Off to Carolina!

Hi everyone!  Hope your St Patty's Day is full of good music, food and green beer.  I love all 3 of them and for someone who doesn't have a drop of natural Irish in them, I still embrace the fun of the day,

The big reason for this post is to announce that I do have a finish that will soon be on its way to Faye of Carolina Stitcher fame for her special touch.  You may remember a few posts back when I  needed to sulk for awhile aftter making a horrendous goof on Ann Grimshaw.  Someone suggested a little "comfort" stitching to get over it, whick was an excellent idea.  So I decided to show a little love to my long forgotten Blue Dwelling is My Station, a purely impulse project I started several years ago and quickly lost enthusiasm for.  Here's how it was at the end of January when I found it in the box I  think of as my stitching orphanage.

Not much going on there, you'll have to agree.  But even after I made back up with Ann, I found it was fun to keep going on this little project as a way of taking a break from Miss Grinshaw's vast expanses.  Little by little (that's the time term, not the name of the design company!) I filled in the letters and then moved on to the borders and the actual blue dwelling.  Lo and behold, last night....it was done!

I decided to ask Faye if she could whip it into something awesome for several reasons:

• This little piece has been living on borrowed time for quite a while now and it deserves a little respect.  Faye's finishing will do that in a matter of a few weeks.  If finishing is up to me, it could linger again in limbo for ages and never see the light of day.  
• Even if I was up for the challenge of finishing it, the likelihood the end result would be anything I'd want to claim as my own is next to nil.  Bottom line - I will mangle it and then hate myself for even trying.  Faye will turn it into something awesome, worthy of showing off to sisters!

So I'll keep everyone posted as to it's future destiny with the amazing Faye.  No matter what, I'm sure it will be wonderful!

And speaking of  sisters, after I told the story  in my last post of how my sister Teresa got me terminally hooked as a stitcher, I wished I'd posted a picture of the two of us.  Unfortunately, I didn't have one in all our 1980's permed hair glory, but I did find this little sweetie, taken at an even earlier point in time.

I'm the one with the short pixie hair cut, while Teresa is sporting her famous blonde curls.  Funny thing is, all these years later we still have basically the same do's, only now the looks are mostly the result of hair color and skilled professionals.

Thanks for stopping by, especially to the new followers who've made their way here.  I love your comments!

The First and The Latest

Good morning everyone!  It feels really good to have the time to catch up on my stitching and blogging again.  The past month has been so off kilter, beginning with the sad dash to Illinois when Jim's dad passed.  Quickly on the heels of that trip were several days in Tallahassee for work.  I feel like I've been playing catch up for a long time now, but not really gaining much ground.  Still though, I have managed to make some time for stitching.  That's probably what's kept me sane lately!

I've so enjoyed reading all the recent blog posts that were prompted by Nicola's question about first stitching projects.  Mine was a sampler by Vanessa Ann (or maybe they were Shepherd's Bush by then, who knows?)  that I've completely forgotten the name of, but still hangs proudly in my bedroom.

You can tell by the date on this piece that I've been terminally hooked for 30 years now.

My sister Teresa was so excited to get me going with this new hobby she'd taken up, something called "counted cross stitch".    She showed me how all the floss colors had a different number and each color was represented on the chart by its own symbol.  And  it was done on this starchy background called aida cloth that made it really easy to count and see where to make each stitch.  I was a little nervous about it at first, this seemed sorta complicated.

But by the next morning, I was up to the challenge!  We convinced her husband to keep an eye on baby Jesse (who is a daddy himself now these days), put on our padded shoulder jackets and headed off to the Creative Hand Shoppe for all the necessary goods.  The rest is history, I've been stitching ever since.

So now we'll fast forward 30 years for an update on Miss Ann Grimshaw, my latest.  Not a whole lot of progress on her since the last update, given all the traveling and catch up lately, but still enough to have something to share.

I do love this sweet bunch of rosebuds....

...and am excited to have my first alphabet letter in.  I've decided the letters that are initials for family members  - J,E,H,T.M.D and R - will be stitched in the darker skein of Finnegan's Fog, while the others will be in the lighter.

Geez, on closer examination, it looks like that bottom eyelet needs a little repair work.  Don't you just hate that?!

