Ruthie Sunday and more Day too

Another Ruthie Sunday gone by. This time both Paulette and I were prepared and tackled the pretty wench, as Paulette would say. lol! I think we're both at the same place now.



And I know we're both heartily sick of satin stitch by now.




Unfortunately, Paulette tells me there are more satin stitch alphabets ahead. Which is a real bummer. Oh well. At least the next one isn't satin stitch. I hope. :D




On the This is the Day front, I finished the house section -- except for the over one in the little box area.




I don't understand how the pink and the tomato red can look good together, but they do, in a wild sort of way. I love it!!




I'm hoping to tackle more of this piece today if there's time. But thanks to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, both of which I was rereading (or listening to) at the time, I got a good amount done Friday and Saturday.

BTW, I took these pictures under my Ott lite -- it's yet another cloudy day and I just gave up on taking the pictures by natural light.

Hope you all have a great week. And thanks for stopping by and commenting. I love to read your comments! :D

I've joined the stampede.....

I've joined the crowd of bloggers who seem to be working on This is the Day from the January/February issue of Just Cross Stitch Magazine.



As you can see, I've done the groundwork, so to speak. Got the borders done, the grass sown, and now I'm starting the meat of the matter.




I really didn't think doing all that groundwork would take so long, but it did. Why is it that one always thinks something will take no time at all to do and it ends up taking forever? Anyway, I'm using the recommended fabric and fibers, 40ct Autumn Gold from Lakeside Linens with GAST, CC and WDW fibers. No adventuresome changes for me! I love how the model looks, so I'm satisfied.




Of course, while I'm stitching this, I'm thinking of all the other projects I want to be stitching. Sigh.......

I got an award!

I was surprised and totally excited to see that Gwen gave me an award! I've never gotten an award before! :D




Thank you Gwen! Now I have to name 8 other blogs for the award. That's so hard! I read way too many blogs so it's difficult to choose. But I'll try to avoid the ones Gwen chose (and also Debbie, who already gave her awards, and go for it. In no particular order,

Tanya
Joy
Paulette
KwiltyKim
Sandra
Meg
Sandra
Rechelle


Here are the rules.

1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger Award into your blog

2. Make a link to the person's blog who nominated you.

3. Nominate eight (8) other blogs

4. Add their links to your blog

5. Leave a comment on the blogs that you nominated telling them that you have sent them an award.

Whew! I hope I can remember to do all that! Thanks again, Gwen. And thank you for reading my blog and posting comments. I really love doing this blog thing!

Now to decide what I'm stitching next......

Lois Minshall is finished!

Lois Minshall is finished! I finished her Friday night after a great struggle with the over one numbers in my mother's dates. I did the verse and attribution at the bottom over one.






I'm very happy with how it came out. I like to think that my mother would like it as well.




I hope Lois doesn't mind that I didn't put her name or date or any of her other information in my sampler.





Lois Minshall is by Threads of Gold and was done on 40ct Vintage Light Examplar from Lakeside Linens, using an NPI conversion from Jean at the Attic. (And no affiliation, just a happy customer.)




Oh, and I thought I'd show you what usually happens when we try to take a picture of the boy child. This was taken on his birthday.




Nice, huh? :D

National Quilting Day -- bizarre!

It's apparently National Quilting Day! Never heard of it before! But KwiltyKim over at her blog says it is and I believe her. In celebration of the event, KwiltyKim is having a giveaway -- go check it out! Click on her name and you'll get there. Actually don't bother -- I want to win the giveaway. :D Just kidding.

In honor of National Quilting Day, I thought I'd show a quilt top that was part of a round robin thing that a bunch of friends (including me) did together. The quilt top is currently at one of the participant's houses waiting for that final border. I've been waiting for a long time, but I know life gets in the way. And I'd rather wait for my friend to come visit and bring the quilt top with her anyway.





