Friday UFO's and Winner!

This has been a long, tough week. I finally crashed and my rib went out, so no baby today and hopefully they will have day care set up for next week. I would love to have him but my body doesn't want to cooperate.

I have been working on a new stitchery from a design I found on Barbara Brackman's blog, Material Culture. Barbara did a post with Spencerian Penmanship and this one spoke to me, I just had to try it and she was kind enough to give me permission to use her photo.

I tried to keep the original as best as possible, but I changed a few things to make it easier and more stitchery friendly. I still have more to do, but I love how it is coming out. I still have to decide how I want to finish it, should I make it into a pillow, a mini quilt or frame it?

Another unfinished project I have is a rug I started years ago, I guess it is time to finish it. I was making this one for the bedroom, but I might use it in the dining room, it will all depend on where it fits and looks best. The design are elements that can be found in my Angel Blessings booklet. I see there are some spots where I did some bad hooking so I will have to fix those. I also have to find the wools that I had set aside for it. I kept the background lighter, it is a tan that I over dyed lightly to mimic the parchment in fracturs.

The photo makes it look shorter, it is 52" x 24". 

And now for the winner...... The winner is Kim, congratulations Kim! Please send me your choice of pattern from my ecrater site. I had fun reading all of your comments and captions. Tomorrow is our local quilt show, so I am hoping to get some nice shots of the quilts at the show and I can share them with you monday. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Flower Mat Finished!

I finally finished my wool mat, though I took a few short cuts to make it go faster and get it done. I did not add the bugs or spider web, I just wanted a flower piece for my table. The problem is, it doesn't look good on my table so I need to find a place for it or maybe it will be a gift.

I finished it off by adding a linen backing and a blanket stitch. The original was done with a nice edge, but I am too lazy to make a binding.

Not perfect, but not bad. Pattern is Flower Garden Crazy, by Primitive Gatherings.

For the back, I used a linen that has the feel of wool. I found it in a thrift shop and I thought it would be nice for a backing. I cut out the design and left about a half inch of excess so I could tuck it under and keep a nice edge on the back. I pinned it and turned the edge under as I did the blanket stitch, not perfect, but not bad;) The crooked edge came about when I did the stems, I was a bit tight on the stitching.

Wedding pillow!

After a failed attempt, I finally got the top, of the wedding ring pillow, stitched. With the advice from a friend, I went with a cream linen. When I got the fabric I checked out the threads and went with a cream pearl cotton. I like how the thicker pearl cotton gives it just enough of a raised effect to show, but blend in with the linen. My DIL is letting her mom make the arrangements and pick out the dress, etc, so I want the pillow to be simple, but nice, and match any type of setting they have.

I will be adding a ribbon with pearls down the middles of the front and on the back, I plan on doing a simple design with names and date, so I need to draw that out tomorrow. I used my pocket camera, so not the best shot to show it off. The camera wanted to turn it yellow, but it is more of a light cream.

The pillow size is going to be 8". The design itself, can be found on this website. It is in french and I have no idea what most of it says, but enough to know that they have wonderful free designs. I modified it, to fit the corners of my pillow and will be happy to share the design with you, as soon as I scan it in.

Before I started stitching I needed to clean the house and Izzy does not like the vacuum, so she ran into the bedroom, but that was where I was going. When she realized that, she decided that this would be a good place to hide.

New Project: Hand Hooked Rug

I have found myself missing rug hooking and thinking of finishing one I was making for my bedroom, when a surprise box arrived the other day. My good friend Cyndi was cleaning out her stash and gifted me with some new rug patterns, as well as some cross stitch patterns from Primitive Betty.

Not only did she send the patterns, but two were kits and one has all the wool cut for it. Now I could not resist that, no hassle rug making, just hook and enjoy the process. It is also one of my favorite subject matters, Noah's ark, so that is what I started this weekend. The pattern is by Mad Hen Primitives and comes with all the wool I need. They are all quality, hand dyed wools, so it is a pleasure to hook with them. I think I might have messed up with the tree colors and used the bird's pieces, so I will hook the bottom ones last, when I see what I have left from the tree area. The birds are dark browns with a mix of other colors, so I can always pull out some dark pieces from the tree and replace them with the lighter shades. The wool is marked for each piece, but the tree had the bird bundle mixed in with it. Now I am thinking I might go with a folk art biblical theme in my bedroom and hang this on the wall, now I need to come up with a quilt that will match it all.

Gifts and Cross Stitch

Today I received a surprise package in the mail. My wonderful friend Betty sent me a late birthday box.
It is always fun to get unexpected gifts and even more fun when they contain wonderful gifts. I wanted to show you the beautiful punched cat she made me. I just love it! Betty has patterns for punched kitties and other animals, she does wonderful prim patterns. She also has a page with freebies for some fun patterns too.



I am working on a new project and it is consuming my time. I made a cross stitch from a pattern and of course, I had to jump in and make my own. I saw an antique sampler that looked like fun to try. I am just doing the bottom half of it and working from the picture, so it is taking longer than using a chart. I tried to keep it the same, even the letters which tended to stray on her linen.

I am working on the bottom picture now and then I will add a border around the entire design. Not bad for my first try at reproduction;) I did mess up on the window, so I stopped and will undo that tomorrow.

Thrifty Monday

I wasn't going to bother going up to the thrift store today, but I needed to hit Jo anns for some fusible webbing.
There is a Savers, on the other side of the road, so it was worth a visit.
Since we were supposed to be in Maine this week and hitting stores there, why not see what fun things I could find at home.

I love kitties, in case you didn't know;) I saw this print and loved the whimsical look. perfect for my kitchen. It is done by artist Linda Spivey. I love the frame too, so if I get sick of looking at it, I can always reuse the frame;)



It seems harder to find the bargain wool, but I did get a wool jacket that is a cashmere blend, perfect for penny projects.
Then I grabbed some linen. I have no idea what it is exactly, but it looks like linen and a friend loves the stuff and wants to make projects with it, so if it is the right type, it is hers;) Every so often, we see an odd item and just have to have it, just because it is neat, lol. I saw the old ruler and had to have it. It is now in the basket of spools in my textile display.



It is so fun to thrift shop, I can get neat things for nothing, my kind of shopping. Tomorrow is another rainy day, so I think we will try some thrifts and consignments at the south end and if it clears, we can walk on the breakers for a bit. Don't forget, for every new blog that you leave a comment, you get an extra chance in the contest.

New Bunny punch and Sampler

This piece was inspired by an old cross stitch sampler. It looked like a rabbit or an odd deer, but the shape made me think rabbit and I redid it into my own pattern. I used the original rabbit head and designed around that. I really love how it came out. It has a primitive old world look to it.



This weekend we had an ornie retreat, so I decided to make the design into a cross stitch as well. I still have to work at making my designs into cross stitches, but not bad for a newbie;) I am offering both of them on ebay this week, though if the bids do not start by the end of the week, I may have to take them down. I put way too much work into them, to let them go at a last minute low bid. I am sure you fellow crafters can understand that.