TUSAL

Good grief, are things getting busy around here! I had a wonderful shower last weekend, and we're heading out for another round of celebration this afternoon. This time, it's a mani/pedi party!

My March TUSAL update is ready, but it looks like I accidentally focused on the bricks instead of the jar. Whoops. I'd redo the photo, but it's raining here. This will be the last update with that brick background. By the time the next update rolls around, I'll be living in my new home with my new name. Actually, I won't even be around for the next update. I may try preloading the update, or I may just have to skip April's update. We'll see. Anyway, here it is:

The newest threads at the top of the jar come from a piece I've been working on this week that arrived in the mail with this lot:

I cracked that BBD Limited Edition box open immediately and set to stitching on it. It suited my springy mood. It's now completely finished except for the button. The holes in the button are so narrow that I need a beading needle to attach it, and I've packed all my beading needles! Fortunately, Mom is supposed to be bringing me a needle so that I can finish the piece later this afternoon. I'll post a photo of my finished stitching with my next post.

I want to thank those of you who shared suggestions for dealing with my worries about running out of thread. I especially loved the idea of blending one length from each skein in order to keep the differences between dye lots from being so noticeable. Unfortunately, I am stitching with one thread. Fortunately, I did have enough to finish the grass. But then I packed the sampler without taking a photo of my progress. Whoops.

I am back to work on my Gyrafa sampler, but I haven't done enough on it to merit a progress photo. Til next time, I hope everyone stays safe from all this crazy weather, and that you have a frog-free week!

As boring as watching grass grow

I know the real phrase actually talks about watching paint dry, but I'm struggling through a massive amount of green grass on my Soleil project. It just goes on and on and on. It's pretty, but not all that interesting to me. The only drama is whether I can make it all the way through that lawn without running out of silk. The chart didn't say I would need more than one skein, but I strongly suspect that I will. Which wouldn't be a big deal if this weren't an overdyed silk. I know I have another piece of a skein in my stash, but I don't know how similar the dye lot will be. And I'm not gonna look til I have to. So here's what I've accomplished since last week's post:

I've also finished all of the darker green in the border. My sides met, although there are two stitching errors. They were so far behind me by the time I realized it that I'm not going to frog back to them. I don't think they will be too obvious. I hope it's not too obvious.

On Saturday, several of my family members, stitching friends, and childhood friends gathered at my mom's house for my first wedding shower. It was so wonderful to get to spend a little time with those who could make it, and I think everyone had a blast. I know I did. I don't have any photos at this point to share, but I will say this: the shower had a Hawaiian theme. My dear, sweet sister tricked me into eating a Spam sandwich (Spam is very popular in Hawaii), and they spiked my tiki drink without telling me. Then they put me in a grass skirt, etc, etc. It was silly, but fun. My mom, sister, and sister in law really knocked it out of the park. And I made them each a little something to thank them for taking the time to celebrate with me:

Each piece is finished with some vintage lace and some Blueberry Crumbcake fabric. Here's the view from the back:

In other news, I am truly having a great time watching the yard at my future home bloom and grow. Alton and I had planted some daffodils and crocus under one of the Bradford pears in the front yard. And hooray, they came up! I have never tried to plant crocuses before, so I was glad those weren't a total bust. And I love daffodils. I planted some at my childhood home, and that first planting is still going mad at the house, all these years later. I'm hoping that these newly planted daffodils will also divide and multiply in the years to come.


I have never had much success growing pansies in pots. Which is ridiculous, because they are supposed to be a super easy plant. I won a yellow pansy at a stitching event last fall. I am pleased (and a little surprised) to see that it is still going strong.


The previous owner must have also been quite fond of flowers. There are a few daffodils blooming that I did not plant, as well as a handful of hyacinth.

I think there are tulips growing in several spots in the yard. The Bradfords are working their way into a full bloom as well.

Gus the cat was able to spend a little time outside on Sunday. I think he was a little jealous earlier in the day when he was stuck inside looking out:

I am on the road to recovery from my throat/cough thingy. Hooray! Now it's on to a busy week of work, and hopefully a good little bit of stitching. Til next time, I hope everyone has lots of creative time on their hands.

