Rachel Hyde is finished!!

Well, despite the fact that I'm madly cleaning the house in preparation for house guests, I managed to scrape together enough time to finish Rachel!!




But I thought I'd tease you with artsy shots first. :D




I'm very pleased with my Rachel. Oh, and lots of people have been asking about Rachel. She is OOP, I'm afraid. And my chart is already spoken for. Sorry!




Rachel Hyde is by Threads Through Time. She was stitched on 40ct. Zweigart Summer Khaki linen with the DMC threads called for.

In other news, a while ago, Deborah Thorpe of Midsummer Night Designs posted in her blog about her new designs. One of them didn't have a name and she was looking for suggestions. Well, I suggested a name, and she liked it! And she told me she would send me the chart I'd named as a thank you! I was thrilled! But when the package came in the mail, it was awfully thick. I thought it was a bit too thick for just one chart. And I was right! Deborah sent me all three of her new designs! I was thrilled to bits! (I named the one called "Peace Inside.")



Thank you so much Deborah! You're so generous!!

I'm off to do some more house cleaning. Talk about Spring cleaning! lol!

Rachel Hyde -- or going slowly......

Well, if you're sick of Rachel Hyde by now, I do apologize. All I can say is she sure takes a lot of stitching. Add to that a busy few weeks of visiting, classes, and visitors, and poor Rachel will take that much longer. Oh well. But here she is in all her glory. I finished the beautiful scene on the bottom and I love it!




As I said before, Rachel did all her over one stitching in tent stitch, for which I am eternally grateful. The beast, bird and little flowers/berries are all in over one tent stitch, as are the various over one words in the piece.

I like how the chart identifies the animal as a "beast." Sure is puzzling to figure out what the beast is! A bear? A kangaroo? -- except that kangaroos don't live in America. Hmmmmm....




And here is where I am now on the piece as a whole. Just the repeat of all the flowers and grapes left to do! That's all! lol!



As usual, I'm already thinking about what to tackle next. And I'm not close to finishing Rachel yet! Have to stop doing that!

On the not doing that front, one of the ways I battle the "I want to work on something else" blues is to listen to audiobooks while I'm stitching. Keeps all the distractions away, and makes the stitching go much faster! But one of the sad facts of life is that not all the books one wants to read are on audiobook. I've slowly been reading (as opposed to listening to) "Drood" by Dan Simmons for quite a while now. I love Charles Dickens, and this is one of what seems to be a bunch of books based on Charles Dickens and his last novel or his last years. Pretty weird. It's a pretty good read, and I'm getting there slowly. I've noticed at least two other books in this field or subject. One is "The Last Dickens" by Matthew Pearl -- which I'm glad to say is in audiobook format. The other is one that was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, "Girl in a Blue Dress" by Gaynor Arnold. I'm looking forward to reading them once I finish "Drood." I've been rereading Dickens'novels as well.

I've also been on a Bronte kick, which has been fun. There are various books out or coming out that are about the Brontes as well, including one by Jude Morgan which I want to get. And then a bunch of my favorite authors are coming out with new books: Kazuo Ishiguro, AS Byatt, Sarah Waters, and Kate Grenville, to name a few. Plus a new author for me, Hilary Mantel, who's written a book about Cromwell. And only one of them have I noticed having an audiobook!! Argh!!! What's a stitching girl to do? Spend more time actually reading as opposed to stitching and listening, I guess!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Brightneedle class, stash, and more Rachel

Just got back from a class at my LNS! I went to Where Victoria's Angels Stitch to attend my second in person Brightneedle class. (I've taken some online classes as well.) This was the class piece, Good Fortune.





This is what the kit looked like (along with my Little Gem scissors by Kelmscott Designs that I picked up today).




It came with a nice little wooden ruler to stick in the ruler case.

I was so excited to meet one of my online friends, Karin! She's very nice in person, and has this lovely accent. (I love cool accents.) And she had a nice cosmetic bag from Vera Bradley that was perfect for carrying stitching tools in! I swore I wasn't going to buy anymore Vera Bradley! lol!

Anyway, Ann Pettit of Brightneedle taught the class. Liz Knudsen wasn't able to come, but I did get to meet her last fall when I took another class from Brightneedle at the same LNS. The fall class was Cape Cod Passport.




While I didn't put a single stitch in today's class, I can show what progress I made on last fall's class. Nope, I didn't finish it, but if you want to see some Brightneedle class finishes, go to my Photobucket album (there's a link on the sidebar to the right).







Hopefully, I'll finish both these projects, plus the Dreamkeeper Etui which I also haven't finished, sometime in the future.

While there, instead of starting the class piece, I did some stashing! lol! I hadn't been to my LNS in so long, so I went a bit crazy. :D Had to pick up a few of the pieces I hadn't gotten yet from Nashville market.




The DMC is for a freebie I'm planning to stitch up sometime. A few more market items.




