Sunday, October 4, 2015

Peel my a grape...I'm done...

I just finished my Blackbird Designs Feast of Friendship... started over a year ago...put away for quite a while and then it saw the light of day again the beginning of September.


The perfect finish for a lovely sunny Fall afternoon. I do love the look of this sampler but boy was there a LOT of solid areas to stitch. By my calculations the house alone has over 4500 stitches! It is a BIG blue house!



That compote just about did me in. All the solid stitching on the dish and tons of color changes for the fruit, but in the end it was worth it.

I had planned to do all the alternate tiles on the roof in Scotch stitch but it didn't work out. The diagonal nature of the stitch was making the piece all skewed. I use to do this stitch when I needlepointed and it works well on canvas, but this linen is a looser weave and I think that it would need to be wet blocked, which I'm not going to do. Sooooo I just added a couple of Scotch stitches  here and there. 




In the cartouche instead of stitching "Feast of Friendship" I stitched an alphabet...


and you can see I just barely got it all in. Had to do from "V" on over one thread. Again I stitched my sons initials "C" and "N" in a different thread. Also I stitched my initials in a more cursive style instead of the block letters used on the original.

Don't know what I'm going to do next. For a hot minute I thought about getting out my Houses of Hawk Run Hallow that I started eons ago. I don't even know how far I am on it. Or one of my many many many other UFO's, or perhaps something new... and we all know something new is so much FUN!  I recently acquired all of the Prairie Schooler monthly charts. I've admired them for years and since they plan on retiring at the beginning of 2016 I snagged them while I could. I like Prairie Schooler's style and that their pieces are done in DMC. No issues with dye lot variations.  Mmmm... this is sounding more and more like a plan. Now do I start with January or February...how much time do I want to give myself? Tune in next week to see what I picked.

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilt Slow Sunday Stitching today and with Super Mom - No  Cape Vintage Embroidery Monday tomorrow.

happy stitching-
carol fun




21 comments:

  1. That is just beautiful!! I like the alphabet so much better than the words! I did a few of the PS monthly ones. They are relaxing and you are right just some nice linen and some good old DMC. I hope you are having a great week-end!

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  2. this is a stunning finish! i have never done counted cross stitch before, but love your piece--am wanting to begin trying it..hugs, Julierose

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  3. Nice job, very pretty!! These UFOs just haunt us but somehow we will get them done!! (:

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  4. Wow! Lots of stitches! I have done a few solidly stitched projects and know the hours that are put into them!!! Lovely finish!

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  5. Gorgeous! Do you use a magnifying aid to stitch on linen?

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  6. WHOA!! That IS a big blue house!! Very nice! I LOVE Prairie Schooler. In fact have 2 finished and framed (the one about 'come said the wind to the leaves one day'..my all time FAV!!) and the Thanksgiving one. Working on "When witches go riding" right now in addition to that one you got me started on!!

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  7. What a wonderful finish! You should feel very pleased!

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  8. Wonderful finishl.
    Greetings, Manuela

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  9. Beautiful, well done on a UFO finish, that border would have been enough to finish me off :-)

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  10. Just gorgeous! Love the pumpkin. :)

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  11. Lovely sampler and obviously a lot of work. I like how you made changes to make it your own. How large is it?

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  12. Your samplers is great. I bet it feels really good to finish a UFO. You should do another UFO. New is great but sometimes finishing a UFO is even better.

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  13. What a fabulous sampler! Congratulations on getting it finished! Christine x

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  14. That is a lot of work, amazing!!

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  15. Beautiful piece of work. There is something so satisfying and warm about a handmade item when it is completed.

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  16. It's beautiful... great job! Love the traditional star block to the left of the roof! SO many fun details to notice!

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  17. A really beautiful piece. The quilt has such pretty colors

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