March WIPocalypse update and a BAP update too

Where does the time go? This has been a busy month, trying to close things out at work, packing, and planning. And for the past week or so, there hasn't been a ton of time for stitching. I imagine things are going to get even busier for the next month, and then things will hopefully slow down some.

On to my stitching: I had to set aside my BAP Challenge piece about a week and a half ago to work on some gifts, and here's what it looks like so far:


You can finally see where the giraffe's legs are! Hooray, the big blobs of color look like a bit of something. I hope to put in another week's stitching later this month.

I also worked on two WIPs. This first one is a Halloween ornament that I did the actual stitching for last year. I didn't completely finish it, but I did do the outlining of the pillow, cut it free from the larger piece of linen, and cut the backing fabric out as well.

Finally, I picked up Sous le Soleil de la Lune by Reflets de Soie. I bought and started this sampler after seeing progress photos on another blogger's posts. It was just so beautiful that I had to have it for myself. And I am loving all these gorgeous overdye Gloriana silks it is stitched with! Here's what it looked like when I set it aside sometime last year:

And here's where I'm at as of yesterday morning:

I added some more to the green border and worked on the yard and houses. I know these photos aren't very exciting, maybe next month will be better. Maybe.

I'll be posting photos of the gifts that I'm working on after this weekend's shower. Then you can see what I've spent more of my stitching time on! My goals for this month are to put in a week or so on my giraffe sampler, maybe another 2 weeks on Soleil, and to finish at least one pillow (maybe the Halloween one, or maybe one that's non-seasonal).

That's it for today. I hope this post was mostly coherent. I've caught some nasty little bug and I'm feeling a little loopy. And I'm in the process of losing my voice. Hopefully, this won't completely ruin this weekend's shower for me. And maybe this will be my one time to be sick this spring and that I won't be sick next month for my wedding and honeymoon. Til next time, I hope everyone has lots of time to be creative!

TUSAL Ort Report for February and BAP Challenge update

My ort jar doesn't seem to be getting any fuller. It travels with me back and forth to my fiance's house, and I think the vibrations of the car must be shaking the threads into a more compacted state. I swear there was stitching done this month!

Most of my stitching time this month has been dedicated to the Gyrafa Sampler I'm doing for BeckySC's BAP Challenge. It still doesn't look like much to me. I've decided that I really don't love the colors of this sampler. It's far to dull. But I'm fascinated by the fact that the sampler is about a giraffe, so I'll stick to it. I'm basically stitching it one page at a time. There are 8 pages and I am entirely done with one page. So just over 1/8 of the way through. I think I will keep working on this one until Friday, at which point I will put some time in on some thank you gifts I'm making for some of my wedding assistants (you didn't think I could make it all the way through a post without mentioning the word "wedding" did you?). I took two photos of Gyrafa, one of the whole thing, and one a little more closeup of the most finished section.


In non-stitchy news, I had to take the littlest guy in to have his little unmanning operation. (why is he still here? He was supposed to move into a nice, shiny new home shortly before my grandmother passed away. Sigh) Unfortunately, I waited a wee bit too long for this operation, and he discovered the joys of spraying the week before his operation. In a word, disgusting. But he seems to have gotten over it now, thank goodness. He had to spend several days away from the other cats, and the day after I brought him back home, I discovered this for the very first time:

I think Lucky might have missed him a little bit.

Well, that's it for now. I'm fighting something nasty in my throat and nose right now. I'm not sure if it's a cold or if it's my allergies as I was doing some more cleaning/sorting last night and I'm allergic to dust mites. Whichever it is, I don't feel very good, and I'm starting to sound a little nasty too. Hopefully, it will pass quickly.

Don't forget to check my last post for the names of the winners of my de-stashing giveaway.

And the winners are...

Sorry it's taken me so long to getting around to this. Life has been a little busy here recently. I've pulled the names of the people interested in each package, and randomly drew a name for each package.

The winner of the "Nature Package" is Southpaw Stitcher.

