Hermit Weekend.............

Just a little up date on my hermit weekend.  I did the finishing on Swan Lake Mending Bag by Merry Cox.  This was an online class that Merry offered in June of 2010. I have had all the smalls done for over a year now.  I take it slow on my finishing and I do not rush.  I have been looking at this bag all pinned up for about 6 months now and decided that it was time to get this done.

So I jumped in sewed the bottom of the bag to the receipe card and then sewed the bag to the outside of stitched piece.  Added the cording.

I then proceeded to make the coil handles.  This was not as easy as it looked.  I needed to take the coils and then tack them to the bag.  It took me 3 hours just to do both handles.

Next step was to stitch the pocket and needle pages to the inside panels.  And Viola....finished.  I was so happy to finally get something done.

Onto my next project of finishing is Merry's "Flowers in the Fall".  I have a good start at the finishing on this project so I am hoping to get this one done soon.

Thank you for stopping by.  Take care and happy stitching.

Another finish...............

Hello stitching friends.  I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day.  Made it through the parties at school and then my husband and I will celebrate Valentine's Day around our anniversary, Feb. 27th.  That way it is one big celebration.

This weekend is the 3rd weekend of the month and it is the International Hermit and Stitch weekend.  I did not check in at Random Ramblings  blog, but I am stitching in spirit this weekend.

I did finish SB Tiny Flag.  I am a member at large with the Swan Sampler Guild out of Salt Lake City, Utah.  I have met some of these ladies when I went to the Attic and they are so sweet.  I hope someday that I will be able to go to one of the meetings or classes/retreats that they offer.   For the month of February they were going to stitch SB Tiny Flag.  I had the kit and decided to join them from afar.  I started this on the 7th and finished it up just a little while ago.  You could either frame it or make it into a pin cushion.  I decided to do the pincushion.  So this will go into the pile of finishings.

I have just been plugging away on ATS....I have finally reached the bottom.  So excited that I do see me getting this done by July.  This will be nice to get this BAP done and off my list.

I will be working on Alpine Garden from the DT next.  Hope to get this one done by the end of March.  I will save a picture for next time.

On a different note.  We have a farm and had to buy a tarp for the top of our stock trailer.  I noticed that when I was helping my husband tie it down he was doing some kind of knot.  As I watched him a little bit...I said "Hey"..........."you are doing hedabo".  He said what?  I said Hedabo.  He laughed and told me what kind of knot it was...I laughed and told him that in the stitching world that is known as Hedabo.  I even showed him one of my projects that had a hedabo loop for the closure.  He said yup that is it.  Here is my husband's "Hedabo" stitch.

My little Shadow (min. dachshund) has a friend out in blog land, Ms. Limo.  I always show Shadow Ms. Limo and she seems interested in getting to know Ms. Limo a little bit more.  I know Ms. Limo has not seen a picture of Shadow, so I will share one of her wanting to jump up on my lap and blog with me.  Merumo...to bad we did not live closer..we have a fabulous dog park for play dates.

Well take care everyone.  Thank you all for visiting.  On to some finishing for the rest of the weekend.

WIPocalypse February Check In

Wow...can't beleive it is February already.  Were did January go? 

I finished two things on my list of WIP's.
They are WMN's "Quaker Needlework Treasures" which I have shared a photo below.
I am not sure what it is stitched on as I started this project a couple of years ago.
But the fiber I used was WDW Deep Sea.  The stitching part is done but will have to put this on my list of "Finishings". 
I also finished SB "Friends", which you can see a picture of it here.  This was not actually a WIP.  I started this in my CJC starts, but wanted to get it done for this year.  It went by very fast.  I used the fabric and fibers that were in the kit.
I am working on "ATS" hot an heavy right now.  I have started stitching at least one motiff a night so I can get this done by July.
I thought I would have  "Something Blue" done by this weekend, but my family just does not understand my need for stitching time.   So now my goal is by February to get this one done. 

