ORT Jar- TUSAL Update

It's yet another TUSAL update. That's the Totally Useless StitchALong that I'm happily a part of this year. It's sponsored by Daffycat.

Here we are:



It's looking a bit more colorful, and that's because I actually stitched up a tea towel this month.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Tea Towel Finished! Believe it, or not!

I decided to leave my counted crosstitch projects for awhile so that I could actually FINISH a project.

I stamped up several towels and finished this towel in one evening. I added green accents as the person who'll be getting it has a green kitchen. I will be adding words, but that will come after I've finished the other two towels in this set.

It's great to have something done for once!



Thanks for stopping by today.

Summer Queen WIP

I finally decided it was time to just take out my stitching and STITCH, even though I really had so many other things I needed to get done. I also thought it would be a good idea to pull out my Summer Queen (Mirabilia's design) since I hadn't worked on it since last May!

The hard part of the whole process was that the last time I worked on this piece I didn't properly mark my chart copy, thus it took some time to figure out where I was on the chart.

I only have a small section of the Queen to complete, and there was a time I thought I was DONE until I discovered this small section at the bottom of the design.

Here she is, before I worked on her:


Here she is now, after a bit of work yesterday and also last May:





A few more photos:







One more that shows its size:



I plan on stitching some more this week, and hopefully I will finish her sometime this year.

Thanks for stopping by here today.

Embroidered Houses by Others

I wish I had more time to stitch, but lately it's just been far too busy. I haven't stitched in almost a month at this point.

Earlier today I did enjoy putting together something called a Flickr "Gallery". It's a collection of photos that I've gathered from my fellow Flickr users. It's titled "Embroidered Houses". I wish I could publish the gallery here, but I can't. I can share the link, so here you are:

Embroidered Houses Gallery by Loves2Stitch2

It's amazing to see the variety of different needlework techniques used to create such a wide variety of cozy homes.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Stitching Lessons

 

I mentioned last week that my niece Windy is in the hospital on bedrest. She's now 29 weeks along in her pregnancy, and fortunately labor has not progressed. Above you can see her on the evening I taught her how to embroider. She's enjoying her little project, and has also taken up felting while in there.

A few more photos:

 

 

Finally, a photo of our cat Inga enjoying the night air:

 

I love the markings on her back!

I haven't had the chance to stitch in almost two weeks now. Sigh. That's how it goes.

Treasured Needlework and Hydrangeas

I haven't had the chance to stitch in quite awhile. Life is just too busy lately, but I know there will be more relaxing days coming soon.

I love hardanger needlework, but I've never tried it myself. Here's a photo of a gorgeous hardanger piece that I have in our living room. It's sitting on top of an antique armoire that happens to be filled with a lot of my needlework projects, thread, and patterns. My mother-in-law bought the hardanger piece for me back in the early nineties. A friend of a friend had stitched it, and sold it to her. I sure was lucky to receive it as a treasured gift! Once I nearly ruined it with a deep red candle wax stain, but a clever dry cleaner was able to get it perfect again.


I also want to share a photo of an antique embroidered doily that used to belong to my mother-in-law. I love how it looks with these old cups and saucers. I wonder who embroidered this piece? I have no idea, but I sure do appreciate her work.



Another view:



******************************************************************

I also want to share some fall photos of our backyard's hydrangea blooms.




I loved the gradation of color on this bloom:



Thanks for stopping by today, and have a great day!

Tea Towel

I am so elated that it's November. I just hope it continues to cool off with each passing day. It was supposed to be in the high eighties yesterday, but as I walked around outside at work it felt much hotter than that, and the sun was exceptionally bright.

Today I wanted to show a towel I embroidered over a year ago, but I never posted it here. It is one of three tea towels that were begun by my mom, but she decided I would like to finish them more than she would. I have so many embroidery patterns just waiting to be stamped on tea towels, pillowcases, and dresser scarves for stitching but I never seem to get to started on anything new.


Here it is:




I did two other similar ones for two other days of the week, but I neglected to photograph them. In the past year I've used them quite often so I don't think at this point they're worthy of any sort of display.

I have a ton of work to do this weekend for my job. Perhaps I'll find an hour or two to work on my sampler.

Thanks for stopping by here today!

Two Years Ago...

I first started this blog two years ago today. I guess some people would call this a "Blogversary", although I don't know if I like that word. I tend to have the habit of overanalyzing words and language, so don't pay any attention to me. Either way, hurrah! Happy Blogversary.

I started it as all my local stitching friends already had a blog, and I wanted to play, too. Blogging looked like fun as well as being a great way to keep in touch with those friends. Thanks to them for visiting here, and commenting.

It has been wonderful to see so many other bloggers from all over the globe checking out the blog, and returning again.

Thanks to all of you for visiting here. Whether you leave a comment or not, I appreciate that you read this blog.

