Patience

Hi There!  So here it is, the first day of my Thanksgiving holiday and I'm loooonnngg overdue for a blog post.  It feels good to be settling in. Let me bring myself up to speed. 

When last I posted, I was still waiting patiently for the order of Finnegan's Fog so work could resume on Ann Grimshaw.  At least some of the order arrived promptly....

I now have a new supply of needles, a refill on the brown silks I need to finish Hannah Pepper and the few remaining silks necessary for an eventual start on Jane Atkinson.   But do you see Finnegan's Fog anywhere in the mix?  No!!  Once I started to think they must be waiting for the little silk worms to polish off their mulberry leaves and begin with the cocoon spinning, I abandoned hope and tracked down another source for it. Fortunately, Bobbie at Stitching Bits and Bobs  has come through with the 2 skeins I need and several more as back up if necessary.  With some good luck and a speedy delivery time, I'll have them in hand before the long Thankgiving holiday is over.  Now that's something to be thankful for!

And it's not like I've been sitting on my hands in the meantime with nothing to stitch.  I've made the most of the break from Miss Ann to show a little love to the ever-patient Frances Eden.

 

Thinking about it now, I remember I was working on those flying babies just east of Adam and Eve's apple tree right about a year ago.  So you can see there really hasn't been a whole lot of progress on poor Frances over the past year.  She's been a very agreeable traveling companion, allowing me to do most  of the existing verse while spending time in Little Rock over the summer.  And since she's been the stand in for the more high strung Ann Grimshaw, I've managed to produce Adam, Eve and their apple tree.

 

 Companionable as Frances has been, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that as soon as the Finnegan's Fog does turn up in the mail, she's going to be unceremoniously dumped for Ann Grimshaw once again. I know for certain I'll come back to her eventually and she seems to be forgiving of my neglect in the meanwhile.  Let's just hope that in another year I'm not still sitting here looking at the naked babies that need to go on the other side of the tree.and feeling a little regretful that I wasn't more attentive....

And in other news...you just never know what's going to turn up when you change the furniture around!  After years and years of piling camera gear, equipment boxes and newspaper outtakes on the spare bed in the man cave, Jim  up and decided it was time for the whole heap to go, box springs and all.  I was thrilled beyond words - that bed has prevented easy access to my stitching closet for as long as I can remember!  But best of all, when the mountain was finally moved, I found the long lost cover to my little craft basket.  It had been missing for so long I'd given up  hope of ever seeing it again.  A quick run through the laundry and here it is, just like it was on Christmas 1984, which was when my mom made it for me.

.


Now I've got this wild hair of an idea that I might be able to get Mom to make an updated version of the same thing.  Her applique skills have improved quite a bit since then, as you might remember from this post...



We'll see what she comes up with, once I plant the hint....

Anyway, that's how things are for me on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  I'm hoping the next time you see a post, my turkey will be roasted, my tree will be decorated, my ornaments will be finished successfully and my Ann Grimshaw will be back in production.  If all that happens, I really will be  grateful.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Fruits of the Season

Good morning everyone - happy Monday! 

I've been patiently checking my mailbox (both the real one out front and the one on my computer) for signs of the long awaited Finnegan's Fog order, but nothing yet....sigh.   Until it turns up, Ann Grimshaw is in limbo.  I would have loved to have her finished by New Year's, which is when I started her last January. Unless the silk turns up today and my needle sprouts a pair of wings, that not likely to happen.

But I have managed to keep myself distracted with these fun Prairie Schooler mini-fruits!.  How about an apple...

A pear...

 

.

A pineapple....

 

 

 

and a nice bunch of grapes. 

 

I worked these little goodies up on a bit of R&R Irish Creme from my linen box and whatever DMC and miscellaneous overdyes I could scrounge up.  Stitching them was the easy part, finishing remains to be seen.  Any ideas for me?  I originally thought they'd be Christmas ornaments, but now I'm not so sure. With Thanksgiving and some days off approaching, guess I'll decide soon enough.

And speaking of Thanksgiving, one of my favorite things to do on November 1 is to get these little guys out - my Publix Pilgrims!

