Two more sleeps before my big adventure

My flight to Tulsa leaves at 6:20am on Wednesday, so it's more like one and a half sleeps because I'll have to get up in the middle of the night to get ready to leave for the airport by 4:30am--ugh! Not looking forward to that part of the trip, but I will definitely be happy to be able to stop obsessing about packing for it. 😅

I was trying to pick out a couple of travel projects that would be easy to work on in airports in case I end up with delays; I chose a Jim Shore Mill Hill kit on perforated paper and a Laurel Burch kit on linen that I started probably 10+ years ago. I wanted to put in a length of floss on each just to refamiliarize myself with them before I left, and then this happened:

Oops, I finished Feathered Friend! I still have the Jim Shore kit, but I pulled out another one from this set of Laurel Burch kits and got it ready to go as well:

I figured the larger blocks of color would be easy to work on in non-ideal stitching conditions, so I still have two to choose from if I need to, though 🤞🏻 that I won't need to!

I'm trying to make myself wait until tomorrow to get my suitcase out, but I'm having a hard time settling down to do anything else so it might come out today. I'm excited for both events, but also nervous; I'll know some of the people at the Chatelaine retreat and already have plans to sit with at least one friend, but I'll be on my own for the Silver Needle event. As an introvert that's always a bit nerve wracking, but I know it will end up being fine.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Miss Apple Blossom is done

I was able to finish the adorable Miss Apple Blossom by Nora Corbett last Wednesday, and she is as sweet as she can be:

I have Miss Cherry Blossom ready to go, so I'll probably take her along on my travels in case I feel like making a start on her. The next two in this series probably won't be released until September, so I should have her done well before that; it would be nice to finish each set of two before the next sets drop.

On Thursday we received part 2 of Welcome to the Circus by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, and I finished it this past Saturday:

The hippo is awfully cute, but I get the biggest kick out of those little seagulls! I'm glad I signed up for this SAL, and am looking forward to seeing part 3 early next month.

I spent my stitching time yesterday working on IMAKE's Aster Courtyard, slowly working through the specialty stitches in the top portion:

It's pretty much impossible to work with any speed on this design, so I'm finding it very relaxing to just focus on each small area without trying to race to a finish. 

I've already started my pre-travel packing countdown, which will constantly be on my mind for the next week--I'm always really relieved to head to the airport on the day I leave, just so I can quit obsessing about preparations! 😅

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A bit of this, a bit of that

June has been a tough month; I've still been stitching, but I haven't really had enough ambition to post anything lately. In just over two weeks I'll be heading to The Silver Needle in Tulsa for an event with Heart in Hand and Bent Creek, then going straight from there to Charlotte for a Chatelaine retreat, with a few days in Charlotte by myself to do whatever I want--no chores (except some laundry), no responsibilities, just me, my stitching and my Kindle. I'll be away from home from the 15th to the 26th, and I'm really looking forward to a nice "reset" going into August.

I've been working on a variety of projects over the past few weeks, starting with Welcome to the Circus by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery; I finished part one, and am ready for part two this Thursday:

Once that was done, I did end up making a start on IMAKE's Aster Courtyard:

All of the cross stitches are done in the top section and I've started adding some of the specialty stitches; all of that open space will be filled by the specialty stitches and beads--it's pretty intense, but also kind of relaxing, just taking it one step at a time.

The final part of Tiny Modernist's Poison Garden was released on the 15th, so that SAL is now complete (and the pillar bottom that I pre-stitched didn't have to be changed--yay!): 

I've been missing working on any Nora Corbett designs for myself, so I ended up making a new start on Miss Apple Blossom a week ago. She's pretty little, so I'm hoping to have her finished in the next few days, before the next installment of the circus SAL comes out:

The fabric is Zweigart's green/white leaves Belfast, which I thought was a fun background for her. I'm hoping to use it with the entire series, but it will depend on how well it goes with the others that haven't been released yet.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Another bittersweet finish

When I started Chatelaine's Rose Lights back in January, I was finally feeling better after a couple of really bad years dealing with my mom's health decline and death in 2024 and then her estate in 2025. Last November, a year after she passed, I was able to close her estate and put that chapter behind me, and that was the start of the depression lifting. Then about a week after I started Rose Lights my sweet Callie was diagnosed as having late-stage kidney disease and sadness became my constant companion again; stitching is the only thing that can take my mind off of things for a while, so all of the love and sadness I've been feeling for the past four months is woven into this piece. On the last day of May, Callie let me know that she was ready to go, and five days later I finished Rose Lights. It's a beautiful piece and I know in time I'll look at it and just feel the love for my girl that's in every stitch.

