Slow Sunday Stitching where a PBS actress's doppelganger crosses paths with a pant-less scarecrow...

How that for a title???  Have I piqued your interest?? Well read on...

It was a nice week with a goodly amount of stitching time in it...which is what made it a nice week. I have been plugging away on Little House Needleworks' Autumn ABC's and it would be finished if I hadn't gotten sidetracked by a piece by Barbara Ana Designs... Let's talk about the distraction first...


This is  Autumn Keeper by Barbara Ana Designs...

And here is my progress on this piece...

 I am just so smitten with her... I grabbed a scrap of 32 ct linen I had painted for another project and couldn't put her down. Now for some explanation ... In my opinion she bears a remarkable resemblance to a character in the PBS series The Durrells in Corfu... this is Margo...

The eyebrows... the red hair... the flip of the red hair... all make me think of her... so I'm calling this little gal Margo !!  Now I don't normally stitch pieces like this... there is no house, no alphabet, no chickens... but I had to have her. It helped that it was a immediate download from Creative Poppy which you can see here. I love being able to purchase a chart and then print it out right then and there. I wish more cross stitch was available in this format... but that could also be detrimental to my pocketbook... impulse control ... I don't have any...LOL!!

She is almost done... just have to finish filling in her skirt  and then stitch the vine that circles her... not sure how I'm going to finish  her... perhaps I'll make her into a little pillow.

And my infatuation with Margo had me dragging my feet on the LHN Autumn ABC's to the  point that the scarecrow still doesn't have pants...

He is a cutie...and he is an overview of the sampler...

It is hard to get a good picture of this since it is so long and skinny... I've made a couple of minor changes... I used Fallen Leaves for the pumpkins instead of the called for Pumpkin Harvest and I stitched the word Scarecrow in Blue Corn instead of the called for Caterpillar. The first change was deliberate and the second was a mistake.  I was just putting the last stitches in the W when I realized I had used the wrong color... but I like it and I'm not taking it out.

I want to finish this so I could display it in November... which is Wednesday... so  I need to stitch faster.

And I've spent some time cruising the web and stumbled on a couple of Christmas projects I'd love to do... there is this Barbara Ana piece that I've started before and put aside but I want to give it one more try...

and then I stumbled upon this piece by Tournicoton...

I love how the reindeer swoop around!!   First I need to finish the Fall stitching ...and then there is some secret Santa stitching I need to do... but somehow I think I'll squeeze in a little time for one or the other of these...the temptation is just too strong!!! and I am weak!!!

Oh...did you see this sneak peek on Instagram??

This is the Winter version from Little House Needleworks... it is suppose to be released next month. I am loving all of these samplers. 

So many wonderful charts ... we are such lucky stitchers, aren't we??

Well the day is winding down here... didn't know if my son and his wife would be back from their weekend adventure till late... we just grabbed some carryout for dinner so I didn't have to cook. It has been cold and gray all weekend. Friday was nice so I did a little clean up in the yard... put away all the petunia pots ... planted 90 daffodils and 18 hyacinths... I have more bulbs to plant but nice weather isn't expected again till Thursday or Friday... so I'll wait.  A lot of stuff needs cutting back and cleaning up... I have zinnias that are still blooming and it is hard for me to pull out a plant that is still blooming, but I do need to button up my garden before there is serious winter weather... until then I'll stay inside and stitch!!

I'm linking up today with Kathy's Quilts and on Monday I'll link up with Super Mom- No Cape.  Hope you've had a nice weekend and will have an even nicer week ahead...

happy stitching-

carol fun

Rainy days and Mondays...

Cue Karen Carpenter... it is definitely a rainy day and a Monday... yuck... yesterday was absolutely gorgeous...and I knew from the weather guy that there would be a change today but that doesn't make it any better. I know we need the rain, but gray days like this one make me want to stay in bed with the quilt over my head... but life doesn't let that happen....

But on a more cheerful note... I do not know what has gotten into me this last couple of weeks. I've gotten several projects done in advance of the holiday deadline... all my Halloween stuff is finished and I moved onto Christmas...OMG... I can't believe I've gotten something ready this early. I'm usually a "don't start till Thanksgiving" kinda gal ...or even more likely "I got a great idea  and it is now Dec. 23"...

