Slow stitching and revisiting the past on Sunday

My resolve to stitch on one of the many projects I have already started disappeared as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Andy Williams was crooning "It the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in my ear and I threaded up BBD's Merry Christmas.

This one is just going really fast! Now I still have some fill in left and I need to finish spelling Christmas but it is clear that this one will be done very soon. I'm holding out to take it to Joann's this weekend. There is a 60% off plus $20 off coupon that starts on Friday. However I will NOT be going there on Friday - no how, no way!

This was a sweet little band sampler to stitch and it got me thinking of one of the first band samplers I ever did. I learned a lot of lessons from this one.

This is Season of Flowers by Eileen Bennett of The Sampler House. If you look at the sampler in the link you'll see that my sampler is missing the last large floral band - gorgeous marigolds. And why would anyone leave off these lovely flowers? Because one can not count! I totally misjudged how far down to start this piece and was fearful that I wouldn't even be able to complete the verse. I just squeezed it in.

This sampler has many decorative stitch bands - long arm crossed, four sided stitch, Montenagrin and Queen stitches. Lots and lots of Queen stitches!

I love how they look but boy do they take a lot of time and attention.

Well, I think I'll spend some time this evening finishing up Merry Christmas. My motivation is there is another new sampler which arrived in my mailbox this week and it too has a siren song -- not as catchy as Andy Williams but compelling just the same.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A Meaningful Sampler for Sunday

It has been awhile since I've had a new sampler to show for Sampler Sunday and I must say that this one make me very happy! I love all the motifs and the colors!

This is Willow House by Blackbird Designs. I stitched this on a yummy pumpkiny colored linen and I changed the house color to a lovely buttery yellow! That certainly makes it the house of my dreams. I loved how this sampler includes the symbolism of the different motifs too.

According to Barb and Alma, the red tulips are a symbol of love, sweet memories and charity. The basket symbolizes bounty.

The house is a symbol of family and community. The willow tree is found in many mourning samplers but willow bark is used medicinally to relieve pain and suffering. I love the two birds (they make me think of my sons) and the stars remind me of quilt blocks. I tucked my initials in under the tree.

I was happy to be able to highlight the "C" and the "N" in the alphabet as these are my sons' initials.

I hope to get some more pieces finished and framed soon. I've found a couple more partially stitched pieces in my stash and I'm in the mood to get them done. Hope your weekend has been fun. We've had a blast of Fall weather and I am loving it! I've worn some handknit socks the last 2 days and they make me happy!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Blessings on Sampler Sunday

Bev and Joyce at Joanns did it again -- another wonderful framing job! This one is from Ewe & Eye & Friends and is titled Turkey Hill Farm.

I found this is a wrinkled ziploc bag at the bottom of a plastic bin -- double the protection - LOL! It was almost complete. All it needed was a little stitching on the border and that little tree.

Now I'm sure that the original kit came with the felt for this tree but it is long gone. Luckily I have a nice stash of wool felt and found this lovely green piece. I did a buttonhole stitch along the outer edge and filled it with french knots. Yes, my tree does blow in a the wind a bit.... I meant to do that.... um yeah, I didn't think you'd believe that. Somehow as I was stitching it down it just kept leaning, so I went with it. I think it adds a nice element to the piece. And isn't that little saying wonderful? And what was even more wonderful, is that when I liberated this from the ziploc bag all that over one stitching was already done!

Now I find it interesting that this little piece (the stitched area is just 5" square) includes a yellow house... and you know how I LOVE yellow houses and what can only be the long lost cousin of the polka dot chicken, a polka dot turkey!

I stitched this piece years ago, long before the idea of a polka dot chicken ever entered my mind. Maybe the seeds were sown with this piece.... my mind is filled with all kinds of useless clutter - LOL!

