It's a wrap on the Polar Plunge series!

I still haven't been doing a lot of stitching, but I did manage to get all six of the Polar Plunge designs completed last week:

Then I made myself work on the finishing, because I knew if I put them aside for a while there was a really good chance that they would sit around for a very long time (or forever!) in a drawer. Cathy made a video tutorial for this series, which isn't really a great medium for the way I learn--I much prefer written instructions with photos, but I was able to work it out and get decent results:

I didn't use the scrapbooking paper on the boards, as I like a cleaner look, and I used a different paint color, ribbon and cord. The paint is a dark teal, which is kind of hard to photograph accurately:

I have some silver jingle bells, so I might still sew one in the middle of each ribbon like Cathy did, but for now I'm just enjoying the sense of accomplishment on having these all done!

I also finished the little Mill Hill ornament I'd been working on; the marshmallow snowman is such a cutie!

I received the third kit in the HOD Gather Round club series last week, so I started that a few days ago:

This time I started with the middle chart, since it has quite a bit of over-1 stitching in it; I wanted to get that out of the way early this time, instead of doing it last. It took me several hours yesterday to stitch "gather", and I still need to do the word "pumpkins" as well as the pumpkins next to that. But it will be nice when this one is done, and all the rest of the stitching is over-2.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Too much "real life"...

...not enough stitching! The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy, so I haven't done much stitching; I was a bit surprised to find I completed as much as I did when I went to take some photos.

I added a sign to my second Any Town Tiny Town building (a photo of the original shop can be found in this post):

And I found another great local shop that I think will make a really cute addition/substitution:

Once the sign on the shop was done, I worked on Hands on Design's N is for Narwhal, which is just adorable!

I've made a start on Penguin Pair, will then work on Puffin Party and hopefully make an attempt at the finishing once all six are stitched:

I had to spend a few nights in a hotel, so I took a Mill Hill ornament kit with me since working on a small piece of perforated paper is so simple:

I think I'll probably just finish this before I go back to Penguin Pair, since it's over half completed. Hoping to get back to my normal routine soon; I'm such a creature of habit that disruptions of any length are difficult for me to deal with.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

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)!