Le Coq est fini!

Merci le Dieu. I mentioned in an earlier posting that the Rooster was finally stitched. I waited to post a photo until it had been displayed at a recent local stitchy meeting. Thank the Lord and pass the band-aids. Honestly, this was one heavily painted canvas and all the basketweave made it very difficult and painful to stitch having to force the needle through. But it's done and I am happy with it.

The borders were all fun albeit time comsuming but I kept ticking off one side then the other and little by little the final stitched was laid. Using a combination of braid, beads, silk, wool, perle, ribbon, linen and fabulous fiber feathers it was a challenge. The debate at my house now is whether to frame or pillow it. I'm leaning toward pillow. I'm thinking down filled and heavily laden with tassels, cord and ball fringe. Something fairly substantial because of it's size. I want to send this one off for finishing instead of doing it myself. While at the finisher I think I should protect the tail feathers in some way as they are 3-dimensional, delicate and easily disturbed. The canvas by CanvasWorks was excellently painted, it's just that I had chosen to do so much of it in basketweave to show off the intricity of the pattern and I kept losing interest in stitching this; therefore maintaining UFO status for approximately 5 years! Have I no shame? No.  I even took it to Studio Time with Caela Tyler who made some of the stitch suggestions on the rooster. And David McCaskill also showed me how to do the coppery outside border.

Well thank you for staying with me through this one, now on to my year's end final WIP's. See you soon!

Catching up!

During a recent visit to Arizona I managed to make it over to Needler's Nest located in Surprise. What a delightful shop with helpful yet not hovering staff. I'm standing with Bettelou who specializes in cross stitch. I hope you'll visit this wonderful store if in the area. The day I was there they were having a 25% off everything sale.  I could have really gone crazy with that type of discount, but I stuck to only a few vital items. Apparently like beauty, I believe that vital is also in the eye of the beholder. :) I found these two little charmers below which are going right into my queue for the coming year. Unfortunately they didn't come with stitch guides, but given the patterns on their clothing, looks like I'll be doing basketweave. Yikes did I say basketweave? Well just for their outfits; the background and hair will NOT be basketweave, not after that rooster episode.

These are relatively small so they'll work up fast. I already have vintage bamboo frames for them. Next year I think I'm going to focus on projects that tend to be smaller in size. I just had too many biggies in my queue this year and I'm looking forward to not having to deal with a cumbersome canvas on my floor or table stand. Yes, I think something I can mount on my "straddle paddle" will be the perfect size! LOL! Remember that? I like using it, it's just so.....different.

I sure tend to do a lot of painted canvaswork, don't I? I love to needlepoint, but I also enjoy and admire stitching done on evenweaves, linens and other types of fabric. But painted canvas seems to be where I land most of the time. It makes everything more costly, but it can't be helped. These are works of art in many cases. With that I'm going to go play in my stash closet, getting my new projects kitted up. Love that term, kitted up. Thank you for visiting today, I hope you have a wonderful day filled with stitching.

P.S. Still can't find spell checker in this blog mode.

It's been a

busy week. Beginning with an ANG Chapter pot luck and gift exchange. As always it was great fun and I am thrilled with my gift from fellow blogger Colorado Stitcher. I received an exquisite mini laying tool/embroidery punch. It's hand turned out of Bocote wood, feels great in my hand and is made in Mansfield, OH by Turn-of-the-Century. I also received a tin box that Mary decorated with a bargello top and contained a stitched needle minder. So generous Mary, thank you!

Here's a photo of the Christmas Cuff Bracelet by Melissa Shirley I finished this week. Petite Very Velvet was used for the stripes, the green is Kreinik braid interspersed with green beads. Face is silks and beard is stranded wool. It won't be made into the bracelet for this year as all the finishing deadlines have long since passed.  It was a fun and easy take-along project.

Today was my monthly stitcher's breakfast and stitch-in. It is always such a great pleasure to be with my friends that enjoy stitching as much as I do. Everyone was working on something different, passing around new found stitchy magazines and stash organization ideas.  Oh, someone spilled their coffee on the table where we were stitching. We all gasped in horror, but no harm was done. No it wasn't me....I was drinking sparkling pomegranate juice!

Hope you're having a great weekend and immersed in stitching contentment. Be back soon!

Here I Am!

Hello out there in stitcher's blog land! It's been a while and even now I only have progress to report today, no photos. I have been feverishly working to complete the stitching on my Rooster project, Marnie Ritter's beautiful Renaissance piece, and a second cuff bracelet. My goal is to have the stitching done on these pieces completed before Thanksgiving. I have a commitment to do so to myself of course, but formally to one of the Chapter's I belong to that has their finished projects challenge coming up.

I began writing this post a few weeks ago and have since finished the bracelet and the rooster. WOOO HOOO! Happy dance now in progress. Both of these projects were stitched primarily in basketweave with specialty threads and, because of the size and heavy painting on the rooster canvas, my fingers feel totally abused.  Progress on Renaissance continues to be my main focus, I have all the full diamonds completed leaving only the half diamonds. I have not obtained permission from Marnie to post a progress photo at this time, but hope in the future it will be okay. You can view her photo here; keep in mind that if you're interested she will be teaching this piece at ANG's 2010 Seminar in Columbus, OH next Fall. Once Renaissance is finished I will return to stitching Caela Tyler's Red Kerchief piece, which is also in line for completion by the end of the year. I wish you could find an opportunity to stitch Caela's most unique design at Calloway in January.

That will conclude my WIP's for 2009 therefore freeing up some space on the queue for 2010. But what about my 2009 list of projects?  Ahh yes, that telltale list looming over there on the right side of this blog. I can only say that I did not begin most of the projects slated for 2009 but I did manage to finish several things that were not in queue. I will soon have my 2010 goals set which may or may not include things from '09. This is always a fun ritual for me; deciding upon which fabulous projects I plan to stitch in the coming year.

It's good to visit with you a little today.....and also give my stitching fingers a rest.  Oh by the way, where did they hide the spellcheck feature on blogspot?  See you soon.