Right now I'm counting among my blessings water based house paints and the well padded derriere that the good Lord gave me. I got 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of semi-gloss on the living room and dining room baseboards. The LR measures about 20' X 12' and the dining room is about 12' X 12'. Add in 2 door frames (one to the kitchen and one for the front door) and a funky half wall divider with a well in it... I think it may have been a planter box... and you have a whole lot of sitting on the floor scootching around. That tiny little voice is again pointing out that a second coat of semi-gloss would be in order. Right now I'm stuffing a sock in its mouth... a lovely cashmere sock with cables that I'm knitting for me.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! I've got lots on my agenda - more painting, my youngest starts back to college classes which has me chauffeuring and helping with assignments, and I have some cleaning and pitching of junk I want to do. We'll see how it all pans out.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A primitive sampler for Sunday

I was able to pick up another wonderful framing job from Bev & Joyce at Joanns the other day and I LOVE how it came out. This primitive sampler is called "Bless this Day". I started this one eons ago and found it still waiting for me in its rather wrinkled ziploc bag several weeks ago. It was close to being done, and again I have no idea why I lost interest and put it away. A couple of hours of stitching had it completed.

It is an sampler from years ago, in fact, I can't find a copyright mark or date any where on it! It says is it "a country crossstitch design by cheri" and I think that is Cheri Saffiote. I have several quilting books she's authored and this has the same primitive style.

I remember that the reason I chose this chart was for this adorable angel. I swear it is a dead ringer for an angel I drew in the 2nd grade.

Forgive the trip down memory lane, but this is one of those vivid childhood memories that has never left me. It was one of the last days of school for the years, Sister Dorothy, one of the sweetest nuns who ever walked the earth, was handing out awards. I received several for spelling, reading, and arithmetic and was feeling quite pleased with myself. Then she announced I has won the award for "Art Student" of the year. Wow!!! I went up and picked up my folder and realized that this was a mistake. The artwork looking back at me was an angel with a lop sided halo and a black eye. I had drawn this angel and decided one eye was too small so I erased it and made a total mess of it. In those days you did not get another piece of art paper, you had to make do. She was a sweet angel but certainly not "Art Student" of the year quality. As I raised my hand to reluctantly tell Sister Dorothy of this error, she realized that she had misspoke and the award rightly belonged to Cindy Klassner. That was over 50 years ago and I still remember her name. I remember at the time I was disappointed that I hadn't won the award, but I knew I didn't deserve it. I wonder where Cindy is now.

Okay, back to today, this sampler is stitched on a rather loosely woven linen in a light olive green. I used Anchor flosses. I ended up using 3 strands so the stitches are very plump.

Those little bees had me stopping and starting quite a bit. And I changed this piece to include the entire alphabet so I could again highlight my boys initials.

Here's a close up of the frame - I love the little worm holes and that darker inner border is part of the frame, not an extra addition. I think the primitive quality of the frame was a great choice for this piece.

A follow-up on the shopping yesterday - OMG - I think I walked 10 miles! First we went to a local furniture store - it was huge - we looked at EVERYTHING. My son did purchase a sofa, chair, ottoman, end tables, tv stand and a rug for his dining room. A very productive stop, only downside the furniture will take 40 days and of course he'd like it right now. Then a stop at Target, got a nice bench for the front room and a flat screen tv. And then we went to IKEA -- bad bad bad idea!!! I have never seen so many people. We didn't get there until around 4pm. The place was packed and if you've ever been to IKEA you know you come in one door and almost have to walk the entire square footage of two humongous floors to exit. He did decide on a bed frame, a chest of drawers, a rug for his living room, a giant picture of Cincinnati and a console piece that we are going to paint to put by the front door. However we did not purchase any of these items. The "loading area" probably has 25 or more spaces for cars to park and pick up their merchandise. Every single space was occupied and there was a line of cars stretching through the parking lot waiting to take their turn to get into the loading area. It kinda reminded me of lines at Disney World - they went on forever. Luckily we only live 10 minutes from IKEA so we will return one night this week to collect his furniture. It will still be there and hopefully there will be lots less people. On the plus side my son enjoyed people watching - particularly the young lady wearing a white gauzy dress with no undergarments - and he wasn't the only one who noticed. I hope she was there to buy a full length mirror.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A sampler that stands the test of time for Sampler Sunday

First, I am waaaay behind in answering comments. I apologize and promise to remedy this situation this evening. Today I have an encore presentation of a sampler that has stood the test of time. This sampler is titled Now Abide. It was designed by Carla Michaels in 1986.