Other stitching news....
Last Friday I signed up for the Merry Cox classes at the Attic in November.   She is my all time favorite designer.  I have taken several of her classes in Minnesota, Williamsburg, Arkansas and in Arizona.  She is a fabulous teacher and I have learned so much from her.  If you can take a class from her do so...you will not be disappointed. 
I am taking all three clases.  They are Le Nouveau Palais Royal , Sweet Little Blossoms, and her new piece that she just taught at Christmas in Williamsburg this past December So Dear to Thy Heart.  Merry will be teaching her Palais Royal set twice as I suspect the demand for this class is going to be pretty high.  (I signed up for Thursday's class, as my plan will be to fly back home on Sunday.)  Merry brought this to show the last time she taught at the Attic in 2010.  Let me tell you...it is stunning in person.  Everyone right then and there all agreed hands down that she needed to teach that one the next time she came.    There will be prestitching for these classes, and my WIP's will have to be put on the back burner for awhile until I get these done.  As you can see by the list of projects that I still have to do the finishing on, most of them are Merry's pieces.  I do a little bit in class, but I like the comfort of my home and my things for finishing.  I do have pieces that are done and I will save them to show for another time.  

I want to say thank you for stopping by.  As a newbie blogger it is so nice to read comments and personnel emails.  What a great thing this internet is to connect so many stitchers together so we can all share our passion of the needlearts.
Til next time..keep those needles a flying...........................

Happy Groundhog Day!

Well it looks like Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and that means 6 more weeks of winter.
If our winter here in NW Arkansas stays the same for the next six weeks it would be awesome.  We have had temps in the mid 60's.  Very mild and spring like weather for us here.  Love it.

I finished "Friends" by Shepherd's Bush.  This stitched up real quick.  I am going to order the mats and frame from Rensel Studios.  I just love the way she does the SB Mats.

I am 3/4 of the way done with "And They Sinned".  Down to the grass portion.  I have decided to stitch one motif each night.  I want to get this done in July then it will be 6 years in the making.  Started in July of 2006, and want to finish in July 2012.  Was hoping that I would have gotten it done last July but that did not happen.  I saw where Margaret has been stitching on this and it has really inspired me to want to get mine done.  Thank you Margaret.

In between the motif stitching I have started back on the WIP "Something Blue" by Brightneedle.  I am hoping to have this finished by this weekend.  (Pictures will be in next post.)

I also am going to play catch up this weekend and do the finishing on Merry Cox's "Swan Lake Mending Bag".  I don't have to much more and it will be finished.

Thank you for visiting.

Crazy January is Over.........

I am so happy that the CJC is over.  Last year I got bored with my new starts that half way through the month..."I said to heck with this" and just stitched on what I wanted.  But this year I persevered to the end.  So I have 15 new starts for the year.  Not that I will get back to them any time soon.
So here are the last few starts for January.
25-26 of January I started SB Friends.  I stitched the Friends on the start dates, but have stitched on this since then as my work project.  This is stitching up fast, so I hope to be done by this weekend.

27-28th of January I started Merry Cox's Sampler Band Shaker Box and Accessories.
I have to tell you a little about this one.  I am a big fan of Merry Cox.  (As you can tell by the list projects of hers below that I need to do the finishing on).  My husband and I were in the southern part of Missouri, around the Branson, Table Rock area.  If you come to our part of the states...it seems like there are antique shops everywhere in the boonies. Well there was one shop that we would pass all the time and I told my husband if we have time I would like to stop.   We stopped and as I was looking around I spied a little shaker box that had $20 on it.  I thought was a steal.  So as I was picking it up I noticed this chart that went with it.  My heart was beating fast.  I could not believe it.  Was I actually looking at a kit for a Merry Cox project.  Why yes I was.  This is dated back to 1995.  WOW.  I couldn't let this little shaker box be alone any more and I was happy to give it a loving home.

