Cautiously creeping up on Christmas with Slow Sunday Stitching...

Where did the last 2 weeks go????  I thought it would be a pretty quiet Thanksgiving and for the most part it was but I never had a spare minute to post. I've been doing a bit of knitting and finally got around to blocking 3 shawls.... Hallelujah!!!!  I procrastinate endlessly when in comes to blocking... and I know I can't wear the shawls till they are blocked but I still drag my feet. I will post pics of them later in the week.  Right now I want to talk about Christmas... its coming... and I would like to request more time right up front... say another week or so?  Not gonna happen, is it?


Well I have gotten one Christmas piece finished... and I started a new piece ...and there are only a bazillion more charts I want to get to... sounds like my normal behavior. First the finish...ta dah!!!

This is the Tournicoton J'Arrive chart. I stitched it on a 32 count linen I painted... in real life it is a very soft mottled blue with hints of aqua. The reins for the reindeer were a pain in the butt and I kept putting off stitching them...and then I got to the stars/snowflakes or whatever they are. The called for stitched had 18 steps and was done with one ply of floss... I did exactly ONE and knew that there was no way that was happening. I took that one star/snowflake out and went with a simpler big cross stitch with another on top of it. Like true snowflakes no two of my stitches are the same...but they are done...and they do add a nice accent to the piece. My plan is to finish it ala Priscilla... got a piece of galvanized metal that I think will work... it is on my list of things to do...next week.

And today I started this piece...

Lizzie Kate's Merry... ain't he a cute Santa?  Reminds me of my son... big head...hope Santa has a big brain too...LOL!!!  Another piece of 32 count linen I painted with a diluted Cherry Red Rit dye and some Turquoise.   I hope to have a little stitching time after dinner, but I also hope to get my Fall decorations put away so I can start getting out the Christmas stuff.

The weather was great yesterday so I put out the inflatables ... a BIG snowman, a little snowman, a little gingerbread man and a  hippo!!!  The hippo is new and has a lot of meaning...one of my favorite Christmas songs is Gayla Peevey's  "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".   You can see an video of the song from 1953 here... and you can see another video about Gayla here.  And here in Cincinnati we've got a rock star hippopotamus at the zoo... Fiona...a little hippo born prematurely that the zoo hand raised. She's adorable and has captured every one's heart. She was even featured in an article in the New York Times which you can read here. 

A fellow crafter I met this year has done some wonderful pottery featuring Fiona...

In Cincinnati we are known for our Flying Pigs and now we have the cutest hippo too!!  You can see Trish's creations here in her Etsy shop, Gardenhouse Pottery.  I'm getting one of these mugs for me!!

Oh...the inflatables...well when I put them up yesterday it was sunny ...so it wasn't till the evening I realized the big snowman didn't light up ... darn darn darn...he's only 2 years old...he still inflates but no lights, no kaleidoscope inside. So I went online and searched for how to fix it. Probably is a burnt out bulb but you have to get inside the inflatable through the zipper opening in the bottom and fish out the bulb and release it from its protective covering.   Hmmm... I think I can do this... so I performed the surgery on the snowman, took the little bulb that looked burnt out so off to the hardware store and got a replacement and put it back together. I have to wait till it gets dark to see if  I fixed it...fingers crossed.

I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday. I have BIG BIG BIG plans to get so much done this week... we shall see how much actually gets accomplished. The weather is suppose to be unseasonably warm...I'll take it... 60 degrees on Tuesday. I plan to put out my Christmas lights that day...and there is a quilt for the living room wall that needs quilting ...and I'm taking a class to make a crossbody purse ...I'm doing it in Christmas fabrics in hopes that I'll get it finished...and I have a couple several oh heck a whole bunch of new Christmas charts headed for my mail box this week. It's the most busiest time of the year!!!

Hope your week is as productive as I want mine to be!!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

A little bit of French Christmas...

