SAL Progress

I forgot to take a photo of the fabric I used for my CHS pillow. It was a fat quarter I bought a while back because I really liked the colors and when I found it in my fabric drawer I knew it would be perfect. It has the same reds and golds and a bit of a metallic sheen to it.

Here is a photo of my Friday night progress on the Stitchers Wallet. Because I decided to put together my CHS piece, this one didn't get quite as much attention but I did manage to finish the dark brown motif in the center. I look forward to getting back to work on this next Friday!

Dainty Housewren Pillow

On Friday evening I sewed and stuffed my CHS Dainty Housewren piece into the pillow form and last night I sat and completed the beading. The picture is not great because we have no sunlight to speak of. I will try to remember to take a picture when it's finally sunny - if it ever comes back. I'm really happy with how this turned out and pleased that I've completed the project all the way through.

TGIF!

As you may guess from my lack of posts since Monday, this has been quite the tough week. I had something going in the evening after work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and tomorrow I will be volunteering at an all day event at my job. So not a whole lot of stitching on but I did make some progress on a UFO that I will show you soon. Today is the Stitcher's Wallet SAL so I hope to get some work in on that this evening.

I completely forgot to share photos of a wonderful package I recently received as part of a color exchange. My color choice this round was red - in any shade. I got a wonderful package from Gaby who stitched me the most gorgeous heart. Her blog has much better pictures but here are photos of the goodness that was inside! Two wonderful pieces of linen banding, two pieces of linen and a Crescent Colors thread called Ruby Slippers and other wonderful goodies.

Finally Finished!

Yesterday I sat down and focused on finishing my CHS Dainty Housewren. I put the beads on last night and now she is ready to sew up as soon as I choose a backing fabric. Wooohoo! This is my first finish from my 25 projects challenge. One down and only 24 more to go! LOL I was so excited about completing something, I picked out another project from the list to start - BOAF's Spring Garden. I need two WDW threads so I ordered those from ABC Stitch and in the meantime I've picked up PS Autumn Winds and started working on that. Can you tell I'm a little psyched to have something completed?

Spring Serenade

We are having a glorious spring weather weekend and everywhere Cowboy and I walked yesterday, we could hear the sound of lawnmowers and smell fresh cut grass. We had quite a warm week with temperatures in the 80s but now it's dropped back to a more springlike temperature of mid 60s. I hope you are enjoying a lovely Mother's Day whereever you are.


I've got three project updates to show so it was quite the productive stitching weeken for me. The first is my completed H is for Horse from my CHS Alphabet piece. I have decided I'm going to keep this out and rotate it with CHS Dainty Housewren and my Stitcher's Wallet.


Thursday night I worked on my CHS Dainty Housewren as well as giving her some attention last night. She is really quite close to being completed and I think I will look in my fabric stash to see if I have a suitable backing fabric to finish this piece off. I have really enjoyed working on this but I will be glad when it's completed so that I may start something new!




And last but definitely not least is my progress on my Stitcher's Wallet. I completed the flowering vine motif down the right side and the crown and started working on the darker brown area under my initials. This project continues to be a joy to work on!


To all you mothers out there, I hope you are treated like queens today - you deserve it!

2nd Blue Moon Sock Club Kit

This arrived the week before last and I forgot to post about it. It's the second installment in my Blue Moon Sock of the Month. It's a really cool new product from them - Silkie Socks That Rock which is 89% superwash merino and 19% silk! This yarn is so incredibly soft and silky so it's very appropriately named. The colorway is called Walking on the Wild Tide. The pattern that came with the yarn is called Grasshopper and I am really looking forward to working with both the pattern and the yarn. I am thinking I will make these for a Christmas gift.

I also gave in and bought some more STR - gotta keep that addiction going!

Well, it's TGIF and that means I am allowed to stitch on my Stitcher's Wallet so I'm off to do just that. I had a nice bit of stitching progress on two other UFOs so I will share that with you when I show my SAL progress tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend!

