It's time for St. Charles!!!

Despite my best blogging intentions, it seems that another couple of months have slipped away without a single post from me.  I think about blogging.  I even take photos to use for a post.  But then the post never happens, and I'm not even sure why.

At any rate, I'm here today, and I wanted to share SOME of what I've been working on these past few months.  It's almost time for the St Charles needlework market, and I have 4 new pieces that will be available at the show.  I'll share two today, and the other two in a day or two.

First up is my newest reproduction sampler, Antonia de Cruzba.  This one is a Spanish sampler I picked up at a local antiques fair for a good price.  It is very faded on the front, but you can see from the back that there were a couple of shades of pink in the sampler that are absolutely undetectable from the front.  Here's the orginal sampler:

And here's what it looks like once you add those pinks and use a clean piece of linen:

The model is stitched on 40 count Parchment linen from Weeks Dye Works using silk threads from NPI and Rainbow Gallery.  It is almost a perfect square, but not quite.  If you stitch it on 40 count, it is almost exactly the same size as the original sampler.  Although it is A LOT of stitching, the only types of stitches used are cross stitch and satin stitch.

This second piece is a Christmas ornament.  I actually designed it last year, and debated on what to do with it.  Well, here it is, all cleaned up and available as a chart:

It can be VERY difficult to capture the true color of a stitched piece when you are photographing it, and that is certainly the case with this piece.  The ornament is on a lovely piece of 35 count Guacomole linen from Weeks Dye Works, and you don't quite see that pretty green in this picture.  The stitching is all done with Weeks Dye Works overdyed cottons.

If you like what you see, please ask your LNS to order the patterns for you!  All of my designs are under the name "Threads of Memory," but they can be found in the Cherished Stitches room at the market, or, if your shop isn't going to market, they can be ordered through Cherished Stitches: lucystitch@earthlink.net .  If you have any questions about my designs, feel free to leave me a comment, or email me at robin@threadsofmemory.com .

Next time, I will share my Halloween design and a limited edition kit for a small pin pillow.  Til then, stay crafty my friends!

The best laid plans...

So I had plans for the blog this week.  Tuesday I was going to share my recent stitching, and then later in the week I was going to tell you all about my recent road trip to Delaware.  A stomach bug changed all that, and so I am just now getting around to sharing my recent finishes.  Which means that I have one more finish to share than originally planned.  : )

Stitching progress Chez Patrick has been good lately.  First off, I finally did the trimming and stuffing for a Little House ornament that I actually stitched over a year ago.

I used some Weeks felt for the side, and Crescent Colours rickrack in the recommended color.  The back is a piece of coordinating cotton, because I try to conserve my felt for when it will be seen (it's fabulous, but expensive, you know?).  I'm looking forward to putting this little beauty on my stitching Christmas tree in December.

I also finished Maria Selby Humphrey, the sampler that I started at the end of February.  I'll be taking this to Mom and Dad's next week to pick out a frame.

And finally, I finished the stitching on "Heaven and Nature Sing" from Country Stitches (or With Thy Needle and Thread.  I'm not sure which she has put this under).  I debated whether to go ahead and work on assembling the pillow, but have decided to put that off til closer to December.

I have also finished stitching the model for a Halloween piece I designed myself.  It seems a little early to share that, so I'll keep it for closer to release time (August, most likely).  I am currently still plugging away at charting some more reproductions, and I have started stitching on a small reproduction sampler from The Essamplaire, Isabella Cook.  I've had the kit for this sampler for years, but for some reason the pattern has really been on my mind for the past two weeks, so even though there are a million other things in progress that I could be working on, I pulled her out and have put a few stitches in her in the last two or three days.

Last weekend, my husband and I spent some time with my parents, and on our way home we stopped at my favorite garden nursery.  It's a bit early to buy my favorite flowers, but we did come home with two hanging baskets of blue lobelia for the front porch.  When I went to remove the baskets of dead ferns from last year, I found a little surprise sitting in one of them.  (Background: I intentionally left those baskets up because it amused me to watch the birds taking the dead fronds and fly around the baskets.  Now I 'suffer' the consequences)  There was a nest with a single egg in one of the baskets.  And to my delight, the bird who made the nest is a fan of fiber arts...

Do you see the green thread twined around the front of her nest?  So sweet!  Anyway, I discovered the nest on the first day that she began laying eggs.  Each day for the next 5 days, she added an egg, and now she sits on them for most of the day.  Two weeks from this past Tuesday, I expect to have 5 new hatchlings to admire.  She's a house finch, and so pretty tolerant of humans.  I watch her from the window, and plan to lower the basket a few times to see how things are going (but no touching!).  I am hoping that the cowbirds won't visit her nest this time around.

That's all for now.  Next time I hope to share photos from Delaware.  Til then, have many lovely days, my friends!

