Blackbird has been released

It's always exciting to see a model that you've stitched released, but this is the one I had just started when I found out that I needed surgery to have a large (9 lbs.!) tumor removed last November, so it's bringing up quite a bit of the fear and uncertainty that I was feeling back then. It's funny how much of a stitcher's life is wrapped up in their work, how some pieces will always bring certain memories to the surface. There's still uncertainty because the doctors can't give me a definitive diagnosis (they're leaning towards it being benign, but they can't state that with 100% confidence), but I hope I'm here long enough to be able to look at this piece in a much more peaceful state of mind many years from now!

This is what Nora has to say about her design process on this: "It's meant to be like she's rising from the forest floor and the different patterns represent the complexity of her nature."

So here she is, in all her glory, MD188 Blackbird:

New Mirabilia model coming soon

I'll have photos to share of MD188 this coming Thursday, but I just wanted to make a short post showing the two Any Town Tiny Town replacements I've been working on for most of last week:

I'm still deciding whether to add a sign to the purple building. The business is called Schmalz Landscaping, but the sign is separate from the building so if I add it then it will look different from the photo, but if I don't add it then it doesn't necessarily convey that this is a local-to-me shop so I'm torn.

Now I need to wait for the chart to come so I can see if these will work with the rest of the design and decide if more tweaks are needed. I'm afraid they might be a little too big and/or detailed, but as I'm the only one who has to like it I guess there's no problem.

I'm also debating whether to try to chart the Little Chute Windmill, as I think it would be a fun addition to my Tiny Town:

I'm not sure if I could get this short enough or narrow enough, but it would be pretty cool if I could...

I'll be back this Thursday, so until then have a great stitchy week!

Tiny Town number 7 is done!

We had a beautiful day here in Wisconsin yesterday, so I sat out on the patio and spent a few hours finishing Seaside Tiny Town. I added the Seaside Frill to the center (the little parade figures), and I think it is just as cute as can be:

I had to take a picture outside because I thought it was funny that the floss colors were so similar to my patio furniture:

This was stitched using the recommended CCW and WDW threads on PTP Wren Newcastle linen; I would have to say that it is my current favorite of the Tiny Towns so far. I think I'll wait until the Any Town Tiny Town comes out in July, stitch that one up and then send the three latest releases to the finisher.

Speaking of the Any Town Tiny Town, I've been working on charting my LNS to replace the shop that is in the chart and I think I'm ready to start a test stitch today; this is what I've come up with so far:

I have a couple of blues to try for the siding, and a couple of grays for the roof, and I need to pull some greens for the plants but I'm pretty happy with the general appearance. I've also been working on the flower shop, though it might still get some tweaks before I sit down to stitch it:

I'm also planning to get to work on the next three Polar Plunge charts later this week; the N is for Narwhal chart will be released as a pdf in just about 19 minutes from now, and it will probably be the first one I stitch:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Enjoying all the water birds while I work on Seaside Tiny Town

The weather in Wisconsin has finally gotten really nice and I've been enjoying walking every day; I've started to carry my phone with me because there is a pond along my route that has a lot of birds, and after I missed getting a photo of a snowy egret I decided I'd better be more prepared in future. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the egret again, but I've seen more pelicans a few times:

I've seen one Great Blue Heron:

Ducks and Canadian geese with their babies:

There's also a hawk right past the pond:

And I saw some Sandhill cranes a couple of months ago in a different location:

We've lived here for more than 20 years now, and this is the first I'm seeing some of these birds; there are newer water retention ponds in the area now, so that must be what is attracting some of them. I really look forward to getting to the pond every morning to see which birds are hanging around that day.

The weather has been so nice that yesterday I sat on our patio and stitched for a few hours and was able to almost finish the Seaside frill (which has an egret!) that I'm adding to the Seaside Tiny Town:

I've haven't felt much urge to stitch lately, so this Tiny Town is taking longer to finish than I thought it would; I'm hoping to get it done by the end of this week. Once it's finished, I'll probably start on one of the next two Polar Plunge charts which finally arrived this past Saturday:

I'm still waiting for the second part of Quilting A-Bee-Cs by Erica Michaels to arrive at 123Stitch so I can get it ordered, and I'll probably work on that after the Polar Plunge designs are stitched.

I also took the plunge into needlepoint and bought a painted canvas after I saw this photo on Facebook:

It's going to require some time to decide what threads to use and figure out how the stitching works so I don't know when I'll actually start this, but I just thought it was such a beautiful design that I had to get it!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Saw some pelicans (I think!)...

...so it must be time to start Seaside Tiny Town! Honestly, the timing of this was so fun; I went for a walk this morning and saw a group of pelicans (I think that's what they were, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) swimming and feeding:

Then the charts arrived in the mail this afternoon:

I'm going to pull the threads tonight (I know I have at least some of them) and pick a fabric, then I'll be ready to start it either tonight or tomorrow. First, I want to do about 20 stitches on Black'd Skie to finish up the border of the fifth square:

I finished the fourth square last week, and am hoping to get back to this within the next couple of months:

This past Saturday I went to a local stitch group for the first time and had a really nice time meeting and chatting with the five other stitchers who attended. I wasn't sure what the room set up would be, so I didn't want to take Black'd Skie, which is pretty large; instead, I took a piece that I had just barely started a few months ago:

The group will meet again in June, so I'll probably take this piece again since it's an easy one to work on while chatting (though I did have to frog a bit because a couple of those bricks are six stitches long instead of five like the majority of them were!).

