A Second Welcome!

Hi and thanks so much for visiting! Thanks for all your comments; it is so fun to hear what thoughts you have to share.
Here I must confess that I am a little slow; it wasn't until the other week that I finally understood that I can become a follower by clicking on the upper-most bar in any blog... big sigh at myself!
Before, I was frantically trying to find the "follower list" that some of us have displayed on the side bar somewhere. Since not everyone has one of those lists displayed, I was pulling my hair for about 6 months before the coin finally fell through. Anyway, I wanted to thank all of you who have been "one-sided followers" up until now! I have tried to be a follower for each and everyone of you too - what a great way to make friends!
If you are a follower and have a blog, but I am not following yours, please send me a line with your blog address and I will sign up right away - I'd love to know what you are working on and what's going on in your corner of the web!

So, I had a great weekend! DH and I went on a date. Twice! That almost never happens, so I was pretty satisfied on Sunday evening. Mind you, we do not do any crazy or fancy things, but we had dinner and lunch, both at Italian restaurants. I have been reeking garlic at work all day - you know that it probably is pretty bad when you keep getting whiffs off yourself... LOL

Even though we were busy running on dates, some stitching magically got tended to as well. I did manage to start and finish the Fall Welcome kit by Sweetheart Tree. Here is the before and after back-stitch shots. (Note that I was, as usual, way too impatient to iron my piece before the beads were added. I have a feeling that I'll pay for that soon...)

This was also a fun stitch, but I did think that it was a bit trickier. There are 4 shades of orange used for the pumpkins, not counting the tiny yellow sections. The orange shades were very close to each other. Other than that - another Sweetheart Tree kit stitched up in a snap with plenty of floss left over.

If you are interested in one of the used charts, "Sunflowers & Bumblebees Welcome" or "Autumn Pumpkins Welcome", please send me a message at onestitchnirvana@gmail.com and let me know if you would rather stitch the summer or the fall welcome. The charts have now been spoken for! :-)
The charts are in great shape; I don't mark my charts - I am too lazy.... I think that one of the parrots, Turqui, nibbled at the very edge on the fall design chart, but other than that, they are in great shape!
I'll pack the pick from the first couple of e-mails up and mail it over (this is NOT the give-away that I have coincidentally not started to think about yet...).
The floss used is DMC and there should be enough seed-beads left over. The linen cut was tiny - I'll measure it and send that with the rest of the stuff, so that the next stitcher can pull something similarly sized from the scrap stash.

The Summer Welcome Piece is very similar to another ST design, Sunflower on Gingham. This is one of few pieces that is actually up on a wall in my house.
Maybe a sweet gingham linen would be a great pick for the welcome pieces?

Since I have told myself that I need to get serious about finishing things up, I decided to pull this old Sweetheart Tree Knob Knocker out too. Both DH and I have our birthdays in September, so it would be nice if it was done by then...

Speaking of finishing, I did start giving my moon-riders and crow-jackers some attention. I decided to stitch the ornament fronts and backs together using dark gray and orange bugle beads. It is very slow work - I would estimate that it took me about 45 minutes to get one of these babies assembled. Four have been completed so far, so I am over the hump! Here are the Moonriders:

A better view of the bugle bead border:

My buddies at work are involved in various functions and vacations right now, so this is what I do at work during a boring lunch hour: an instruction of how to finish ornaments with a straight bugle bead border! I truly hope that it is understandable - let me tell you, I have learned that just because something makes sense inside my head, does not automatically make it meaningful on a piece of paper... I do like doodling, so I did have a lot of fun drawing this! (Click on the scan to make it readable!)

I was thinking about how to get the bugle beads aligned in parallel relative to the edge over a few evenings (great way to fall asleep), before I decided to use the technique described above. I am sure that this is not revolutionary in any way, but I have not seen it done like this before and the result could be worse. :-)

I will leave you with this WIP pic of the lower part of a magpie. This is a pretty small piece, so I am blown away by the fact that the stitching is sooo slow. It does not help much that I am picking my own colors. Some of the picks were not fabulous, which of course lead to frogging and some "bonus stitching".
I am planning on adding the finished piece inside a small key-rack, since the magpie holds a key ring with several keys. I think that it will be very cute and handy, but I am already thinking about how to best discourage tiny parrots from making the key-rack the new hang-out...

As usual, it is now way past my bed-time...
Take care, sweet dreams, and Happy Stitching