Merry Christmas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful day yesterday, whether, like me, you were celebrating the birth of Jesus, or just enjoying a day off and maybe some time with your loved ones.  I have taken a break from model stitching this week to work on finishing some Christmas ornaments.  These poor items have been sitting around all year.  They were stitched, but never got any further than that.  I have finished two so far, and hope to have another 2 (okay, at least one) finished by the time Saturday rolls around.

Here's one designed by Homespun Elegance:

And the second one isn't actually an ornament.  Technically it's a pincushion, from a kit by Shepherd's Bush.  So it has no business sitting in the tree.  Not that that stopped me:

It's early.  The house is quiet.  I am about to head into the living room to enjoy some undisturbed stitching time.  Merry Christmas to me!  Til next time, stay safe, and stay crafty.

Half Penny Angel and the snow

Yesterday evening, I finished an ornament for a friend. The design is Half Penny Angel from The Primitive Needle. I converted it to an ornament, stitched it on 40 count Sand Dune by Lakeside Linens, and finished it as a pillow. This was my first attempt at adding beads to an ornament. It worked, but it was an... interesting... experience. I don't know if I did it right, but I added the beads as I was joining the front to the back, placing the bead between the two sides on every 3rd stitch. The beads were all on the inside of the piece, and I had to push them through when I turned the ornament right side out. There's probably a more efficient way to do that...
Anyway, here's the ornament:

I've got the day off today, due to a ridiculous amount of snow (ridiculous for southern, coastal plains North Carolina). This is what it looks like outside my window this morning:

The weatherman is saying that we already have 3 and a half inches. That's great. What I'm not looking forward to is the ice storm arriving this evening.

The plan for today includes napping, reading, scrapping, and stitching some more versions of the ornament in the first picture of this post. Stitching can be a bit of a challenge in this household. I leave you with this image of the assistance I received last night in finishing the ornament. This is what my lap looked like:

Notice that there is room for a third cat to squeeze in just below my leg, since I OBVIOUSLY curled my leg up for just that very purpose (and not because it's comfy to sit that way for a few minutes). And please don't think for a minute that that unused space stayed empty for very long.

The tree is up, and a surprise from the mailman

Today, we decorated for Christmas. We headed out early to pick our tree, a 6 foot Fraser Fir. I wanted to get the tree inside the house early, because the forecast here in NC was/is for rain/snow. Sure enough, as we were putting the tree into the tree stand, it started sleeting on us. Fortunately, the sleet did not last very long, and it wasn't heavy enough to interfere with our plans. I love my tree. I've collected quite a few ornaments over the years. I try to get one from just about everywhere I visit on vacation, and I always add a few others over the year that catch my eye. Here's this year's tree in all her eclectic glory:

Some of my current favorite ornaments include this handblown glass ornament Alton bought for me from MOMA 2 years ago:

You can't tell so much from this photo, but it really shines as it hangs from the tree. THe top of the tree is adorned with a huge star straw I bought on a visit to the NC Mountains. Does it look at all familiar? There were stars of a very similar nature decorating the White House Christmas tree a few years back, by the same artist.

And then there are the annual, park exclusive Disney ornaments I've been collecting since 1995. Here's the one from last year. I'm just crazy for these things, and I have all of them from 1995 to today except for 2005. I was at Disney in 2005, but it was too early in the year to get the annual ornament. Sigh!

No one in the family made it to Disney this year, so I've looked up the number for one of the holiday themed shops at DisneyWorld. Tomorrow, I am going to attempt to purchase and have delivered the 2010 ornament. Wish me luck, it might be hard to describe well enough for the clerk to figure out!
Of course, there's some stitchy action going on too. These ornaments live on their own little tree, a metal one, free from the corrosive action of tree sap.

And after we finished putting the tree up, I sat down and finished another little Christmas ornament!

Isn't the fat little cardinal cute? I got this pattern all kitted up from my friend Chris a while book. Look, Chris, I finally finished it! I also finished this little guy:


This is the second time I've finished it up. I know it's a little out of season, but I've been waiting to get my hands on some more stuffing. As you can see from what I stitched on the back of the ornament, I stitched the original version of this piece for the Fall Fling at Myrtle Beach this year. I wanted my own copy, and I wanted to remember what I'd stitched it for, hence, the labelling on the back.
About halfway through our decorating bonanza, the mailwoman knocked on the door. She had two packages in her hands, all for me! I recognized one package as a gift I had ordered for my mom. But the other box was really big, and I had no clue what it was. Heh heh, it was an early Christmas gift to... MYSELF! I had completely forgotten about ordering a Swan Sampler Guild exclusive produced by In the Company of Friends. Each gorgeous piece inside the box was individually wrapped. I was so excited opening toy after toy, I was literally bouncing up and down. I made Alton admire every single one of them. I don't think he was all that impressed. I hope some of you are wise enough to be more appreciative. ; ) The hornbook came with a little pattern of a seated stag to stitch and attach to the back. I'm gonna pick out some fabric and thread to stitch it up soon, very soon.

Til next time, happy creating, and Merry Christmas!