Faded Glory Framed And A New Finish

It took almost two years to finally get this one framed. I had wanted to get this professionally framed, however, after doing some pricing, I could not justify the cost. I decided instead to frame the piece using a nice frame purchased either secondhand or from a shop. I finally found the perfect frame and today was spent getting it centered just so. It reminds me of the Victorian Mourning Frames that were used long ago. 

As the piece was both a gift for my father on his last birthday and had become a mourning piece, I think it is fitting. 

At any rate, here is the finished product:

Design: Faded Glory from Portrait of the Civil War Book #119 (an OOP booklet)

Designer: Jeanette Crews Designs

Fabric: 26 count undyed natural dirty linen

Fibers: DMC 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328

Stitchers' Notes: Frame by Green Tree Galley, Oklahoma City, OK. Frame is 10 by 8 inches. Frame #829135; PO W0178685. 

I really do think that it sets off the piece nicely. The piece is now on one of my bookshelves where I can see it every day.  

I also have a finish for today. It is not a patriotic piece, however, I did have a lot of fun stitching this design. I purchased the kit at 40% off the price, so that was nice. I also substituted the 18 count aida for linen as I did not like the way the aida was preconfigured to make it into a potpourri bag. There are three designs in the kit, and I chose my favorite one to stitch:

Design: Flowers and Butterflies Tulips (Kit #PN-0154964)

Designer: Vera Verachtert for Vervaco

Fabric:  36 count Edinburgh linen in Antique White

Fibers Used: DMC Embroidery Floss Art. 117 in 445, 742, 946, 963, 957, 601, 600, 747, 157, 3838, 791, 211, 340, 333, 550, 907, and 906. 

Accoutrements : Mill Hill beads in #40252 Iris, #40479 White, and #42101 Purple. 

Stitchers' Notes: Converted kit floss to DMC colors. Substituted 36 count Edinburgh linen for the 18 count aida that was included in the kit. Will stitch remaining designs at a later date. 

I must be off. It's time for dinner and I need to clean up my stitching area in order to start my next project. I hope every has a Happy 4th of July!

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

It Is Done

At precisely 2 PM PDST, I finished up my oldest UFO. I had originally started this project three weeks before what would have been my father's 51st birthday. Pride goeth before a fall, and I foolishly thought that I could finish this up in time. On his birthday on Friday, August 29, 1997, I presented him with the following that was gaily wrapped up for him as he was a huge Civil War buff:

I apologized that I had not finished it in time and I was presenting him with half finished work. I promised him that I would have it finished as soon as I could. I was in September that we found out that he had pancreatic cancer. He went through the surgery in early October and had died on Thursday, October 23, 1997. In the almost 18 years since then I have rarely, if ever, touched this piece. It just plain hurt too much to stitch on it. Apparently, this has been the year for me to stitch through my grief issues, as I managed to get through the memorial sampler for our son a scant month ago. It's a lot to emotionally process, but I am smiling through the tears. :)

At any rate, here it is. 

Design: Faded Glory from Portrait of the Civil War Book #119 (an OOP booklet)

Designer: Jeanette Crews Designs

Fabric: 26 count undyed natural dirty linen

Fibers: DMC 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328


As of Wednesday, July 22, 2015:

As of Saturday, July 25, 2015:

Happiest of birthdays to you, daddy. There is not a day that goes by that I do not miss you. Remember that I love you.

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Respectfully submitted,

Your loving daughter, C. 

WIP Wednesday 07.22.2015 : Faded Glory Progress

I have now officially hit what I refer to as the 'nit picking' part. Each one of the rows in the field of stars is crammed full of quarter and three quarter stitches on account of the stars. I have chosen to take each row on one by one and do all of the stitching and backstitching before going to the next row. It will be the only way I can keep my head on straight!

Welp, here is what I have managed so far since Monday's post:

Design: Faded Glory from Portrait of the Civil War (an OOP booklet)

Designer: Jeanette Crews Designs

Fabric: 26 count undyed natural dirty linen

Fibers: DMC 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328


As of Monday, July 20, 2015:

As of Wednesday, July 22, 2015:

I had best be off. Lots of stuff to do before I can get back to this one, hopefully later on tonight. Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

Faded Glory Progress

Ever notice how some projects just do not show their progress very readily? With the last project, progress was showing very, very quickly. #25 out of the Bin O'Shame is such a project. I am having to go a bit slower on this one than the others as there is a metric f-ton of quarter stitches involved. I am actually dreading the upper left corner of this piece because that is where the bulk of the quarter and three quarter stitches are located. I am hoping it will not be as bad as I am thinking it will be. I am determined to finish this in time for what would have been my father's 69th birthday on the 29th of August. This project is special because I foolishly thought that I could finish it within 3 weeks working a full time job. It was not long after, maybe two weeks, that he found out that he had pancreatic cancer. He died in October that same year and for obvious reasons, I have not been able to touch it since then. I have attempted to stitch on it every now and again, but it was just too painful. This year is somehow different and it doesn't hurt as much. 

