February WIPocalypse

 Besides a new start this month I've spent some quality time with a WIPocalypse that I started last year on my birthday in May. Heartstring Samplery's Victoria's Garden is a lovely reproduction design. I've really been enjoying my time spent with her.

As you can see, I'm in the final few days of stitching this beauty. Only the border remains and let me tell you, I'm having an interesting time with it. It met up but after stitching it I have decided that the child who originally stitched this was easily distracted, lol! You can't go on auto pilot when stitching this border. She added stitches, she dropped stitches and she improvised her corners just as many of us may have done throughout some of our own stitching. I am loving every stitch!

When I need a bit of a break from Victoria I turn to my new start, 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers My Precious Jewel - Ann Alice Townshend. Lianne Van Leyen is the brains behind 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers and is a personal friend of mine. She is passionate about reproducing the samplers in her collection, particularly the ragamuffins. Although I have several of her reproduction samplers in my stash this is the first I chose to spend any time with and it certainly won't be the last!

When I pulled the called for floss for this I realized that I didn't have many of them in my stash. With the pandemic and shipping times what they are, I didn't want to wait and so I have chosen to stitch this with silks from my stash. The majority are Belle Soie choices so far. I'm sort of converting as I go. 

I hope to continue with this one during March and I'm sure Victoria's Garden will be complete by the end of the coming week. I haven't decided which design is next but I have several in mind. 

I hope you are all staying safe and stitching your hearts out!

October WIPocalypse

October is almost finished! Where has the time gone? At times it has seemed to stand still during this pandemic and at other times it just races on. This month we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving.....sort of.

The turkey fixings and pumpkin pie were still on the table but this year it was only my husband and myself sharing in a much smaller feast. Despite the fact that family were not able to join us because of the increasing covid cases in our region, we still have much to be thankful for. We are blessed with a very supportive family and friends as well as contined good health up to this point. My husband is also continuing to be paid from all three of his employers even though choirs cannot sing and the churches were closed for a good part of the year. Also we have that new grandbaby on the way!!

Stitching this month didn't occur until about the midway point of the month. The holiday, storing things for the winter and putting away summer clothes occupied a good part of our time. However I do have a finish to show you!!  First though I'll show you what little stitching I did on two of my other projects.

I have almost completed the Birth Sampler with the exception of the child's name and birthdate. Just a bit more on the bottom border and then we wait for baby's arrival.

I hope to get the name charted next week but I won't be putting it in until the baby is here.

Next I have a pathetic amount of stitching that I added on Victoria's Garden. I only managed to get in one flower and part of another.

No stitches were put in on Fanny Compton this month because I was determined to finish A Yuletide Welcome once and for all! I'm pleased to say that my mission was accomplished. 

I'm so happy with how it has turned out! The designer is Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers and I stitched this on the suggested fabric, 40 ct Lakeside Linen Vintage Buttercream with the suggested floss with the exception of one. This was my New Year start and it was the second time that I started this piece. I originally started it in November 2017 on a 32 ct fabric by Kiwi Illusions but I was really unhappy with the loose linen and I wanted it to be smaller. It was put aside for a little more than 2 years before I tackled it again. I also have A Ghoultide Welcome in my stash but I think it will still be awhile before I get to it.

 With Thanksgiving over I spent a bit of time putting some of my Halloween stitching on display.

The next pic is of my Halloween finish last year,  The Primitive Needle Annie Hyssop's Harvest Moon. I've had it stretched but as yet it is not framed.

Here are a few other favourites. The first pic actually resides at my son's home now.

I'm busy working on some Christmas gift stitching now and don't think I'll get to any personal stitching for a bit yet although I'm itching to start something new. Who knows?.... maybe there will be something started during the next month. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

September WIPocalypse

 This month is known as Sampler September for those of us who love samplers. It's a great excuse to start a new sampler of course! I decided to do just that but I didn't get very far. On September 1st I put the first stitches into a design that I'd eagerly been awaiting..... An Orchard Invisible - Fanny Crompton 1833, designed by 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers. I didn't get very far however before I realized that my dye lots on some of the colours were just a little too close and that I would have to make some new colour choices from my stash.