The winner of the "Celtic Package" is Ellen of Cross Stitch Passion.

The winner of the "Sampler Package" is Margaret of Days of a Sampler Lover.

The winner of the "Fantasy Package is Cleejoow.

The winner of the "Theresa Wentzler Package" is geekyHeather.

Congratulations, ladies! Please email me with your full names and mailing addresses. If you get them to me by Friday afternoon, I will do my darnedest to get those packages in the mail by Monday. I hope you enjoy your new patterns, kits, and fabrics. Thank you to everyone for playing along.

WIPocalypse, February check-in

I an't believe it's already been a month! Where does the time go? (possibly into planning a wedding, but who knows!) I am happy to announce that there have been several items marked off my WIPocalypse list, even one that I didn't know belonged on the list! IF you want to learn more about the WIPocalypse, or see what others are working on, go here.

I think I'll go in reverse order here. This week, I spent a little time working on my Sarah Johnson reproduction sampler. I got this little piece several years ago. It's only a little larger than 5x7, and I quickly stitched almost all of it. I ran into difficulties when I a) ran out of the color of silk I needed and b) ran out of stitches to put in the piece except for satin stitches. Satin stitches tend to bore me. Especially the kind of free form satin stitches that were needed to stitch the leaves on this tree. Sarah has spent a loooong time in the ufo pile. Here she is when I finally picked her back up:

And here she is, finally finished as of last night:

See how little was left in order to finish this piece? Shameful really. But now she's done, and ready for a frame. Hooray for the WIPocalypse to inspire me to finish something!
This month, I also found this ornament and finished it off:

Another Sarah, Sarah Hatton McPhail, went from looking something like this at the beginning of the year:

To a complete finish earlier this month:

I also started, and finished, three other pieces. I'm not sure if those count for the WIPocalypse or not. But hey, they are FINISHED!!!
I made a small bit of progress on my BAP challenge piece as well:

It still doesn't look like much, but still, progress is progress. I think this month's stitching goal will be to continue working on my BAP piece, work on several small gifts for people who are helping me with my wedding, and MAYBE finish off one of these little pin pillow or ornaments that's lying around waiting for finishing.

Don't forget about my giveaway. There are still a few days left to join in, if you'd like. You can read about it here.

BAP progress and another finish

Hello, hello! Since my last post on the 25th, I have been working on two stitching pieces. First off, I started (and finished, gasp) "Breath of Spring" by Blackbird Designs. I stitched it using the called-for threads on 36 count Aerial fabric from Picture This Plus. I trimmed it using some Prima lace and the backing (which I forgot to take a picture of) is from Blackbird Designs Blueberry Crumbcake. Here it is:

I have also made a good bit of progress on my Gyrafa sampler for Becky's BAP Challenge. This border is a wee bit boring, and I'm looking forward to moving on to other parts of the sampler. The main part of the border kind of blends in with the fabric in this photo. I like how subtle it looks, though.

The tan part of the border stretches out a good bit further, but you couldn't really see it in the bigger photo I took, so I suppose you'll just have to trust me!

In other news, the wedding preparations are moving along in good order. I picked up my dress this weekend, this time in the proper color. On Sunday, my brother, sister, mom, dad, and sister in law all joined me in a rather crazy (but fun) day of wedding work. My brother showed off his musical skills and we discussed potential ceremony music (some serious ideas and some not so serious). My sister, sis in law, and I worked on the centerpieces, which I am happy to say are now complete. We talked about shower plans. We raided Dad's studio for props that could be used during the ceremony/reception. We even found another bird cage! I've almost completely finished addressing the invites, with lots of help from Alton. And the honeymoon plans are moving ahead as well. There are still a million things to do, but I feel like we've entered the more fun stage of the planning (ie, the part where we get to think about all those sweet little details instead of worrying about the big issues like where and who is available to help us). I am about to start working on a little stitching project for a few of the people involve in our wedding, so there MAY not be a lot of progress photos in the near future. Oh, except for the photos of what I stitched for Mom. I'm still waiting on images of those, and will share as soon as I can.

Don't forget about my giveaway. You can find it here.