Then last but not least (I was so happy that this was the end), 29-30th new start was VS Silk Wisteria.  I only stitched on this one day as I was tired of new starts and wanted to get to work on my WIPs.

I was excited as I received my kit for Amy Mitten's new on-line class, Friesland Winder Keeper.  I love the blues and greens of this project.  I will be starting this maybe sometime this weekend.  This will be a work at my own pace project.

Well my WIP's are calling me, come stitch on me.  I hope to have a couple of projects done by this weekend.

Thank you for all the kind comments.  It sure makes me want to stitch, and keep up my blog.  Til next time.  Happy stitching.

A time for Celebration..............

It's time to CELEBRATE.  I have reached a milestone with this blog.  I have posted 6 times this year.  Needless to say if you look at my archives over the past 5 years...yes 5 years, the most I have posted in one year is 5 times and in 2009 I did not post anything.  So this is a time to celebrate.
I did just that this past weekend with the International Hermit and Stitch weekend.
It started out real well on Friday night.  I stitched on SB Charmed Hearts which was one of my CJC projects and then stitched on WMN Quaker Needlework Treasures.  Saturday was not all that productive....11 yr. old has swim practice and then that afternoon we sold some wood, which the people wanted it delivered and after that went out to dinner, did not get much stitching accomplished.  Then Sunday was the day......I was able to get WMN's Quaker Needlework Treasures done.   This is the WIP on my list that I wanted to get done this year. The finishing will have to wait til next year as I got my list all lined up on what finishing I want to do for this year.

So I am still plugging away on the CJC.  Only a few more days and then I will be stitching on my WIPS.

On the 13-14 of January I stitched on SB Come Terry.  Not much is done as we had a swim meet.  I only got part of the shoe done.  At least it is a start. Sorry the picture is so dark.  (I am using my Handycam for pics and just getting the hang of the lighting.)

Next for the 15-16 I started DT Acorn Sampler.  This was a fun one to start.  Love the queen stitches already.  Might have to add this one to my pile for this year.

Next on the list for the 17-18 was WMN My Treasures.

Then the 19-20 I stitched on SB Charmed Hearts.  I started sorting out the color's on the color card that SB gives in each kit and come to find out....I was short 4 colors.  I bought this kit about 10 years ago...so I looked in my stash of Au Ver Soie d'alger and needless to say I had every color around the colors that I needed.  Oh well...instead of contacting SB I am just going to go out an buy me the skeins that I need.  But I did start on the vine part as I did have both the light and dark greens.

I guess I was in a SB mood as the 21-22 was Snowy Morn.  I don't know if I like the fabric of this one.  It is dark but as I am stitching on it, the piece of linen seems to be lighting up.  So I think it will be ok.

And the last one for now is the DT Toccatta II 23-24.  I don't know if I will get a chance to stitch on this one tonight or not.  Helping my oldest with his homework.  

So there is only a few days left of January.  WOW can't believe 2012 is trucking right along.  I had on my list that the 25-26 was going to be Amy Mitten's online class (as this was the start date) Friesland but when I got to reading the info again, it said she would be mailing out the kits on the 25th.  So I better put something in it's place as I don't know how fast we will receive our kits from Canada.  So I will be stitching on SB Friends.  

Thank you for visiting.

I have decided to join the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. This takes place on the 3rd weekend of each month. This works out perfectly for me this weekend as last weekend was a swim meet and so is next weekend. This gives me an excuse to stay home do a little bit of laundry, light housework and relax and stitch. What a perfect thing to do on a weekend. I hope to stitch on not just my starts for January but some on my WIP's.

I will take pictures of my progress this weekend and hope to do a follow up on Sunday night with my accomplishments. My time will start at 3pm as this is when I get off of work...but won't actually get to stitch til around 4 or 5pm. Have to pick up kiddos and check on critters around the farm.

Hope everyone gets some stitching in this weekend.
Thomasina