The lettering for Fanny's name is GA Holly Berry. The same colour is also used on the crowns. As you can see my dye lot for the lettering looks more pink. Rather than frog it I decided to leave it for now and I changed the floss on the crowns to a substitute. At some point I may frog the letters but I'm waiting to see how the rest of the piece plays out. Fanny it appears, likes pink! Follow my link above for the pattern and you will see that the  flowers in the urns as well as the berries in the basket are all stitched in different shades of rose but my lots are all looking pretty much the same.  I will have to sit down with this one at some point and make some more colour substitutions. I had other things that needed to be worked on so I've put it aside for now. It's definitely a disappointment as I was hoping to get going on her but that's a fairly frequent occurrence with dye lots. I'm stitching this design on a lovely piece of Lakeside Linen Vintage Meadow Rue, one of my favourite fabrics.

Next I pulled out Victoria's Garden to see if I could get a bit further ahead on it.

 

It's a lovely design and is slowly taking shape. I'm really enjoying my time spent on this. After a several days I put it aside as much as I hated to and put some time in on the birth sampler for my upcoming grandchild. Baby is due at the end of November and I know I'll be working on a few Christmas pieces throughout that month so it was best that I moved along with this one. Sorry about the lighting on these. It's been overcast most of today and I can't seem to get the colours right on the fabrics.

I have only the bottom border and a few more stars located above it to complete. The personalization will wait until after baby's arrival. I know their name choice as they are aware that they're having a boy but one can never be too sure! I just might jinx it if I go ahead and stitch it now. Plus we have to wait for the birthdate. I can't even put in the month of November because baby is due at the end of the month and could very well be late, arriving in early December. I will, however, work at the charting of the name over the next several weeks.

So I started Sampler September with one sampler and ended the month with two others! Yuletide Welcome didn't even appear on my radar this month. 

I have so many charts that I want to get going on. Some are seasonal and some not but I also know that I have two designs to stitch as Christmas gifts for my granddaughters which will take considerable time. In fact, overall I'm stitching much slower this year. I think I'm having a hard time concentrating during the pandemic. I've never stitched so few pieces as I have this year so far. 

In my previous post I showed pics of the sweet pillow which accompanied part of my gift for my daughter-in-law's baby shower but I neglected to post photos from the event. I'll leave you with a couple of those now.

August WIPocalypse

August was a somewhat productive month for my stitching. I say somewhat because I did stitch but not on a regular basis as usual. As Covid rules have relaxed here, we started going out a bit more and have had some close friends over to distance with us outdoors. It's been a pleasant change and I know my mood has certainly lifted.

Partway through the month I decided it was time to get moving on my Victoria's Garden again. Here is a pic of my progress at this point.

 It's moving along and I do enjoy what time I spend on it. The motifs are lovely. I particularly like the larger flower baskets on either side. Also the off centre flower in the basket on the bottom left. There's a reason for that as you'll see once I have the border complete.

Here are a few close up photos of the motifs.

Isn't that little dog cute? Victoria's Garden has some little creatures in it as well as flowers!

In the last few days of the month I got started on a birth sampler for my grandson who is slated to arrive at the end of November. This design is actually called A Birth Sampler and it was designed by The Goode Huswife. The chart is now out of print but a good friend has loaned it to me. When she mentioned that she had just the sampler for me to stitch I asked her to send a picture of the design. I showed it to my son and daughter-in-law and they loved it. It's simple and the colours are most suited to a boy.

As you can see, I started in the middle of the piece so the final line was stitched first. Then I moved up and started working at the beginning. Just two more lines of text, a few more stars and the border, which is quite simple, and it will be finished. Of course I won't be stitching the name or date of birth until later despite the fact that they have already chosen the name. With my luck they would decide to change the name or it could end up being a girl, lol!

Here's a pic of what the actual design looks like.