Boy am I tired... it finally got cold enough to kill the zinnias and lantana in my garden so I went outside today and did some garden clean-up. I filled up two of the big paper garden waste bags ... it never seems like there is that much dead stuff till you start pulling it up. I was going to wait till later in the week... I thought for sure when I was watching the weather gal last night there was a 60 degree day on like Friday or Saturday but I didn't see that on my phone weather app so I attacked stuff today while it was a balmy 50 degrees... yes that is balmy when yesterday was in the 30s.

So now I've got my butt planted firmly in my stitching chair... I should work on my secret Christmas stitching but I may put a few more stitches in this first...

This is the Tournicoton J'Arrive... here's a pic of the full chart...

I have two more reindeer and the snowmen to stitch along with the moon and the scattered stars. It has stitched up pretty quickly once I deciphered the stitch key... the several of the colors used more than one symbol as sometime the stitch is just a regular cross stitch and sometimes it is a decorative stitch. 

Not sure you can see it but if you click on the pic and make it bigger it should show ...there are Smyrna crosses in the sleigh and the hooves are satin stitches and the reindeer's nose is a Rhodes mound.  There also suppose to be beads on the sleigh... but I decided they were too much work and left them off.

The chart calls for more decorative stitches but I've not sure they are worth the time... the effect is very minimal. Also the chart called for stitching over one thread the eye of the reindeer and Santa's face and hands... not gonna happen. I did regular cross stitches and then did the eyes as French knots.. this did eliminate Santa's eyebrows and I don't see that as any great loss,

I'm using the DMC equivalents of the called for  over dyed  flosses. Also I have an issue in that ALL the reindeer are charted with red noses... EXCUSE ME...only Rudolph has a red nose and he will be my lead reindeer...  not messing with tradition here...LOL

I'm stitching this on a 32 ct linen that I painted ... it is a nice clear blue with a bit of aqua in it.  The finished piece should be about 8" square... I'm sure I'll find a place to display it this year. I need to get my Christmas gift stitching done so I can do more Christmas stuff for me. I got a couple of Lizzie Kate patterns and another Barbara Ana I'd love to do before the holidays are over. I've already seen several people post on IG that  they are decorating for Christmas... I'm not ready to go there yet... the weekend after Thanksgiving will be plenty of time for me. When you have a chance check out Priscilla's blog... you can see it here... her house is a Christmas extravaganza... she starts decorating the day after Halloween and when you see everything she displays you can see why... as I remember she puts up a dozen trees and a spectacular Christmas village.

So I'm going to settle in and thread up my needle...not making dinner tonight... my son and daughter-in-law are coming back from a wedding in Chicago and won't get in till late. I'm thinking something nice and easy for dinner ... a sandwich and a cup of soup. 

Hope your week has some stitching time in it... I have plans to stitch and maybe work on some quilt blocks... I haven't turned on my sewing machine in over a week...need to get back to it.

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

happy stitching-
carol fun

Autumn ABC's for me...

I can't believe I'm posting two days in a row... don't get use to this...but I just put the finishing touches on my Autumn ABC's and I wanted to share.

I am so smitten with the Little House Needleworks ABC Sampler series... I did the first one which you can see here and I'm looking forward to the Winter, Spring and Summer versions.  I stitched my Autumn ABC's on 32 count linen that I painted with Rit dyes.

I also did the finishing and "framing" for this piece myself... not perfect... but I'm happy with  being able to display it this season and my finishing was a fraction of the cost of taking it to the framers. Here are some close ups of the stitching and then I'll talk about the "framing"...

Top...

Middle...

Bottom...

Priscilla finished this piece and mounted it on a vintage shutter...you can see her work here... I looked for a shutter at the hardware store but it was going to be too big for the place I wanted to hang this piece so I came up with my own take on this finish.

I purchased a piece of wood at Lowe's... this is pine I think... it is 5,5" wide, 24" long and 1/4" thick. It cost around $5.  I painted it with an olive green craft paint  and then sponged on some ochre ... both paints were from those little bottles you can get at Micheal's about $2 each.  The little knobs at the bottom came from Hobby Lobby... they were in the unfinished wood section... 4 in a little bag... $2. I glued them onto the board after having painted them separately.  I found  16" x 20" sticky mounting board on Amazon...you can see it here.  This was nice as I didn't have to tape sticky board together to get a long enough piece. I used the same speckled fabric for a mat that I used on my Margo piece that I showed on Sunday... it was still laying on my desk and it was long enough and I like it...

