Ornaments, Part II

Long time, no post.
I have finished the last ornament for the grandkids.

There really isn't any tan color ... I think that is the table showing through.  If I can catch up with the finisher, I'll get it to her asap.

It really didn't take a month to do that ornament. I was also working on Shades of Gold, by Northern Impressions. I finished it .... just in time to see that she has announced the next Shades of ... this time it is Red ... I have ordered it from my LNS.

YIKES! It really needs pressing, doesn't it.

I am going to have it made up into a pillow. I am going to head to In Stitches, Needlework, next week and select fabric and style.

Meanwhile, we finally decided we absolutely had to get a new car. The 2005 Subaru was beginning to cost more money than it seemed to be worth. We looked at a number of cars - on paper, and then narrowed the search to the Ford C Max and the Subaru Forester. I really liked the C Max, but Bill (and his bad back) were not completely comfortable in it ... not enough lumbar support. So, we got a 2015 Forester in a slate blue ... think DMC 932. So far, we love it.

Ornaments - so far

I finished Eme's giraffe with an edge that reminds me of a perforated postage stamp.

I love the eyelashes on this giraffe. I kept thinking it looked mean, but when I added eyelashes, her whole character changed.

Xander wanted a dinosaur robot. After Googling the idea of a dino-robot, I found that there were toys like transformers that were dinosaur robots. It was hard to choose one, but the RoboRaptor was the final choice. I started it on red fabric with white thread. That lasted all of 4 stitches. I kept losing the white thread between the threads of the red fabric. I still had some of the fabric I used for Eme's giraffe, so RoboRaptor was done in black on the white fabric with a red border.

It looks like the edge has faded, but that is just my poor photography and the wooden table beneath showing through. I don't know if he will like it, but I do. This was a real challenge.

Meri, who had no say in her ornament, is getting an old-fashioned Santa Claus. I used a gold sparkly fabric and a very old Pat Carson chart. I didn't use the shading that she used, and my 'fur cuff' and 'hat' are a faint grey instead of a faint blue. I also had to change the skin color and cheek color because the original colors didn't look right with the gold background.

The ornaments for Becca and Bryce are still works in progress. They wanted school symbols. Fortunately, the schools used things I could find ... seahawks and eagles. But neither school used the exact seahawk or eagle that the football tames used. So, I am busy at work 'designing' these ornaments.

The three above will go to the finisher this week.

Christmas is Coming ...

Well, not quite yet, but I have started working on the grand kid ornaments. Jon's kids have told me what they want, and Vicki made a suggestion for her son. So. In order of age, with oldest first - the requests are
Becca - an eagle like her school uses for the track and field department
Bryce - a South River Seahawk - like his new school will use for its emblem
Eme - a giraffe [no hemming and hawing here, she knows what she wants]
Xander - a dinosaur, no a robot, no a dinosaur robot
 Meri- didn't enter the discussion so she is getting a traditional Santa or snowman or angel or something along those lines.

1 out of 5 ... will be easy to do. The rest require finding images I like (or at least can live with), graphing them, and then stitching them.

I have almost finished one of them. Eme's giraffe. I found a giraffe that I almost liked, graphed it, stitched it. I started on black fabric. Decided I wasn't that crazy, and restarted on white. I thought I did like the way it popped out on the black, so I gave it a black background. OMG there are a lot of black stitches in there.
Now I am working on a pinkish coral 'frame' around it.

I have almost finished two rounds of the 'frame.' Frankly, I am tired of stitching it, but think it should be at least 4 rounds deep. Any thoughts?

Today is my 'baby's birthday ... he is 48. He doesn't like me to refer to him as my baby.

Hanky Pysanky

Hanky Pysanky by Ink Circles. Finishing by In Stitches Needlework.

This little gem only took forever to do. I started it shortly after the chart was published. That was in 2007.

7 years ... that may be a personal record for procrastination!

While I love it, I found working on the black fabric to be a chore. I needed lots of light and a white cloth in my lap to even attempt it. I would drag it out, stitch for a day or so, maybe one design, maybe not a full design, and put it away. This went on until I finally got afraid that I would lose the thread. Since they are hand-dyed, I figured that I would never match the colors. So this year, I dug it out and finished stitching it. Not every motif is exactly the way it was designed. But, I think it works. At least, it does for me.

After it was posted on Facebook, my nephew decided that he really liked it and it is now the background on his smart phone.