Since I started this out as primarily a stitching blog, I thought that it would be all right to share some photos of one of my first needlework projects. I know I shared some of these photos here a year and a half ago, so if you already saw them I apologize. I noticed that when our computer crashed in July all my Picasaweb photos were lost, so truly these photos aren't on my blog anymore. So then it's not quite a repeat, right?

With that being said:



I stitched these in 1976 after I'd been embroidering a few years. I didn't have a pattern for this pocket, just had fun with french knots. I still have the shorts tucked away somewhere. Maybe I should wear them sometime? That's a laugh. I was into ballet when I was in high school, and was very slim. I couldn't even fit my thigh into the waist at this point.

The front of the shorts: (That's my daughter modeling them.)





Finally, the back belt loop:


As you can see they're well worn as I used them a lot. Before they were cut-off shorts, they were jeans I wore all through ninth and tenth grade.

I haven't had a chance to stitch in over two weeks. I truly miss it, but it's just too busy now with getting my classroom ready, and with family stuff. C'est la vie.

Thanks for stopping by here, and for returning!

Some people just don't 'get' this blog thing at all, do they? I've told a few people about it and they rather look at me like I've gone mad, or should I say completely mad. Either way, I'm glad we get it! :)

Great Summer Memories & Old Stitch Book

Here is a photo of a day some family members came over:




This weekend we had a ball playing "Rock Band" on my brother's birthday:






My brother and sister in law's dogs enjoying a dip:


Some more photos from yesterday at my parents' house:




This one is so funny as my great niece Hannah looks so much like her mom in an old photo I have somewhere, when she was the same age. It's sure fun having a great niece!


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wanted to share a few photos of an old treasure I have. This is a needlework book I bought back in 1975. I love it as it explains so well how to do so many surface embroidery stitches:




Do you have any old needlework books that you treasure?

Enjoy your day, and thanks for stopping by!

Old Dresser Scarf -Stamped Embroidery

Thanks for your supportive comments regarding my dad and his health. I appreciate it a lot. It's been a very hard time, but it's great to have the love of family and friends during a time like this.

I decided to share a photo of a dresser scarf I crosstitched for my parents' upstairs antique room awhile ago. I used 'antique' colors, or at least I considered them to be old-fashioned. Here it is:


I also wanted to show you the birds that have been enjoying the finch feeder we hung in May. It's amazing how many birds have come to our yard because of this feeder.



I have stitched a bit this past week, and I'll share a progress photo soon. I finished the 8th house in my sampler, and have just two left to do. After that I'll add the garden elements and some sort of border.

Take care!

Another Weekend to Work on That Thing

It's Friday night, and soon I will again start working on my large project for the program I'm in at this time. It's not a stitching project, unfortunately! I did get a lot done last weekend, but the entire project is not complete yet. I think I have about 10-20 more hours of work left to do on it, and it will more than likely be more than that.

The week dragged slowly. The time change made it especially hard to function at a good pace, and work seems to just keep getting busier. Spring Fever has begun and the students are very, very restless.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Stitching Update

Here's the latest progress picture of the House and Garden Sampler.



And a close-up of the latest house:


I only worked on it about an hour this past week, but I will get some stitching in this upcoming weekend.

*************************************************************************************
Dish Towel

I also wanted to share a little story about a piece I finished stitching years ago. It's now hanging in our dining room corner. It's the Gathering Honey Sampler from an old CS and CC magazine. I affectionately call it the 'dish towel' because as I worked on it over the years my mom would see me work on it and always ask me if it was to be a 'dish towel'. She meant no disrespect by it, I'm sure. In her family the ladies who embroidered (her mom and just one sister) basically stitched only dish towels. I think it took me several years of stitching to complete this sampler, so needless to say it wasn't meant to be any sort of dish towel.

Here's a photo of it:



And in the room, to the right of the hutch (Gosh, that hutch surface needs some sort of color on it, I can sure see that now!) :


I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for your kind comments.

Stitcher S

House and Garden Sampler Update

I hope your weekend is going well.

Last night I finished the tree that's next to the Tudor-styled home I finished on Thurday. I am now quite excited to start the next house, which will be a house from a book I bought years ago.

Here's the Sampler at this point:


Close-up of the Tudor-style home:


I added the little birdhouse near the fence since I so love watching birds in our yard.

It looks to be another busy weekend. After a rainy, gray Friday we awakened to a bright sunny sky and lots of birds singing. That is something to behold after a very gray day! For those of you who live where it's cloudy all the time, I truly don't know how you stand it but then again I guess you get used to it.

Enjoy your day!

Progress on House and Garden Sampler

Here are the latest photos of my WIP of my House and Garden Sampler. I have completed two houses, and have eight left to do! As you can see, I'm well on my way on the third home.

I am excited to work on it some more tonight.



A close-up of the yellow house:



The top of the trees and the birds:



Another view of the two houses:


Thanks for visiting here!