Well, at any rate, here is what I have in four days of progress:

Design: Faded Glory from Portrait of the Civil War (an OOP booklet)

Designer: Jeanette Crews Designs

Fabric: 26 count undyed natural dirty linen

Fibers: DMC 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328

As of Thursday, July 16, 2015:

As of Monday, July 20, 2015:

Well, I had best be off. Tons to do today. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

Joyeux noel! C'est fini!

I should have just waited to post, however, I did not honestly think I was going to get back to this. However, the fates conspired this evening and I managed to get Christmas In Paris done in time this evening. I had to fudge in a few places, because for whatever reason, somethings lined up, however, others didn't. Ah, well. It makes the piece truly special. :)

At any rate, here she is! 

Design: Christmas In Paris

Designer: A Mon Ami Pierre

Fabric: Zweigart 40 count New Castle Linen in Dirty

Fibers Used: Access Commodities Soie d'Alger in F17, Noir, 215, 542, 942, 3426, 3596, 4625, and 4916. Crescent Colours Belle Soie silk in Carnation, Old Crow and Slate. 

Stitcher's Notes: Stitched ornament in the colors of the French flag, Bleu, Blanc et Rouge. Changed skirt from lavender, cream and royal purple to black, cream and grey. I wasn't digging on the purples, but I think the black and grey and cream is très chic, non?



As of Tuesday, December 17, 2013, 5:37 PM PST:

Finished Stitching as of Tuesday, December 17, 2013; 11:15 PM:

Well, I best go. Time to clean up the stitchy area and get out another Christmas UFO. No rest for the wicked! :P

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

The Frog Post

There are some projects, and some sections of those projects, that would try the patience of all the angels and the saints in heaven. In my case, I am referring to the top portion of La Tour Eiffel, that is in my current UFO/WIP in the Q-Snaps. I would probably have finished this up, had it not been for that section. I had to frog and re-frog no less than FOUR, count 'em!, FOUR times. Four times, with my precious silks. And since the linen I am stitching on is VERY rough, I could not back out by 'unstitching' what had been stitched. I was thisclose to putting the project BACK into the UFO/WIP bin. Honestly, my DH was even getting close to requesting that I do just exactly that! 


But, for whatever reason, I stubbornly hung in there, determined to see it through. I *knew* that if I put it back up, it wouldn't see the light of day until at LEAST next Christmas, if ever. So, I kept at it, although, I was sooooo not happy about having to cut out all that silk time and again. Eventually, things got put to rights, and I've managed to put a sizable enough dent in it to where the project is almost finished. 

Design: Christmas In Paris

Designer: A Mon Ami Pierre

Fabric: Zweigart 40 count New Castle Linen in Dirty

Fibers Used: Access Commodities Soie d'Alger in F17, Noir, 215, 542, 942, 3426, 3596, 4625, and 4916. Crescent Colours Belle Soie silk in Carnation, Old Crow and Slate. 

Stitcher's Notes: Changed skirt from lavender, cream and royal purple to black, cream and grey. I wasn't digging on the purples, but I think the black and grey and cream is très chic, non?

As of Saturday, December 14, 2013:

As of Tuesday, December 17, 2013:

Well, I best be off. DH will be done with work soon, and then dinner needs to be arranged. Hope everyone is having a great week!

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

Christmas in Paris Again!

It's been almost a year since I picked up Christmas in Paris by A Mon Ami Pierre. My last update was Saturday, January 5, 2013. I set this aside as I needed more  Access Commodities Soie d'Alger and IIRC, there were time and money issues in trying to procure them. I know that once they came in, I had moved on to other things, and just put this in the 'Getting To It' pile. I decided yesterday to get this one back out and finish it up. It's stitching up VERY fast and I am really enjoying it. I had a few misfires and had to frog three times before I found my groove when I was stitching on the skirt. I had to slow down a bit and mark off the chart (it's from a pdf file, so no worries there!) as I went. The two symbols are a bulls' eye and a star in a circle. It was slow going for a bit, but eventually, things settled down and I was able to get a LOT done. 