Wow - February was my last post

I keep thinking I should go update the blog. And then something happens and I don't get there. As some one said, 'Life is what happens when you are making plans.'

I haven't done a lot of stitching as my right thumb is terribly arthritic and is forcing me to stop stitching after only a handful of stitches. Not fun.

My niece announced that she is getting married in August. I have been working on a small piece for her. Happily Ever After.  with their names and I am including the date of the wedding. I don't have a picture right now. I am hoping to do that in the next few days.

Her fiance's mother held an engagement part for them in Yorktown. But, we didn't make the trip because Bill had an awards luncheon the same day, and he was not willing to make that drive after the luncheon. Can't say that I blame him. Since I knew we weren't going, I chose an item from her 'registry' and arranged to have the store sent it to her. Then I sent her an email apologizing that we weren't going to make the trip and asking her to watch for the gift. She emailed me Monday night that they had never received anything. I checked my credit card statement online - no charge for that store. I checked with the store - no record of a purchase. I asked why - well, if you didn't get a confirmation email, the purchase was never finalized ... never mind that I had received a receipt of the purchase, just no confirmation email. So, I had to make the purchase again ... this time, I am delivering it in person. When I emailed her telling about the 'saga', she email back - too funny ... I just had the same thing happen with a gift for a shower (from a different store though).

The LI grands have made their choices for designs for ornaments this year. One wants a giraffe, one wants her school symbol, one wants a dinosaur-robot, and the other is getting a more traditionally Christmas ornament. The MD grandson is getting a his school's seahawk (done very much like the emblem for the Seattle Seahawks).

Enough, already!

It is snowing ... again. I wouldn't mind, except we had to head to Alexandria to pick up my pillow from the finisher. We took it in in December ... about the 18th. It came back in late January, but wasn't done the way I had asked for it to be done. So, it had to be redone. We got a call over the weekend that it was ready, again. Since no needlework shop in the history of needlework shops is open every Sunday or Monday, we had to wait until today to get it. The snow made for an interesting drive. The trees, shrubs and grass were all covered with a fluffy coat of beautiful snow. The roads had some snow, making it a little tricky for driving, but since I wasn't the one driving, it went well.

Here is the pillow, still wrapped in the plastic cover to get it home in the weather. My grandson and his parents had been to dinner in a 'sports bar' restaurant. The booth had a tapestry like covering that include scenes from pretty much any sport that used a ball. He took pictures of the baseball segment and asked me to make him a pillow ... a lot easier said than done, but finally DONE! I did a bit of personalizing ... since his favorite had just won the World Series when I started designing the pillow, I include a reference to them ..  and made the stripes on the batter match their uniforms. 

The Tuesday stitch group has a day off. Our hostess is visiting her brother whose wife was readmitted to the hospital. We are all hoping and praying that all goes well.

The Car is Back

Well, the car survived the trip to the repair shop. But the bank account didn't. A lot of money later, it works like new. Which is a silly statement because we didn't know it had a problem when it went in for an oil change.

I have been working on the Lizzie Kate Jingles. I am doing it as a long banner.

I actually have one more segment done, but the picture left a lot to be desired ... like clarity. It was so blurred I must have sneezed when it finally took.

I am using a very nice pure white fabric that the snow disappeared into. I decided that wasn't going to work because Lizzie*Kate used a lot of snow in this one. So, I tea dyed it. Twice. It still is very light, but at least now you can see the various bits of snow - flakes, snow men, etc.

I have been trying to stitching during the Olympics. Not so much happening in my stitching, but a lot going on on the TV. I don't really like Bob Costas, but he is an Olympic standard. I did like the way he started the broadcast the other night ... Hi, I'm Bob Costas, standing in tonight for Matt Lauer and Meredith Vierea.

We celebrated a 50th birthday at the stitch group yesterday. One of our members turned 50 on Valentine's day. Funny thing is, we have two people with a Valentine's day birthday ... out of 16. We had a potluck. Lot of good food. Our hostess went all out. She had an appetizer - homemade cheese crackers, a casserole - not sure of its name, but it was loaded with broccoli and cheese and a dessert - a Raspberry cake. Our birthday girl brought a tea mix for us to share - coincidentally, it also contained Raspberries.

We were a very small group on Tuesday - only 4 of us counting the hostess, and a friend dropped in for lunch. In spite of the smallness of the group, we didn't stitch much. One of our members has just moved and we heard moving tales and stories of the snow at her new home.