I love the simplicity of it! When this is done I will be looking at charts for a birth sampler for my nephew and his wife who are expecting for January. I also have promised my granddaughters some stitched pieces for Christmas so I expect I should get moving on them too. With all of this my Blackbird Design I started earlier in the summer has been on the back burner along with the completion of Yuletide Welcome. If you recall I was waiting on the arrival of more floss to finish it. The floss has arrived and I hope to get back to it very soon. I say that but Sampler September arrives tomorrow with the first of the new month. You'll just have to wait until my September post to see what I've chosen. That is, unless you follow me on Instagram!

July WIPocalypse

It's a HOT summer here! I know it's the same for many of you across not only Canada but in the US as well. I've been very thankful that we have our gazebo in which to enjoy the weather but during the past two weeks there have been periods of high humidity which just scream "Stay inside!" On days such as this I spend my time with my needle in hand in the air conditioned comfort. 

I had hoped that I could finish off A Yuletide Welcome but sometime during the first few days I ran out of the floss needed to fill in the label at the bottom of the piece. I have some on order but Lord knows when it will arrive. Postage times have increased as has the time to fill orders in many shops. Here are pics of the piece where I left off.

I'm really hoping that by next month my floss will have arrived and I will close to a finish if not there already!

In the meantime I worked on some patriotic stitches for display this month. You'll see some photos of those on my smalls SAL post at the end of this month.

Once the smalls were finished I pulled out Heartstring Samplery Victoria's Garden. I've added a bit more to it than I had last month.

This one is going to be really pretty when it's done. I'm enjoying my time spent with it. I really love that flower basket! The muted colours are lovely and show up much better in real life than in the photos. On the cover of this pattern there is a photo of both the original sampler and the reproduction. The reproduction is very true to the original colours because it's hard to tell them apart.

I'm thinking that I might get started on a few Christmas ornaments in August. I need to stitch some for my granddaughters as well as a friend. I've also ordered a Jeannette Douglas pattern, Friendship No Borders, which has both a Canadian and a US design which can be stitched as individual pillows or combined into a double sided pincushion. I like to stitch this as a gift for my sister who lives in the US. It's on order with my shop so it may take several weeks to arrive.

No stitching was done on my Blackbird Design piece but maybe I can get that finished up for next month too. Keep an eye for my Smalls post on Friday to see all of my patriotic finishes!

May WIPocalypse

I've seemed to get back some of my Mojo this month and have made considerable progress on my stitching. First up, Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome:

I spent the beginning of the month completing the border and then grew tired of this. It then sat aside until just this past Thursday when I picked it up again and started work on the large box at the bottom which will eventually contain the title of the piece. This morning I've moved the Q snaps and I've already completed two more rows at the top to the right of the house door. Once the entire box of green is complete I'll start stitching the letters before adding the white background. On all the completions of this that I've seen that box is filled in with white but on the chart it only shows an outline of white around the inside of the box. 

When I'm ready to move on from this again I'll return to my latest start which is Victoria's Garden by Heartstring Samplery. 

This is such a pretty piece! I've thought about buying it on many occasions and always passed it over for something else. However several weeks ago I decided I really wanted to stitch it and I ordered the PDF from Beth's Etsy site. As a result of the pandemic she has recently switched over her Etsy shop to exclusively PDF models. This works better for me as the shipping costs to Canada are quite costly, along with the exchange rate on our currency. 
I searched my stash and found a piece of R&R Crème Brûlée. I had all the suggested threads with the exception of one and Beth gave me the DMC equivalent for it. I'm hoping to get back to this one in a couple of days.

Earlier in the month, when I tired from my Yuletide Welcome, I browsed through some of my Blackbird Design books. I love working on Blackbird projects and many call their designs comfort stitching. If you watch flosstube, specifically Brenda & The Serial Starter, you'll hear Brenda often refer to Blackbird Designs as comfort stitching. I feel the same way about them and considering my mood at times with this pandemic I gravitated directly to my BBD books and charts. In their Ooh la la book from 2019 I found 
Her Fair Works, a boxtop finish which is featured on the front cover.