 

Several years ago, Publix had a Thanksgiving promotion with them starring in their own holiday ad.  The ad itself has become a sentimental favorite this time of year, even though the sales of little shakers  has run its course.  I love this!

One other bit of the season is this shot of ripe sea oats, taken yesterday on the beach at Ft. de Soto Park.   A cold front came through on Saturday that cleared all the humidity and gray funk out by Sunday morning.  The sky really was this brilliant!

So I'll spend this week looking ahead to the upcoming holidays and counting the days until the long-gone silks arrive for a return to Ann Grimshaw.  Have a great one!

All Hallows

Taken from  from our backyard, just after sun-up on All Hallow's Eve.

Happy Halloween!

Angels and Demons

Happy Sunday everyone!  I've already been for my walk this morning, which I was very glad to do at my favorite neighborhood park.  Thankfully, the season change is finally making its way this far south, allowing me to walk outside again without the risk of heat stroke, dehydration or swarms of mosquitoes.

So, first things first - an update on Ann Grimshaw

 

After our return from Key West, I was so excited about the idea of using the patterns and images from the trip for a new stitching project that I worked like a she-devil on Ann.  The good news is that I got these two beautiful motifs in in short order.

 

The bad new is that i just as quickly used up the last of my lighter skeins of Finnegan's Fog. With our trip and other things going on, I was late getting my order for more in and when I finally did, I was told it would take a month for it to be filled.  A full month - really??!  But with the order already submitted, I didn't really have much choice but to be patient and find something else to work on.  Hhmmmm....

Marly had already captured my attention lately with her Prairie Schooler Santas.  And could it have been more than a little coincidence that of all things to find  at Publix on a Saturday morning grocery shopping excursion was the 2013 JCS Christmas Ornament edition?  I haven't picked one of them up in several years and it's been even longer since I'd found it at the grocery store.  I decided it must have been there for a reason....time for me to shake off the ornament finishing demons that have followed me for waaaayyy too long.  Funny thing, I didn't find anything in this year's edition that was all that thrilling, but it did prompt me later that evening to get out all my old copies from previous years and have a long browse through them.  This Prairie Schooler contribution to the 2005 edition was the result.

I had enough room on the same piece of linen to also add this little guy.

 

I love his tiny size!  He came from this golden Prairie Schooler oldy:

 

Seeing how the ordered silk for a return to Ann isn't anywhere in sight yet, I think I'm going to keep working on more of the same for awhile.  The pear, pineapple, grapes and apple are on the radar next.  Seeing as I'll have a week off work around Thanksgiving, I'm planning to dedicate one of those days strictly to finishing - with some patience and skill this time - the end result.

But back to the images from Key West that were such an inspiration.  Here's another from our morning visit in the old cemetery - what an image of serenity.  Notice the detailing  in her collar, perfect for a stitched sampler motif....

 

Halley captured this one of Molly the other morning, looking not so angelic at all.  She's always up to something, the little devil!

So angels, or demons, I hope this finds you ready for the approaching seasons.  Thanks for stopping by!

Inspiration

Good morning to you all!  Not too much real time stitching has happened since my last post, but so much inspiration for something new has been churning in my head that I just have to put it out there.  As always, the place that holds my heart is the source....

Last weekend's visit to Key West was different than most for a number of reasons, but I  came home with so much to consider.  Rather than spending time exploring the outlying islands and seascapes as we usually do, this trip was devoted to absorbing the details of the old town.  After spending so much of my stitching time lately on Ann Grimshaw, the textures, patterns and colors that fill the island were everywhere I looked.  For example, this motif from Ann was brought to mind...

 

... with this bit of porchfront whimsy:

It was hard not to spot these eyelet patterns.....

 

 

...in the brickwork of the old Customs Building near Mallory Square.

 

An early morning visit to the Key West Cemetery called to mind similar patterns....

....from Sarah Tatum.

 

The shadows on an old crypt....

suggested another stitched image.

 

It was easy to spot a pattern something like the border of this motif....

 

on the balcony of the Truman House.

 

...
I even saw this floral circle.....

