Back from the framer, for good this time!

Last Friday my too-green L*K Spooked and Very Scary came back home in the frames they were originally intended to have, and I am very happy with the results. I was a bit concerned that I would end up regretting my decision to have them fixed, but I definitely like them better now--phew!

Here is Spooked before:

And after:

Very Scary before:

And after:

Lizzie*Kate designs make up a large part of my Halloween wall in my craft room, and I am really going to miss seeing new designs from Linda:

The empty hook in the picture had a non-L*K piece on it, which I removed for the picture. Now if I take L*K's ABC Halloween in to be framed, I can hang it there!

Continuing with the Halloween theme, I have spent more time on Glendon Place's Spook Town Square, and have finished one of the four squares that make up part 2. Here it is before back stitching:

And after:

Such a sad little ghostie! Here is all that I have stitched so far:

I am starting to think that I might be able to finish the current Rosewood Manor model in the next couple of weeks, which would give me a couple of weeks at the end of this month to try to get the rest of part 2 done, right before part 3 is released in early July--fingers crossed (well actually, fingers stitching like crazy...)!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Back from the framer...for a short time

Last Thursday the gallery called to tell me that my pieces were ready to pick up, so I made it over there about 20 minutes before they closed. There were three pieces, so we unwrap one at a time to check them over, and they all looked good so I took them home. Once I got them home and started to unwrap them it occurred to me as I opened the second one that the two frames should have been different colors--I had chosen the same frame for all three, but in three different colors, green, blue and orange. As the two that were both done in green were Lizzie*Kate designs, I thought I might just leave them as they were, but then I opened Halloween Quaker and it had a green frame as well!

When I chose the frame colors, I went with green for Halloween Quaker, blue for Very Scary (to pull out some of the blue floss in the design) and orange for Spooked (so the mats and frames carried through the colors in the fabric); for all three of them to be in green was just too much green! So last Friday I took the two L*K's back and they will be corrected, hopefully as soon as the frames come in.

In the meantime, here they are in all their green glory!

Halloween Quaker:

Spooked (should have an orange frame):

Very Scary (should have a blue frame):

In other Halloween-themed "news", I finished part 1 of Glendon Place's Spook Town Square last week:

This is going to be such a big, fun design--I may or may not have spent a little time on part 2 this past weekend...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

More butterfly fairies

Just realized that the two new Nora Corbett releases are ones I stitched, so I thought I'd share some pictures. This is Miss Aurora Morpho:

And Miss Black Swallowtail:

Some close ups:

Now back to Spook Town Square!

Trying to get caught up

I finished the model for Wichelt last Friday (hopefully there won't be any changes!), so before I start the next one for Rosewood Manor I decided to take a few days to try to get caught up on some SALs. The first was Catch the Wind, which now has the top row complete:

Then I worked on part 9 of Swans & Shears; there is a larger motif that starts at the bottom of this part, but I want to see more of it before I choose colors so this as "done" as it's going to be for now:

Now I'm working on part 1 of Spook Town Square, which I'm hoping to finish in the next two or three days:

I don't really see any way to stay caught up with this one, but the remaining 12 scenes are smaller than the center and should be fun to complete one at a time at any rate.

Also thought I'd share the last model I did for RM; not sure if the title has a typo in it or if it's meant to be spelled that way, but I'm calling it Ancient Embroideries!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Swans & Shears at the halfway point

Part 8 of Swans came out about a week and a half ago, so I am now halfway done (except for a bit) with this SAL:

Part 4 of Catch the Wind was released last Friday, but I spent the weekend working on the Mirabilia model so I haven't stitched it yet. I did make good progress on the model, and am hoping to finish it this week and send it on its way. I have had a Rosewood Manor piece waiting to be done for several months now, so that will be the next big project I take on, although I might take a few days to try to get part 1 of Spook Town Square done (part 2 should be arriving any day now). The only time I worked on this in the past few weeks was when I took my dog to the vet; the stones needed back stitching, so it was easy to work on in the waiting room:

Last Friday was four weeks since I dropped three pieces off to be framed (but the framer was on vacation for a while, so I knew the wait would be longer), so I'm starting to get excited every time the phone rings--there needs to be a word to describe this stage in the "waiting for framing" process, when you know it should be coming soon but don't know exactly when...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Small update

Part 3 of the Tempting Tangles Catch the Wind SAL was released at the end of last week, so I took a few hours to get caught up again:

I'm really liking the colors of the Ship's Manor threads, and the verse so far; looking forward to what comes next!

