so delicate! They have not been doing well in spite of their best efforts!
We had a very small honey harvest this spring. Normally we get more than double this amount!

We have been inundated with calls about the honey. I hate to disappoint people. We only got about 21 bottles. Hopefully we will get more later on in the season.

Last but not least is my late TUSAL.

 

It is amazing how 3 strands of DMC can fill up the jar, compared to 1 strand of silk!

 

Hope everyone enjoys what is left of the spring, before the hot stickies are upon us!

Introducing the Mary Baker Sampler, and my TUSAL

For some time now, I have been into genealogy, exploring my family history.
My great grandmother was Mary Jane Baker, born in Liverpool, England in 1870, of Irish parents.
She came to New York with her parents and brothers when she was 3 years old.

When I saw The Mary Baker Sampler, I knew I had to stitch it! Of course, this Mary Baker is not a relative of mine, but I thought it would be fun to have her name on my wall.

Mary Baker Sampler - The Scarlet Letter

Here is the photo I took of my progress the other day:

I am using DMC on 30 count linen. The piece of linen didn't seem to be that big, so I chose to start in the center and work my way up.
Most of the sampler is stitched in green and red, with a touch of pink. The verse is stitched in black.

This seems to be a very quick stitch. I have already made more progress. I will be back in a few days with another photo.


I almost forgot the TUSAL! This month went so very quickly!

All the red and green on the top is from Mary Baker.

TUSAL and a little more progress on Mary Hart

I know! I'm very late with this photo!
I promise, I really have been filling up this little jar!
Here is my April TUSAL:

 

Also, last time I was here, I spoke too soon. I thought I had finished the borders, only to find out that I left out an entire motif on each side!

Well after some frogging and re-stitching, I am pleased to announce that I have now finally finished the borders!

I also made a start on the weirdly colored cat.
Next time, I will be back with the finish, I hope.

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring wherever you are!

Progress on Mary Hart, TUSAL, and more

I have made some progress on Mary Hart.

The Mary Hart Sampler - 32 ct linen with AVAS

I just love the bright bold color. I have always been partial to red!

The verse is tiny, tiny, tiny, all one over one. I just started a bit of it to see what it would look like.

I have to bring the border down both sides a bit more before I work on the verse.

It's also time again for the TUSAL!
You can see all the red from Mary.

Furry loves to supervise!

Still no peep from the peeps!

The first batch has one more week to go. This time next week, we will be on peep watch.

I really hope something hatches, or I will be very disappointed!

Unfortunately we are not making much progress with Walter. The hens still peck him mercilessly!
I have heard of this happening with other roosters, but I really though he would be able to handle the hens by now. Walter clearly prefers people and cats to other chickens!

Here he is with Keith.

I don't know what we are going to do with him! He should be old enough to be mixed in with the other chickens, but I guess we have to give him more time.

Enjoy your day everyone!
I'll be back soon!

More Harriot and my February TUSAL

I finished the attribution on The Harriot Boardman sampler, and then started the flower pot, which was the last of the cross stitch.
Now to begin the free-style stitch! I started with the deer on the left. First, I outlined the deer shape with a stem stitch which is then covered over with the first band of satin stitching.

I must say this is harder than it looks! Somehow my deer wound up a little further from the border than it should have. Not sure how that happened. I have just started the second band on the bottom. It is hard to plan for how much space it will take up. What you see here is the result of 4 evenings work.

 

It is very slow-going.

I am just hoping it turns out ok. It is very hard to maintain consistency.

Here is the whole thing:

 I am a little anxious to see how it turns out.
I guess I need to engage my inner child, that kid who scribbled with abandon, but who always had to have the right color ! LOL!

Here is my February TUSAL, (hosted by Sharon @ It's  Daffycat ).

You can see all the gold threads from the deer in Harrriot.

Back soon!

First TUSAL of 2013

On December 31, 2012, I emptied my orts into a plastic bag. I always try to scatter them on the first day of spring on my bushes and trees to help the birds with their nests.
I don't know if they actually take them, but I like to think they might.

Here is 11 days worth of stitching for this month.

I have been working with one strand of silk, so there isn't too much to show.

The Traveling Pattern, TUSAL and some progress on Freelove Hazard!

