Birds, temperatures and journals

This is a glorious sunny day with flowers, birds, blue skies and 70° temperatures here in the wilds of our Lilac Thicket. I was up late today after a late night of farting around with stitching. Yesterday my lovely bestie Leslie and I Skyped and an hour in I was disgusted with Festive Feathers. The floss kept knotting and I have made an error somewhere which won't be noticable but it is irritating me to no end. So I set it down to start working on something else. Above is the picture of progress to date. I have maybe a smidge less then one-quarter of the breast left to stitch.

 

I started putting together a temperature project, which is offered as a free stitch along at Jardin Prive.  I got so excited when I first saw it.  In 2020 this SAL was floss bobbins and this year it is houses.  It is similar in principal to the popular Stitching Mommy's Temperature Garden, if you are familiar with that.  I have it pulled together but I am going to change the temperature colors that I initially pulled.  I want pinks, blues, greens and purples for my neighborhood.  I just love this novel idea and it is different in looks then what a very lot of people are stitching.  If you are interested in stitching this too, head on over to Jardin Prive.  While I was over there I purchased 4 patterns I must stitch.  

I had been pondering all my cross stitch projects since I started stitching in 1986.  Many things I have stitched are just gone.  I don't know what happened to them but some of it could be pieces were destroyed in the fire I had at a duplex I rented in 2002.  I had started stitching when I lived there and then rented and moved into a house on SW 1st Terrace.  In 2016 Orin and I bought the home we currently live in.  So it is understandable that stuff has become lost in transition and of course destruction.  I don't know why it wasn't important to me to keep track of what I was stitching, I was just having fun stitching. Details weren't important then but somehow they have become important to me.

So, I printed off pictures of projects I have stitched as wallet sized photos on my printer and I grabbed an old composition book and tore out the first few pages and began by taping the pictures on the pages of the book.  I then began going thru my blogs looking for any details about the projects.  I have about 5 years left to look thru on my old blog and I am also going to tackle Facebook and look thru posts there.  My notebook is filling in and I am gaining some satisfaction in having information consolidated into one place.  It is a good feeling and although some folks would have a heck of a lot more stitched in 35 years, I am not worried about that.  As Leslie and I say, it's not a competition (as it is with others).  This is a journey of happiness and joy watching my work grow and helping to guard my peace of mind.  When I die just shovel all my stitching stuff into my coffin and a few of you may need to sit on the lid to help the mortician close it.  Hell I may need several more coffins to get it all in and buried with me.

May your spring days be filled with the peace, joy and happiness that God is truly with us, watching us stitch, enjoying the fruits of our love of the needle and thread.  God Bless.

2020 Holiday Depression Buster finishes and Spring blooms at the Thicket!

The Lord has gifted us with an amazingly beautiful spring this year.  Our backyard is our refuge from the hustle and bustle of the world outside.  Yesterday two women showed up at our threshold from the county assessor's office to verify information for taxation.  They followed me thru the garden gate to measure our sunroom.  Both were absolutely enchanted by our secret garden.  It really is a place you can get away and dream.  Orin and I love feeding the wild birds and watching them come and go.  I saw a robin gathering grass for it's nest and laughed when the grass resembled a mustache on that sweet bird.  Bear with me as I share a few pictures I took this morning.  Pictures taken in the morning are so soft and stunning with the promise of a new day fresh after a good night's sleep.

Our willow tree looks so lovely against the blue sky.

The dogwood tree is filled with flowers that are just opening.

Lovely Paper Whites line our fence.

My beloved Lilacs!  Some clusters are wide open, however you can see some clusters still have themselves tightly closed to the world.  These cool nights will make the blooms last much longer and the scent, need I say more?

Not a lot of stitching going on here. Festive Feathers is coming along slowly. Leslie is much further along then I am.  She is having knotting problems also, so I know it is just not me but it is the floss.

Below is Mary Mouse and Duncan Dog.  Both are part of the Brooke's Books Advent Animals series.  They are stitched on 28 count Reflection by Silkweaver in the color "Beach".  They were two of the finishes I had in my depression buster project this past holiday season.  They really are darling.

Next in the Depression Buster Project was the free design by iStitch called surprisingly enough "Christmas Greetings". I used 2 different colors of floss from two different defunct floss companies, Olde Willow Stitchery and The Dye is cast. I chose a 28 count Quaker linen in "natural".  I love the vintage look of this design.

