Almost Four Months to the Day

Hello Dear Friends:

Yep, it's been almost four months to the day since I last posted!  In September it was 90 degrees, and today - well, it's been a crazy few days with huge snowfalls and currently the temperature is 2 degrees! And with the winds whipping like they are, I don't even know what the real feel temperature is.  I don't think that I want to know.  We got at least a foot of snow yesterday and it's still coming down.  Such a difference from when I last posted.   I don't know where the time goes - but I've missed blogging, keeping up with blogs and I'm going to try to be better - promise!

Although to tell the truth, I haven't gotten much done in the past four months - sad, but true!  Not for lack of trying mind you, but for lack of time it seems!  It's been a busy past four months, but I think that things are finally calming down (knock on wood).  It doesn't help that for a month (during the Christmas season, no less)  I was almost flat on my back from the flu, but things are better now.  Seems that I caught a little bit of a bug from a wonderful young man that was sitting next to me on a flight back home from New York in late November.  Nice boy - bad cough - nasty bug. And the bug decided to come home with me!  Figures!

But my trip was great nonetheless (I visited Purl Soho and City Quilter among quite a few other places) and I came home with a some really unneeded stash from both them (although we all need stash right?), but also came home with a wonderful surprise!  My wonderful surprise was acquired at a Tag Sale on Long Island.  Now I've always heard of Tag Sales and equate them to what we call Estate Sales here, although things are taken a step further there.  Like sell the contents of the home - everything that you can remove from it - doors, windows, floors, kitchen cupboards - and then tear the house down.  Why? Because the owners are bored with the house!  Must be nice to have money, right?  And the antiques! OMG, are there a lot of them!!  I plan on going again in the summer with my van and loading up! Anyway, my Sister and her SIL's are avid Tag Sale shoppers and they dragged me out in the wee hours to stand in line at a Tag Sale (in 20 degree weather for a good hour) as my one SIL was eyeing a dresser.  Well, thank goodness she did that as we were 2, 3, and 4 in line.  And what did I find?  There were a lot of wonderful things, but one was this sampler:

She's Charlotte Kinsley, Aged 7, stitched in the year of 1800!!  I can't tell you how thrilled I was to come across her!  Poor Charlotte needs a little bit of work.  I need to take her out of the frame and unmount her (a scary proposition) and then I received the name of a person at The Henry Ford that I'm going to have look at her.  See about cleaning her up and whatever else I can find out about her.  I've been trying to track down her information, but haven't come up with anything yet.  From what I understand she's a New York Sampler in the federal/biblical genre, but need to get that confirmed.  It appears to be though by referencing Betty Ring's two volume set of books on samplers.   I'm anxious to look at the back of her to see what colors were actually used as I think that I would like to chart her sometime down the road.  From this picture it's hard to tell, but there are a lot of pinks that are faded, but I should be able to see them better when I look at the other side.

As far as getting things done in the past four months, I haven't had one finish!  Well, I had one and I'll show that in a minute.  I've had a lot of starts though.  After I finished off Mary Gail, I was kind of at a loss as to what to do.  Don't we all go through that?  Have tons of stash and then don't know what to work on?  But I decided to start on Jane Atkinson:

Jane Atkinson

The Scarlett Letter

DMC threads and mystery fabric

I worked on some quilting and managed to knock out blocks on some of the BOM's that I've had around here:

These blocks are for four different BOM's that I've been working on over time - Civil War Tribute, Women's Voices Civil War Quilt, Harvest Song and one other BOM whose name escapes me right now.  Tells me I have too many things that I need to finish if I can't remember the names of them!  LOL

And just because I love confusion and also a new project, I started on Tula Pink's Peaks & Valley's quilt:

And have a few blocks done:

I got about this far before I went to New York, and then came down with the flu two days after I got home and somehow working all that over one wording on Jane and messing around with quilt blocks just didn't appeal to me.  What did appeal to me for some reason was knitting and crocheting.  I started an afghan for my daughter:

Flowers in a Row

Free pattern on Red Heart Yarns

Then I started a Wiggle Wrap and actually finished it:

Kauni Wiggle Wrap

Done in two color ways

On Ravelry

A little closer shot:

This shawl was so much fun to work on!  And loved, loved the yarn!!  It was the perfect thing to work on when I wasn't feeling well.  Sit in a chair with a cup of tea, a blanket over you and the TV on a good movie - doesn't get much better than that!!  Although I think that I ended up falling asleep more than I knit for most of those days.  And I never sit during the day, so I almost felt like I was getting away with a crime doing that!  The shawl needs to be blocked, but I'd almost like to make another one in another color way.  Well, maybe not - this shawl has been called the Never-Ending Shawl by a lot of people, but it was so fun to watch the colors emerge and I have another project using similar yarn in the knitting queue!

From there I went to the Hitch Hiker scarf:

Hitch Hiker Scarf

Sausilito Yarn by Crystal Palace Yarns

On Ravelry

This one is so much fun also, although I still have quite a ways to go.  I'm about half way by the number of "teeth" at the side, but it increases in size as you knit it width-wise so I still have a ways to go.

Then if this wasn't enough, I decided that I needed to start something for New Year's, so instead of one project, I started two:

Mary Gibson

Haslemere Museum

done in a variety of silks - mainly AVAS

And then the Rococo Shawl:

Rococo Shawl

Merino 5 yarn by Crystal Palace

on Ravelry

So there you have it.  The last four months of my life in review.  At least with the crafty side of things. There is more, but I'll save that for another time!