...inside the lighthouse.

So with the help of Jim's magical photography and a lifetime's gathering of linens and floss, I may just try my hand at fashioning a sampler that borrows color and images from Key West, but design and arrangement from the Quaker school girl style.  No set timeline for completion, just another item to add to my stitching bucket list....

February Dreaming

Hello everyone, hope your Sunday has been good so far! I'm experiencing major "fall envy" with all of you who are sharing your season changes and autumnal stitching projects.  September is always the worst down here.  I know that everyone living anywhere north of the Georgia-Florida state line is getting out their sweaters, building fires in their fireplaces and noticing a crisp change in the air.  At my house though, the ground feels spongy, we have thunderstorms every afternoon and the air conditioning never stops running,  Have to keep reminding myself that February will be glorious, but that seems like such a far time off now....

Anyway, I do have a little more progress to share on Ann Grimshaw, which I've focused on almost exclusively since my last posting.  Here she is:

Believe it or not, Anne is only about half finished, and I've already gone through more than two skeins of the Finnegan's Fog.  I do still have quite a bit of the darker dye lot on hand, but the lighter one is getting smaller and smaller.

I noticed on the Needle in a Haystack website that when purchasing more than one skein of the same silk you can check whether or not you'd like them both from the same dye lot. My first impulse was  of course I'd want them that way.  But then I starting thinking what a happy coincidence it was that the first three weren't all the same.  Maybe I'll take my chances again and just see what they send?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to picking up the pace for the missing motifs that will finish the current row.  After it's done I can move into the many alphabets underneath them.  It may just be me, but it feels as though them might move a little faster than the stuff on top has.

 

 I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm counting the minutes until tonight's episode of Breaking Bad.  Halley has been watching the show faithfully since it first premiered, but Jim and I have only been mesmerized by it since we signed on for Netflix a few months ago.  All summer long we've been trying to catch up and living from one episode to the next.  It's really cut into my stitching time, because the show is so compelling I can't just stitch and listen, I have to focus on it completely.  Her's a clip of one of my favoorite scenes. 

So on that note, I'll say "Adios, Heisenberg!"

....and I Really Should Be Back at School

Hello everyone, and welcome to September!  It seems all week the words of that old Rod Stewart song "Maggie May" have been floating in and out of my head, though I really can't keep many of them straight.  Still though, that part about "I suppose I should collect my books and head on back to school"  seems to suit my stitching as well.  After lolling the summer away on my Hemingway version of"Once Upon an Island, I've gathered my thoughts and returned to my school girls, namely Ann Grimshaw and Frances Eden  Here's a report on Ann:

She's not so very different from the previous time I posted about her, though I'm excited to see the last motif in the 3rd row coming up very soon.  One more row of big motifs and I'll be on to the alphabets! 

  Ann is such a big girl that I keep her tightly scrolled on the rods most of the time and don't often take a look at her from the top down.  It was great fun to unwind her this morning for photos and see how nicely the two different skeins of Finnegan's Fog were contrasting with each other.  It was also fun to stitch the eyelet M.

My other schoolgirl is Frances Eden, who's also been a very pleasant traveling companion over the summer..

Again, she's not a great deal different than the last time I posted a pic of her, though the lettering of the verse to this point was added during my week in Little Rock.  So far, Frances has been such easy straightforward stitching that I know I could get her finished fairly soon if I could just show her a little love.  Why is it the finicky, high-strung , high maintenance pieces are always the ones that draw all my attention?  Speaking of which, as I was serenely plucking along on Frances, this little she-devil crossed my mind and I had to at least have a flirtation with her.

This is Hands to Work, one of Tricia Nguyen's exquisite little pieces.  Yes, it's 40 count, and yes, it's over one...am I crazy?

Part of the thrill is how perfectly the silk fabric I found suits the stitching.  But still, I don't feel very certainly that I'll have enough eyesight, much less sanity, to get it done.

So that's how things are looking for me as of Labor Day.  I've loved seeing every one's thoughts shift to autumn on their blogs and in their stitching!  If you blink your eyes it will be Christmas.  Thanks as always for stopping!