Stitcher's Wallet Progress

First off, I forgot to put a picture of Jo and I stitching in the stitchers lounge at Celebrations so here it is - thanks Pete for taking the photo! Jo looks her usual wonderful self and I'm not sure what I was thinking - I look like a dork! LOL

The piece in my hand was my Stitchers Wallet from The Gift of Stitching. I worked on it all weekend and had to finally zip it into its project bag on Monday and put it away because I didn't want to stop working on it. I am really loving how this is turning out. I will not bring it out again until Friday so I don't get too far ahead of the other ladies stitching along on this. Nancy, did you subscriber yet? I'm glad to see you posted - now you need to get a blog!!!

Celebrations Report

So I went to NH for the weekend and got back yesterday to discover that my computer monitor had finally died. I had to go buy a new one in order to be able to see to upload photos and check email. As a result of all that rigamarole, I'm a bit late in posting my Celebrations report!



I only went for Friday and got to see Carole, Jo, Nancy, and Sandy and her friend Lisa and meet a friend of Nancy's named Tinka. I had a really nice day and managed to leave at the end of the day without spending too much in the shopping mart. I also got to see Joyce and another knitting friend Lucille who I haven't seen since I moved - 2 years! Nancy and I arranged to meet at the entrance to the shopping mart at 9am on Friday and ended up pulling into the parking lot behind each other. We spent about 1.5 to 2 hours looking around and I managed to only come out with 5 pieces of 28 ct 9x13 fabric from the Picture this Plus booth. I started out picking out my usual samplery colored pieces but decided that what I really needed was some colors I wouldn't usually buy and so I ended up with these. The colors are from the top left, Kermit, Coastal, Flash(2nd row down on left), Ember and Splash. I thought it would be really cool to stitch a quaker or some thing similar in a contrasting fabric - a sort of modern quaker piece. We shall see on that.


Nancy and I had lunch at Applebees and then went back to stitch. She was meeting Tinka at 1:00 for another run through the shopping mart and I was meeting Jo after her class at 2:00. Jo and I ended up in the stitching lounge all by ourselves for quite a while. Nancy and Tinka finally managed to drag themselves away from the shopping mart so we stitched a bit and then went to an early dinner at Outback with Pete, Jo's husband. I made quite a lot of progress on my Stitcher's Wallet SAL. A really nice day all around! It was great to see good stitching friends again! I just wish Joanie and Sue had managed to join us as well. Maybe next year ladies right?

A Pair of My Own!

This morning I finally finished the second sock of my Inside Out Socks so I am happy to say I now have my own pair of hand knit socks! The sock on the right is what it looks like turned "inside out" and the one on the left is the "outside" as I was knitting it. The socks can be worn either way but I think I like the "inside" version on the left because it shows the cabling much better. I was really concerned that I would run out of yarn but thankfully I didn't but you can see how little was left over.

I loved knitting this pattern as it really challenged my skills and I learned two knew techniques, knitting from the toe up and cabling. I will definitely use this pattern again but not for a while!

I'm off to NH for Celebration of Needlework tomorrow and I hope to have lots of pictures to show when I get back!

2007 Color Exchange

I received an email saying that my last exchange had been received so I can now post photos of what I sent. My exchange partner wanted spring colors and mentioned that lime green was a current favorite color. Digging through my stash I found a 30 ct piece of R&R fabric that was a great lime color so I started with that.

The design is from a recent issue of The Gift of Stitching magazine - February or March I think - that was actually part of an oriental motif pattern. My exchange partner likes dragonflies which make up the corners of the motif so I thought that would be a good choice. The thread is WKS Calypso and I used some dupioni silk I bought a while back.


The ribbon came from a "ribbon jam" display at Michaels which they intended to be stuffed inside a mason jar with a bunch of other spools of ribbon. I know immediately it would make a great finishing item so I bought several other spools when the went on sale for $1 each. I'm very happy with how it turned out and the recipient seems to be as well. This was a fun project to do.

