My first Friendstitch

Friendstitch is an online retreat hosted by the designers of Heart in Hand Needleart and Bent Creek, which I hadn't heard of until recently. This year is the fourth time they've had it, and I think this is the first time that they've split it into two "pop up" events; this past Saturday was the Halloween PopUp Gathering and then there will be a Needlework PopUp Gathering in October. I received the box with the charts, supplies and miscellaneous goodies on my birthday, which made it even harder not to open, but they were pretty clear that we weren't supposed to open it until the Zoom event (and I am nothing if not a rule follower!):

So, I was good and held onto it until the retreat and it was a lot of fun to open and explore with everyone else. There was some candy in there (but not in the photo that I took today because it's already gone!), a little notepad and a couple of little Halloween decorations, a great tote bag and then there were the stitchy goodies:

This was also the first time that they had a special guest, and she was perfect because she has such adorable Halloween designs--it was Amy Bruecken, and she designed this sweet little chart for the retreat:

I'm hoping to get that pumpkin finished tonight (or, more likely, tomorrow), then I'll probably stitch the crow and leave the larger chart for last. I really like all of the designs and am happy that I signed up for this without knowing exactly what was involved. Now I'm looking forward to the Needlework PopUp in a couple of months.

While I sat waiting to find out what was in the box, I worked on part 2 of Erica Michaels' Quilting A-Bee-Cs, which still isn't finished:

I've been stitching one color at a time for this part, and it's been fun to see it come together in this way. I'd say I'm about halfway done with this section, so not horrible, but I don't know if it will be completed before part 3 arrives. Must stitch faster!

My son has been subletting an apartment in Madison this summer, so my husband and I drove down there for a day to visit and tour the area; we had a really nice day, though it was about 90F and it felt good to get home that evening. It's about a 2-hour drive, so I took a Mill Hill kit (Kitty Treats) with me to work on in the car, and then I finished it a couple of days later:

And today I finally took pictures of the last two pieces that I got back from the framer recently; they are Dog and Cat Lessons for People by Lizzie*Kate, which I stitched back in 2011/2012:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

On a finishing roll!

I made steady progress on Gather Pumpkins last week, finishing the stitching on round 1 on Monday:

Round 2 on Thursday:

And the final round was completed Saturday night:

Sunday afternoon was spent finishing, and now the I have another set completed in the series:

It's hard to believe that there's only one season left. I'm thinking it's almost certainly going to be Gather Snowflakes, but maybe Cathy will surprise us!

Here are all three of the seasons to date:

Last week I also got back some pieces from my framer that I dropped off in March--this time they only took four months instead of eight! Just Nan's Frosty Hopes and High Hopes were stitched around 2003-2004:

And Frosty Forest by Country Cottage Needleworks was stitched in 2009. The fabric is Silkweaver's Karma Belfast linen; I used some Caron Waterlilies for the trees and border, and "lit up" the windows:

Now that I'm all caught up with the Hands on Design pieces, my plan this week is to try to get part 2 of Erica Michaels' Quilting A-Bee-Cs done:

I've gotten behind on this one; part 3 was recently released but I think it will take a couple of weeks to arrive at 123Stitch, so I'm hoping to have this done before then.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

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!