Saturday Stitch Day

Let's call yesterday "Stitch Day" because I was either stitching or doing something related to my stitching most of the day. Now I will admit I got a late start, I mean it was Saturday, but I made up for it by staying up late.

I'll start by showing you the progress I made on The Old Crow design from La-D-Da. Have I mentioned this is stitched on a Weeks Dye Works linen, that I just love? It's so soft and easy to stitch with. I am using the DMC colors rather than the Needlepoint Inc silks (NPIs) that it called for. After I got this started Mary Janes, the online shop, announces they will now be carrying NPIs. Not to be for this project, but I am glad to now have a place to purchase these great silk threads.

Back to my progress

This picture isn't zoomed in very well but you can click on any of the photos for a better look. I hope to finish out the branch and the border across the top today and have an update on Monday or Tuesday.

And..since I did finish that Graduation Day project I thought I would start something new. Then I had second thoughts, because all thoses old UFO's are still calling to be worked on. So I pulled out Victorian Winter another project started about three years ago. It's from a Cross Stitcher magazine (Feb 2009) and was designed by Lettie Eckberg. A friend had given me a big "wad" of this overdyed bluish burgundy color silk thread from a large hank someone had passed on to her and I had the blue/gray overdyed linen laying around, from who knows where, and a project was born. Here is my progress as of yesterday.

It was nice to stitch on this again and I bounced back and forth between this and The Old Crow for a while.

When I stopped for little stitching break (aka a nap), I ended up not resting, but instead looking through some old stitching magazines and came across this.

A series published by Just Cross Stitch in 2011, designed by Sally Hesketh. But after going through all the magazines, I realized I only had 2 of the 4 issues from 2011 to complete the series. So off to eBay I went, to search for the missing issues. Only one auction had what I needed, except, that I would have to buy all 6 issues from that year to get the 2 I needed. After a few emails back and forth with the seller, she agreed to sell me just the two I needed for half of her beginning auction price on the others. Good for me and probably good for her too. These should be on their way to me this week.

I will still need fabric and threads pulled together for this band sampler but I hope to start it in time for the April retreat with my friends as the top section is spring. We'll see.

OK, one more thing. Last night I got tired of the skaters and the Old Crow wasn't speaking to me, but there was this new project with fabric and threads all ready to start (I had taken it to retreat last fall and never touched it), and I think I could actually hear it calling out to be stitched.

I couldn't resist so here is my new start on Ink Circle's First Bass.

A family friend will get his degree in music this spring and he happens to play the bass violin, you know that great big giant thing with strings. I got to attend his senior reciltal and he was great. Since he's known me for a while (he was 9 or 10 when we moved here), he won't mind getting a stitched piece as a gift, and I think it will be pretty in a frame with a couple of mats to dress it up. He can always hang it in his music room - aka the extra bedroom needed to house that big giant stringed thing.

Well that's all for today, so back to stitching, although I may have to pause for some housework today.

CJ in OK ;-)