Design: Christmas In Paris

Designer: A Mon Ami Pierre

Fabric: Zweigart 40 count New Castle Linen in Dirty

Fibers Used: Access Commodities Soie d'Alger in F17, Noir, 542, 942, 3426, 3596, and 4625. Crescent Colours Belle Soie silk in Old Crow and Slate. 

Stitcher's Notes: Changed skirt from lavender, cream and royal purple to black, cream and grey. I wasn't digging on the purples, but I think the black and grey and cream is très chic, non?

As of Saturday, January 5, 2013:

As of Saturday, December 14, 2013: 

Welp, I best be off. Things to do before work today. Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

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Respectfully submitted,

C. 

   

The Flags of Our Fathers

Since I am on a roll with the WIPs and UFOs, I decided the other night to get out another one, after I had finished my nephew's birth sampler. I casted around and tried to find one that 'grabbed me', but wasn't finding anything in my WIP bag by my usual place next to the couch, so I went bin diving. Yes, you read that correctly...I have BINS of unfinished objects. Three to be exact. One in a small hall closet and two under the bed bins. Yes, I know it's the personification of gluttony, but honestly, I am truly trying to be better. :)

As I was rummaging around, nothing was really calling out to be worked on. Some of them I remembered why I didn't finish them (such as poor charting, mistakes on my part, ran out of materials, got bored with it, and in several cases, more stitching white floss on white fabric o.o) and others I had no clue. I kept digging away until I came across the one I eventually chose. I know why I never finished this one. This project was initially chosen to be the birthday gift for my beloved father. Being young and a new stitcher of two years at the time, I thought I could finish a 66 high by 109 wide piece in three weeks. I began the project in early August 1997 and worked on it day and night, whenever I could. Needless to say, I did not finish it on his birthday on the 29th of August. Instead of a completed piece, my father received the piece much as you see it below, wrapped up with my shamefaced apologies for not finishing it on time. My father was a big Civil War buff and I wanted it to hang in his library area where he had all of his books.

I kept stitching away at it until September of 1997 when my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He had the Whipple procedure done, however, he eventually died in the hospital from the cancer and complications from the surgery. Needless to say, I could not bear to look at the piece, and it has languished for 15 years in the far reaches of my closets and my memory. About 5 years ago, I finally got up the courage to take it out and at least be able to look at it without turning into a massive puddle of grief, but I never took it out and put it back in the Q-Snaps. Tuesday night, however, I came across the project and actually took it out. I teared up a bit when I took it out of the bag that it was stored in, I will admit. Then, like any stitcher peering into the looking glass of the past, I began to chide myself for the sloppy stitching in places. I will have to correct a few things here and there, but when I showed it to my beloved Hubmeister, he told me to leave it be, because the flag is supposed to be old, and not perfect. It's ripped and torn and faded a bit in places and looks like it's seen better days, but the stitching as it is gives it character. I'll think about it at least, because that is a fair assessment, however, the stitcher in me is saying it needs to be corrected. We'll see :).

At any rate, here is my longest running UFO, Faded Glory:

Design: Faded Glory from Portrait of the Civil War (an OOP booklet)

Designer: Jeanette Crews Designs

Fabric: 26 count undyed natural dirty linen

Fibers: DMC 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328

It hasn't changed too much from when I first picked it back up until now. The first few rows I didn't think I was going to get through, as I was crying so much, but after a while, it got better and then it felt like I SHOULD be working on it, which is important, I think. I am kind of hoping to finish it by the 29th of August which would have been his 66th birthday. But I'll be happy if I can finish it by the 23rd of October which is the 15th year anniversary of his passing. The only problem I see in all this is that the DMC floss that I am using is 15 years old and I am running out of some it. This is the label that is on the floss that I am using:

If anyone has any 347, 415, 762, 930, 931, and 3328 with that same label on it, please let me know. I am happy to buy or trade.

Hopefully, this will give me the courage to tackle a start I have been wanting to do, but can't quite make myself do and that is a memorial sampler for my only child and son. That one may take a while longer to get the courage up for, but hey, yanevaknow.

At any rate, I need to get going. Got lots to do before the weekend. Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

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Respectfully submitted,

C.