Stitcher's Wallet SAL

Joanie, Sue, Debby and I started our SAL for the Stitcher's Wallet from the March issue of The Gift of Stitching on Friday. This is a photo of my progress. I ordered the fabric from Stitches and Spice in Australia and I love, love, love it. It's quite thick and a pleasure to work with. I am also really liking the Flower Thread floss. It is a single strand product and really gives nice coverage on this 32ct. fabric. I can definitely see myself using this fiber in the future! I am trying to limit my stitching on this piece to Friday's as I have a lot of other projects going on but I think it's going to be tough to resit!

Weekend Work

With some really nice spring weather this weekend, I turned off the heat and opened up all my windows and started some major spring cleaning. I was so motivated on Saturday that I finally sat down and cut out and sewed some panels to hide the storage underneath my butcherblock countertop. This "island" is on wheels and sits next to my stove.



As my house is 87 years old this year, the kitchen is a bit of an awkward space. The previous owners made this rolling island to add much needed counter space.

I used the same fabric that I bought at Walmart last summer that I made kitchen curtains out of. I still have a lot left and I'm planning to sew matching seat covers for the two chairs that I use to eat in the kitchen. This hides the clutter of my "liquor cabinet" and dog stuff that I store under the counter top. I'm pretty pleased with the end result of a weekend's work.

As you can see from this photo taken when I first looked at my house, Casa Pearl has come a long way!

Birthday Exchange Received

I heard over the weekend that my friend Kathy received the birthday exchange package I sent her so it's now safe to share photos. Kathy is a fantastic stitcher and finisher so I was really concerned about my finishing coming out presentable. In typical fashion, I made one slight goof that I didn't realize until the very end. It's not that big of a deal but I meant to have the scissors attach on the side opposite of where they ended up! Oh well, Kathy was happy with the end result and I sent her some Blue Moon STR sock yarn and a cool pattern so I'm sure she'll be another sockaholic before too long! LOL

I have one more exchange that should have reached it's recipient but she was out of town this weekend. I'm hoping I will be notified she got it and then I'll share it.

I hope you had a good weekend - we had a fabulous spring weather weekend and today it was supposed to be in the 80s!! Definitely a fluke for Maine in April but I'll take it. I was very productive over the weekend and put Jemima to work but for some reason I can get my camera to upload the photos I took. I hope to figure that out and I'll share my results tomorrow!

Thanks for the kind comments!

Thanks everyone for your nice comments about my sock. I'm really pleased with the fit and have already started the second sock. I really hope the second one goes faster than the first one!

With all the sock knitting I've been doing lately (seems that's all I'm knitting these days) I was thinking I would really like to have a needle holder for my dpns. I've seen a lot of really fabulous ones in various online knitting shops but I really don't want to shell out that kind of money. So I'm going to make my own using this pattern from the first Stitch n Bitch book and this Amy Butler fabric I bought two years ago for this very pattern. However, I think I'm going to modify it to fit my dpns and then sew one for my straight needles later on. There is some math involved in reducing the pattern so this may take awhile! LOL Stay tuned!

Sweet Sock Success

I persisted!

Bad Knitting Mojo

There's been some bad knitting mojo going around lately resulting in some finishes that didn't turn out quite as planned and some reverse knitting. Last night the bad knitting mojo turned up at my house when I decided that after almost two cable repeats it was safe to try on my sock and see how it was fitting with the cabling. Well guess what? I couldn't get it over my heel because the instep was too tightly knit. Mind you the pattern calls for knitting it on 0 or 00 or even 000 dpns. I knit mine using 1s which is what I got guage with. Major angst ensued as I sat and contemplated all I had accomplished..... and what it meant.

So on my lunch hour today, this sock on the left has become this sock on the right. I ripped back to just before the start of the first cable. I tried it on when I got home and I can now slide it on completely. I have been considering putting it aside and casting on something new but I've decided to hang in there and start the leg again with #2s. But first I'm going to put in a lifeline in case I need to go up another needle size. Ugh, all that time lost. At this rate these socks will never be done!