As you can see, I'm nearly finished. Only the flower on the left is remaining along with a bird and an ititial and then the border around the piece. 
I don't have the appropriate size box for the finish but whenever we can finally get into our stores again I hope to find one. 

While I was searching for a box though I found one that I had completely forgotten all about. This is a Sudberry House Box which will fit a 5 in diameter circular stitch.

 You won't believe it but I found this box in a collection of stash which was dropped off at my front door a few years ago. We have never found the donor of the stash collection but it contained many treasures including this box and a vast collection of Weeks Dye Works floss.

I celebrated my birthday earlier in May and because my family couldn't go out and purchase gifts they gave me the next best thing. My sons gave me gift certificates to a favourite online shop and my husband gave me the money for some stash which I used to order four cuts of linen. In addition my friend Nan sent me a copy of her latest release, Handtuch Sampler, along with the floss to stitch it with. 
It also felt like Christmas all over again when I received word from my friend Patti that she had completed the framing on my Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler. 

I love how it turned out! This was a Christmas gift from my mother and I know she will be happy with the results too. 

I hope everyone is well and that it won't be long before you can resume visits with friends and family. Until then, happy stitching! 

April WIPocalypse

I have only worked on one project all this past month, namely my Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome. I'm taking my sweet time with it too! Here's are a few progress pics.

As you can see I've completed the bulk of this with the exception of the border, a few snowflake motifs on the bottom left and the large grassy area at the bottom of the house which will contain the wording. That in itself is going to be time consuming! The over one on 40 ct was a first for me. It went better than I expected as can be seen in the last pic above. The border will still take a bit of time since I have to finish all the small flowers along it. I'm growing tired of this now and have been kitting up projects over the last few days. I'm waiting on some linen to begin some choices which unfortunately is taking longer to arrive than usual because of the pandemic. Gentle Art floss is becoming more difficult to find too as they have had to temporarily close because they are a non-essential business. Consequently they can't dye or ship floss until they are allowed to return to work.

I started a small Blackbird Design project called Her Fair Work from their OohLaLa book but I've run into my usual problem of changed dye lots and I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with what I have or change it. Time will tell as I put in a few more stitches on it. Not enough progress yet for a pic. 
As most of my friends are stitching up a storm during the pandemic, I find that I'm slowing down. Stitching has always been my stress buster but during these unusual times I find myself turning to other pursuits. I'm reading more and watching TV more with my hubby. Generally we watch very little TV but now are catching up on some programs we've wanted to see. Because we live in a small rural community we can go out for walks frequently without coming into contact with many people. We try to get out a couple of times each day.
When I think about it, most of my stitching is usually done when I'm by myself and my husband is away at work. It's quiet and I can think freely as I stitch. Now Bob is home all the time and I find I can't settle for long with my stitching.

Hopefully I'll have some progress to report on next month. The weather is starting to warm up and we've just finished opening and cleaning out our gazebo. Outdoor stitching may be just what I need!

March WIPocalypse

Wow, what a month! I'm sure that no one in their wildest dreams could have imagined where we'd all be when it came time to post this month. We are doing well in our third week of self isolation. My husband is going out weekly to get groceries as I am considered compromised due to previously existing health conditions. So for me, as I'm sure it is for many of you, my needlework helps me pass the time. Mind you I do find that it's more difficult to concentrate these days and I find myself frogging more than usual. However I'm still grateful that I have this ability to help pass the days.

On a positive note, I finished my Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler before the month's end. She is a beauty and I have already sent her to a dear friend who does framing.

Sorry about the quality of the photo. I really had a difficult time getting a good picture because this piece is so wide.

I took a break for several days after finishing this before picking up anymore stitching. I kind of lost my mojo for a few days. I have picked it up again but progress is slow and I spend more time frogging than I would like. I resumed stitching on Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome. I haven't bothered to take it out of its frame for this picture but here's my progress on all the motifs.