This round robin was the kind where you provide a block for the quilt and each participant adds a border to it and then passes it on. I really love how mine is coming out. I actually provided the 4 blocks in the middle, and then also included a bunch of the other blocks that were used in the borders. Yes, they're Dear Jane blocks. I believe -- if my rather unreliable brain remembers correctly -- that the Dear Jane blocks were part of another round robin. But with my unreliable brain I may be wrong about that. My brain is particularly unreliable tonight -- more on that after this picture.




I admit, the main reason why I chose to show this quilt and none of my other quilts is that this is the one that I happen to have pictures of on my computer. :D I'm sooooo tired today. I think I ended up with a huge sugar rush from all the birthday celebrations for the boy child yesterday. We had milk shakes with our burgers at Johnny Rocket's (one of the boy child's favorite places to eat), and then later on we had cookie cake. And whoa, by the time I went to bed, I was wide awake and rarin' to go! lol! Couldn't sleep forever, then eventually did. But was up and bouncing again around 4am. So I read for a while instead. Ugh! Anyway, that's my excuse for not showing my in-progress Baltimore Album quilt (it's supposedly being handquilted by me, who's not touched it in decades), or my Tumbling Blocks quilt (which was mine mine mine after a long string of baby quilts for friends and family), or the Sunshine and Shadows quilt in Amish- ish colors, or the Angel quilt (can't remember who designed it, but I love it), or -- well you get the idea. Yes, I'm a lapsed quilter, and I admit it.

Anyway, enjoy National Quilt Day -- what's left of it. And go to KwiltyKim's blog and enter the giveaway.

On the stitching front, I finished Lois Minshall last night while on that sugar rush. I'll do my best to take pictures of it and post them tomorrow.

My son -- or Smile for your birthday!!

My son doesn't like to smile for the camera. See this year's school picture.




In fact, these days, he usually tries to avoid having his picture taken all together. Now, this wasn't always true. He used to cooperate for the camera, and smile too.




Not always, though.




The best school pictures happened when the photographer was good enough to make the boy child smile. We lucked out for a few years at least. (I won't show the famed frog face picture -- if I showed that school picture, a certain person would kill me.)




The picture with the tie dye shirt is about how I still think of my son -- just about that size. I think his sister preferred it that way as well. Being taller, that is.




Now the only one in the family taller than the boy child is the father type.




The boy child is turning fifteen today. It's is his birthday. And I can't believe he's that old. Why does 15 sound so much older than 14? It definitely does though. And how did this boy child turn into this tall, hulking person with hairy legs, a deep voice and no smile?




Ok, I take it back. He does smile sometimes.

Happy birthday, Mr. Boy. I love you.

Getting there!

Well, I wasn't going to post until I got farther along, but that's just not going to happen. So here's Lois Minshall as of this minute. I just have to finish the verse in the middle and then do the words at the bottom -- all the words are over one. And yes, I'm doing cross over one for the verse and words.



I really like how it's coming out!





I'll change what is at the bottom of the sampler. I'm taking my inpiration from SamplerLover'sBlog. I am dedicating this sampler to my mother, who died going on 30 years ago. I will put her name at the bottom along with her birth and death dates. It's about time I made a sampler dedicated to her!

In case you're wondering, the verse in the middle is the following:

A Mother's love, how dear the name,
What bliss unfolds its sacred power
Then ever may it's fairest flame,
Illume my every given hour.

On the family front, been busy running the girl child around to visit with friends and to go to the doctor. Always something to do when she's around! As for tomorrow and the boy child, well -- that will have to wait for another post. :D

On a Lois streak

Ok, so I didn't pick up Not For Us Alone like I said I would. My excuse is that I need to find my Autopsy of the Montenegrin Stitch book by Amy Mitten to help me with the next part. I'm on a Lois Minshall streak instead. Here's my progress as of this morning. It's a sunny day for once!




I'm enjoying this one now that I'm on a roll.




Lois is rather tortuous in that she has all these little over one motifs. I can never make over one on 40ct work -- I can only handle over one letters. Anything else, the fabric just bunches and the stitches don't fit. Soooooo, I'm cheating and just doing over one tent instead. Fits a lot better. Hopefully, it doesn't look too terrible.




