SewMuch2Luv!

Last Monday my custom bag arrived from Karen at SewMuch2Luv and I am thrilled with how it turned out!

The quality is top notch and I love the fabric choices Karen gave me to coordinate with the stitched piece and the retreat fabric. I now have a really special memento of a great retreat. This is the second time I've used Karen's services, with the first being this fun project bag:

I highly recommend SewMuch2Luv if you're looking for a well-made and useful finish for a stitched piece!

I've been making good progress on the second model lately, though I lost most of a day when Nora made some changes after seeing an area stitched--frogging and then restitching always seems to take so long, and then you're just back where you started! I am hoping to finish this one by the end of the year and then I'll just have one more to go and almost three months left to do it, so I'm feeling better about my progress now.

I've been having fun opening the 12 Days of Christmas goodies from Silks4U; the theme this year is gemstones:

Six presents opened, six to go...

Wishing those who celebrates it a very Merry Christmas, and to everyone all the best in the New Year!

Time to buckle down

I'm happy to say that model stitching is back on track now; I got an answer to a question about the first one, made the changes required and it has now been approved, so one is completely done. I received the revised chart for the second one and made good progress over the weekend, especially considering I spent a good part of yesterday putting up the Christmas tree. The revised chart for the third one should be arriving any day, and then hopefully things will go more smoothly for a while!

Last week while I was waiting for the chart(s) to arrive I spent some time charting out Nora Corbett's latest Patreon chart, Starry Starry Christmas Eve. It's another artist-inspired tree like last year's Klimt Tree, and it's going to be stunning!

I'm waiting on a skein of Sable Waterlilies, so it's not in the photo, and I couldn't figure out how to chart the bugle beads in the tree within the tree, but this at least gives an idea of what it will look like. I think I have an idea of how to do the bugle beads now, so next time I'll be ready; every time I work on one of Nora's Patreon charts I learn new things to use on the next one. I won't be able to work on this for a while, but hoping to get back to it once the models are done. If you've thought about subscribing to Nora's Patreon, now would be a good time; there are several charts from this past year that are still available until the end of this year.

Speaking of models, a Rosewood Manor that I stitched a while back has been released; it's called Dreaming of Violets:

The project bag that I had made from the Queen City Retreat project is finished and should arrive today. Karen didn't send a photo, so I'm excited to open the package and see how it turned out; tune in next week for photos.

Now that the Christmas tree is up, I'm going to spend part of today wrapping presents and getting an idea of whether I'm done shopping or if I need to pick up a few more little things. At this time last year, I was still waiting for biopsy results and feeling very scared and fragile, so I am especially grateful as I get ready for another Christmas.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Frustrated

While I love model stitching, it can be frustrating at times when I have a question (or several) and it takes almost two weeks to get a response. I had pretty much finished the first of three models but had to wait for a reply to completely finish it, then the reply was a bit ambiguous so I'm back to waiting to see if it's really done or if I need to make some more changes.

In the midst of that process, I decided to start the second model, but fairly early on had a question about it and was told that they need to redo the section I asked about and add something else that had been forgotten, so I need to wait until they send a new chart before I can get back to that one. Then it was on to the third model, which I started last Friday--until a question popped up right away and I knew there was no way I'd get a response until today at the earliest--sigh!

So, I decided to spend my weekend stitching time working on Needle Fairy, who now has her feet as well as her arms:

I realized that I had never shared the goodies from the Friendstitch Needlework Pop-Up event that took place in October:

Everything came in that great metal tin, and it was a lot of fun to open and explore the contents. The people behind these events (the designers of Heart in Hand and Bent Creek) do such a great job with them, and I am really looking forward to next year's event, which will be the fifth anniversary of Friendstitch.

I have another fun box to look forward to as well, which is a 12 Days of Christmas box from Silks4U:

There's one package to open for each day, starting on the 13th and ending on Christmas Day; I'm going to be good and not open everything at once, but it's hard not to!

I think I'm pretty much done with my Christmas shopping, except for picking up some little things to put in stockings, but I still need to wrap presents and put the tree up. It's always a relief to have those two things done so I'll probably try to do them this week, and then I'll be able to focus on stitching again. Can't believe Christmas is only three weeks away!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!