"Thankful" was a free design offered by Hands On Design.  I stitched it with the called for floss on a charcoal colored 28 count evenweave.  It stitched up quickly, even for me.  I love how it stitched up.

This free design is from Les Grilles de Maryse and is called Noel 2014 Medaillon.  I used The Thread Gatherer Silk 'n Colors "Green Leaves" SNC 090 and Kreinik Silk Mori Milkpaint color 0116. It is stitched with some random vintage colored evenweave I had in my stash. I love how it turned out. I want to stitch it again in all blue and also want to stitch in all white.

This is the last finish in my Holiday Depression Buster parade.  It is called Christmas 2017 Village in the Snow designed by a favorite French designer Les Grilles de Maryse.  I wanted the snow to show up so I chose a grey 28 count evenweave in my stash.  I stitched it with the called for DMC floss however I sparkled it up with a opalescent blending filament in random white stitches throughout the piece.  The effect was just what I was looking for.  I love this piece.

The weekend is almost here but then being retired every day is a weekend for me.  I will continue to enjoy my beautiful Lilac Thicket, maybe do some reading or even baking.  One thing I do know I will be doing is thanking the Lord for a life filled with peace, joy and happiness.  God Bless you!

Festive Feathers and recent finishes

This is one glorious Sunday!  The view out my Happy Room window is stunning with the bright sunshine, tree leaves appearing, red bud flowers and the most amazing blue sky!  God really know how to treat us right on a blessed Sunday morning.

This morning I have been lurking about the free designs on the internet and posting to my Needle Free For All Facebook group for future posting.  I post two free designs most days and have April almost filled up.  I have to keep track on a calendar page which is also a free calendar at Free Printable.net to try to avoid posting duplicates! (They have free graph paper there too!)  Why buy when you can save money to buy other things with?  

I am always surprised by what free designs elicit  comments.  The designs that I love get no comments and then the ones which aren't appealing to me, do.  That is the beauty of the world, the breadth and width of differences in this universe.

I was not feeling well for the first half of the week so there wasn't any stitching or Skyping with my bestie Leslie on Wednesday.  I did manage some stitching on Friday and Saturday.  I am about half way done with my cardinals breast on Festive Feathers. The color of the fabric is more accurate in today's picture then previous posts. I didn't use a flash when I took it.  I really had fits with it on Saturday as the damn floss kept knotting and I spent half my time picking them out.  It is beyond frustrating.

Last November 2020, Leslie and I talked about just working on holiday designs as a way to assuage the depression that seems to to effect us as the days gets shorter and shorter.  I actually did follow though with that, Leslie didn't 😛 !  Shame on Leslie BIG TIME!  I really enjoyed it!  I chose to stitch free designs I had found and shared on my Needle Free For All.  Here are those finishes.

The top row: Christmas Greetings from iStitch and to the right Village in the Snow from Le Grilles de Maryse.

The second row: Thankful designed by Hands on Designs, Noel 2014 Medallion from Le Grilles de Maryse and the last two are from the Brookes Book's Advent Animal series, Mary Mouse and Duncan Dog.

I was really cuffed with myself getting so many stitched in two months time.  That is not very Sandi Jo'esque!  I will share the particulars of each design next post.

This is my latest free design finish, Shamrocks, by a French designer Brigitte DaDaux.  I stitched it using supplies I had, a piece of white 28 count evenweave and Dye is Cast hand dyed cotton floss in Grace Kelly.  Dye is Cast has been out of business for a decade plus. I really loved Brenda's floss.  I added a small bow from some silk ribbon I had plus a lady bug button.  It is so cute and one day I will fully finish it and share.

I will mention all the free designs I mentioned in this post are still available.  On the left hand side of the blog is a list of sites that offer one or more free designs.  You can find the designs I stitched that way.

I think that is about all for now I will talk with you later in the week.  Enjoy each stitch and God Bless.

My newest start "Festive Feathers"!

I love cardinals.  We have over a dozen pair that visit our Bed and Breakfast in the backyard.  I associate them with my brother Rick, who went to heaven in 2014.  When I saw this design stitched up by a poster on Facebook I had to get it.  It is a Bothy Threads kit which come from the UK and are costly.  I do not generally buy kits but it was the only way for me to acquire this design.  I paid $42.00 for it on sale at Stitch! 1-2-3.  It would have been $49.00 at regular price.  That is a lot of my money so I expect QUALITY!!  Which is something I will get to in a moment.

