Celebrity Sighting!

I took this adorable picture of Max this weekend and as I have no stitching to share, he will have to do for your viewing pleasure.

No stitching this weekend, as the best man from our wedding finally got married himself. The wedding was held at the Delaney House in Holyoke, Mass.-- it was so beautiful. I had to go back to the hotel (right next door) after dinner to straighten out a room snafu as our heater was stuck on and our room was stifling, but they very kindly moved us. But as I was standing at the desk returning the key card, I heard an oh-so-familiar voice next to me - none other than Joanne Harvey of The Examplarery, the recreator of the beautiful Frances Burwell sampler that Lisa and I have been so diligently stitching upon. We hadn't seen each other since that class in Plymouth in 2003, so it was nice to be able to chat. She and her husband were on their way to see the samplers at Historic Deerfield. I was very jealous. I am hoping to be able to get her up to Maine to teach for our EGA guild. Then the following morning as I was taking Max to breakfast, who happens to walk into our elevator, but Joanne! And with pen and paper in hand, hoping to see me to get my contact information so we could discuss classes! My stitching angel is watching over me. I am such a Joanne groupie!

And I am now officially on vacation until SEPTEMBER 5! Woohoo! So I am definitely going to make some serious headway on Frances. And in keeping with our SAL, Lisa has also almost completed her sampler, so we will finish neck-and-neck, and that is a good feeling.

Sunflower House Framed!

Sunflower House is back from the framer and I love it! It came out even better than I thought it would. I think my Aunt is really going to like this gift.

Thank you for all of the lovely comments about my basket/bowl. The beading is coming along nicely and I will post a picture as soon as it is done.

Now I need to get back to stitching on Frances Burwell before Lisa beats me to the finish line!

I have added three new features to my blog:
(1) a photographic wish list (see link in sidebar);
(2) a stash list (see link in my sidebar); and
(3) a filmloop with pictures of my finished pieces (see bottom of blog).
The stash list is a WIP - it will take me a while to figure out what is in my stash! I think this will be really helpful for me to figure out what I have and what I want when I am ready to go shopping.

Weekend of Stitching

It was a weekend of stitching, or so it seemed! My best friend Lisa from Connecticut came to visit and we had a very nice visit with stitching, and wine, and cooking a la Rachael Ray, and Max-Therapy (love from my 2-year old). We did get to stitch and Lisa made a lot of progress on her Frances Burwell sampler. I made some progress on Frances. It seems that I get more done when I visit Lisa, and she gets more done when she visits me. Some kind of stitching karma.

Sunday was a dreary, rainy day, so Lisa decided to get an jump start on the returning tourist traffic, and it appears that the tourists decided the same thing, so her 3-hour trip took her almost 5 hours. Sorry Lisa!

While Lisa was stuck in traffic, I made some progress on my bohemian basket.















That little wormy looking part in the middle will be tied off and tucked in later. The weaving part will be finished tonight and my beading class is tomorrow night. Max is usually pretty intolerant of me trying to stitch while he wants me to play, but he is fascinated with the "bowl" as he calls it. He can say both yarn and bowl and knows that the yarn belongs to Mama. My sweet boy.

I had a very nice visit with Patti on Sunday. Her Jack Russell Terrier, Cowboy, is such a SWEETIE! I brought him a peanut butter dog biscuit and had tucked it into the outside pocket of my bag and he found it within seconds. And Patti's house, dubbed Casa Pearl, is a gem. It is a 1920's bungalow and looks like it should be on the pages of Cottage Living. I stitched on Frances, but didn't make enough progress to warrant a photo. We had excellent pizza for lunch, which I ate too much of, and I forgot to have the brownies she made for dessert! Doh!

In other stitching news, Stitcher's Hideaway has updated their website with classes for next year. Lisa (who is blog-less) and I are going to Plymouth at the end of September to attend the EGA New England Region "Region Day" with a tour of Pilgrim Hall Museum (the home of the original Loara Standish sampler). I took a Loara Standish class with Joanne Harvey in Plymouth at Sampler Gathering several years ago, but missed viewing the original sampler as I came down with the flu! I am looking forward to seeing it in person now. Note: the colors in the photo do NOT do this piece justice! We plan to spend the weekend in Plymouth stitching and reliving the glory days of the now defunct Sampler Gathering.

Have a good week!

Where has this week gone?

It has flown by! I haven't made any progress on Frances this week. But that's because I took a bead class at The Beadin' Path in Freeport. If you go to Freeport, Maine and like beads, don't miss this shop! I was not a beading person (other than adding some as edging onto my stitching) until I walked into this ship. It's right on the main drag, at the south end of the street. Don't confuse it with the disappointing, not-worth-a-visit shop across the street.