The girl child is coming home tonight for midterm break from college. It'll be nice to have her home for a week. Although it always means more work, more surprises, and an extra two kids in the house. Two kids, you say? Yes, her boyfriend is a senior in high school. He's always around when she's around. :D I know one thing for sure. The girl child will be needing lots of sleep. She's been pulling lots of all-nighters this week!

Off to start a stew in the slow cooker. Good way to have some dinner ready for someone whose arrival time is in the air. And with the girl child, you never know her plans until the plans are happening! lol!

I heart Ruthie Sundays!

Well another Ruthie Sunday has come and gone. And of course I'm obliged to show pictures of my progress! :D (Once again it is a cloudy and rainy day here, so the pictures are not the brightest. I can never decide if it's better to just take the pictures in the clouds or to use the flash. What do you think?)





I finished a satin stitch row of letters! And then I discovered that the chain row of satin stitches underneath was nice and mindless so I did some of that as well.




Ruthie is such a pretty lady! I'm finding it really enjoyable to have just that one Sunday a week for her -- it seems to work for me very well! There are a few other ladies joining Paulette and me (I?) for this Sunday Ruthie day, so it's nice!

I hope everyone survived turning the clocks ahead. Can't believe we have to wake up in the dark again for a few more weeks. Groan!!!!

What's that sampler in the header picture??

Ok, I've been meaning to mention this. And I've gotten a few questions about it, so I'd better do it now! lol! The sampler I used in my header for this blog. It's beautiful, isn't it? I just love it! So what is it? Here it is in all its glory!




Not a great picture, I know. But you get the idea. The piece is Charlotte Clayton by the Northwest Sampler Guild. It came out last year and as soon as I saw it, I fell in love. You know what I mean. That big THUNK! OMG! moment where you just gasp and can't move your eyes from the picture. :D Yes, this was a big time falling in love. So I immediately bought it, kitted up. And immediately started working on it. And I'm so glad I did. It uses NPI silks, and I can't remember what fabric I used. But luckily, I note down such things in my photobucket album. So I can go take a peek and say, oh yes, I used 40ct Vintage Sand Dune. I don't think that was the fabric called for, but it was recommended by Jean at the Attic, and I love how it came out.

So now you know what that sampler is in my header. I do think it's one of my favorite pieces. The picture on the chart itself is of the original antique piece. It was rather frustrating because I'm one of those people who want my stitching to look exactly like the picture on the chart. And of course, that's impossible when it comes to having the original piece on the chart. The same thing happened with Dutch Beauty, which also has the original piece shown on the chart. But it can be a rewarding experience when you don't know how the piece will look in the end. You end up being surprised and pleased with the colors forming on your fabric. It's like an adventure, charting whole new territories.




So that's the story of my header. Thanks for asking. And thanks for reading my blog and posting your comments. I'm so enjoying meeting so many fellow stitchers out there!

Oh, and a ps. There's also a link to my photobucket album on the sidebar to the right. If you visit my album, I hope you all notice that there are two albums -- if you look carefully, you'll see there's a WIP album as well as the main one. I admit I haven't been putting photos in my WIP section recently. But it's there.

More pictures

Second post today. Glenna asked for pictures of what Lois Minshall and Not for Us Alone look like as finished pieces. Good point, Glenna! Sorry! lol! Here's Lois.



She's charted for AVAS, so mine won't look exactly like this when done. I'm hoping I'll still like it anyway!

Not for Us Alone is a mystery class, so you're not supposed to know what it looks like. It's hard to find pictures online as a result. I hope that Lynn in Utah won't mind if I provide a link to her album. Click on her name for the link. Scroll down in the little side bar area and you'll see Not for Us Alone. Lynn does absolutely amazing work -- I always love to look through her albums!

Stick to the rotation!!

Well, for now I've conquered the startitis that I've been having. I've decided to do a very loose rotation of Ruthie Sundays, and then rotate every week between Not For Us Alone and Lois Minshall. I think. I may throw in a Collaboration Etui Wednesday in there with another online friend. :D




In the meantime, I did manage to finish Chapter Two of Not for Us Alone on Monday.