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment if you do.  I have missed blogging, not only because I feel that I've missed so much, but also that I love to use my blog as kind of a diary of the things that I do over time.  It's fun to look back over the pictures and see what you finished or didn't finish during a year (in my case, what I didn't finish!).    I hope to get a little better about posting and commenting in this new year. Sometimes it's hard though with so much going on.  I never realized that a 16 year old daughter could be so much work.  And also, on a more serious note, my FIL was diagnosed with bladder cancer a few months back so that has been a big concern.  He's gone through treatment and we're now waiting for the results. Prayers for him would be much appreciated.

Hope that you're surviving the cold where you are.  I understand that a great portion of the US is shivering in their boots right now!!  Good reason to stay inside and stitch!!  Or knit!  Or quilt!!

First Finish in 2011 and Challenge Follies (Pix Heavy)

Happy New Year everyone!  I wanted to do a day by day posting of projects this week, but things have been a little hectic around here.  DH is recovering from shoulder surgery and following me around every minute (What are you doing now???) so that has cut into my blogging time, and then DS has been terribly sick with something that has required two doctor's visits and is still running a fever after six days!  I think another trip to the Doctor's is warranted tomorrow.  So I never got around to posting every day or commenting on blogs, but here you have what's been going on in my neck of the woods with stitching this week.

I started off the new year right - with a finish!  And then promptly started something new for a New Year's start.  Then I kept going and before I knew it, even though I said I wouldn't, I joined in on the 15 Project Challenge, or as I call it the 15 Project Follies, but with my own twist on it.   But here's my finish:

Mary's Best Handwork

With Thy Needle and Thread

30 ct. Parchment and DMC Threads

I started this piece when I was in Utah for the Shepherd's Bush retreat and can't figure out why it took me so long to finish it!  It was a really run stitch.

Now comes the fun part and the follies.  I decided to do the challenge my way, and the further I get into it I'm wondering what the heck I was thinking.  But here are the first eight days with before and after pictures (where applicable).  And on days the progress was quite pathetic have pity on me - with DH and DS home, well, you probably understand!  LOL

Day 1 - After finishing Mary since she was a WIP, I went to something new - Elizabeth Sheffield by the Scarlett letter.  She was my New Year's Day start.  I love working on this one:

Elizabeth Sheffield

The Scarlett Letter

DMC and 40 ct. Mystery fabric

Day Two - I picked up And All Was For An Appil.  In looking at my notes as to when I started it - well, as I hang my head here - it was my New Year's start last year!!!!!!!:

Before

After

Okay, let's keep chuckling to a minimum here!  Not too much progress - but I'm a slow stitcher on 40 count fabric.

Day Three - A new start and one I wanted to start last year - Ann Rayner:

Sad, but a start.  Again on 40 count fabric.

Day Four - Back to a WIP and this one I did get some progress in - Susanna Lane - I love this sampler a lot and it will probably be my next finish:

Before

After

Day 5 - A start and a disaster at the same time - Jane Atkinson by the Scarlett Letter:

Not much stitching on this one.  The light thread so closely matched the fabric (again 40 ct and I have to ask myself what I'm thinking with all these 40 ct fabrics)  that I was having a hard time seeing it, so I decided to start filling in the flower and then do the lighter color.  That's when I found that I had made a mistake in outlining the flower with the lighter color.  As you can see, I was working it in a hoop to just start it.   Not a big deal with the miscount - I hadn't gone very far, but when I took it out of the hoop I realized that I started on the selvage edge and not the top edge!  UGH!!!  I called it a night and it will be revisited later - on scroll rods - and stitched in the right direction.

Day 6 - A WIP - Angel Song - again, not much progress:

Before

After

Day 7 - A new piece - LHN's Traveler's Companion:

Is this not pitiful or what?????  But again, I don't think I sat my rear end in the stitching chair until almost 9:30 or 10:00 some nights and I go to bed about 10:30 - not much time to stitch!

Finally Day 8 - I actually got a lot of things done yesterday.  I decided to hide out in the craft cave and get some quilting things done.

Worked on a WIP - cut out this month's Farmer's Wife Blocks:

Started a new Project - cut out the first installment of Civil War Chronicles (love, love, love the fabric):

Worked on another WIP - put the next couple borders on the Red and Black quilt and cut out the next set of borders:

And started another new quilt - Civil War Tribute:

So now I'm faced with this - Piecing Happiness!!!

Later in the day I literally ran out of steam - unfortunately I think that I'm getting what my son has - finger's crossed that I'm not - but I did get in some stitching on Elizabeth Clayton:

Before

After

Again, not much stitching, but a little bit.  

So there you have it - the first week of the challenge.  Only 7 more days to go.  I'm not sure what new ones I'm going to add into the mix next week.  I find that having all these projects going on at one time has been a real challenge to organizing!  But the one great thing about all this is that I haven't bought anything new except for a few fibers to round out a project.  That's a beautiful thing.

I've also enjoyed watching what people have been doing with this challenge and the projects that they are coming up with.  Some I had forgotten about and some I've never seen before.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I seem to have made quite a list of projects that I'd like to do in the future.  In the far distant future!  Very far distant future!!!  LOL  I think I have enough on my plate right now, and we're barely over the half way point on the Challenge (or Follies).

I hope that everyone has a great stitching week whether you're doing the Stitching Challenge or not.  While I haven't left many comments this week, I have been doing quick glances into everyone's blogs to see what they're doing before DH comes in and asks "What are you doing?"  LOL  He goes back on the 18th!  I love him dearly, but.................the 18th can't come soon enough!!

Have a great stitching week!