I sure hope the bad knitting mojo moves on to someone else's house. Although I really don't wish it on anyone personally. By the way, the snow plow just went by. :0(

Hello Spring??? Hello? Hello?

They are forecasting 4-8 more inches of snow starting tomorrow into Friday and more again on Sunday. Today it was probably close to 50 and the pup and I were able to take a walk with me wearing just a sweatshirt. Go figure. So much for spring in Maine. I knew we would pay when it was in the 50s in December.

To try and cheer myself up that spring is actually going to come, I dug out this little Lizzie Kate freebie I stitched last year. I had finished it up to the point of hand sewing the opening closed and then it got stalled. Last night I sewed up the opening and made the tassles and tonight I sewed them on the pillow. It's quite cute and I will put it somewhere prominent in the hopes it will ward off more snow.

Tonight I had some sad news in my inbox - my local scrapbook store is going out of business. The woman who owns it is going to have to declare bankruptcy and may even lose her home. In the email she wrote that it was her dream to own the store but it just wasn't profitable in the year and half that she was the owner. So sad to see someone's dream come to an end. She is of course selling off her merchandise but it seems so awful to take advantage of someone else's misfortune. I have mixed emotions about going in to buy anything even though it might lessen her debt load.

Sock Update

I've been slowly but surely working along on my Blue Moon Sock Club sock. I've finally gotten to the cabling part on the leg and here is my progress so far. When I was in New Hampshire last weekend, I bought Cables Untangled which I found very helpful. The author uses a DPN for her cables and I am doing that as well. I think having a larger needle to work with for my first time doing cables is helpful although it does make it a bit awkward to manage all those DPNs! This book has some really nice projects in it that I plan to try. And she did a great job including drawings of how the needles and stitches look as well as a very good glossary and instructions for reading the different kinds of cable patterns. A bit pricey but worth the money.

Here is a not very great close up of the cables. My camera doesn't have a zoom lens but the color is pretty true in the photos as I caught the last bit of sunshine after getting home and walking the dog.

Hope you had a great Monday!

Happy Easter!

Although looking out the window and being outside today, I'm not convinced it's April. After waking up to 10 inches of snow on Thursday morning, the ground is still pretty covered with snow and it's cold. It was probably in the low to mid thirties today but the wind gave it a wind chill in the 20s. Lovely weather for wearing Easter finery - not!

I stayed in Maine as I was just down at my sister's last weekend. I am glad I didn't make the trip as it was a very productive weekend from a finishing and exchange point. I can't show you pictures yet but I completed the finishing on my April birthday exchange gift and my color exchange piece. I tried to take my time with the finishing - lots of hand sewing and gluing. Despite that I did make a rather large and silly error which I will point out when I know the projects have been received. They are all wrapped and packaged up and ready to go to the post office tomorrow. I'm happy dancing because those are the last exchange gifts I need to think about until November which means stitching time for me! Hopefully that will translate into some finished UFOs and some new starts too!

I also managed to complete one round of cabling on my STR Inside Out sock but didn't get photos in the daylight so I will try to do that tomorrow to show you my progress.

Hope you and yours had a wonderful Easter holiday!

Saturday Stitch In and Sunday UFO Progress

Saturday I went to a stitch in at my friend Nancy's in Massachusetts. We hadn't seen each other since CATS in September so it was really nice to be able to visit. She had quite the full house - 5 other stitchers besides me and it was nice to get together with a large group and see what everyone is working on. I was finally able to give Nancy her birthday gift from December and she gave me this fabulous framed piece as my Christmas gift. I absolutely love it and it will go next to another stitched gift she made me.

While at Nancy's I was able to finish the stitching on an exchange gift - Yippee and then I got out my CHS Dainty House Wren and got some progress made on that. I also focused on this piece Sunday as it was UFO Sunday with my yahoo group. I'm really happy with the progress and I expect to be able to finish the stitching on this by the end of the month. Maybe even the finishing too!

I was also able to finish the heel of my sock but forgot to take a photo. Next up is the cabling on the leg but I will talk about that tomorrow. Hope you had a great Monday!