I've been drooling over all the Holiday Patchwork Forest quilts on Instagram...you can see them here...and decided that I would try my hand at these wonky tree blocks.  So I looked up the tutorial  which is by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter.  I opted for the larger version, you can see it  here, and off I went.  Please forgive the awful color on these pictures... like I said it is rainy and gray...

These were my first two blocks....

I decapitated two chickens on this tree... not an auspicious start...

but its mate produced a better flock of birds!!

I have a large stash of Christmas novelty fabrics... okay to be honest I have a large stash of all kinds of novelties but I sort out the Christmas and Halloween ones so they are easier to find...and lots of the novelties are of a larger scale so I knew I'd have to pay attention when I cut out these blocks... here are some of my favorites...

Nutcrackers that are only slightly mangled...

Adorable pink piggies sporting scarves...

 Matryoshka dolls which added some pink and lime green to the mix...

Flamingos wearing Santa hats that remind me of my friend Vicki who lives in Florida and decorates with flamingos...

Another Nancy Wolff print with Santa driving a small green convertible... reminds me of my first convertible... a green Fiat Spyder... loved that car!!

And it wouldn't be Christmas without the Peanuts gang...

And here is my completed top...

I've got lots of Santas and reindeer and snowmen and ornaments and gingerbread guys ... and lots of dotty fabrics too.   It measures 58" x 64"... I really liked the layout with the half drop of the blocks and that necessitated an odd number of columns to be symmetrical, and to satisfy my OCD... but 7 columns wasn't wide enough and 9 columns was too wide...so my solution was to add a half block row on both sides to beef it up...and it let me add more fabrics. By my count (and we know about my woefully inadequate math skills) there are 67 different fabrics in this quilt... and it didn't make a dent in my Christmas stash or my dotty stash...

These blocks are very easy to make... it took me longer to cut the squares than it did to sew them together. I had to decide where the main motif was approximately going to end up on the tree and some took a bit of finagling. 

I plan to make another version of this quilt in a very different for me color palette.... cool aquas, greens,blues, taupes and creams... I saw this quilt...click here... and I LOVE it... I went to my local quilt shop, HomeGrown HomeSewn,  and picked up a wonderful selection of fat quarters...

While the quilt that inspired me did the smaller version of the wonky tree, I'll make the larger size because I know if I did the little ones I'd lose interest before I got the top done...not that there is any   guarantee that won't happen with the big trees too but I got a better shot at it...LOL Don't think I'll start this right away... I have another Christmas quilt idea I want to play with first.

I'll be linking up a couple of places today... Small Quilts and Doll Quilts ... LoveLaughQuilt... Em'sScrapbag.

Hopefully looking at pretty quilts and maybe a bit of sewing will lighten my gray mood, as the rain is going to continue most of today and into tomorrow and then on Wednesday its going to get lots colder... Fall has brought along a touch of Winter... ugh.

happy stitching-

carol fun 

And even MORE Halloween on Slow Stitching Sunday...

Well I wasn't sure I could finish it ...but I DID!!!  And now I have even more Halloween to display...

My  Prairie Schooler Trick or Treat .... ta dah!!!    Again I used 32 count linen that I painted with Rit dyes.  The other week someone asked again how I painted this fabric and I'll recap that in a minute.  I'm very happy with this. I did brighten up the little trick or treaters  at the bottom...

I turned the little witch into Elphaba... and I know someone is going to ask what green I used and I don't have a clue. I had a little baggie with 3 different skeins of DMC greens and none of them have number bands so I just don't know which green it it. I made her broom gold (DMC 729) rather than black, I used a little bit of each of those un-numbered greens in the pumpkin head girl's dress and I stitched the candies in a bit of purple. Also I did the owl's eyes in DMC 729... I liked it better than the orange that was charted. 

If you make the first picture bigger you can see a bit of my "framing/finishing"... I took all my cues from Priscilla's blog which you can see here. Here's close up of the upper corner...