Spring is definitely busting out all over in west central Florida right now.  Pollen is dropping, birds are singing and it won't be long at all before air conditioners are humming.  In the meantime though, Molly and Ruby are reveling in all the fresh grass and pesky squirrels in our back yard.

 
Molly tries to be friendly with them...

...but Ruby just tells them who's in charge.

Here's hoping a bright spring will find its way to your home too!

Winners, All of Us

Hi everyone!  There hasn't been much time for stitching since my last post, but I do want to announce the winner of my blogiversary giveaway - Stephanie M. of Stitching by Stephanie!!!  Stephanie, if you could please just send my your mailing address as soon as possible, I'll get it packed up and on its way to you.  Thanks to everyone who signed on for the giveaway, especially all the new followers. 

I'm still working along on Ann Grimshaw, but have one small little bald spot between two bigger motifs I want to fill in before I post a progress picture.  Fingers crossed I'll have an update on her in a few days.

The reason stitching time has been such a rare opportunity the past few weeks is because we had to make another sad trip home to say good-bye to my husband's father, who passed away at the grand old age of 94 recently.  For all of his family and the town where he lived, Bob was a hero.

    He was a pilot in the South Pacific during the WWII.  After that he was a small town doctor and surgeon.  But most importantly, he was always a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather to his family.  He will be missed by us all.

Blogiversary Fun!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all!  I don't know how many of you are true football fans - and since the Buccaneers are always such perennial losers, I'm not sure I can honestly say I'm one either.  But I freely admit that I enjoy all the hype, the gossip and the ads that are a part of the Super Bowl package.  So having said that, I've got a crock pot full of chili in the works and am eagerly looking forward to the half time show.  Beyonce, You Go Girl!   

Before moving on to the Blogiversary fun, I do want to share a quick update on my Ann Grimshaw progress.  So happy to report that things are back on track, perhaps even picking up pace a tiny bit.  Here's how she looked this morning. 

.You can see here that I finally stopped stewing about the goof on this motif and did the right thing by redoing it.  I did think long and hard about ignoring the off thread count. But the widest part of the star point was where the goof became obvious.  The end result would have been a single thread between the star point and the half circle around it on one side, with 3 threads between the same position on the other.  I know myself too well to think that wouldn't make me crazy for the rest of my natural days, so out it came.  All better now!

Before I could bring myself to face the redo, I refocused my frustration by putting in this little beauty with my darker skein of silk.

I'm having so much fun with Ann! Let's hope progress will be smooth and steady for a good while now.

I knew the one year anniversary of my first blog post was coming sometime in February, but it was a bit of a shock on Friday afternoon to see it was exactly 365 days passed.   In honor of the big occasion, I'm throwing a Blogiversary giveaway! This is my way of saying thanks to everyone who has enjoyed my blog enough to sign on as a follower in the past year and also to invite new friends to join in as well. 

Here's a picture of the booty.

Each item represents some aspect of the blog or the past year.  The Goode Huswife chart is Ellen Birdseye, which bears the verse "All my scattering moments are taken up with my needle."  I've loved this design and the sentiment so much that I borrowed from it to name this blog.  Of course, the linen and threads needed to work her up are included!

The wooden boxes that are still used for packaging cigars are easy enough to find around here.  I've discovered that not only are they great for storing project supplies, they're also a lot of fun for finishing with little stitched pieces like Sarah Seifer.  So I'm including another partially finished cigar box in the fun.  You can leave the lid as is, or mount your own special stitching inside it.  There is also an empty brass bracket glued on the side.  I try to write down the name of the stitching project the box holds the stuff for and slip the paper inside the bracket.  It help immensely if you tend to jump randomly between any number of unfinished projects!

I love having a fun fob on my scissors, especially when it's made from bits of shell or sea glass. They remind me of my other passion, the beautiful beaches and coastline of Florida.  While the scissors will stay here with me, I'm putting in a Florida fob for your own pair. There may be some other seaside bits and treasures added as well....

There are 3 things you need to do to have chance at the draw.

1. Be a follower!  If you're not one already, please sign on.
2.  Leave a comment on this post.
3.  Add All My Scattering Moments (and a link of course!) to the blog list on your own site.