Don't look too closely at the seed stitch around the shield motif. I messed up a bit. For those of you who think I'm a perfectionist, think again. At least when it comes to ripping out seed stitch. lol!

After I finished that up, I needed some plain cross stitch, so I was good and picked up Lois Minshall again. Here's where I am with her as of today.




(It's another cloudy day today, so the pictures may be a bit dark.) I don't know if I said before, but I'm using 40ct Vintage Light Examplar and an NPI conversion from Jean at the Attic. (No affiliation, etc) With Not for Us Alone, I'm using the kit -- 36ct Zweigart and Amy Mitten's Fibers to Dye For fibers.

I'm glad today's Friday, but totally bummed that we have to turn the clocks ahead this weekend. I think they did the right thing in changing when to turn the clocks back in the fall, but they moved the moving-the-clocks-forward thing to a time of year that's a bit too early IMO. I'm liking how it is right now, sending the boy child out to the bus stop when it's light out as opposed to pitch dark or just starting to get light. Next week it'll be back to sending him out when it's just getting light again. And waking up in the dark. Bleagh!! The only good thing will be not having to drive in the dark to and from evening activities. Anyone who knows me knows I hate driving in the dark!

Well, TGIF anyway! Have a good weekend, everyone! And thanks for following my blog and posting comments!

Stitching Saturday, Ruthie Sunday -- and rotation??

Saturday I got together with some of my stitching friends at my friend Kathy's house for a stitching day. The big debate, of course, was what to work on. I figured I wouldn't be able to concentrate on Not for Us Alone (see post below), so I brought the project I'd put aside for it, Lois Minshall. It was nice to do plain x's again! This is how Lois looks as of Saturday. Sorry for the darkness of the pictures -- it's a snowy day here with no sun.



I worked on the first flower in the interior -- nice to be done with that border! (There's still a bit more light pink to be added to the flower and left hand rose bud.)




Sunday was Ruthie Sunday. Those of you who read Paulette Stewart's blog (Plum Street Samplers) know that she and I started Ruth Bacheler from the Scarlet Letter together. We dedicate our Sundays -- or Mondays if Sundays are busy -- to the pretty girl. Well, yesterday we reached a milestone -- we started the letters! Yay!



We both quickly discovered that since each letter was a different color from the letter next to it, that it would be slow going with a start and stop for every letter. Yawn! By the end of the day, I had gotten almost to the end of the first row of letters.



Ruthie is pretty, but I have the feeling that these letters -- and there are tons of them! -- are going to be a trial! lol!

So I seem to be doing a vague rotation. I usually hate rotations. I find I do much better with a one-at-a-time sort of thing. But the Not For Us Alone class started online and I obviously wasn't finished with Lois Minshall. And I figured I could manage a Sunday for Ruthie. So rotation it is. I guess. Sort of. The worst of it is, since I've been talking to friends, both online and off, I'm so tempted by all these other pieces I want to do! It's taking all the will power I have not to dash off and start CHS's Adam and Eve.



There are a bunch of ladies starting an SAL for that one. I look at it and think, oh that'll work up in a snap! No time at all! Then I look at it realistically and laugh at my optimism. And that's just one piece that I want to start right now! There are so many others! Oh why can't I stitch faster? Why can't I not get distracted by everything I want to stitch and just be happy stitching what I'm stitching -- which, of course, was the something I really wanted to stitch before I started stitching it! lol!

So that's where I am this morning. Debating what to pick up to work on next. Be good and continue with Not for Us Alone? Be wicked and start one of those pieces that's calling to me? Be somewhat good and continue on Lois Minshall? Sigh. I'm in one of those flighty moods.

Thanks for all your comments. They mean a lot to me! Mouline Rouge will be lurking in the background --- still haven't decided which color scheme to use, but I have a feeling when I do pick it up again, I'll try out the newest combination. I want a masterpiece like Paulette's!

Snow day today. No school! Hubby working from home -- I'm always glad that's an option with these computer types. Everyone home warm and snug -- I hope that means some stitching time!