This sampler won a contest put on by Just CrossStitch magazine back in 1987. So this design is 25 years old. I think it has held up well. I tore the pattern out of the magazine and aged it for 10 years before I got around to stitching it. You can see I finished mine in 1997.

I love the flower motifs of this sampler - the blue iris...

the pink peony...

and my favorite, the yellow tulip.

This piece is an anomaly in my collection in that there isn't a house in sight on this one. And while I almost always choose wood tone frames, this one had to have a nice brushed gold one.

I walk by this sampler many time during my day and this verse from Corinthians makes me smile... "the greatest of these is love".

Well I got some quality stitching time in last night while I watched listened to the Reds beat the Brewers - yeah! I was able to finish framing another house on my BBD AoH sampler, and now all I have left is to fill in the roof and the walls - nice mindless stitching. It is a lovely day today weather-wise but hazy, hot and humid are in the forecast for this upcoming week. I will be spending as much time as possible in the basement thanking the Lord for central air-conditioning.

Have a great week! Happy stitching-
carol fun

A happy happenstance on Sampler Sunday

I was out picking up some yogurt today and ran into Joanns to pick up a pad of tracing paper. As I was wondering down the aisle I heard the sound of a staple gun and decided to go back and say "hi" to Bev, my wonderful framer. Low and behold she had just finished framing Willie's Quaker Band Sampler and was going to give me a call - happy happenstance! And without further ado....

Isn't it wonderful??? The frame is perfect, simply perfect. Bev commented that the molding they sent her was even prettier than the sample she had. Look at the gorgeous grain in this frame.

It has a beautiful sheen and depth. Bev said it was solid cherry and I suppose like almost everything in life, quality shows.

Here are a few closeups on different sections of this sampler.

This section is my favorite - first I love the star motif, it makes me think of a quilt block and second, those little blue birds.

Now to me these birds are symbols of my two sons, similar but different. I purposely stitched the tails not to be identical. I love being to add little bits of myself to my stitching.

This piece finished 31 inches high and 10 inches wide. The linen was 32 count cream color linen. The DMC colors I used were -
731 and 734 - olive greens
152 and 223 - rose
924 and 936 - turquoise
676 and 680 - gold
610 and 612 - taupe
3776 and 3827 - pumpkin
781- gold - for the alphabet

I have long term plans for a sampler wall that will just be Quaker pieces. Along with Willie I have stitched the Beatrix Potter Quaker sampler (here's a link to mine) and I have a bunch of charts I can't wait to get to. I didn't even know that Quaker samplers existed until about 2 years ago and now I can't get enough of them.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A sampler that is close to my heart for Sunday

I hope that you don't mind revisiting samplers I've shown before. I did drop off a new piece to Joanns to be framed today so I should have something new to show in a week or so. The sampler I'm showing today is so close to my heart. This is "Home is where my heart blooms" from Blackbird Designs.

Oh how I pined for this chart. This is an OOP Blackbird Design and I bid on it several times on ebay and lost each time. Then I saw that Myra from Gr8dame's Place had finished it. I contacted her and she swapped me this chart for another BBD publication. Some of the nicest people are bloggers, arent' they? After I finished it I swapped it to another stitcher and the chart moved on.

I love this little flock of birds each on its own little perch.

And this is such a great looking house. I love the saying and I personalized it by adding my sons' initials in the corners.