I'll do a draw and announce the winner on Sunday, February 17. 

As always, thanks again for taking the time to stop by.  I'm looking forward to another year of fun and stitching!

Which WIP?

Hi everyone!  Don't you just love holidays?  Not necessarily the extended Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years extravaganza (although don't get me wrong, that's the holiday sequence the entire rest of the year revolves around!), but the easy, 3 day MLK's birthday sort that mellows out the weekend before-hand and shortens the rest of the week to follow? I couldn't think of a better way to mark the day than to spend it stitching and updating the blog, so here I am.

On to first things first - let's get up to speed on Ann Grimshaw.  This is how her top row is looking right now.....

A few things need explaining.  You're probably wondering why the medallion second from the left is so much darker that the others?  It's not 2 different thread colorways, just two different dye lots.  When I decided to go with Finnegan's Fog, it was because I had the one dark skein of it already on hand and thought it would be an intriguing alternative to the plain old black silk the design called for.  Knowing the single skein wouldn't be nearly enough to complete Ann in all her immensity, I ordered 2 more for her without even considering the fact that the skein I had on hand was bought several years ago and might look different from what would arrive in the mail..  But I've decided to roll with the differences and use the darker skein in strategic spots to accent the overall design.  Let's just hope now that the skeins I have at this point are sufficient to get her done, because  I don't know that any further variations in tone are going to work so well. 

In my haste to get as much done on Ann as I possibly could while yesterday's football hype was on, I plunged on ahead with the center design of the unfinished medallion on the far left.  Such great progress! All that solid stitching was flying into place, right up until the point where it became apparent that something was not going to work.  Oh crap, what have I done?!  Sure enough, the entire pointy cornered center of that half circle is off by a thread.  Of course, I can't live with it that way, and of course, the entire thing will have to come out.  But instead of pulling it out in a fit of fury, I calmly left it as is for the time being and went off to work on a nice friendly-looking bouquet  of ivy on the other end.   Sooner or later I know I'll have to suck it up and pull it out, but if I have to do it right now, I might just put the whole thing down and go back to knitting socks...

The incident did send me off to my WIPs box though, where I comforted myself by retrieving two golden oldies, both of which only need a little bit of love in order to be entered into the finished column.  I was thinking it might be fun to take an informal survey here - which one would you work on if it were your choice?

Option number 1: 

Blue Dwelling is My Station, by Little by Little Designs.  It's been so long since I've worked on this that I couldn't remember why I didn't finish it?  But then I realized that even though there was a multitude of floss skeins inside the chart sleeve, none of them corresponded to what the design actually called for.  Hhhmmmm.....I must have not had what I needed and made a sorry attempt at improvising before I gave up and moved on to greener pastures.  Well, I'm wiser now. A a quick trip to Michael's this afternoon and I could be back in business.  

Or, there's Option number 2:

Birds and Beasts Sampler, by the Drawn Thread.  There is absolutely no reason in the world why this cool little piece isn't done already.  You can see it's two thirds of the way stitched, and it wouldn't take more that a few evenings to knock it out of the park.  Could it be that some of it is worked up with a skein of Needle Necessities that's gone AWOL and finishing it without that same said skein is too distasteful to consider? 

So, please help me out here! Should I:

1. Put on the big girl panties and get on with the dirty work of Ann Grimshaw's bungled motif?
2.  Get in my car and make the run to Michael's for the missing DMC's needed for Blue Dwelling is my Station?
or
3. Spend the afternoon rooting around in the stash depths for that one missing Needle Necessities skein that will be the only acceptable choice for Birds and the Beasts? 


As always, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.  However you choose to spend you MLK Day, I hope it involves a needle and thread!

Full Circle

Happy New Year!  I'd like to say thank you  once again for all the very kind thoughts and expressions of sympathy from those who commented on my previous post. Losing my dad was the final hardship in the most difficult year I've ever faced.  Here's a heartfelt wish for better times to come in 2013!

Anyway, 2012 dragged its miserable old bones out with the same stitching project it began - Frances Eden.  Even though the year itself was a monster, Frances has been an agreeable companion all along the way.  Who knows, maybe she'll actually see a finish in the new year.  Here's how she's looking.

