A busy holiday weekend!

While I didn't do anything outside the house, I did enjoy my 3-day holiday weekend. I started out by treating myself to breakfast at the local family restaurant. I had been jonesing for their Strawberry Crepes and I certainly wasn't disappointed. They were totally yummy! I don't eat out alone like that very often, but I had my book and just enjoyed the experience. Then I headed to the Hallmark store to get cards, but also found out they were clearing out their ornament section to make room for this year's editions. I got 5 ornaments for $13!! Thinking ahead to Christmas gifts, that helped a lot! I made another stop at K-Mart and then got gas before heading home. And it's still Friday! LOL

I puttered in my stash room a bit and ran across something that I could use for a baby gift. My dear friend Jan of Only One Ewe Needleworks became a 1st time Nana on Thursday. Alexandra Catherine was born at 12:53AM! I found a cute little pattern and made these up for her.


I worked on Let Freedom Ring the remainder of the day Friday, while watching good old classics - Mr. Roberts, Yankee Doodle Dandy, etc. I managed to finish the bell on Friday. It is the largest solid stitching on the piece and I'm glad it's behind me. I got more done yesterday and will probably work on it again sometime this week. It's 1 strand over 2 on 40ct so I can only work on it for so long before I go cross-eyed! LOL

The big accomplishment for the weekend was getting Deftly Wrought finished during the SNS this weekend. I just love the verse on this, it's what drew me to the piece in the first place. Jan's conversions are just beautiful aren't they? The fabric is 32ct Maple Sugar and the threads are CCs.


I did get to see some fireworks from my front door. There's a small private country club a few blocks from me and they had a fireworks display. They were louder than I would have liked since they were so close, but what I saw was lovely. I did have one of my furbabies freak out with them going off. Surprisingly it was the youngest and the toughest - Bo! He didn't like them one bit! The other 2 slept thru most of them.

It was a nice quiet weekend and a wonderful stitching weekend for me. Now I'm back at work for another slow week, but I can look forward to the weekend because my niece Amy is staying with me and we will be visiting my LNS for a shopping trip! I've already started my list! LOL

Thank you for your kind comments! Have a wonderful week!

Here's the VanTasel house!

As promised, here is the finished manor house on Sleepy Hollow. I did take a picture of the entire piece, but it came out blurry so I'll re-take it and post it later this month. Probably after I get some more work done on the piece. It took nearly 3 skeins of Weeks London Fog to stitch this roof.

Finishing this means that I have only 1 side of the piece to complete. The Old Dutch Church, the graveyard, 1 more tree, and the moon. I should have it finished before Halloween!

Bits & Pieces

The semi-lazy days of summer have commenced and altho I work Monday thru Friday, I try to stuff a lot of doings into my evenings and weekends. Of course, when you have a weekend such as I did 2 weeks ago, it throws off the balance. I was miserable. My A/C wasn't working and the house was a constant 84* inside! Saturday wasn't too bad because it was still somewhat cool inside because the system stopped working sometime on Friday. But by Sunday, the temps were climbing inside as well as outside (upper 90s). I couldn't get anyone to do repairs until Tuesday (don't even get me started on that story!) but suffice it to say that I am totally enjoying the A/C now that it is back up and running. And just in time for 2 days of upper 60 degree weather! LOL

Altho I had a couple of days when the heat inside affected my stitching plans (it was just too hot one day to even consider doing anything but vegging in front of the fans and the TV) I did manage a new start - Patriotic, of course for the upcoming holiday. I had been stash diving and ran across this sale purchase from Hobby Lobby. It's an old Little River design that calls for WDWs. It's the first pattern I've done where they used the letter of the floss color as the symbol on the chart. It makes is so much easier to stitch without having to check the symbol list all the time. I don't have much done so I don't have a pic of my progress yet. I plan on working on it during the 3-day holiday weekend.


A small disappointment was my non-finish of Deftly Wrought. It's my own fault. I messed up on that center floral border back when I first started the piece and didn't realize it until I had the outside border done to the opposite side. Yep - it didn't line up...GRRRRR! So the first hour of my SNS time Saturday was spent with Mr. Frog and then another hour to replace what I'd ripped out. At least I know it's correct now and the finish should come this Saturday night. After working on all 4 of the mini samplers over 1, it seems like the stitches I'm doing now are huge!


And a finish! This is my June Ornament. I found it in one of my older JC mags (Dec 89). I stitched it on 32ct Summer Khaki with DMC. I think it has an old-world charm to it.


I have also finished the left side of Sleepy Hollow and will post a pic of that this weekend. The manor house with the huge roof looks awesome and now I can't wait to work on the Old Dutch Church, it's graveyard, and the moon that are all on the right side of the bridge.

Happy Stitching!

Shop Model finish!

I put the buttons on Checkered Halloween last night and this piece is so cute! It kind of threw me when I saw that the spider body button only had one hole but if I had read the pattern directions for attaching the button, I wouldn't have been surprised as it makes much more sense to have one hole than 2! The border was repetitive so once I got the pattern down, it went by pretty fast. It's all pressed and ready to be sent off as a shop model.


Last night I got a bit more done on Deftly Wrought so that I would be back on track for a finish on it this month.

I hope everyone has a great day!

A finish from the weekend!

Last week I had planned on working on both Checkered Halloween and Simply Live, hoping to finish Checkered Halloween and then going on to Simply Live. Well, the best laid plans... Simply Live was calling to me and I answered about half-way thru the week! Needless to say, I started working on it on Wednesday evening and it occupied my stitching-time hands until it was finished early Saturday afternoon. The fabric is 32ct PTP's Ale and the thread pallet is Crescent Colours, converted by Jan, owner of Only One Ewe Needleworks.


And not to be left out, I worked on Checkered Halloween yesterday after finishing Simply Live and it is complete except for the buttons, which I will add tonight. So I still managed to reach my goal, I just switched their order!

Have a great day, my friends!