I also love all the different borders. It makes me think that the designer has the same issues I have, in that I love so many styles of borders that I couldn't chose just one. This is one of those charts that has sold for outrageous prices. I understand supply and demand but prices that are 5 or more times the original price just doesn't seem right. My experience trying to get this chart has lead me to purchase BBD charts I like as soon as I see them. Who knows if any of them will be OOP one day, but if they are I would hope that I wouldn't gouge another stitcher over the price.

Well it is thundering outside and I hope we get some rain. We certainly need it and we could use some lower temperatures. Multiple days of temperatures over 100 is just too darn hot for Ohio. I've spent most of my weekend hunkered down in the basement stitching on my BBD AoH and watching old movies and baseball. A very pleasant way to spend my time, don'tcha think?

Stay cool - happy stitching!
carol fun

A little bit of flag waving for Sampler Sunday

July, its July??? I swear some one is consistently stealing days from my life, but I have no idea how it got to be July. However, with that whine over, I have a sampler to show today that has a little bit of flag waving involved to salute the upcoming holiday.

This is My Hearth & Home from With Thy Needle & Thread by Brenda Gervais.

The stitching finished about 8" x 11" but with the frame it is 13" X 16". I stitched this one about a year or so ago and I have shown it before but I haven't finished anything new at the moment. This piece has so much in it that I LOVE.

First you have a little yellow house, (my favorite color for a house), over-sized tulips (my favorite flower), two American flags (my favorite flag), a rather plump robin (I like my animals well-fed - see pics of Big Dude for proof- LOL), a border that mimics a half square triangle quilt block (my favorite combo of crafts)and an alphabet where I personalized my boys initials. That is a awful lot of wonderful packed into one cross stitch graph!

On the stitching front Willie's Quaker Band is almost done. I know I said that before but I only got a little time in last week. I'm hoping with the holiday mid-week I'll get some time on Wednesday to stitch and maybe knock it out.

Last week was consumed by running around trying to close a deal on a little house for my oldest son. They accepted his bid and now onto the financing and furnishing phase. He's got the finances under control and I know I'll be heavily involved in the furnishing activities. He's pretty much starting from scratch since he doesn't want this to look like his college apartment, but rather the home of a young adult. I'm all for that. I know it will be a lot of fun but it is also going to take a lot of time. He works around 50-55 hours a week so I'll be the one accepting deliveries and getting things arranged. I'm so excited for him. He's such a good boy (don't tell him I said that here- but he really is.)

I'm not really planning much for the upcoming week, because past experience has shown me if I plan it does not happen. Or maybe I should plan not to stitch or sew (are you listening God?) and then it will happen. Do you think reverse psychology works on God? Yeah, I didn't think so either.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

An encore presentation of hobbies combining

Another week has blown by me. I did get a little more time at home but still not enough. Hope springs eternal that this week will have me staying home as much as possible. On the cross stitch front, I don't have anything new to show today. I'm still working on Willie's Quaker Sampler and I'm looking forward to starting something new when I get the last stitch in it.

Last week I show a little sampler that had a quilting design and one of you lovely people asked if I had ever used any of my cross stitch in my quilting. This piece is the only time I can remember doing that. It is a sampler that is a little quilt.



I know I've said this before but I have to repeat it again, I have no idea what the name of the is chart was. I vaguely remember it came from BHG Cross Stitch & Country Crafts. I do remember that they didn't have a ceramic button for every letter of the alphabet but the OCD in me could not rest until I found a button for every single solitary letter.



Doing it this way I covered up a lot of the stitching on the lower case letters - oh well. I do love buttons! That clown one for the letter C was a fun one. The pumpkin on the J is a jack-o-lantern. Yes I did manipulate the buttons to make them what I wanted them to be -- that's artistic license, right?? LOL



And finding buttons for some letters was easier than others. Using a "nut" for the letter N was a difficult one. O is an ornament and Q is the heart on Q is for "quilted".The last button I found was the little cross stitch in the hoop with the x's. I looked high and low for a xylophone, but there didn't seem be be anyone who made a ceramic button like that. Imagine that??

This little quilt/cross stitch piece is hand quilted. That should tell you how old it is since I haven't done any hand quilting in the last decade, maybe two.