The class project is called Bohemian Beaded Basket. It's a class in two parts: the first was to make the basket by covering cotton clothesline with yarn. We started that in class and are supposed to have it finished by next Wednesday, and at that class we will attach the beads. I chose a blue/green softly variegated yarn called Nantucket and have blue, green, aqua and silver beads (so far). I'm also going to add another color for contrast and add some little doodads like teeny silver and shells. Weaving the basket has taken up all of my free time since Wednesday. It is a lot of fun though! I'm already envisioning a larger version in fall colors with pine cones and beads and twigs around the edge.

My best friend will be visiting from Connecticut this weekend and we're taking Max to the beach on Saturday morning and will hopefully have time to stitch while he's napping. I'm trying to teach him to say Auntie Lisa, but it's coming out Awnie Sussa. Sooooo cute. Then on Sunday, we're going to Patti's house to stitch! I can't wait to see her stash, projects, cute house and Cowboy!

I'm hoping to have lots of pictures on Monday!

Happy Friday!

Another UFO Morphs Into a WIP!

Hooray! I am in the home stretch on Frances Burwell, an historical sampler reproduction by Joanne Harvey in conjunction with Williamsburg.

Here is what I have accomplished since finishing Sunflower House. The floral band and the house and bird are all done in reversible cross stitch.









This is a close-up of the house. I hope to really crank through the end of this sampler and get it framed for myself.

This past weekend I took Max to the beach on Saturday and it was blessedly not crowded and it was a little on the cool side. But it was gloriously sunny and we were there for 3 hours before I even realized it! Max always lets me know when he's ready to go home - he starts piling his toys into the wagon and then gets in. What a cutie!


On Sunday we all went to the Zoo and amusement park in York, Maine. I have to say that the zoo part was depressing. It's sad to see these beautiful animals in these very small cages. They're clean, but small and do not look like a natural environment. Sad, sad. The best part for us was the duck pond with hundreds of ducks. Max liked feeding them. And the butterfly santuary. One of the baboons took an instant and violent dislike to Max. He was sitting there placidly looking at all the kids until mine walked up. They he started rushing the cage and shouting. It was kind of scary. As soon as we left, he shut up and sat back down. It was weird. We didn't see all of the animals because Max was tired and cranky as we had arrived late. He was very interested in the kiddie rides, but whenever we tried to put him on one, he freaked out. Maybe he will be more interested next year, but I don't know if I want to go back again. I've never been to a zoo before, are most of them like this? Has anyone been to a nice zoo they'd like to recommend?

SBQ

Today's SBQ was suggested by Ami (http://stitch.thirani.net/):

For those of you who use hand or over-dyed floss, how do you store it?

The permalink to this post is: http://blondelibrarian.net/stitching/archives/2006/08/over-dyed-floss-storage/

My current method of storing cotton floss is on little hooks on a pegboard on the wall of my craft room. Not very space effective, but it makes a nice display!

Before I put up the pegboard, I had all of my floss separated by manufacturer (Weeks, GAST, Crescent Colors, etc.) and on large rings in alphabetical order. Much more portable than my wall display!

Sweet Victory!

Sunflower House is finished!

The victory is three-fold: (1) a finish; (2) a finish on time; and (3) making enough time for myself to stitch! I think No. 3 is the most important victory here though.

This is a Blackbird Design stitched on the recommended 28 ct. Friendship Blue linen by R&R and using the recommended Sampler Threads.

Corners of My Home

I don't know who started this or where I first even saw it, but I like the idea. Here is a corner of my home. This is in the sunroom. The pool is to the left and the street is to the right, although you can't see either from this picture. Of course, being a sunroom, it's mostly windows and a good place to stitch and relax.

We had a busy weekend with a trip to Amherst on Saturday for a visit with an old friend of Sam's from high school and college. We thought it was a get together to meet his friend's wife, but it turned out to be a family reunion. Oh well, it was fun anyway.

I'm going to try to finish Sunflower House tonight while everyone else is sleeping. Wish me luck!

Happy stitching!

Good Times

This has such a good week! On Monday Patti came to visit, and even though it was HER birthday, she brought me flowers and cookies - how sweet is that? We went to lunch at Foley's Bakery (awesome bread) at Pineland in New Gloucester, Maine. Then we stitched for a while and dove through my stash. I saw WIPs that I had no memory of stitching. Sheesh! I did manage to get a little done on my Sunflower House, but not enough to show a progress picture.

Today I took Max to the beach. Ah, the beach. Even though it was the hottest and muggiest day of the summer so far, the beach was lovely. Max and I played in the surf all day and he finished off the day with some chocolate cookies and ice cream.





















How great is it to be a kid? Hmm, big thunderstorm starting, better shut off the computer. Have a nice week everyone!