Started an oldie...

...but a goodie, Stone Roses by Mirabilia. I have to admit, this isn't one of Nora's designs that grabbed my attention right away like a lot of her others, but after seeing some WIP and finishes pictures over the years I've come to like it a lot. Then about a month ago I received this great piece of fabric from Polstitches, called Dapple, on 32ct opal linen; the design is actually printed onto the fabric, so each piece should look the same:

To me it looks like a watercolor painting of a garden, and ever since I got it I've been trying to think of which Mira I should stitch on it. Then a few days ago it hit me that Stone Roses was meant to be a statue in a garden, and the two came together like they were meant to be! The background has color and movement, and will be a nice contrast to the muted tones of the design:

The main color in the statue is white, but I've replaced it with Waterlilies Opal, which has just a hint of pastel colors and made me think of marble. Here is my progress after the weekend:

I'm hoping to get a lot done on this in the next couple of weeks, then I'll have to get to work on a model for a while.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Small finishes

I'm making good progress on the Tempting Tangles model, so once in a while I take some time for myself to work on my own things. One of these I've already shared--it's JBW Designs French Country Witch, but now it's been ironed and a better picture taken. This was stitched on a leftover piece of SW Swirling Storms Belfast, using Silk'n'Colors Limehouse:

Also stitched on the same fabric is JBW Designs The Witch's Hat, this time using Silk'n'Colors Halloween Confetti, which is my absolute favorite Halloween floss:

The Thread Gatherer is having a contest in which you use any one color of their threads to stitch one of five JBW Designs charts, and these are my entries. The winner gets $100 to spend on their threads, so that would be be a great prize!

I also finished the third part of the Tempting Tangles Welcome SAL, which was released last Friday:

This is a really easy piece to keep up with, as the parts are small and come out every two weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing the next part now.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Got a couple of models back

As mentioned in my last post, Karen was sending a couple of my Rosewood Manor models back, and last week I had the fun of opening the big box to see which ones they were. The first was Bucklebury Sampler, which is probably one of my favorites:

The second was Spring Has Come, which was released as a three-part mystery:

This one was done on a pre-printed fabric from Fabric Flair called Yorkshire Roses, which was neat to work with:

Last week I was able to finish up JBW Designs French Country Witch, which I stitched on a SW Swirling Storms Belfast remnant using Silk'n Colors Limehouse (I still need to iron it, so excuse the wrinkles):

I've been working on the Tempting Tangles model since last Thursday, but I did take yesterday off to work on Deb's Welcome SAL. She has a FB group for this 16-part stitch-along; you pay $5 for the whole thing, and post in the group as you progress (you don't have to be in the group to get the charts, just contact Deb at temptingtangles@gmail.com). Two parts have been released so far, and I was able to get caught up in one day:

I'm having fun playing with colors on this one; it lends itself nicely to personalization.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A small start

I finally finished the model I was working on yesterday, so last night I treated myself to a Halloween design start. I'm actually going to stitch up both of these JBW Designs charts, as they are pretty small, and should go quickly; then I plan to finish them as one ornament:

I'm going to start a model for Tempting Tangles in a couple of days, so probably won't have much stitching to share for a while again. Today I received the chart for a reproduction sampler that I stitched for Karen Kluba last year:

I've never stitched a reproduction piece before, and it was kind of neat to think about the original stitcher as I worked. I'm not sure what the two little things are above the house, but they sure look like flying turtles to me (and the larger motif to the right of these might be a space alien!):

These were stitched over one thread on 40ct, which was not an easy feat at my age; the entire verse was also worked over-1:

This one definitely felt like a big accomplishment when it was done! Karen said that she would be sending some more of my finished models back to me soon, so I'm anxious to see which ones they are. Of course, I don't have much more room to hang anything--this is the sight that still greets me when I sit down in my craft room:

On the new kitten front, we had to have a name change. When I took Sophie in for her rabies vaccination, the vet informed me that "she" was actually a "he"! Now that the shock has worn off, I'm happy to finally have a male cat, as I've never had one in the past 19 years of cat ownership. He is really affectionate, sweet and yet still pretty ornery; here he is (now named Bobby, as Sophie just wouldn't do!), laying on top of his sister Scout earlier today:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Two framed, one finished

Last Tuesday I got the call that I had been waiting for, letting me know that my framed pieces were ready to pick up; within half an hour I was at the gallery!

First I'll share Wherefore Art Thou, which I absolutely love! When I chose the fabric for this, I wanted it to look like a stone balcony in the moonlight, and I tried to keep to that look for the framing. I chose a suede outer mat in a darker shade than the fabric, to maintain the texture in the fabric and make it look like darkened stone in the background, and a silver inner mat to highlight Juliet, almost like a spotlight in a stage production. The frame was chosen to complement the colors and give the feel of a carved balcony:

It's almost anticlimactic to share The Blossom Collector, which I had framed without mats because the fabric provided enough interest by itself:

This past Saturday I received my Curtis Boehringer Happy Halloween piece finished by Sue Hillis, and she did an amazing job with it:

Both Gracie and Sophie approve of it (though I have to make sure to put it somewhere they can't get to it and rip those ribbons to shreds!):

To those in the US, hope you have a relaxing Labor Day, and to everyone a great stitchy week!