I've taken a very liberal hand with swapping her original colors for the Sampler Threads palette called for in And They Sinned.  She's been a fun, easy project so far and I'm looking forward to steady progress on her.

And speaking of New Year's transitions, I did get a nice start on Ann Grimshaw first thing  New Year's morning.  I'm working her as my part of Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year Challenge, with hopes of eventually starting Jane Atkinson as well at some point.  Here's how things are looking on her, 6 days into it:

If you take a look at Ann's picture on the Scarlet Letter website, you'll see I started her at the center top of the design.  She's being worked on 36 count flax linen with Silk 'm Colors Finnegan 's Fog, which I'm completely smitten with right now.

It's been fun this past week to read all the "stitching year in review" posts and/or the "stitching goals for the new year" entries.  So even though I'm running a bit behind in doing the same, I've taken stock of what I've accomplished this past year and hope to tackle in the coming one.  Here goes!

• First off, I started this blog!  While the official blogaversary date isn't until sometime in February, it was over the holidays last year that I began looking seriously at what everyone else was up to and began playing with the design for what eventually became the blog you're looking at now. 

• With entry into the blogging world, I've made new friends and been amazed and inspired by all the creativity and skills represented in all your posts.  Thank you so much for sharing that part of yourself !  As for 2013, I'm going to throw a cyber-bash in February as a blogaversary celebration, something we can all have fun with.... 

• Here's another big accomplishment - I actually finished more projects than I started!  That's got to be a first for me.  Major finishes include Frances Burwell....

 

 

• Jean Rattray....

• ...and the framing for And They Sinned.

• And looking ahead, I'd dearly love to see finishes for Frances Eden, Hannah Pepper, Ann Grimshaw and Atoche.  I'd also love to see a winning Powerball ticket, a vacation home in the Keys and a 20 pound weight loss.....we'll see how many of these actually happen! 

• And last off, it's dawned on me that I stitched an entire year using only stuff that was already in my existing stash hoard.  I don't know whether to be proud or horrified by that.  Well, I take that back, I did buy a DMC floss palette for Atoche.

• But who could possibly deny themselves this Caribbean rainbow? 

So I hope this finds everyone proud of the stitching they've accomplished and ready to forge ahead with new projects, ideas and creativity this new year.  Let the fun begin!

Angels We Have Heard on High

After my last post, I found myself missing Frances Eden.  I got her out again, thinking she'd see me through until New Year's and a start on my Scarlet Letter, Ann Grimshaw. Since then, I've found joy in Frances' perfect angels, especially with the bittersweet events that have happened in the last weeks.

 

I lost my sweet Dad on December 7th.  Those of you who have followed my blog for awhile will remember a story I shared about him on Father's Day.  Of course, our family all gathered for traditional goodbyes, as we should.  I spent precious time with my mother and sisters, sifting through so many pictures that captured Dad through the years.  There were hundreds, but the ones that touched me the most were from his childhood.

 

 

You can tell by this photo that Dad grew up during the hard years of the Great Depression.  Even though times were tough, Dad always told us of how his own father made Christmas happen for their family each year.  There was always a Christmas tree by the fireplace, stockings hung with oranges and sweets inside and a Tiddly-Winks game for a little boy.   From his own father, my Dad learned the joys of the season and the strengthened bonds that grow out of family gatherings. 

 

At the age of 14, Dad also lost his own father just before Christmas.  He never told us much about it, but over the years I've often wondered how terribly sad that must have been.  How could Christmas ever seem complete after such a hard loss?  It felt to me as if a shadow must have fallen on the brightness of the season for him.  And yet, my Dad was always full of holiday cheer as Christmas approached, looking forward to each December homecoming as his family grew up and on with their own lives. 

 

 

 

But I understand now.  My Dad's final lesson for me is perhaps the same one he learned from his own father's loss so close to Christmas.  

 

Family matters, even or perhaps especially, during the hardest of times. 

 

Joy is to be taken whenever it can be found.   

 

Holidays, and life, are to be celebrated because both are far too precious and fleeting.

 

 

I love you Dad.  I will pass your joy into the holidays to come.  So my wish for all who take the time to read this is for a joyous and bright Christmas and the very very best in the new year.