The fabric is Wichelt's French Country 32ct linen, which is a beautiful neutral similar to DMC 3042; it allowed both the cream and black threads to show up well without either being too stark, and it was a great tonal match with the pinks and greens. Unfortunately, it looks like this fabric has been discontinued; I contacted 123Stitch to inquire and they said it had been, so I've been buying some pieces from eBay when I see them. I did buy a piece in 28ct (not sure if it's been discontinued as well, but it's still in stock at 123Stitch), but the color is darker and "drabber" and I don't care for it.

I've been focused on getting this project done for so long that I'm now having trouble deciding what to work on now. I did end up signing on for another SAL, Welcome to the Circus by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I'd been looking at it for a couple of weeks but wasn't sure if I wanted to buy it, then just decided to go for it a couple of hours before the first part was released--it was on sale for $11, so it's not like I'm wasting much money if I don't like it. This is the photo from their site:

I really liked the little rabbit in the hat and the hippo in the tutu, and thought that a bright, cheerful piece was what I needed right now. As a Leo, I was happy to see that part 1 was a lion; I worked on him over the weekend and should be done either today or tomorrow:

There will be 10 parts, with one released each month and ending next March. If each part is similar in size, they should only take three or four days to stitch, so I'll be able to keep up pretty easily. Once this is done, I might pull out the IMAKE kit, choose my own fabric for it and get it on the Qsnaps, though right now I'm not quite feeling up to starting it. 

I'll close with my favorite picture of Callie, little spotted paw pads on full display, laying under a lamp on a table in my craft room with love in her eyes:

If you have a furbaby, please give them an extra dose of love in Callie's honor. 🐾❤️

On the way to a finish

I've made pretty good progress on Rose Lights in the past week, and I'm now hopeful that I'll have it done within the next couple of weeks, well ahead of the July Chatelaine retreat. Here's my stopping point from last night:

It's funny how this point in any design is often the most difficult for me to get through--I'm close to a finish, but it also feels like a lot left and I'm just anxious to get it done so I can work on something new. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have pushed through that and moved on to just being excited that it's nearly done.

I finished up part 5 of Tiny Modernist's Poison Garden SAL last Monday:

The final part is due to drop June 15th, so Rose Lights should be (better be!) done by then and I can finish it up within a few days of the release. I'm not planning on taking on any more SALs right now, but I suppose that could change if one comes out that I can't resist.

I was excited to be contacted by IMAKESTITCH again on IG, offering to send me another kit of my choice from their catalog of designs. This time I chose one of the full-sized designs, Aster Courtyard, which will be close to 12" x 12" when stitched:

It came nicely packaged in a cardboard box, and contains everything needed to stitch it, even beading thread and tapestry and beading needles:

I'll be starting this once Rose Lights is done, and I'll probably take it to work on when I travel to the Chatelaine retreat.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week! 

The border is done (almost)!!

Last Thursday I finished the majority of the border on Rose Lights--woo hoo!! 🥳

There are ten squares that need to be filled in with flowers and some beads still to add, but I'm thrilled to have the bulk of it completed. 

Oops! Just looked at the closeup photo and realized I missed a bit of a motif on the right side. Thank goodness for pictures--it'll be fixed by tomorrow!

In a bit of good timing, part 5 of Tiny Modernist's Poison Garden SAL dropped last Friday, so I was able to start that without having to interrupt the border stitching. In a bit of bad timing, this part includes a black border! 😅

I couldn't quite complete it in a weekend, but it should be done today. Since the top part of the left pillar mirrors the right, I think I'm just going to stitch the entire thing that way instead of waiting for the final part to see the bottom of the pillar. Then when part 6 comes out, I'll be that much closer to a finish.