I can't make up my mind what I want to start next. My Needlework Market order arrived today so perhaps I'll find something from those charts. It's not as if I have no stash to choose from, lol! I may even decide just to continue working on Yuletide Welcome for now.
Until next month I hope you all remain well and safe. Keeping you in my thoughts!

February WIPocalyse

My original plans for this month were to only work on my Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler along with a small stitch. I started out the month this way but decided I had also better spend some time on PSS Yuletide Welcome. What I ended up doing was alternating weeks on these two and eliminating a small stitch altogether. 

The house on Plum Street Samplers Yuletide Welcome is now complete. Yahoo!! There was plenty of solid stitching on this house and I'm glad to have it finally behind me.

I love the flower basket on the roof! It's one of the things that drew me to this piece in the first place. Now I'm starting to enjoy all the many motifs that are in this design. I hated putting it down when it came time to switch.

Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler is a real treat to work on though. The ease of a monochrome sampler is a nice contrast to Yuletide Sampler. 

As you can see I've finished the second of the three parts of this and am now ready to start the final pages. 

My initials and the year have now been stitched into the design as I can see the finish line in the near future, hopefully by early April at the latest.

This has been a really difficult piece to get an accurate pictured of in terms of colour. It either appears too washed out or too dark. I wish I could show a true colour of the fabric as it is so lovely.

The Nashville Needlework Market will be underway this coming weekend and I've been drooling over the previews that I've viewed so far. I love Brenda Gervais' in particular Token of Love and Manor at Quaker Hill. I think these two will make their way into my stash. Check them out at this link.

There are so many lovely samplers being released by various designers however I'm anxiously awaiting the release of some by my dear friend Lianne of 1897 Schoolhouse Samplers. Lianne is not at market. Perhaps she will be at some point in the future. She is fairly new on the scene of reproduction samplers and I just know she is going to do well. Check her out on her Facebook page. At present she has an Etsy shop and has three releases however in the near future she will be adding 6-10 new reproductions to her shop. 

I'm so thrilled for her and plan on adding some of her lovelies to my stash.

Winter is slowly fading as the days are growing longer and the temperatures milder. This weekend the time springs forward once more and the promise of summer is all that closer. Hope to see you next month and that it's a productive one for us all!

January WIPocalypse

I'm a little late to the party with my January stitching but things are now progressing well. The illness I had for most of December resurfaced just after the new year so I was down and out for the first two weeks or so of the new year. I'm just starting to feel like I'm getting back to my old self now. 

I started off the new year with a Christmas stitch! If you read my WIPocalypse goals under the page beneath my header you will see that I had several Christmas stitches listed as a possibility for the coming year. I decided to go with A Yuletide Welcome by Plum Street Samplers.

This is a fairly large piece, one which I had actually started several years ago not long after it was released. I wasn't happy with my fabric choice though and didn't get very far into the stitching before I ditched it. I love this design and it's one that can really be left up year round. So I dug through my stash and found a suitable fabric on a higher count than my original.....40 ct Lakeside Linen Buttercream.
Because it's a larger project, I decided to get started at it now while there was still snow on the ground and I felt like working on a Christmas stitch. Normally I would put it aside sometime around March and bring it out again in the fall to finish. However I know that I'll never get it done this year if I do that. The plan is to stitch on this for at least one full week every month until it's finished. The house is huge and I'll start stitching the roof of it in February. So far I'm much happier than with my original start.

The rest of January I have alternated A Yuletide Welcome with a WIP from last year. Willow Hill Samplings Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler is another larger project which I'm really enjoying. It's a monochromatic stitch and I've chosen a limited edition Gentle Art floss called Cardinal. I'm stitching it on 40 ct Silkweaver Burmese Beige.  I've included a pic of my 2019 progress as well as this month's. The second pic is a more accurate capture of the colour of the fabric.

I am thrilled with how this is turning out! The floss looks so good on this particular fabric and I wish I could stitch on nothing else.

I also managed to complete 2 small winter ornaments which I will be posting on the final day of January as part of the 2020 Smalls SAL. Hope you'll drop by then!