Another cool finishing idea

Last week I received the October 2016 issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine, which has some Halloween ornaments in it, and I fell in love with the way Praiseworthy Stitches finished their piece. They used a wooden box shaped like a book (with a "spine" that pulls out as a drawer), which they painted and then glued their design to. As I recently acquired The Goode Huswife's pattern The Book of Spells, I immediately thought that this would be a great way to finish that design:

As I would want the drawer available to open, I'd either have to stitch the spine separately, or just write on the painted spine. When I get some time, I'll have to pull the pattern out and start figuring out what count of fabric will work best. For those interested, you can find information about the box here.

I'm still working on a model, so I don't have any new stitching that I can share. I did take Wherefore Art Thou and The Blossom Collector to my framer almost three weeks ago, so I am hoping to get a call from them any time now, then I can share the framed pieces.

I took the weekend off in order to clean up my craft room, and it feels much nicer now. I also pulled out my stitching journal, which hasn't been updated since December 2014--oops! Here's a glimpse into the process:

It's been so long that I've lost track of some of the details; I need to be better about keeping up. Plus, I had so many finishes that I ran out of room and discovered that I didn't have a new journal put away, so now I have to wait for a new one to come in the mail. For anyone interested, the journal I like to use can be found here.

I'll close with a couple of pictures of Scout and Sophie, who are now completely at home with us. In the first one they are sitting in the chair behind mine in my craft room, learning how to be good stitchy companions:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

SPOILER ALERT: Picture of L*K Spooked part 1 in this post

Thanks to all who left kind words for Tailor in my last post. Tomorrow marks two weeks without her, and while my heart is still sore from her loss, we have now adopted two kittens who are making the transition more bearable as we try to get them settled in their new home.

I wasn't able to stitch for a few days, as my eyes were too swollen from crying, and when I was able to get back into it I didn't have the mental focus to work on a model, so I pulled out a Mill Hill kit that I had started a while ago called Sophie Sheep, and was able to finish it:

She joins a finished Percy Pig, with Clarissa Cow still to stitch:

My Gracie was kind enough to keep me company while I beaded:

Another "comfort" stitch was part 1 of Lizzie*Kate's Spooked mystery, which I'm doing on SW Halloween Haunting Belfast:

Last night I started back on the Rosewood Manor model, which is being done with some really pretty WDW threads. So far I've turned in three other models that haven't been released yet, so hopefully they'll be showing up at some of the fall shows soon.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Juliet is done

I finished Juliet last week, on SW Swirling Storms Belfast:

Instead of the bead that was designed for it, I used a Mill Hill glass rose treasure, with a bead loop coming out from it:

I'm happy with the result, as roses are an integral part of this design, and it will fit nicely under glass when framed.

I was so happy last week, knowing I was almost done with Juliet and finding out that I was going to stitch for Wichelt, and now I am heartbroken because yesterday the vet found a large mass in my Tailor's abdomen. She has been my constant companion for almost 16 years; she follows me into the bedroom every night at bedtime, kneads my chest and talks to me and then sleeps wrapped around my head. Of our four kitties, she is the one who is totally "mine", and the thought of not having her in my life is killing me. So if I don't blog for a while, you'll know why.

My beloved Tailor, on the chair right behind my stitching chair, and always in my heart:

Even more balcony!

The end is in sight--just need to stitch the bottom of the balcony, finish up the border and add a few more beads:

I was doing some beading yesterday, and I had attached the hand-painted bead from Italy that was made for this design:

It is an absolutely beautiful bead and I love the way it looks, but I'm afraid that it's just too big. I always have my Miras framed with glass, and the only way that that will work with this piece is if most of the piece extends pretty far out the back of the frame. So I removed the bead, and am thinking about what I want to do. Right now I'm leaning towards making a bead loop similar to the one in the picture, with a teardrop crystal in place of the large bead, but I'll make the decision when everything else is finished.

I have extra incentive to get this finished now, as this past week I found out that I've been accepted as a model stitcher by Wichelt Imports, and will be stitching Mirabilia/Nora Corbett designs for them! So I need to finish this piece and get to work on the Rosewood Manor model currently waiting in the wings so I can be ready when I receive my first model for Wichelt.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

So...much...balcony!

I know that it will be worth it in the end, but right now I am not enjoying that darn balcony! So I work on it for a while, and then I spend some time on Juliet. I'm starting to think that I can finish this up right around the end of the month. Here's my progress as of last night:

This past Saturday I got a great surprise package in the mail: a member on the 123Stitch MB was giving away some embellishment packs from Mill Hill kits to the first person who emailed her. Unfortunately, I missed being the first by about a minute, but she said she had some other kits to go through, so she would send some to me after she did that. I figured she'd send a few packs of beads, so I was blown away by what I received:

Since I like to change things up on designs, it's nice to have a variety of embellishments around to play with, and these will certainly be put to good use!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!