Yesterday I pulled up Cathy's finishing video for the Polar Plunge series and got the matboard and batting cut for all six ornaments:

That's all of the preparation I can do for these now until they are all stitched. I finally ordered the next two Sunday night, but they probably won't ship for about a week--that gives me just enough time to get the Seaside Tiny Town done before they get here.

I'm a bit surprised that I got quite a few crafty things done last week, since I finally spent a couple of days cleaning out the garage. It only took three trips to the dump this time, instead of the four it took for the basement, and now I even like taking the kitchen garbage out to the bin because it looks so nice out there. :D

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Gather Round club halfway done

Last Monday morning I finished the stitching on HOD's Gather Butterflies and then did the final finishing that afternoon, so two of the four seasons are now fully complete:

I'm looking forward to seeing what gets gathered in autumn; leaves or pumpkins are probably two likely choices, but I'm thinking Cathy will do something different--will hopefully find out in June!

The next two HOD Polar Plunge charts should be in shops soon; while I wait to order them, I decided to get started on the finishing for them. I painted and sealed the ornament boards and picked up a big piece of matboard that I'll start cutting to shape this week. I decided not to cover the boards with scrapbooking paper, as I like the look of them plain like this:

While I wait for the new Tiny Town, Polar Plunge and Quilting A-Bee-Cs charts to arrive in shops I decided to pull out Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie. I looked back in my blog and saw that I last worked on this in December 2021, so I guess it was time to get it back out and finish at least one more square!

I should be able to finish square four today, then I might start on square five so I can stitch on it in between working on the Polar Plunge finishing preparations. 

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Almost made it

I was hoping to have all three of the Hands on Design Gather Butterflies pieces stitched by the end of the weekend, but as I predicted I wasn't quite able to make it. I came pretty close though (and my inner 5-year-old had a gleeful laugh at this photo):

I'll have the stitching done later this morning, and I think I might try to do the finishing this afternoon so I can get a start on some housework tomorrow. It's funny that I'll have the spring and summer sets of designs done, since apparently we're still in the midst of winter here:

My bleeding heart was just starting to flower, so I'm going to be pretty bummed if this kills off the blossoms:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week (and better weather than I do)!

Part 1 completed, on to part 2 (of a different SAL)

Last night while watching the final (finally!) episode of Sanditon I was able to finish part 1 of Erica Michaels Quilting A-Bee-Cs, using the recommended Classic Colorworks floss (except for subbing the dark green and adding a purple):

Part 2 will be coming out next month, though I don't know exactly when; hopefully I'll be able to finish Hands on Design Gather Butterflies before it arrives. I'm having a hard time settling down with my stitching lately, but I would like to have this done by the end of this month (or, more likely, early next month):

Also in May Heart in Hand's Seaside Tiny Town will be released, so of course I'll have to make time for that as soon as I get it! And there's another Tiny Town coming out in July called Any Town Tiny Town:

This was designed for the 25th anniversary of Keepsakes in Ohio; they had a pre-order on their site that ended on April 15th. Their shop is the white house to the left of the center, with their little black shop cat, 310, next to the door. The chart will be released to all shops next year, and the idea is to personalize it to look more like your own town. I might try to make the cross stitch shop look more like my LNS, The Stitching Bee, and there's a local flower shop that I would love to try to imitate:

I've messed around a bit already, and it isn't going to be quite as easy to translate into a "tiny building" as I had hoped, but I've got plenty of time to work with it and see what I can come up with.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Oops, made a new start!

I truly intended to work on Firefly Fairies until the next set of HOD Gather Round designs arrived, but I got distracted by a Market release from Erica Michaels Designs called Quilting A-Bee-Cs; part 1 (of 5) and the threads arrived last Monday and I couldn't resist making a new start. I had a piece of Access Commodities Heron Gray 38ct linen on hand, which is being stitched 1-over-2 with the recommended CCW floss (except for a substitute for the dark green and adding a purple):

Gather Butterflies is supposed to be mailed today, so it should arrive later this week. I'm going to work on this until then; the next set of blocks will be released next month, so I'd like to have part 1 finished before then. It's nice to have some small finishes along the way as the whole piece takes shape.

Rosewood Manor just released a design that I stitched the model for over two years ago, called Strawberry Wishes. I love the font in this, as well as the pretty colors:

I've been cleaning the windows and doing some other spring chores lately, which has cut into my stitching time, but it's nice to finally feel like winter is on the way out (even though it snowed a bit this morning). Still need to clean out the garage and get going on some yard work, but even doing those things feels nice when there's good weather to enjoy.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

More Firefly Fairies

The next Gather Round club kit was supposed to ship now, but it's been delayed for a couple of weeks so I'm going to keep going on Firefly Fairies for now. I haven't been doing a lot of stitching lately, but have made a bit more progress; here it is as of this morning:

I've always loved this design just from the chart photo and it turns out that it doesn't even come close to showing some of the details, which makes it so fun discovering and bringing them to life. It uses four colors of Kreinik braid, though I'm switching some of it out for beads of similar colors, which really makes it look like it's sprinkled with fairy magic:

Those little feet peeking out of what will be her underskirt have always been one of my favorite parts!

Since there's not a lot of stitching to show I'll share the final three framed pieces that I recently got back, all of which were Nora Corbett designs; this is Miss Moth, stitched on a Silkweaver solo:

Miss Dragonfly, stitched on SMF MacMillan (I think that was the name of the fabric):

And the Mirabilia ornament from the 2000 JCS ornament issue:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!