A couple of weeks ago I took some Halloween pieces in to my framer, so I'm starting to get excited as they should be ready in the next couple of weeks. I took in Halloween Quaker by Lila's Studio and Spooked and Very Scary by Lizzie Kate. I have so many Halloween finishes, and not many of them framed so these will be nice additions to the "Halloween wall" in my craft room.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Ah, spring in Wisconsin...

...NOT! This past weekend we got over 16" of snow, which is almost more than we got all winter! The mail didn't even make it through on Saturday:

We had gotten several inches of snow a couple of weeks ago, so I filled the bird feeders for the poor birds that came back too soon; with the current snow they hardly have to fly up to the openings!

On the plus side, no spring yard work means more stitching time. I've made fairly good progress on the current model, so I took a few days to get caught up on a couple of SALs. The first is Catch the Wind, which now has had two parts released; I added one more color of floss to this one (so far), and both the color and the name fit in well:

The Swans & Shears SAL is up to part 7 now, so almost to the halfway point. I finished part 6 just before the next part was released:

Then kept going on to part 7:

The lightness of the swans has been bugging me, so I decided to see if adding some back stitch was going to work. Here it is before:

And after:

I probably would have liked the motif better if I had used darker floss, but I'm happy enough with the back stitched version so it will stay as is.

I did put in a little time on Spook Town Square as well, though I'm starting to think I won't have this part finished before the next chart comes out in May:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A couple of spooks and a new SAL

I tried to put Spook Town Square away to get some "work" done, but after three days it refused to be ignored any longer! This past weekend I finally got around to stitching a couple of the spooks:

I also started another SAL by Tempting Tangles; this one is called Catch the Wind Mystery SAL, and it uses cotton floss by Ship's Manor. I usually choose my own colors for these SALs, but I really liked the called-for flosses so I'm using them:

Here is most of part 1, which was just released last week:

I'm looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Spook-y stitching

Spook Town Square, that is. I received the first part last Monday and had to start right away; here it is as of last night:

I'm using the DMC floss and PTP Haunted Belfast. I need to get back to "work" for now, but at least I think I'll be able to finish this part before the next one is released in May.

I also took some time to stitch part 5 of the Tempting Tangles Swans & Shears SAL:

I'm wishing I would have done the swans in a floss a couple of shades darker; it looked fine close up but tends to disappear as you get further away:

I'm toying with the idea of back stitching the outer edge with a floss a few shades darker than the fabric, but I'll decide after the entire motif has been completed.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Spring is coming

Last week I saw the first robins in our yard and some Canadian geese flying over, so spring must be coming! Of course, we have a winter weather advisory for tomorrow, with 4" to 7" of snow possible--this is Wisconsin after all!

At least I have my Swans & Shears SAL piece to look at, with its spring-like colors. Part four was released last Thursday, and this was my stopping point for that part:

I also worked on a small project that I've been wanting to do for a while now, which was to make a display for these amazing little dragon needle minders from Claybykim that I've been collecting for a few months now. I used a canvas that I found in the craft section at Target, stitched the words on a piece of fabric and then stretched the fabric over the canvas; the back is open so I can attach the magnets easily. Now it hangs in my craft room and I can admire these works of art while I stitch:

On the model stitching front, Rosewood Manor released one of the designs I stitched at Nashville Market this past weekend:

Also at Market Glendon Place released a new Halloween design that she first mentioned in her FB group last July (I've been waiting impatiently ever since!); it is called Spook Town Square, and it will be released in four parts, with the first part being the gazebo in the center:

The model is stitched on PTP Tarnish Cashel, but I have a piece of PTP Haunted Belfast that's the perfect size, so that's what I'll be using. Yesterday I pulled the flosses and fabric from my stash, so now I just need 12 more skeins that I didn't have on hand, a box to hold all the floss and the first chart:

It's a fairly large piece, so I'm hoping to have each part done before the next part comes out; might be wishful thinking, though!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!