Another Stitching Update

This is my progress on Blackwork Winter by Tam's Creations as of April 29, 2009. I am so happy to be so close to finishing it! I will be stitching some more tonight, so hopefully I will be even closer to finishing it tomorow!

This is a close up of the pulled satin stitches and rhodes stitches at the top of the column in the Wedding Sampler from Teresa Wentzler. I am so proud of those stitches, they came out wonderfully. The anchor rayon works just fine next to the DMC rayon, and it has such a beautiful sheen to it! I am quite pleased with this design so far.

This is a closeup of the confetti stitching on the left hand side border and the upper left block. The picture doesn't show the color differences too well, but there are 4 different sets of greens (all but 1 are blended stitches) in the leaves so far, and the same in the flower above it. Confetti stitching is not my favorite as constantly changing threads in the needle can be annoying, and it is impossible to make the back look very neat either. But the end result is gorgeous, so it will be worth all this effort.

This is what the Wedding Sampler from Teresa Wentzler looks like as of April 29, 2009. I have not stitched on it in 2 days because my DH has the book to copy the chart for me so that I can mark my place without destroying the book. This becomes necessary with confetti stitching or I will lose my place and make mistakes.

I have already chosen the project that will replace Blackwork Winter when it is completed. It will be Crescent Moon from Mirabilia. My DSIL wanted it as a birth sampler for her DD Bridgette. I have all the threads, beads, embellishments, and a beautiful hand dyed fabric for it. It is not a very large design so it shouldn't take too long. When it is done I will pull out Sentiment Sampler which I started quite a while ago as a wedding sampler for DH and I. I really want to finish that as well and get it up on the wall in a nice frame.

Last night while we were watching Stephen King's Storm Of The Century, Bridgette got up on the couch next to my DD Sam. She pulled up her blanket and lay down, cuddling with Sam. It was so cute I just had to get a picture! They are both so beautiful and I love them so very much!

Since I have stopped playing WOW as much I am getting back into my stitching. I am enjoying it so much. I find it hard to believe that I went without stitching much at all for the last few months. I had to give up WOW because the Wedding Sampler needs to be done by June/July, so I decided to not play wow until the sampler is done. What has amazed me is I have not missed WoW at all, instead I have found great pleasure and joy in stitching again! I will be doing my best to balance it better when I do return to WoW as I want to continue stitching. I have so many beautiful patterns I want to stitch, so many ideas for what to do with those patterns (cushions, linens, curtains, framed pictures, wall quilts, quilts and more) and I can't get them done if I stop stitching again. So I have decided I will balance my hobbies better.

A friend of mine from Facebook has asked me if I would do a cross stitch for her and her daughter. It is one I will have to make the chart for myself as I can't get what she wants already made by someone else. She wants two crossed swords (as sword is part of her name) and put her name and her DD's name on the blades. Since it just going to be the two crossed swords I want them to be fairly ornate so there is some bling to the piece. This will stretch my charting ability that is for sure! I'm hoping I can do a good job. This will have to wait a while as I have a couple of obligation pieces that need to be done first (anniversary sampler and birth sampler) but my friend understands that and does not have a problem with it.

If anyone has pictures of swords, or charts of swords (within copyright laws please) or knows where I can get one, please let me know! Thank you so much!

More Stitchy Goodness!

This is my progress on Blackwork Winter by Tam't Creations as of April 10, 2009. I did not get very far because I was hurting too bad to stitch. I am enjoying stitching this chart a gret deal. It brings back memories of my childhood, good memories too. :)




Here is my progress on Teresa Wentzler's Wedding Sampler. I did not get as much as I wanted done, but that's ok. Every little bit counts LOL

I am greatly enjoying stitching on a daily basis again. My DH is helping to keep me on track so that I stitch every day. Having his support has really helped me to stay on track. I am so very lucky to have him in my life :)

Stitching Update

This is what my Blackwork Winter Sampler by Tam's Creations looks like as of April 6, 2009. I am now finished with 3 out of 5 pages. I am getting closer to finishing it and am still loving every stitch.

I have started TW's Wedding Sampler. This is what I have done so far (as of April 9, 2009). It is not a lot and I have already made a mistake, which I will remove tomorrow. I would have some of the satin stitches put in but I don't have the rayon floss it calls for. I am doing this on Painted Champagne Cocktail 28ct Jobelen by Enchanted Fabrics using DMC cotton and rayon flosses. It will have both 2 over 2 and 1 over 1 areas. I hope to stitch on this at least 2 hours every day.

I had to drive to Savannah Georgia to pick up my daughter. She was on her way home after spending a few weeks with friends in Virginia. Sadly she missed one of her buses and the next one wouldn't be there for 4 hours or so. So Stephanie and I went to get her. It wasn't too bad of a drive and it didn't hurt my back as much as I thought it would. We had a lot of fun on the drive back, singing along to music, cracking jokes with each other, laughing, and just enjoying each other's company.

On the way up there Stephanie and I discussed the possibility of opening a needlework store here in town. I think it would have a decent chance of doing pretty well since the closest needlework store to our town is over an hour away to the west and over 2 hours to the east. So tomorrow I will be searching for information on market research and seeing if I can't find that article that discusses small business loans from the state and/or county that I read a while back. We will of course have a web site as well as a physical store. Here is hoping that this will work well! I am very excited by the idea!

50th Anniversary Sampler

Well I finally started the 50th Anniversary Sampler for my parents. Instead of doing the one I posted about earlier, from a Just Cross Stitch magazine I decided to do Teresa Wentzler's Wedding Sampler and change the words to show it is for a 50th Anniversary.

I have the chart as part of her Best Of Teresa Wentzler's Sampler Collections book. From past experience with her charts, I went to the posting board and her web site today to get the list of possible errors that have been found on the different releases of this chart. The biggest one I was worried about was the Plait Stitch border on the heart box near the bottom. There is no stitch diagram in the best of book for plait stitch that can be worked in a row, just a diagram for one that is to be worked as a single stand alone stitch. Luckily the wonderful people on her posting board had already found this error and posted a correction for it which included the stitch diagram.

I will be stitching this design using the recommended DMC floss, Mill Hill beads, and the first fabric I ordered from Enchanted Fabrics. (Champagne Cocktail, painted..28ct jobelen) The second one I had ordered is too dark and over shadows some of the colors, whereas the champagne one (that has a slight peach cast to it) works perfectly!

So far I have the upper left square done, with the column of cross stitch that goes below it on the outside of the satin stitch lines. I really like the way the colors are enhanced by the fabric, not overshadowed or drowned out.

I will be working on this some more tomorrow, so hopefully I can put my first progress picture up! I am really looking forward to stitching this design!

Blackwork Winter Tam's Creations

Well I did some more work on Blackwork Winter from Tam's Creations yesterday. So here is what it looked like when I started:

And here is what it looked like when I finished for the day:



Yay progress!! I am enjoying stitching this piece and feel a bit bad that I hadn't stitched much at all since December. Finishing the Snowmen Cow made me want to stitch again and I am making myself stitch for at least an hour every day so I can try to pull myself out of depression again. I really hate depression and how it comes and goes, specially since my pain levels vary. The higher the pain, the depression comes back, the lower the pain, the depression goes away. Like living with chronic pain isn't bad enough all by itself. Oh well, such goes life I guess LOL

Well I'm going to go do some more stitching See if I can't finish the whole upper left corner today then I will be three quarter's done!