Finishing up a few things propelled by guilt on a Slow Sunday Stitching...

Hello - hope you had a nice weekend so far... last week was a busy one and some things were actually finished... hallelujah!!!  Finishing something is a good thing in many many ways but particularly as it pertains to the guilt I feel for not having stuff finished... it surfaces now and again... and I totally blame this on my 12 years of Catholic education which taught me that if something isn't done or done correctly it is no one's fault but mine. That whole thing about free will and choices...boy the nuns really drove that home... but while guilt sometimes plagues me I also believe that guilt it good... it makes us do things we should do but don't want to do... sometimes I think the world could use a bit more guilt and a bit more shame...perhaps it would keep people behaving better... but that's just me.

So lets see what got finished this week in my crazy cross stitch world....

First, I finished the Lizzie Kate Jingles  series and it is ready (after a quick press) to go to the framer...I've got 3 pics as it looks better than the 1 long skinny pic from my phone.

I had those two bottom border rows to stitch and then add the little buttons. There were also beads that could have been used but instead I just did a white cross stitch... I didn't like the fiddlyness of the beads.

Second... a small pillow that was started over a year ago...

I charted the alphabet off of a BBD piece that was given away by Moda some years ago... the little pillow was machined stitched with a row of numbers where I have the woven ribbon and it was edged with rickrack... well I stitched up the alphabet pretty quickly and then dithered for quite a while about whether to do the numbers and then just let the whole thing sit and simmer ... for a long long time.

I recently rediscovered the piece and decided it was fine the way it was...just get it finish...here's the back... fabric from my stash...

and here is how I displayed it...tucked in with my Summer decor...

I added the buttons to the corners to hide an unfortunate incident where I blew out a corner trying to get it square... just another opportunity to be crafty...LOL

Third, back from the Joanns framing department, BBD Garden Borders which I've dedicated to my Grandma Damon...

this frame is nothing special...and I think I'd like it a bit darker... I can do something about that. Joanns has less and less selection anymore...glad I found another framer.

And if things have been finished new things must be played with... and they were...

this is Jeanette Douglas Designs Vintage Birds and I am LOVING it!!!  I was able to get another skein of Portabella and while it wasn't an exact match for what I had it is close enough to mix it in...
here's a close up of the peacock... ain't he a pretty fellow?

now I still have to fill in all those squares but I'll wait till the end to do that as I plan to stitch a Smyrna cross or a a Rhodes mound and I don't want to wear the sheen off of the floss  which could happen as I'm not using a hoop for this one.  I'm using 2 ply of floss over 32 count and I really like the full coverage I'm getting.

So on the cross stitch front things are progressing nicely... my quilting is lagging a bit and my knitting is in a total slump...still working a shawl I started eons ago that just refuses to be finished. When I'm working on one project I'm feeling guilty about what I'm not working on... it is a constant battle... LOL...and I'm feeling a bit guilty about this blog. I am not updating the way I use to and I don't see that changing... so many things going on all the time and honestly Instagram is easier to deal with. Now I know lots of you are going to tell me that you don't do Instagram and if  I don't blog you won't see what I'm doing but you don't have to have an Instagram account to see me ...or anyone else...on Instagram... you can access it from your computer or phone at  Instagram.com... or if you are just looking for me go here to https://www.instagram.com/carolfun53/

Part of my guilt about the blog is not responding to the comments that are left... I use to be good at writing a personal response to each one but it takes a lot of time... I'm considering responding to the comments in the comment section of the blog which means you would have to come back to see if I left you a message...how do you feel about that?  Personally when I leave a comment on someone else's blog I'm ok  either way... if they respond that's ok ... if they don't that's ok too. I'd really like to know your feeling about this.

So many blogs have gone away and I've found their owners on Instagram...and I understand why they left their blog behind... I assume they don't feel guilty about it... but I do... I like reading blogs... I'm just not sure how often I can update... perhaps I should just do once or twice a week...which is what I'm doing now instead of the 3 to 4 times I use to do it and feeling guilty about... mulling it over.

Okay...linking up today with Kathy's Quilts and tomorrow with Super Mom - No Cape...

happy stitching-
carol fun