A different style (for me)

 I've been stitching for over 30 years now and I find myself gravitating to a handful of designers; mostly Nora Corbett/Mirabilia, Rosewood Manor, Tempting Tangles and Glendon Place for larger pieces and Lizzie Kate and Cross Eyed Cricket for smaller designs. I've stitched a lot of other patterns from other designers over the years, but these are the ones I find I have a lot of and work on a lot. One style I've never been fond of in general is primitive (though I make an exception for The Primitive Needle), and to me Blackbird Designs charts are mostly in this category. However there are a few of their patterns that I like, including America, which was released sometime around the year 2000, is out of print and usually sells for fairly high prices when it does show up. Recently a shop here in Wisconsin received some older stock of America from the designers and I was able to get the chart for retail price; I decided to make a start on it because I was excited to see how it would look on the fabric I chose for it so I started it on June 11 and this is what it looked like on June 13:

The fabric is Zweigart Sparkle Grey/Silver Belfast linen, and as I wanted it to be the background I wasn't planning to fill in the part around the flag as they did in the model. Working on the quilt-like border with nice sized chunks of color was a welcome change from the Rosewood Manor model I should have been working on, as it contains a lot of color changes and small areas with just a few stitches, so I decided to stick with this one a bit longer and then I ended up stitching straight through to the 21st when I was able to finish it. I was a bit torn about whether to leave the America portion off altogether as the design is already pretty tall and narrow and I knew I would have to fill in the area around it for it to look good on this fabric; this is what it looked like without the section:

And after:

I do think I like it better with the banner portion, but I suppose that could just be because it's already done now! I did make some changes along the way, and am very happy that I was able to get this for such a good price and have the fun of stitching it already.

Now I'm back at work on the model until July 1 when the next parts of two SALs are released; already looking forward to working on those again.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Where the heck does the time go?!!

 So our window installation last month went relatively smoothly; the work was done in three days, none of the cats escaped through the openings when the old windows were removed and there was only one minor hiccup as the transom window in our closet was white on the outside instead of sandstone. They expedited the order of the replacement for it and that was put in on the 29th--so far so good. Unfortunately, because the windows came five to six weeks earlier than expected our finisher can't stain and varnish them until after July 4th. I have blinds ordered which will probably get here in the next week or so, but they can't be installed until the staining is done so we are currently living in a fishbowl and will be for another month! And as someone with a bit (or more) of OCD it leaves me feeling slightly on edge pretty much all the time having an unfinished project all around me. This is why it took me so long to actually get around to starting it in the first place; I know I'll be very happy when it's done but the process is a killer.

Anyway, I was actually able to get quite a bit done on the model while they were here because I didn't want to be upstairs while they worked so I burrowed into my craft room and stitched all day for three days. I'm probably around the halfway point now and hoping to finish it in early July (hopefully right around when our windows get finished!).

I did spend one weekend last month working on Glendon Place's Spook Town Square. I looked back in my blog to see when I had last had it out and was amazed to see that it was almost three years ago--there's no way I would have thought it was that long ago! I'm still working on the second of the four charts, and was able to finish the borders for the two remaining squares in that part. Here's before:

And after:

Now when the mood strikes I'll have the fun part of filling in those squares to work on.

On June 1 the two SALs I'm working on released new parts and I finished those up a couple of days ago. Au Fil des Nichoirs by Jardin Prive now has two parts to go and will hopefully be done in early August:

I'm looking forward to seeing the October birdhouse next month!

The Cecilia Votta SAL still has four more parts to go (I haven't done all of the outlines because I'll need to extend my Qsnaps once the next part is done):

A close up of the last three parts:

I've added a few metallics and beads to this one, but it's kind of fun to see how a fairly limited color palette can make up so many little motifs. I would imagine Santa will make an appearance soon, so looking forward to that.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!