I opted to pick a piece of fabric from my voluminous stash instead of the fabric it came with.  Had the fabric been a lugana or other evenweave fabric I might not have done that.  I chose a Picture This Plus color of Crystal Twilight in 28 count lugana.  It is an opalescent darker blue with a tinge of green in the blue so a deeper peacock blue.  The red fibers are stunning as you can see below. I started it Friday March 3, 2021 and you can see my progress to date. I love it and am savoring every stitch. I have about 1/3rd of the breast complete.

As I said earlier I was expecting quality and I was sorely disappointed with the cheap way this kit was put together.  My best friend Leslie is stitching it with me and we both are disgusted with Bothy Threads.  I know I won't be purchasing anything with their name on it ever again.  

  
Let's start with one stinking needle, ONE NEEDLE is all that came with this kit.  Now I know most kits only come with one but they aren't $50.  How much more would have cost to include 1 or 2 more?  Not much I assure you.  

Then there is the flimsy cardboard stock thread organizer.  I appreciate the fact the floss colors were separated, I detest guessing which color is which  Look at how they punched the holes to hold the threads!  The thread is constantly tangling with other colors and it is a struggle to get another length of floss to load your needle, not to mention how easy it would be to get confused with the floss symbols.  I think this is the cheesiest, cheapskate thing of the whole kit.  It angers me that they don't tell you what brand of floss they are using AND the color number so that if I run out I can easily get more from my stash. I know I can e-mail Bothy Threads to get more floss but who wants that wait, oh my gosh it takes forever for stuff to come from the UK to the US. I did spend about an hour matching the floss with DMC so I can get more if need be.  There is also something wrong with the floss that I did receive in the kit.  It tangles at the drop of a hat and it is fuzzed out like it has been dragged in and out of the fabric several times.  I know how to prevent knots, I have been stitching for 35 years but this stuff is awful!

The chart needs to be enlarged!  I took mine to the copy place and enlarged it to fit a 11x17 sheet of paper.  The one on the left is what came in the kit and the one on the right is what I enlarged to.  My eyes are getting old and charts are getting hard to see.  That is not Bothy Threads fault but I think everyone would like their charts to be larger.  I do appreciate that there is a second chart with the back stitching but if the chart was larger they might not have to do that.

I knew this kit came with aida, but it would have been nice to be able to choose my fabric for my kit.  I would expect a premium priced kit to offer that.  Also I believe that this should be offered as just a chart with no supplies at a cheaper price. I have no doubt they make a grand killing on these kits and at the most would add no more then a couple of dollars to the kit if they truly wanted to be a premium company. These kits are on quality par with what you get from China and that is stinkin' bad quality.  

You may disagree with me and my assessment or you may have more improvements I have not mentioned.  I absolutely love the design, the price point sucks eggs as does the kit quality.  I usually am very satisfied as a customer but in this situation I feel that making a buck is more important then putting together a great kit.  I will continue to enjoy stitching this beautiful design but I won't be purchasing Bothy anything in the future.  In my house we vote with our dollars. 

Thank you for reading and God Bless!

Spring blog clean-up!!

Well it is spring 2021 and I have now been retired for darn near 10 months.  I have enjoyed every heavenly and stinkin' moment of it!  I have gotten my pantry together and stitched and spent untold hours swinging on the porch swing in my sunroom pondering everything and nothing.  I decided today to dust off this blog and try to update it and refresh everything, links, wallpaper, and the whole 9 yards! So let's start with my Needle Free For All!

I created a Facebook group called Needle Free For All.  I love to peek around the internet looking for free designs.  I have spent untold hours doing just that and I love unearthing treasures.  I decided to share what I find with other stitchers, so I created a group on Facebook to share my finds.  All are legal free designs and I do try to assure that they are not infringing on anyone's copyright law.  Right now I am posting 2 free designs a day and I have been doing this for 4 or 5 months now so there are quite a lot of designs there.  If this is something you are interested in joining please request to join the group at (20+) Needle Free For All | Facebook.

Tomorrow I will blog about the current project I have in my hoop.  It is "Festive Feathers" by Hannah Dale.  It is a Bothy Threads kit and I will tell you why I will never buy a Bothy Threads kit again. 

 So tah-tah for today and may your day be blessed with lovely small miracles.