Planning to get back to Rose Lights tomorrow with renewed energy now that the border is done, and hoping for a finish in the next two to three weeks.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Border blahs

Why is it that borders often feel like such a chore? I'm having trouble motivating myself to work on Rose Lights because that border seems never ending; I finished the inner black border, but then still had to do the outer cream border--ugh!

I'm almost done with one of the two cream silks, so hopefully getting the first one done will help motivate me, but it has definitely been a slog for the past week. It was also frustrating because I found what I believe are errors in the placement of the motifs along the bottom: the heart shapes start anywhere from two to four spaces down from the black, while the other shapes start from one to three spaces down, with no repeating pattern that makes sense. I didn't discover this until I had three of the "hearts" stitched, so then I had to frog two of them. 

While this isn't a truly symmetrical design, I have made quite a few changes to make areas within it more symmetrical. I don't see any of them mentioned on the errata page of the Chatelaine site, but perhaps some of them have been addressed in the digital chart (I'm working from a paper chart from 2004). Regardless, I'll muddle through--I know once the border is done my enthusiasm will return.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Always a good feeling...

...to add the last Qsnap extensions to a WIP, which is what I did on Saturday:

I finished the center medallion last week, which was fun to see come to life:

Once it was done, I couldn't resist setting the heart treasure in the center to see how it would look:

Turns out, I'm not very happy with it, for a few reasons: it doesn't fit in the space very well (it's squishing a bead and looks lopsided), the color is too yellow compared to the cream silks and the shape just doesn't seem right in a symmetrical opening. So, I went through my stash of treasures and found one that I like much better:

Better fit, more symmetrical, better color and it's a rose, which is perfect for a design called Rose Lights! 🌹 I might see if the heart can be used somewhere else in the design, but if not, I'm okay with not using it.

Here is my progress as of last night:

I'm going to focus on the border until it's done, then move on to the more fun part of filling in the center area. I was getting a bit worried about whether I was going to have enough of the gold beads used in the black border (and elsewhere), so I counted the remaining beads and found I have 88 left, 84 of which are needed to complete the border. I had to order more for other areas, so I'm hoping the dye lot isn't too different, but at least I have enough to complete the border, because a dye lot difference there would be harder to ignore.

I also want to mention that last Friday night I hit 1,000,000 page views on my blog:

Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to stop by, and for leaving encouraging comments; it's a wonderful feeling to belong to a community that shares my love of needlework. 🧵🪡💙

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

I thought I had plenty of time

When I started Rose Lights back in January, I figured I would have no problem finishing it before the Chatelaine retreat in July, but my confidence is slipping a bit now that I have less than three months left. While I love to stitch models, they do interfere with a nice flow in my own stitching; I'm hoping that no new ones come in for the next month or so, so I can really focus on Rose Lights. I got back to it this past week and made some progress on the center medallion:

It doesn't help that my stitching time gets cut back in the spring, as I start walking more and working in the yard as the weather improves, but I'm still hopeful that I can get this done before July. 🤞🏻

I spent the week before last stitching a model for Heart in Hand, making a few adjustments to the Mirabilia model that I had mostly completed in early March and getting them both sent back--yay! Then I took a few days to complete part 4 of Tiny Modernist's Poison Garden SAL, which now has two parts remaining:

I have to say that while I really like this design, I don't like the fact that partial stitches (as defined by back stitching) are not charted as partial, they are just shown as full stitches. I realize that the designer is stitching them that way, and it probably doesn't make much difference to the look of the finished piece, but my brain doesn't work that way--if there's a diagonal back stitch line, I don't want the stitch crossing that line. 😅 Other than that, it's a very fun stitch.

I made my first (and, most likely, last!) Flosstube appearance recently, as Deb Draeger (The Traveling Stocking Stitcher) put together a video of the Q&A I did at the Mirabilia retreat last October. I've watched it once and that was pretty uncomfortable; it confirms my belief that I would never want to have a Flosstube channel, so I'll stick with my old-fashioned blogging!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!