I used an 8" x 10" frame from Hobby Lobby ...half price... I took the glass out and put it aside... I took the foam insert that was in the frame and wrapped a piece of purple/black diagonal check fabric (got at Joanns) around it and just taped it on the back ...no one is every gonna see it. Then I took the cross stitch and mounted it on sticky board and attached it to the fabric "mat" with double sided foam tape and put the whole piece back into the frame. To jazz it up I added the bow in the corner... that was marked down at Micheals and it is wired ribbon... my hint of the day...if you can get ribbon with wired edged buy that spool... it is much easier to make fat poofy bows with. I tied it in the middle with some black and orange twine (Dollar spot at Target) and added that little broom (pack of 3 at Hobby Lobby)... I did make the handle on the broom black...used a Sharpie.  I think the addition of the bow adds a lot to the piece. My take away from Priscilla's blog is that she does embellish her framing with ribbons and cotton bolls and other items and it looks so good.

And since I finished this cross stitch piece I decided it needed a Halloween quilt to sit on... and the day before I finished the stitching I found this pattern...Halloween Haberdashery by the Polka Dot Chair ... and I loved it!! You can find the pattern here.

I made a mini with just 4 hats... and it was all out of my stash!  A FREE quilt!!!   I quilted it in the big wavy line grid in black Sulky thread...

The pattern maker used an Accu - cut die to do the hats  and she includes a template for the hat. I made a template out of cardboard. Now the way she makes the triangle into a square has you adding 2 pieces of fabric to each side and then folding them back and squaring up the block. I didn't want to deal with the bias that would result from that method so I made a template for that part of the block too. I cut it bigger so I could square it it and all my hats laid nice and flat. I may do  a bigger version of this next year.

As for how I paint the linen... and I paint it with a brush... I'm using artist paint brushed but if you are doing a big piece I don't see why you couldn't use the cheap foam brushes.  I start with dry white linen and place it on a piece of cardboard... old Amazon boxes are great. I use the Rit dyes in the bottles... shake them up...and then pour out a bit... I could actually measure but mostly I just eyeball it. I put it in a cup (using old Mason jars) and dilute it with water. I read somewhere it is suppose to be hot water but I do my painting outside on my patio and I just use bottled water.  I will say that the colors are pretty intense before you dilute them ... you can brush a bit of the mixed dye onto a paper towel to get an idea of the color... or I just paint a little on the edge of the linen. I've been cutting my linen beforehand to the size I need for the chart I'm going to stitch and it has at least 2" extra all the way around and that part will be cut off when I "frame" the piece.

With all the Halloween pieces I've done I go for the splotchy blotchy look.  The linen I used for these pieces was an old piece of Charles Craft and it if very stiff . I assume it has a lot of sizing on it. That keeps the dyes from going evenly through to the back so these were definitely one sided linen.   I painted another piece of linen... a Wichelt Edinburgh... and it did allow the dye  to go completely through the fabric...and it turned out I liked the back of the piece better than the front I painted...you can see it here...

I'm going to do all nine of the Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers  "For the Birds" series on this piece but this is as far as I've gotten.

I'm hoping to do some more painting this coming week. I have several pieces of linen cut and want to  do an olive green piece for LHN Autumn ABC's and some aqua/blue pieces for some Christmas Lizzie Kate ....and I saw a Barbara Ana chart I want to play  with too.

Now Rit doesn't have every color but if you go here to their website they've put together a library file for how to make other colors... 

I hope my explanation helps. This isn't hard to do ... I think the scariest part is just jumping in and trying it. It has opened up a whole bunch of new possibilities for linen for me.  I'm very fond of the mottled splotchy look on linen and painting lets me control where the color is and use more than one color on a piece.

Well the weather is taking a turn today...started out around 80 and will be under 60 before the day is over.  A front is moving in and it is beginning to rain. Tomorrow's high is predicted to be 59 and the rest of the week in the 70s... I like the 70's...LOL.. temperatures and the decade!!! I wish Fall would go on for as long as possible. I'm hoping for another mild winter like last year but we are due for a bad one...

Hope you are having a good Sunday... not too much on my agenda next week so maybe along with the linen painting I can stitch and sew... I started a Christmas quilt project... just thinking ahead.

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday.

happy stitching-
carol fun

All in for Halloween on Slow Stitching Sunday...