I am pleased that I didn't cut off the points on the little Ohio Star blocks in the corners. These little darling finished a smidge less than 3 inches. You won't find anything that small in any of my current quilts. Lately my mantra has been bigger is better - LOL!

Summer has definitely arrived here. Yesterday the humidity was down and it didn't feel like it was upper 80s'. However the forecast I saw for next week was flirting with 100 - yikes. So so glad the AC is working.
Hope you are staying cool!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A little bit of crossed hobbies on Sampler Sunday

So I looked at all my samplers and I can't find one that speaks to Father's Day so instead I'm showing this little piece that has a very slim Father's Day connection.



Now I have no idea what the name of this piece is. I suspect it came from BHG Cross Stitch & Country Crafts back in the mid-80's. The colors I used - dusty teal and rose- were the colors of our bedroom back then, and I remember finishing this little piece up on a Father's day. Now my husband has no interest in my hobbies and can't differentiate between any of them. He calls everything I do "needlepoint" because that is the first hobby I did when we were married. And he totally doesn't understand my love of samplers. Once years ago, he commented "don't you think we know our ABC's by now". That was probably 40 samplers ago. Really the only time I can think of where he sort of noticed my samplers was when I took about 20 of them to a local shop for an exhibit. What he noticed were the empty nails in the walls. He had no recollection of the samplers and in fact asked why I had put so many holes in the wall. (Can we see why I involve myself in crafty pursuits??)

Anyway what I loved about this little piece (beside the fact that at the time it went so well with my decor) is that it combines 2 things I love - samplers and quilts. I have this charts waiting for my attention that falls into this category - Quakers & Quilts from Rosewood Manor. I'm definitely using the Valdani threads for this one.



And in the other direction here is a vintage quilt that looks like a cross stitch piece. Click here for the info. It being offered for sale.

Source: laurafisherquilts.com via Carol on Pinterest

I've been giving serious thought to doing a quilt like this. It won't be hard to graph out the letters and sew them up. However, the question of what fabrics to use that is still under consideration. I think I've got it figured out, but there are a couple of other quilt projects I want to get to first.

Either way I love when I see quilts and cross stitch combined, I think it is a winning combination.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A work in progress for Sampler Sunday

Where does the time go???? Sunday, already??? Seriously I think someone is stealing hours out of my days. And that's my excuse for why I don't have a finished sampler to show today. I am making progress on Willie's Quaker Band by Monastarium Design.



I love the look of this sampler, I just wish I could stitch faster and find more hours in the day to stitch. In trying to remember what it was I did last week, there wasn't too much that was memorable. I did help my son get a small couch moved into his new office at work - and it looks very nice. And I helped my other son study for his final exam of the quarter - and he did well. But the rest of the week was a blur of errands and laundry and running around.

And looking ahead, this upcoming week doesn't look any better. In fact, there is even less time available for stitching from what I can see. Which leads me to believe that I will not get this done in time to use the super coupon for this sampler. I do have another smaller sampler, so it won't go to waste. But I may have to hold out for another super duper coupon to get this one framed. Oh well, such is life.


Here's some close ups of what I've completed.



I love the Quaker motifs and the little leaf and bird and crown make me smile.



I did stitch a couple of evenings into the wee hours of the morning. I would have a motif started and tell myself that it had to be complete before I went to bed. I have no idea why I tell myself this stuff or why I make myself do it - I certainly wouldn't let anyone else boss me around like that - LOL! Tonight there should be some stitching time in front of the tv watching the baseball game - Cincinnati Reds versus Detroit Tigers. They are both playing good baseball, but my heart is always with the Reds. As I kid I spent many an evening listening to the ball game on the radio with my Grandma and now even though I have it on tv, I listen more than I watch.

