The Happy TV List (and some stitching updates)

Thanks for all your wonderful comments, it is always so nice to hear from all of you.  I know that I have been terrible about visiting all of you lately, but I have been pulled into the craziness of life yet again...  ;-)  I hope that I'll be able to make up for the neglect during the next few days - I am really curious to see what you all are working on!

I did get a question a couple of weeks ago from Bird Cages: "Did you teach yourself all of this or did you originally learn from a class or someone else?".  Well, I learned the basics for cross-stitch in Swedish elementary school - reading a chart, keeping the back neat, making sure that all the legs are slanted in the same direction and so on.  The more advanced stuff I learned through some great designers and kits, and I was really into the designs by The Drawn Thread for a while, learning a lot of specialty stitches.  Hillside Samplings had some really good kits back then too and her instructions were fantastic.  Thanks to Hillside Samplings, I got over the fear of finishing.
As I got more advanced, as in got more skilled in other counted work than cross-stitch (pulled, drawn, Hardanger, etc), I also invested in a few really good books (if you don't already have The Proper Stitch by Darlene O'Steen - get it!  Seriously!) and used the internet more to check on particular stitches.
I did also take a number of classes, but in all honestly, I think that very few stitchers take the classes I have taken to learn new techniques, but rather to get their hands on some fabulous projects, get away from the everyday grind, make new stitching friends and meet up with old ones.  (The exception is probably the Lucet class with Sherri Jones of Patricks Woods, where we learned how to make lucet cord.  That was a lot of fun!)
Speaking of Hardanger, check out this fabulous Christening gown adorned with Hardanger lace over at the Sinister Craftiness'.  Wow, oh wow!

Well, time to get down to the good stuff!  LOL  The big update for this week is the progress on the EMS sampler.  Here it is complete with part 7 all stitched up.  (I did my usual cheating and stitched up the repeating cherry border... patience?  What is that...?  :-))  It is getting closer - almost 2/3rds there!

Below you can see a close-up of the latest additions.  The puppy and the sweet cherry border were by far the easiest stitches, while the two flower clusters to the right took some time and concentration.  I really do like how the flowers turned out; they look so delicate and transparent (you can probably see it better if you click on the pic).  The white flowers are part of a larger motif, which I am real anxious to spend some more time with in a couple of weeks!

Can you believe that there are 23 floss shades in the small flower motif!?  All of the DMCs have been lined up next to the chart so that you can see how incredibly detailed these Biedermeier motifs can be.   I have a hard time grasping that I actually keep working on this sampler, since I am normally not a fan of switching colors every 30 seconds.  It is well worth the exception though; it is so much fun to see the motifs and the entire sampler slowly grow together into one large beauty!  It definitely helps that it is broken up into a bunch of smaller segments, or it would probably already have hit the UFO pile somewhere....  ;-)
Next assignment will be a quickie, so I am already looking forward to that part to come out.

The reindeer stocking did also get some TLC this week.  It sounds like all of you are in agreement that the red rounds are indeed their noses.  It was a fun stitch, even though it was a bit tricky to stitch with the overdyed floss so that the dark and light shades worked well together.  I am pleased, even though it is not as pretty as the original is.  I think that the stockings have turned out to be a great counter-point to the fiddlier switch-floss-every-second-stitch type projects, since there is a very limited amount of changing floss at all.  I think that the reindeer design required a total of 4 different floss-colors!

Perfect timing on the finising too - the next couple of socks in line to be stitched arrived in the mail-box the same day as the last reindeer nose had been completed.  I think that I do need a quick break from the stockings for now, but I'll try to get back to them in a week or two.  I am pretty excited about scavenging for some fun and matching cotton fabric for finishing.  I saw that the local Hancocks Fabrics just started displaying some of their Xmas fabrics, so I may have to go on a shopping trip pretty soon... LOL

The stitching focusing problem hit this week again.  This is the beginning of Just Nan's Lady Scarlet's Scissor Roll, started yesterday.  It has been a fun and pretty quick stitch so far, so it is hard to put away.

And I did get something finished-finished too.  Here is the set of Sweetheart Tree's seasonal welcomes hanging together on the wall.  As always, the idea in my head looked so much better than it ended up being in real life, but it is now on the wall!  All of it is simply pinned together, so it is not too late to get a better idea sometime in the future.....

Here are a couple of us chicks hanging out and discussing the latest news on the net and various TV shows.  Henny and Griffin are not picky; as long as there are no cats or prey birds on the screen, they really don't care a whole lot.  Meanwhile, mommy has watched a lot of positive TV shows lately, and even came up with a list of the current favorites.

