Better late than never

Last weekend I mentioned that MJ and I had made a road trip to Northern VA for threads for canvases in our stashes. I also mentioned that I would give you details later in the week. Seems like I lost track of time and another whole week has gone by without my doing that. Sorry. So here goes - better late than never.

You might remember Isabel the Witch that I worked on in a class back in March. I have not been a hundred percent happy with the thread suggestions that I was given in class. I've tried to be open minded but in the end, the colors and thread choices just weren't working for me. I picked out a new shiny pink for her shirt and a lovely, shiny shade of purple for the moon. I grabbed another couple of cards of fuzzy stuff for her cape. I, also, asked for suggestions for a new background color. They suggested a fun gray overdye and a darning pattern. I think it will be wonderful. Isabel will be back in the rotation here soon. Stay tuned.

I also picked up a handful of the new Vineyard wool. These threads will be used on several different canvases in my stash. Aren't the colors great?!

I guess the biggest news from the trip was this adorable tooth fairy pillow. My nephew and his wife announced to us a few months ago that they were having their first child. I've been searching for the perfect "something" to stitch for them. I finally found it last weekend. It is the cutest little pillow. I am changing the colors on it to blue and pink and green. This will be my next stitching project. I hope to start it in the next week or so.

And last but not least - an update on the crab canvas. I have about 3 inches of border left to stitch and then it will be finished. I am very pleased with the way it is turning out. I'll post a finished picture of it.

Crabby

I continue to work on the crab canvas. I have finished adding the extra stitching around the bottom half, and along the right side of the canvas. This extra border will give the finishers enough stitching to finish it properly without loosing my polka dot border. I've got the second half of the left side and the top to complete and then this baby is done. I haven't had alot of time this week to stitch but was glad to see that I made decent progress anyway. This canvas was originally painted to be a dog collar but I am going to have it made into a pillow. Since it is a long thin canvas, it will end up looking more like a bolster pillow than a traditional pillow. I can't wait to see what PFOS does with this one. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but all the crabs and dots are stitched with either a metallic or a sparkly thread. The whole thing just glows and twinkles.

MJ and I slugged our way up I95 through summer vacation travel traffic and pouring rain to visit Waste Knot in northern VA yesterday. We each took canvases from our stash so we could pull threads. We particularly were interested in the new Vineyard Wool. I've never stitched with it but it got rave reviews from folks in the shop. The colors are great and the feel of the wool is soft and lush. Not at all scratchy or itchy like traditional wools. I will give you all the details of our shopping trip in a later post. It was a wonderful day spent playing with threads, looking at new canvases and sharing a day with a buddy. We both came home with lots of enthusiasm for projects old and new.

Prior to heading north yesterday, I stopped in at my Farmer's Market. These are the flowers for this week. I got them from a new vendor who says she "just grows flowers in my pasture"!!! They were the most incredible flowers I have ever seen. I walked around and picked stems from several of her buckets. This is by NO means all the choices she had - just the ones that struck my fancy at 8:00 on a Saturday morning.

Happy Father's Day everyone.

Random stitches

I am still working on the crab canvas by Viola. You might remember from last week that it had an orange border painted across the top and bottom of the canvas. The orange just wasn't speaking to me. I knew I wanted to do something to the top and bottom of the canvas but I couldn't for the life of me decide WHAT to put there. I had about decided to take the safe way out and just extend the black background a few rows and call it a day. You can thank MJ for the change in plans. We met on Saturday morning to go to the Farmer's Market and then to have a morning of stitching. It didn't take her long to convince me that I needed to do a border of black cashmere stitches with mosaic dots. I loved the idea and immediately started in with my first batch of cashmeres and the first mosaic dot. Then I froze again. What color dot should I do next?? MJ talked me back down off of my panicky ledge and quietly said "Just do random dots of color. Don't worry about having a plan." Random dots??? Really?? Seriously?? Don't I need to get out my graph paper or open an excel spreadsheet to measure out and calculate what color goes where? Doesn't the bottom row have to be a mirror image of the top row? Random!!! Wow! I don't know if I can do random things. You laugh - this is serious stuff.

As it turned out - I couldn't do it randomly. I did have to come up with a plan. Yes, it is exactly the same on the top and the bottom and the order is the same going from right to left and from left to right. I can't help it - I am just a bit of an order freak. With all that said, I am very pleased with the way it looks. I am now going back and adding 5 rows of black basketweave all the way around the canvas so the finishing won't mess up my borders. Hope you like it. Thanks MJ for your guidance and attempts to make me relax and just go with the flow. Thanks also to B for your encouragement in the afternoon. It was a fun day.

Our trip to the Farmer's Market was also a success. I got a bag full of wonderfully fresh veggies and this lovely bundle of flowers.

I'm off to stitch some more on the crabs. Hopefully they will be finished by this time next week.
Happy stitching everyone.

Images from Ortville

Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you all are having a lovely restful day. I have several topics running through this entry. Hope you enjoy them all.

I've just changed the pillow in the "ever changing chair". For those new to the blog, I have a favorite rocking chair in my living room that has morphed into a display area for some of my seasonal needlepoint. This is one of my favorites. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. It is a fun combination of greens, purples, blues and pinks.

This is my current stitching project. I must confess that this has not all been stitched in the last few weeks. I started this one last fall and then set it aside when I started working on SFS 2009. I needed something fun to work on that would keep my stitching mojo going. So I pulled this back out. It probably will grow up to be another season pillow for the chair. I am almost finished with the background. I don't like the orange border on it, so I won't do that. I'm trying to decide if I want to add another border to it or if I just want it enlarge the background area. I think I need something to tie in those those white swirly things between the crabs. What do you think about a black and white mosaic tiled border on the top and bottom?? These are some of the flowers that I picked up from the Farmer's Market yesterday. This little container will go with me to work tomorrow and brighten up my desk.

This larger container is now sitting on my breakfast room table. I wish you could see it in person. The colors are so incredible. Wouldn't those colors look nice together on a needlepoint canvas??