If today's weather is a harbinger of what is to come for Fall, bring it on!!! From the woman who always complains about the weather, I have nothing to harp about on this glorious Sunday. I have all the windows in the house open ... the sun is shining...and there is a gentle breeze... I'm gonna park my butt in my easy chair and stitch stitch stitch...

But before I do that I will overload you with pics of my Halloween decor. Don't know what got into me this year but I have gone all in for Halloween.  So here's a tour of my house, starting with the main event...

I made the quilt back in 2013... you can see more of it here... there are 88 different Halloween prints in this quilt...no duplicates. I picked up the Spooky banner at the Dollar Spot at Target... it was three dollars but I'm not quibbling. The colors are perfect for this display and they are glittery... I love glitter... you can click on any of these pics and make them bigger to see the details.

Down in front we have the Halloween 3 tier tray... oh I had so much fun putting this together...

I've got close up of lots of the goodies in this tray starting at the top...

I've have two new pieces of cross stitch here... Halloween piece is Lizzie Kate's Pumpkin Pocket... this came as a kit but all I used out of it was the chart and one black button. I stitched it on 32 count linen I painted and used DMC flosses.

I took my embellishment cues from Priscilla and added that polka dot ribbon bow, a sparkly bat and that little broom stick.

The little green girl is from Prairie Schooler's Trick or Treat... she wasn't green on the chart but this is my homage to Wicked which I saw again last week... great show!!

I finished these little pillow using some vintage Debbie Mumm fabrics. I put polyester fiberfill in the top and added crushed walnut shells so they'd sit up nicely. I added about an inch of fabric at the bottom as I thought the base might get lost in the tray and I'm glad I did it that way.


Onto the middle and bottom trays..

More cross stitch and a bat and a skeleton and those cone shaped pieces are witches' hat made from pipe cleaners with a back brim... hard to see. Anyway close ups of the cross stitch...

This little guy is also from the PS Trick or Treat chart... and the filler in this tray is that sparkly black and orange garland... my carpet is covered with little bits of orange and black ... gotta vacuum.

And this is from the bottom of the PS chart...

And last but not least on the bottom tray is the Pumpkinhead Girl...

All of the cross stitch pieces were stitched on linen I hand-painted... I really love the look and I'll be doing more linen painting soon.

As we pan around the room we see that the Lizzie Kate Boo Club has returned from the framer... and I LOVE that purple frame....

It was a very good thing that I mis-counted and ran out of linen... this piece wouldn't have fit where I wanted to hang it if it was any longer or wider. I did have them leave a generous border on this piece as I wanted to show as much of the linen as I could. Also I asked them to frame this over a piece of fleece/batting which I took them and they did a great job. I really like how a cross stitched piece looks when it is slightly padded. Now you can do glass with this technique but I don't do glass on my pieces so it works fine for me. I'm going to take them my Lizzie Kate Christmas piece next week and have them do that one padded too.

Here's a view from my of the front door...

See how the Boo Club just fits... and the Gourdy Guys are hanging in there... the quilt is my Halloween Swoon from 2011... you can see more of it here. I was gung ho for Swoon blocks when the first hit the scene and I have 7 more big ones done for another quilt but this is the only Swoon I've completed... need to go look at that UFO again.

The bookcase has a large helping of pumpkins and quilts and some Fall cross stitch...

And the table is set...

Now I can sit and stitch... I picked up the Prairie Schooler Trick or Treat that got me started on all this Halloween stitching...

I usually wait to put in the back stitching but there was so much of it I decided to go ahead and get some of it done. It does add a lot to the piece.  I didn't fill in the windows, I think the linen looks good showing there.  I'm about half way done... I'd love to have this piece finished and displayed by Halloween and there is a chance I can do it. If I get it stitched I'll just "frame" in myself  in a Priscilla like fashion... she shows some wonderful pieces and I could do that.

So have I over stimulated you with Halloweenie stuff??   I am really enjoying it this year... LOL...can't wait for the hordes of Trick or Treaters that will come to my door.

Today I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and on Monday I'll link with Super Mom - No Cape...hope you are having a slow Sunday. I'm going to sit and stitch  and enjoy the lovely weather. No dinner to make again this week... will probably go out for  a quick bite later...

don't want to waste away like this guy...LOL!!!


happy stitching-
carol fun