I am pleased to announce that I will be the next to stitch the Traveling Pattern!
McKenna announced that I had won on her blog, Chic Crafting.
I am already planning the colors!

The New Moon is here once again! Time for the Totally Useless Stitch- A- Long!

Here is my TUSAL jar. It is filled with every color in the rainbow this year!

I had planned a large Christmas project, however since I still haven't received the fabric, I have spent the time stitching Freelove Hazard. I have completed everything inside the inner border, and made a small start on the outer border. The bird was a fun stitch, but the flowers were giving me fits! I wound up doing some frogging. Serves me right for doing all that one-over-one stitching when my eyes were tired!
This is how she looks so far:

I love the bright, bold colors!

November TUSAL

Lots of orts this month!

My little jar is getting very full!

I have broken one of my cardinal rules, not to start one project before I finish the one I'm working on. Boring, yes, but it has held me in good stead!
Right now, I think I have 4 that need finishing! This time of the year though, it is just too tempting not to take on a few little ornies. Hopefully I will finish them up very quickly.
Back with some photos soon.

TUSAL and. . . getting closer with Deep Peace

Here is my October contribution to the TUSAL:

All the sparkly bits on the top are from the metal stitching on Deep Peace.

I have made more progress on Deep Peace, but it has not been without frustration!

I finished illuminating the D.

I did not stagger the rows as described in the directions, except where the rows were uneven. I started to, but just didn't like the way it was turning out.

I was pleased that it was finished, and I was ready to go onto the pearl purl part, until . . .  to my horror, I discovered that I had one skein of silk that was unused! I checked and discovered that the berries were supposed to be stitched in pink! This was sort of buried in the text and I missed it. I stitched them in the same shade as the vines. Admittedly this gave it a rather November look, but I thought it looked ok. Then I realized that the scene inside the D was a Spring scene. Yes, it would be better to have pink berries! Those !*#&@ berries got me again! Well you guessed it, spent the next two evenings replacing the brown with pink. If anyone out there stitches this design, I would strongly suggest going through the entire set of pages and highlighting all the steps. Some of them are easy to miss.

Ok, now it was finally time to go onto the pearl purl. I found the secret to this was to go very slowly. You feel like you need 3 hands to do this, but it finally got done.
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this yet, but I will very shortly.

I do have another problem though, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. The linen inside the D has stretched. It now puffs upward. Grrr! Not sure how to shrink it back to size. Not sure if it will show when it is framed. I am really not sure what I could have done to avoid this!

Have to think about it for a while I guess.

TUSAL and some progress on Deep Peace

Hi Everyone,

I never meant to be gone so long! I have been very distracted with medical appointments, and other such annoyances!

He is my long overdue September TUSAL:

Lots of colors here!

There is some progress on Deep Peace, but it has been slow going. This is not the kind of piece you can work on when you are overly tired or distracted. I found that I was making a lot of mistakes so I put it aside for a few days.

I finished filling in the big "D".

click pictures to enlarge

I still think the top filling is too dark. It seems to obscure the dragonfly and the butterfly, however I am leaving it alone for now.
Next I worked on the 5 "eep Peace". The directions call for the "eep Peaces" to be a darker color brown, and the rest of the verse done in a lighter shade, however I decided to complete the entire verse in the same color. It seemed to be more cohesive that way.

There is a blue wave over the first line, and some wavy design on the top that is made up of back stitching and cross stitch.

Next I stitched the little designs on the corners of the "D".
The horizontal box on the top was stitched with a diagonal Queen stitch.

The vertical box on the bottom of the "D" was done in Satin stitch.

Next came the illuminated initials for the last two lines.

After that, I worked on the curvy scrolling lines in celery colored silk.

I put my initials and the year above the last line. The designer embroidered a very curvy '98 there, in the same style as the curvy lines below. She put her initials in one of the Forget-me-nots on the edge. There was no way that I could have made a '12 into those curvy lines, and I wanted all the forget-me-not corners to be alike, so I put both initials and date here. I hope it isn't too abrupt of a style change.

So here is where I am with it so far.

 I am beginning the vines at the top, but I was making so many mistakes, I had to stop. I am picking it up again this evening, so hopefully I can get some more done on this. It is coming along, but oh, so slowly.

I received my metal supplies in the mail.

Oh boy! More fun to come! Stay tuned!