 

The TV-Shows-That-Make-Me-Happy Top 5 List:

1. Secret Millionaire - I love it! This show makes me cry, but that's all right - it makes the millionaires cry too.
2. NY Med - I was lucky enough to catch the first episode and I really liked it!  Not all of the patients stories end well, which makes it even more inspiring and makes you think. Supposedly it is just an 8 episode series, but we'll see abut that.  Dr Oz is one of the stars of the show and I must say that I got a whole new respect for him after this show.
3. The Biggest Loser - talk about inspiration!  Nothing is impossible!
4. Extreme Makeover - Home Edition - it is so much fun to see the look on the faces of the receivers!  It is also good to learn about what other people struggle with in life; it definitely sheds a different light on the difficulties in my own life...
5. So You Think You Can Dance?  - By watching this show I have learned that I don't get nearly as moved by song as I do by dance.  The talent pool in this show is simply incredible.

They are all great alternatives to the celebrity gossip, the negative news and the outrageously bad talk-shows (like Jerry Springer and Maury.  No offense to the fans out there, like my DH...).

Anyway, those are the shows the chicks and I decided is what we think is the good stuff.  Any other tips about positive TV shows out there?  We are collecting!  LOL  We don't have cable or satellite though - but we do have Netflix!  (Speaking of, thy just added 4 more seasons of Hercule Poirot - I am in heaven!)

Well, time to get back to things here.  Take care and Happy Stitching,

Early Monday Morning...

Another Monday and life is good!  We got a splash of well-needed rain yesterday evening and it has finally cooled down a tad, so it is a great beginning of a new week.  The incredibly hot weather has forced us to sit indoors most of the time (I am not crying about that.. LOL), which means that a lot of weekend time has been spent stitching on a variety of things.

The In-Laws were down for a visit from Wednesday to Friday and we had a really nice and laid-back visit together.  I took the last couple of work-days off from the lab, so I feel well-rested as you can see.  DH's and my new life-style involves "going to bed at a reasonable hour", which meant that I could not get back to sleep after waking up at 5 AM this morning...  He is happily snoozing away though.

I don't know what to do with myself, but the reign of unfocused random stitching continues.  I decided to pull out the new partial kit I got from Scholehouse of the Needle, Frog Pin Keepe.  It really is a quick stitch (tent stitch, say no more) intended for 35 ct linen.  Since the LNS doesn't carry any 35 ct I opted for a small cut of 36 instead.

Here he is - ribbit!

WIP:

 I love the back of tent stitched pieces, don't you?

There is a back-side to stitch up too before assembly, but it should be even quicker; just year, initials and a couple of simple dragonflies.  Very cute!  Scholehouse of the Needle's designs definitely reminds me of some of the old and OOP Historic Needlework Guild pieces (especially the Tent Stitch Etui and some of the ornament patterns).
(Next time, I'll throw in a quarter in the photo too, so that you can get a better feel for the size.)

We have been productive during out craft-lunches at work too.  The word is spreading and we have recently expanded to include no less than three crocheters.  It is odd how the dynamic of a group changes completely just by adding a few more people and stir.  It is really cool that so many crafters want to join, but it is no longer just a group containing my closer friends, which I know I'll miss.  On the other hand, it is always fun to hang out with new people!
Anyway, I finished the Spring piece from Sweetheart Tree last week.  I have really enjoyed stitching on this series.  I think that all but one was stitched during lunch breaks at work.

As for the winter piece, I changed the text from "Welcome Friends" to "Welcome Spring".  I also found the birds long beak pretty peculiar, so it got shortened - it doesn't look like he minds.  I like the small packets of bling that come with the SHT kits and this time is was small cherry-blossom beads.  Fun, fun, fun!  (And time to stat thinking about what to stitch on at work next.)

I did also finish the first SamSarah stocking!  I am getting used to the fact that all the pieces are a lot darker colored in reality and I think that I have almost gotten over it.. LOL  I do have the button embellishments and we decided that this one will be DH's stocking, so I just ordered the alphabet buttons too.

Here is the progress on the reindeer stocking.  It is pretty interesting; about 50% of people I have asked claim that the big red "balls" in front of the reindeer are ornaments, while I am in the other camp - I totally believe that the red balls are supposed to be their noses (see the cover pic in the upper left corner for a better view)!  Thoughts on that out there?

Yesterday evening I pulled this old Acufactum WIP back out.  It got thrown into the "don't wanna' stitch on this anymore" pile, since all that is left is about a billion French knots.  I got maybe half of them in yesterday and it won't be put away until the rest is done.  See the bird on the left below?  He is holding a sprig of dill... The dill crown is waiting for Fk in three different colors - all pretty much on top of each other.  At least the wings of the birds are now dotted!

