A few small finishes

Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler

Aury.s Patriotic Quaker Heart 2013

As for the rest of the day:

Piper's stocking comes up in the rotation today.  I am going to try to stitch two square inches every week on this piece until I am done with it.  If I keep that pace I should have it done in time for Christmas of 2014.  Of course, the goal is to have both Piper's and Rocco's stockings completed by Christmas of 2014.  There will have to come a time, probably in July, when I start working on both of the stockings as the main focus of my rotation.

A Little Redwork

Pineberry Lane is one of those new-to-me designers that I discovered while reading another stitcher's blog over a year ago.  I can't remember whose blog at this point.  But whoever the blogger was, she was stitching a lovely little piece called Tansy, Yarrow and Rue.  I ended up browsing Pineberry Lane's website and asking my husband to buy me three charts for my anniversary gift back in 2013: Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler; Tansy, Yarrow and Rue and Autumn on Marigold Lane.

They languished in the to-do-soon binder all of 2013 because I was so obsessed with other projects, mainly Teresa Wentzler's Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking and The English Band Sampler.  But I have pulled all three charts out and stuck them in the current stitching tote.

Here is a photo of my current progress on Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler, stitched on 32ct Meadow Mist linen from Silkweaver with Needlepoint Inc.'s Russet Red Range silk floss.  Did you ever reach a point where you just couldn't take another stitch even though you were so close to finishing a piece?  I figure I have less than an hour's work left to do on this.  When it is done I plan to stitch it up into a pillow.

And even though I will continue to work on my own personal UFO and Class Project Challenges this year, I have decided to introduce my two remaining Pineberry Lane charts into my rotation as soon as I finish the redwork sampler.    Life is too short to keep putting off such simple pleasures.

Anniversary Heart

My first finish of the year is this little heart inscribed with the date I married Bill.  We have since celebrated 43 years of a wonderful and sometimes crazy making marital life.  God bless the man for putting up with me.

Postscript 2-21-14:  Once I posted this photo, I notices the bare spot below the '71 which was missing a mere five stitches.  They have since been filled in.  The piece is now awaiting assembly finishing.

Fickle, Fickle, Fickle

Twenty four inches of snow in three days prompted me to nestle down in my stitching chair and stitch up a storm, if you'll pardon the very bad pun.

For the past three days, I have been a total gad-about: stitching a little on one project, switching to another, and then dropping that one for still another.  Call me fickle but I really am enjoying switching gears frequently.  It's as though that fierce focus of the past several months has exploded into billions of glittering smithereens.  Nothing holds my attention for more than an hour or two.

First up, Pineberry Lane's Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler .  I am working this on a scrap of the same linen I am using for the grandchildren's Christmas stockings, Silkweaver's Meadow Mist 36ct.  It is a very greyed down, pale sage green.  A nice neutral color.  The silk I am using is Needlepoint Inc.'s Russet Red Range, a deep red left over from stitching Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  So, both silk and linen are from stash, giving me that virtuously frugal reduce, reuse, recycle glow.

Next up is Milady's Tea House from the Indy 2006 Town Square series.  This particular chart was done by the folks from Milady's Needle.  I just have the over one stitching in the windows and the specialty stitching in the door step flower pots to do.  This is another project that is stitched from existing stash.  I had to substitute five of the dozen or so called for fibers but it is working our quite well..

Then, I started Aury's Quaker Hearts 2013 that I somehow failed to stitch the year it was published.  I use the same blue linen for the Quaker Heart series as I do for the Town Square series, so I cut the linen for this in a  six inch wide strip long enough to stitch the heart and my four next Town Square buildings.  I wound it on my doodler lap frame which, while not the most portable frame I have, is one of the most comfortable configurations of scroll rods that I own.  I am using GAST Cranberry, Oatmeal and Freedom for this piece.