Red Finish!

Thanks to Mudmonkey of Needle and Thread who was kind enought to send me a skein of DMC 115, I finished my ABC Heart sampler. It is stitched on 28ct Amber linen. I do love a happy dance!!

Keep stitching ladies!

Scissors Fob

I stopped at a bead shop the other day and could not resist buying some beads. I can see why this craft is so popular...the variety, the colour, the sparkle! I bought some favorite colours and made a fob. It was easy, and only took about 10 minutes to make. It`s my first beaded one, so don`t look too closely!

Thanks for looking, and keep stitching ladies!

Grateful Heart

This is my progress to date. I am enjoying the colours, though not the thread so much (see previous post). Some of the skeins are fine though. If I was near a needlework store, I would try to exchange the ones i`m not pleased with, but that is out, unfortunately. I have not complained to the thread company...I hate doing that sort of thing, but I may yet. Anyway, the colours are pretty, and just the thing for spring.

For some reason, pics are loading so slow on my comp it is making it almost impossible to view my own blog, so I am displaying one post at a time on my front page. Sorry for the inconvenience...I will change it as soon as I figure out what is up.

Thanks for looking, and keep stitching ladies!

A question regarding floss

What is up with Gentle Art Sampler Threads cotton overdyes? Has anyone found the quality has gone downhill, or is it just my imagination? I am stitching the Sharon Cohen sampler Grateful Heart with the called for GAST threads, and they seem oddly stringy...the twist is looser than it should be, and they lack the smoothness they had before. Anyone else finding this?

A Mystery Item

This piece of linen (not the stitching, i`ll get to that) is a mystery to me. I found it in an antique store in a pile of miscellaneous linens….doilies, runners, handkerchiefs, etc. It is approx 15" by 15" , and is of an uneven count of 28 x 30. It appears to be a raw, undyed linen. When I washed it, it appeared to lose some colour, but upon further examination, I think it was just dirt and smoke that turned my wash water brown.

It has a folded edge secured by a row of chain stitches in a blue thread that appears to be silk. It had a multi looped bow of silk ribbon in the same pale blue as the silk chain stitch, attached to the center of the piece. It has been obviously washed many times in its life…the linen is soft and supple, with a slight sheen. I bought it to stitch on…I thought it would look good with a simple sampler on it, and that`s what I`m using it for….but all the while I have had it, it has been nagging at me….what is it? There was another one in the shop with a dark gold edge of stitching and matching bow, again in the center, that I didn`t buy (I regret that now). Why on earth would someone put a large bow dead center in a square of linen? I wonder if I will ever know?

The sampler I am stitching is a Margaret and Margaret design called Seasonal Sampler with DMC.


Keep stitching ladies!

Stash arrival!

I have stash! Bless Traditional Stitches!

First, the new issue of SANQ magazine. I love this magazine..it seems to be the only one of it`s kind published now. It has a blend of patterns and informative articles about needlework and needlework tool collections. Just some of the goodies in this issue include a look at the 'little dog' samplers of Tennessee, a pattern for a Jacobean pin-keep, a collection of filigree needlework tools in silver and gold, a peek at the book The Goodhart Samplers and an in depth look at Gilt Sylke Twist, a thread 'reinvented' for the Plymoth Jacket Project (a fiber I covet to the point of obsession).

Next...a pattern for a German Show Towel from Carriage House Samplings. I have admired these towels for a long time, and when this pattern came up for sale at 50% off, I could not resist!

A pattern from Little House Needleworks called Necessities Sampler...for obvious reasons. Fabric, needle and thread are necessities as far as I am concerned!

Last, but not least, another beautiful pattern from The Victoria Sampler called Tea and Stitches. A lovely box lid, scissors fob, scissors case, and needle-book. Such pretty colours! (Sorry for the oddly angled pic, but the cover is shiny and I was getting flash bounce)

I have made some progress on my sampler, but am saving that for another day. Keep stitching ladies!

Red disaster...

Not so much of the needlework genre...although it is bad enough! I have dyed my hair a most disastrous shade of red...I thought I had deep auburn, and it was deep red. It is much too bright...rather traffic stopping, and not in a good way. In the sun it looks streaky...rather like the DMC 115 I have been using....which brings me to my second problem of the week.

I was zipping along on this sampler, having such a good time with it, and wham...the frogs struck! I just couldn`t seem to stop making mistakes! When I finally got back to stitching it right, I ran out of thread. So I guess i`ll just have to set this aside for a bit while I wait for my thread to come from more than halfway across the country, from Calgary to Nova Scotia. Can you believe it? There is no place to buy DMC 115 within easy driving distance of me (ie: less than 3 hours)

So...while I was debating if I could 'make do' with some DMC 75, which is also a red variegated (now discontinued) I decided to try a few stitches of the Sharon Cohen sampler. I have never worked on the Summer Khaki linen before, and it is lovely stuff! I adore Zweigart fabrics, and this one is like all the others I have used...smoothly and solidly woven with nicely 'fat' rounded threads that don`t abrade the thread. This is going to be a lovely stitch...the colours are just gorgeous, and so spring-like. I know I won`t be happy with the colour mismatch of the DMC 75 on the red sampler, so i`ll switch to this for awhile while I wait for the thread to come from Traditional Stitches. Janice is always so good about sending me things quickly, even when I 'add' things to an order that has just gone out, which I think will be the case again this time.

Sorry to be so wordy this post...it just seems to be one of those weeks when nothing goes right, and so takes a lot of explaining. Here`s to hoping my hair fades quickly, and the frogs stay away! Keep stitching ladies!