Two More Squares and a New Start

Howdy friends! How was your week? Mine was filled with rain and thunderstorms, plus I made a quick trip to Grand Rapids, MI for a business meeting. Never a dull moment in my neck of the woods!

Two more squares complete - yahoo! I may actually make the August deadline. If you've dropped by before, you know that I am working on this project with a group of friends. I am stitching two squares each for Joan, Jill, Chris, Jackie, and Lori, plus two squares for myself. Finished up Jackie's squares this week, now I just have to stitch Lori's squares and my own. The pattern is from With My Needle and it is called "A Token of Friendship." These are Jackie's squares:



I also think I need to have my head examined. I started a new project last weekend; just couldn't help myself! I had the itch to stitch this design and picked up the fabric when I was at Stitchville last Saturday. The pattern is Loose Feathers #3 and it is called Evening Shades the Garden. The fabric is a really soft yellow (it doesn't look yellow in the photo though, sorry.) As you can see I have most of the outside border stitched and most of the alphabet. I'll start on the flowers next.




I went searching for this pattern after seeing it finished on Irma's blog. Irma hasn't posted for a long time; I really miss her posts. She was always working on projects that appealed to me and she had a real talent for photographing her finished pieces.

We were going to go up to the lake and try to spend some time cleaning up the yard, but we've had so much rain lately that we decided it would be a wasted trip. Hopefully it will be drier next weekend and then we can get the lawn mowed and do some trimming and then maybe have some time left to enjoy the cabin and the lake!

Hope you all enjoy today and the week ahead. Thanks for stopping by!

Time is Flying By

Oh my, it has been a long time since I last posted. Where does the time go? Granted, we've had a busy spring with a graduation and all kinds of grad parties to attend. I hope things will start slowing down a little bit soon! With all of these parties and other activities, I haven't done very much stitching lately.

I have stitched a couple of hardanger doilies; this is my favorite pattern which I acquired several years ago. I copied the actual doliy that my cousin had obtained while traveling in Norway. I only have a picture of this one - forgot to take a photo of the other one before I gave it away. The filling stitches do not show up real well against the green background fabric, oh well....


And here are a couple more completed blocks for the With My Needle A Token of Friendship project that a group of us are working on. These blocks are for Chris.

The first block for Jackie is started:

I've completed three sets of blocks (two-each) for Joan, Jill, and Chris. I still need to complete Jackie's, Lori's and my own by our mid-August deadline.

I am looking forward to July. Want to know why? Joan and I are heading to the Silver Needle to see Barb and Alma from Blackbird Designs. We had so much fun at the Stitchville retreat in April that we had to do it again. The bonus is the trip to the Silver Needle. I have never visited their shop and can't wait to see it. Anyone else in blogland going to attend this event at the Silver Needle?

Looks like it is going to be a beautiful day in Minnesota - we could use a nice day. Last week some terrible storms ripped through our state, killing three people. It sounds like there is more rain and stormy weather coming in the week ahead.

Happy Stitching!

Finally Something Stitchy!

I've had a horrible case of the stitching blues lately. I seem to spend more time thinking about stitching than I spend actually stitching! Well, I've had a few distractions, like DD's graduation. By the way, thank you very much for all the congratulatory wishes! One more event to get past - the grad party is this weekend. Maybe then life will return to normal or something that resembles normal.

Here's what I have been working on lately; I pulled out a WIP and decided to put a few more stitches in it. It looks like I started this back in September of 2009 (and if I used labels it would have taken me less than 15 minutes to figure that out!) I can't find any other posts about my progress on this one after that. Let's just say that I had about 2/3 of the border complete. Either I became bored or just experienced a bad case of startitis because the piece went into my WIP basket.

I pulled it out last weekend and put in a few more stitches -



For those of you who might not recognize it, this pattern is from Hands to Work and it is called "This is the Day." The pattern was published in the February 2009 issue of Just Cross Stitch. I am stitching mine on 32ct WDW Cappucino (the pattern calls for LL Autumn Gold.)

Now, I must admit, I'm having trouble with this one. Either I've lost my ability to count, or I'm challenged by the fact that the pattern is spread out over four pages in the magazine - but I spent a good portion of Saturday night pulling out everything I had stitched that night. On Sunday I re-stitched and thought everything was good, only to realize that it's still not quite right. I ran out of the Sampler Threads Tomato thread so I can't stitch the word "Glad" until I get more. I think may need some additional Picnic Basket too. At this point, I'm going to make it work. Many of you stitched this one last year, did anyone else have trouble or is it just me?

Regardless of my counting troubles, I still love this design. I think it will look great when finished.

Guess I better run. Need to catch the news and then it's bedtime. Thanks for stopping by.