New Stash and Progress

Hello all! I finally got my first silks ever!! Whoohoo! They sure are soft and silky.  I am excited to try them out but I want to finish a few things first.  I still haven't finished Debi's Roses.  It's taking a lot longer than I thought and I still need to do two more sides for the biscornus.  I have progressed on Tanglewood though.  I had a serious stitching marathon last night and managed to finish a branch and start another.  The q-snap frames are a bit bigger than I had expected (I'm lousy with measurements and estimated the length of the qsnaps).  I think I need to purchase the next size down for my other projects.  I do like them though! They keep the fabric taught and don't cause creases if I put felt in between the fabric and the frame.  I picked that trick up from someone's blog.  Whose I can't remember but thank you for the tip!! I also love the new linens I got: Stone Gray Belfast, Antique White and natural linen. Now I need to get more charts!! This stash buying is highly addictive! I want to find a really nice sampler to stitch on my new Antique white linen so I've been browsing samplers and can't decide on the one I want to stitch.  I have a couple in mind but I really should finish what I have now then decide later.  I hope everyone is having a great day! It's finally warming up here and it is sunny out!

Take care 

Anne 

Nearly done!

Queen's Sampler kitted up!

First silks!!!

New linens!

Tangle progress in Qsnap frame!

Pascha (Easter) Weekend!!

Post edited because I just won a hidden giveaway from Daffycat, aka Sharon!! Wow! This is my first giveaway I have won and my first piece of stitching from someone else other than myself!! I was just thinking today as I was writing this post about making something to giveaway, however, it would have to be a good finish to even qualify. I'll mull over the biscornus and if they turn out well, perhaps I'll send one off to continue spreading the kindness that bestowed upon me.
 Thank you again Sharon for this lovely surprise!


Hello all!

Just wanted to say how amazed I am that I have 36 followers! Wow! Thank you all for joining my humble blog.  I now realize I have an audience so perhaps I should update everyone with what's been going on, with stitching and life.  I have been pretty busy these past two weeks with working, church and with family.  My mother has come down from Prince George for Pascha.  Pascha to the Orthodox is the most important time of year, and it certainly is for our family.  We have very long services so that has taken up a lot of my time.  This weekend we start our Paschal service at 11p.m. and it goes until 1-2 am in the morning. When the service ends we are all joyful and break the fast with diary (yahoo!), meat (yahoo!!) and wine (double yahoo!!!).  After 40 days of being vegan you can bet I'm looking forward to my Nana's famous pancakes, kuleech (Russian pascha bread), and syrnee pascha (phonetic Russian spelling of our really RICH AND TASTY cheese spread).  We will be busy preparing for the big day with cooking, dying eggs and praying.  

So with all of this going on I won't be stitching to much.  But here is a few things I have been working on but haven't finished yet.  I'm really eager to make my biscornus.  I decided to make two.  One design is from Barbi and the other from Chatelaine.  I will send Barbi a picture of the completed biscornu because she likes to have pictures of her designs.  Recently, I have become very interested in Chatelaine designs, but they seem so expensive and detailed that I thought I would try out a little one first before I attempt a larger one.  There is a blog of Chatelaine stitchers you should really take a look at.  The designs are beautiful and so ornate!

Tanglewood progress

Barbi's design

Debi's Roses from Chatelaine freebie designs

Blurry close up of my first Algerian eyelets!!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend everyone!    Христос повышен!!! (Christ is risen!)

Tangled Branch and Cherry Blossoms

Alright! I got the bulk of the right branch finished today! The outlining still needs to be done, but I think I'll do that after all the branches are complete.  I've been still messing around with various different butterfly designs to cover up the stain.  I made two but feel they are too geometric for this piece.  I searched for a few designs on the internet but found nothing to my liking.  I may keep one of the designs I made, we'll see how it turns out!

On to other news, I made a purchase of Q snap frames, linens and my first SILKS!!!!! I am pretty pumped to try out silks for my Queen E design by Plum Street Samplers.  I am also thinking of making a few more smalls while I have my big projects underway, that way I won't get bored! My husband wasn't too happy with the purchase though.  He says I have enough linens (um only 3-4 plus some scraps!) and threads to make more projects and that I should use up those first before I get anything more!  Hmm, we'll see about that! He likes that I do stitching, but doesn't understand the need to have supplies at hand for inspiration.  I'll have to work on that with him, hehehe!

And lastly, spring is in full bloom, albeit cold, but blooming nonetheless! On one of our few sunny days, I stayed around downtown while on the way home from work and took some pretty photos of daffodils and cherry blossoms, my favourite tree (along with the magnolia).  So many people were taking photos of the trees with great cameras and all I had was my, sigh, cell phone camera.  One day soon, after we purchase the rest of our supplies for our bike trip, I will get a new camera.

Take care!

Anne

Cat Post Dedicated to Lucy

I thought I would share a little bit about my dearest cat Lucy aka Luchia, Chia bear.  She is around 17-19 years old and is still living the good cat life.  My stitching seems to be of a lot of interest to her.  I often find her sniffing around my sewing desk area and trying to get into the bag of miscellaneous stitching.  She is the culprit that caused the stain on my Tanglewood but I love her still.  She is still kooky and going a wee bit senile with her constant howling at night, keeping us up.  She is stubborn, like my husband, and refuses to sleep in logical spots. Instead she picks the most illogical spots to sleep in such as: behind the door, on the narrow window ledge (she just fell off again), on top of my laptop, on top of my husband's keyboard (opening up 200 firefoxes), on top of my stitching (but no longer since I put everything up high!) and pretty much anywhere that makes no sense to us!!   But she is beloved and sweet and we cherish everyday with her because the day will come soon when we have to make that hard decision.  So here are some photos of my darling Luchia.

Stain Faded But Not Gone

Well, after multiple soaks and prayers that the stain would go away, I managed to minimize it to a small, light purplish blob.  I would have soaked it more but the water was running into the other stitching and I had some of my stitches bleed a bit.  Sigh.  After I came to accept the fate of bleeding threads, I had an idea about what to do with the stain.  I am going to stitch either a little butterfly or dragonfly over top the stain, in the direction of the thistles.  Not too bad of an idea hey?! I figured why not embrace the stain and work with it, instead of fighting it. I am still mulling over which kind of bug will fly into my Tanglewood, but I think I'm leaning more towards a dragonfly. 

Oh and to top off the stain catastrophe, I had to frog out that right branch about three times!! I did read the warnings posted by the ladies stitching Tanglewood on the ICblog about how pesky and troublesome that branch was to stitch.  Here I am, stitching along, thinking that I wouldn't screw it up because I was being so careful, yet I did! It was like an optical illusion! I swear!!