Now this is by no means a "professional" finish... it isn't easy getting something that long straight but it is good enough for me. I plan on "finishing" all the seasons with some variation of this ... different colored paint... different wood accents... and they will all fit right next to the front door...

where I will enjoy seeing it from my stitching chair!!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Blasted Time Change for a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Well it is that time of the year again when for no good reason we change the time ... yes I know this is the "good" change where we gain an hour ... and I am grateful for an extra hour... but I still just want them to leave it alone!!!  Okay...rant over... I will say it has been a very productive day...

Woke up and hour early...oh yeah, time change... met son and daughter-in-law for breakfast... came home and decided to take advantage of the warm temps and work in the yard... did a little garden clean up but still have zinnias, lantana, guara, hydrangeas and dahilas that haven't given up the bloom... left those... put away the porch furniture and swept the porch... planted a couple of bulbs... well more than a couple... I did 100 little allium bulbs... this variety is suppose to be more pinky than purple and smaller than the others I've planted... planted 75 daffodil bulbs in pots on my  patio... put another 100 daffodil bulbs into 5 long narrow planter boxes. Now I had planned to add the 100 daffodils... cute little ones called Tete-a- tete.. to my window boxes... but I planted ornamental cabbages and kale in the boxes about 6 weeks ago and they are still going strong... they may last all winter... so I planted the bulbs in the narrow planter boxes and put them out on the edges of the patio. I figure I can transplant them to the window boxes in Spring...fingers crossed.

As for stitching and decorating I've been productive too... I put away the Halloween stuff and moved on to Thanksgiving...

I LOVE my Grungy Gourds quilt!!!   And it fits perfectly above the IKEA bench/cubbies. Terry Finnerty quilted this in a panto that is called Peacock Feather, as I remember, but I see a wood grain texture and in this case a pumpkin-y texture... doesn't it look like the ridges on a pumpkin?

And this may be my favorite pumpkin...

No, I think this is my favorite...

Moda Grunge is just sooooo cool!!!

And I turkey-fied my 3 tier tray...

I don't have any new cross stitch for the tray but I'd like to do some small turkey pieces...

However the shelf unit is sporting some new and some old stitching....

I finished Margo (Autumn Keeper by Barbara Ana Designs)  ala Priscilla  and I very happy with her...

I mounted her on sticky board and then mounted that on another fabric covered sticky board... the shaped back piece that is olive is clipboard frame I got for half price at Hobby Lobby last year (does anyone pay full price at Hobby Lobby?)  ... I took the clip off so I could center the piece  and added a burlap bow with a bit of frou-frou... and did you notice the chicken???  It was suppose to be a crow so it was a short jump to make it a chicken.. and now I've put my mark on this piece!!!

I moved my two Blackbird Design pieces over to my two tier table...

I hadn't displayed any cross stitch here before. but I like how it looks and I'm always on the prowl for new places to display  my stuff... a minimalist I am NOT...LOL

So I'm set till Christmas rolls around... and I still have stuff I want to make for Christmas...I'm really enjoying cross stitching at the moment ... and new charts seem to be sneaking into my house. That Tournicoton one I talked about last week arrived...you can see it here... and I think I'll have to at put a couple of stitches into it tonight... although I should work on my cross stitch Christmas gifts first... but I probably won't because I wanna play!!!

Since this post includes quilting and cross stitch and decorating I'm going to link up to several blogs today and tomorrow...

Kathy Quilts....Super Mom-No Cape...Small Quilts - Doll Quilts...LoveLaughQuilt ...Em's Scrapbag

Well from the sounds of the thunder outside,  I made a wise choice to work in the yard earlier... everything should get watered in nicely.   The week ahead isn't too busy so there should be plenty of stitching time... hope your week is a good one too!

happy stitching-

carol fun