So I hope your week has some quality stitching time and if anyone finds the hours I've lost I'd love them back. (I know I'm delusional but it is a nice little world - LOL)

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A long sampler to start off Summer

Well I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and today I do have a Sampler for Sunday. Several people commented how long the Willie's Quaker Sampler is that I've been stitching but it is a short one compared to this piece. This sampler is almost 6 feet long.....

and it is only about 6" tall. (You can click on the picture and make it bigger.) Each letter was a separate little leaflet and I can't for the life of me remember who the designer was - Lizzie Kate or Heart in Hand or Bent Creek - I'm drawing a total blank and the charts are long gone. (Stasi if you remember who designed these please let me know!)

Anyway I think most people just stitched one or two of these or if they did them as a group it was so many rows and so many columns. I don't know what possessed me to stitch them as one long row, but once the idea was in my head it would not leave! At the time I got all my cross stitch goodies at Twisted Threads in Madeira, a suburb of Cincinnati, and they ordered the linen for me. They charged by the square inch and I don't remember what I paid but I was impressed that I could get a continuous piece of linen. Each chart was sold separately and I remember going to a couple of shops before I could collect all of them. This was pre-internet shopping so the hunt was all done by car. This piece hangs in my breakfast nook way up high where I can see if from the table.

I took these pictures standing on a chair and I have cropped them but some of the angles are skewed but I didn't want to take it down as it was a bear to hang and get straight.

Here we have A-apple, B-bee, C-cow, and D-daffodil...

Okay I repeated the D so ignore it, E-evergreen, F-fish, G-goose...

H-house & heart, I-ice skate, J-jingle bells, K-key...

L-lamb, M-mitten ,N-nest, O-owl ,P-pineapple...

Q-quilt block ,R-robin, S-strawberry, T-teacup, U-unicorn...

V-violet, W-weathervane, X- xylophone, Y- yolk, and Z-zebra.

Now the way I stitched this was I started with the letter Z and worked my way to A. I stitch starting at the upper left side of charts and work to the right. I don't use a hoop and just hold the linen in my hands and this way I'm not squishing up work I've stitched, just the linen I haven't gotten to yet. Does that make sense? Anyway it works for me. With this piece I rolled the finished parts up and put a safety pin at the top and bottom to keep it out of the way.

So you can see that my love of the BAP - big a$$ project- has a long and storied past. Among my UFO are several other BAPs including the Houses of Hawk Run Hallow, And they Sinned, BBD Anniversaries of the Heart, and all the Prairie Schooler letters done on one piece of linen. My son thinks I'm enamored with large samplers and large quilts is to compensate for my being short. I think he took too many psychology courses in college.

Okay, I'm off to stitch some more on the Monastarium piece. I'm still operating under the delusion that I can finish it by the 16th. Stay tuned..

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A short stroll down memory lane on a Sampler for Sunday

Okay, technically this isn't a sampler, but it is definitely a stroll down memory lane for me. I think this little piece is the very first cross stitch I did on linen.

Now I have no idea who's design this is or what it was called. All I remember is I stitched this about 27 years ago and it was from the Better Homes and Gardens Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazine. Do you remember that one? I loved that magazine and I dearly wish I hadn't gotten rid of my back copies. One or two still lurk in my stash but not the one this piece appeared in.

I think I may have changed the colors of this piece since that dusty turquoise and rose are the colors of my bedroom in 1985.  I know I changed the hair color of the mother and child to reflect me and my first born son.

It is a sweet little piece that still hangs in my bedroom even though these are no longer my colors. This is one of less than 5 cross stitch pieces I have had matted and framed. Early on I made the decision to do my samplers with simply frames - no matting - a decision I'm still very happy with. And in continuing my stroll down memory lane I found a sampler I started probably 15 years ago in my stash. It doesn't need much to finish it so I think I'll work on it tonight. It isn't my style choice right now. It is a primitive but it is "cute country". It has elements that sucked me in which explains why I started it, however it is on a very loosely woven piece of linen which is driving me crazy. Nowadays I would never stitch on something this loose, so I guess I've learned something over the years.

Here's hoping your week has lots of stitching time -

carol fun