I did get to Woodlawn and entered A Story From The Past. I was entry #503. I was there early Saturday morning, and there was a crowd with entries when I left. They were going to be taking in entries Saturday and Sunday, and had also schedule time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week because of the expected snow for the weekend.

I had a gyn appointment this week. All is well on that front.

We were supposed to head up to Long Island this weekend. That has been cancelled - not because of the approaching snow, but because our car has decided that it needs more attention. . . Like $3000 worth attention. And the part won't come in until Friday - if the snow doesn't come. If the snow slows down delivery, well who knows when we will see the car again. They have given us a loaner. But, we aren't really supposed to take it out of the state. sigh.  So far, February has been a very expensive month.

No pictures today. I will aim for a picture next week - probably of the Lizzie Kate I am working on. The Red and the Black still doesn't have enough stitches to warrant taking its picture.

Stay warm and out of the snow if you can.

Looks Like it Will Be Wednesdays ...

I managed to pick up a bug or two, so I missed stitching on Tuesday. And didn't get a note posted here either. Sorry.

I did get A Story From the Past back from the framer ...

Now, if I could just learn how to take a picture without that glare.

I think they did a beautiful job framing. The particular frame seems to make it POP! I liked it before framing, but now I love it.

I have decided that A Mon Ami Pierre is one of my new favorite designers (I have many - everything I do comes from a favorite designer). I purchased two charts from Jackye over the weekend, but I don't think I will get to them anytime soon. I am currently working on Black and Red - it is my Tuesday stitch, and Lizzie-Kate's Jingles banner. I have several projects in my to-do bag. I just need 48 or so hours each day and a right thumb that is NOT arthritic.

Unscheduled Post

I'm just grousing. We got a repairman to come out on Wednesday. He looked over the dryer AND the washer. His verdict - they aren't worth fixing. You can replace them for about $400 each and it will cost almost that to repair them. Well, I don't know where he shops, but it isn't anywhere I have found. We couldn't find any washer or dryer, much less ones that fit the area they have to fit, for under $700. Still, it seems like it is a better deal to go ahead and replace them. Oh, lucky us. They will be here on February 27th. And Not A Day Before!

I am so thrilled to have to cart the laundry elsewhere.

When we bought the new ones, we took out the extra warranty that we usually don't get because the washer has been repaired several times and the dryer had been acting up for a long time before it finally stopped. Watch the new ones work perfectly throughout the warranty period.:-{

Back to your regularly scheduled programming .....

The Best Laid Plans ....

I had hoped to make a post on Tuesday, but ... I got home from stitching and found that our dryer had decided to take a vacation ... in the middle of drying a load of laundry. I got side-tracked.

We were a very small group at stitching on Tuesday ... only 4 of us including the hostess. But, that didn't deter us. We had a marvelous time. Our hostess lives in Greensprings (a retirement community) and her apartment backs up on a wooded area. She finds that to be a blessing - she is a birdwatcher. The birds decided to give us a show ... a pileated woodpecker, a downy woodpecker, a junco, a wren and several others stopped by. She served a Cherry Vanilla Chip cake. With only 4, there was enough that we got doggie bags to go. :-)

I shared my newest finish --- it just happened to be a bird ... Abcedarian Sampler. A Loose Feather design.

I changed the colors on the bird - mostly because I didn't have the grays they called for and, well, I like blue birds.

The snows have slowed everything down. My framer was closed several days during our 'big' snow and I still don't have A Story From the Past back. I am hoping that it will be here soon.

OMG ... almost a year

It has been almost a year since I touched this blog. :-(  No, I didn't forget it, at least not quite. I've thought about it many times - but always when I was doing something else.

I am going to try to put this on a definite schedule. Maybe every Tuesday, after my stitch group meets, or every other Tuesday? Then I would have stitching things on my mind.

I finished and took the the framer A Mon Ami Pierre's A Story from the Past. I did it over one. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it. I will take a picture after I get it back from the framer. With any luck, I will have it back in time to enter it in Woodlawn this year.

I just started Prairie Moon's The Black and The Red. I haven't gotten far enough for a picture, but next week I'll post one.

Our son and his family just got back from Disney World. They stopped here on their way down and again on their way home. It was nice to seem them ... even though they were short visits. We are planning to head that way next month. We will spend a weekend on Long Island. We tend to stay at hotels because with 4 kids in a small house with only 3 bedrooms, well, you get the picture. If we stayed there, no one would have beds.