And some classic reproductions that I just had to have. (Ok, so Ewe and Eye and Friends doesn't fit into this category. Sorry!)




Ann was also teaching another class in the afternoon, but since I'd already stitched that one, I came home and am now blogging.

On a different subject, I haven't posted any progress pics of Rachel Hyde recently, so here she is in all her glory.



I think she's just soooooooooo pretty!!!





I think that's all the news. Except that I've already signed up for the next Brightneedle class to take place in the fall at my LNS. And I hear that another designer will be there on another day -- and I will definitely sign up for that as well! lol!


And finally, as per request, here is a picture of the Blackbird Designs fabric that I picked up last weekend in Rhode Island. The picture is a bit washed out, but hopefully you get the idea.




It's sunny and warm today -- finally feeling like summer! Of course, I would have preferred staying with spring, but whatever! lol!

Thanks for visiting -- I love reading your comments and knowing you're all out there! Have a great weekend!

More progress, scissors, etc

I've gotten more done on Rachel Hyde.





As always, it's slower going than I would like. Those pine trees took forever!



And I'm really not in the mood for rice stitch. I don't mind eyelet as much. But the alphabet is in both. It's looking nice though. I love the colors. It's fun to be stitching something that uses my old green and blue favorites. I still love red, of course, but these are my first loves. lol!




In other news, Nina is having a contest over at her blog. In order to enter, you're supposed to show your scissor collection on your blog. So here I am this morning, running around trying to remember where all my scissors are! I managed to find what I think is most of them, but I know I also have a few preemies and others lying around. Anyway, here is most of my collection.




The Gingher ones I've been trying to get from Shepherd's Bush the last couple of years so I can get the matching scissor fob. But of course I haven't stitched any fobs yet! Oh well. I have a couple of Dovos in there, as well as some scissors from Kelmscott Designs. Thanks, Nina, for the giveaway!

In more news, remember the Freshman Formal that my daughter attended at her college with her boyfriend? Well, she didn't take any pictures, but her roommate did. Of course, the girl child only sent me one of them, and a silly one at that. Sigh.




Oh, and I see that the boy child's efforts to pass the dress on to the boyfriend were all for naught. She's wearing a different dress!!!! I'm not going to mention that to the boy child. lol!

Seems the boyfriend is good at making faces for the camera. Hard to get a serious picture from him!




But the girl child did send me at least one that is a nice one. :D (Obviously, these were taken on a different day.)



Ah, young love!

New start -- and more kid talk

I've started something new.



I think it's really different from lots of traditional samplers. And I'm really liking it so far. I've finished the whole left side of the design.




It's Rachel Hyde from Threads Through Time. I'm being extremely boring and using DMC with 40ct Summer Khaki -- that's what the chart called for and I happened to have the fabric in my stash, so that's what I went with. Part of me really wanted to go with a pretty fabbie, but I couldn't decide on one from my stash. So the boring route was chosen.




Rachel, bless her soul, did some over one work, but it's all in tent stitch! Of course, she chose to do her tent stitch in different directions, depending on her whim, so it's more challenging than just plain tent stitch. But not much more. It's nice to do over one tent stitch knowing that's what Rachel used!

There isn't a picture of the whole piece that I could find online, but if you google Rachel Hyde, you may be able to find a picture on someone's blog. :D I know there's one out there.

A big thank you to Melody for this chart! I owe you one!



Thanks again for your comments. It seems most of you find that girls talk about stuff more than boys do. And I agree. Just not with my kids. lol! From the time the girl child was small, she never told us anything. I still remember picking her up from nursery school and asking her how her day was.

"Fine."

"What did you do today?"

"Nothing."

And it's been the same all through her life. Now she'll she tell me yes, she had a great weekend, sorry no pictures of the Freshman Formal, but it was fantastic. In an email. If I hear from her -- usually by IM -- I always know she needs something! lol!

Now the boy child is actually better than his sister. He still doesn't talk too much and will generally say the usual "nothing" for an answer. But he does definitely talk when he's excited about something. To continue from last weekend's paintball event, recall that he went to his friend's house almost immediately after he got home from the paintball event, and so we didn't hear or see much of him after that. But once I got him home from his friend's house and he sat down with me, he gabbled on and on about his weekend at the paintball event. Boy, is he enthused about scenario paintball! He desperately wants to go to another event asap! He even showed me a video on Youtube of him and his teammates attacking a tank! So I heard a whole lot about paintball, WWII paintball guns, grenades, tanks, famous paintball dudes, and more. Yes, the boy child IS capable of talking to me! :D BTW, here's the video from Youtube that he showed me. Tanks were one of the big exciting things for him!



So for me, neither kid tells me much. But the boy child tells me more than the girl child!

The girl child is coming home just for the weekend for Easter. There isn't a break at her college, so it'll be a short visit. Have a great weekend, everyone. And Happy Easter and Passover!