 Dot, dot, dot...

So, I had great plans for this piece - it was supposed to magically become this adorable cafe-curtain with a polka-dot ruffle and pretty ribbons for ties.  Well, we have been looking for a new house lately, so I am thinking that I'd better hold the creativity back until I know how my future windows will look...

Finally, despite DH not giving his approval of posting this photo - here are a couple of snuggle bunnies - Alpha Bunny and Bubba.  Sometimes it is really good to be a small, black rabbit.

As always, thanks so much for following my blog and for all your wonderful comments.  It means more to me than I can express!

Take care and Happy Monday everyone!

A Quick Breather

Work, work, work.  I got in to the lab this weekend to finish up an experiment.  The computer is here at home tonight, since I need to write a mastodon presentation due Thursday.  I just needed a quick break and I figured that I'd stop by and write a quick hello to everyone.  Sorry, no blog-visits until Friday, I'm afraid.

Last week was pretty productive.  I am slowly getting the CRC acorns together and learned a few tricks on the way.  Here is the first trial acorn: Rest.  You can see all the pieces ready to go - batting, mat-board pieces, felt caps, stitched fronts and cotton backing.  I think that cutting out the mat-board is much more painful than all the sewing that goes into finishing up the ornaments in the end.  LOL

 

A pile of acorn fronts waiting patiently for their backs.  I love that Vickie always tries out fun linen colors, even though it can be tricky to gather all of them.

Finally - fronts AND backs are done.  Now I just have to figure out what I want to use for the hanger and the edging.  I did not find anything that got me real excited in the home stash and you know what that means - time for a shopping trip.  Maybe on Friday....

For the hangers I am contemplating using some pretty, brown, shear, wide ribbon and use it to tie the ornaments to the display (whatever that will be...  LOL) rather than use a loop to hang them.  I figure that it will be easier to get the ornies to face the way I would like them to.  Plus bows would be so pretty!

Our work crafting group is expanding and we are having a great time.  It is so relaxing to get in a few minutes of stitching in the middle of the day, while catching up on life, news, science, books and everything.  Today, we were all pretty somber since it was Monday and we ended up laughing hard after just 15 minutes.  It was great!
We do also get a lot crafted.  Hip^Hip is working an a very pretty Scarlet Letter sampler (I think this is the one) - amazing, since she just started stitching about a year ago.  She is a quick stitcher and she is fearless, a great combination!
Road Runner is crocheting baby blankets galore - she pretty much has a manufacturing process going; she is really pumping them out!  They look great.
The Barbarian hangs out with us and solves puzzles.  That is probably harder than crafting, as much as we chit-chat while we all hang out.
The Boss is stitching a beautiful, large fraternity crest for her son.  It looks really good.  She has also been working on a really involved book-mark for her daughter, so she has a couple of projects going at the same time.
I tend to stitch smaller projects at work.  I had been working on Sweetheart Tree's Halloween Quadrielle, but I had to take a break.  It felt like I was ripping out as much as I was stitching...  To avoid getting completely depressed, I put that to the side and started on Sweetheart's Chickadee Winter Welcome instead.  It showed up that was a good switch, since I got it done in about two weeks.  
Here is the stitched piece (You can click on the photos to have a closer look on and drool over all the beads and sparklies):

I did one small change to the design; I switched out "Welcome Friends" for "Welcome Winter".  

Here is the linen piece mounted on the precut mat-boards together with the mounted backing fabric:

Finally - the winter chickadee is hanging out with the autumn pumpkins and the summer sun-flower.  I started on the spring kit on Friday and it is coming along pretty quickly (knock on wood).  I will change the "Welcome Friends" to "Welcome Spring" for that one.  I think that I will try to display all of them together hanging on a ribbon - it looks great in my head, but time will tell.  I am excited though!

On the home-front I still keep neglecting Fremme's "blue sampler".  Instead I decided to stitch on a Samsarah Xmas stocking.  It is a lot of fun and it is honkin' HUGE.  Look at the small leaflet up in the left hand corner - that is a letter size booklet!  It is stitched on a pretty coarse linen; 20-ct Guacamole WDW linen.  The floss is Caron Collection Watercoulors.  This floss is cool; it's a three-ply hand-dyed cotton.  One ply is about the same weight as #5 pearl cotton or six plies of cotton floss.

I am, however, getting a tad tired of cover pics that have completely different colors than how they show up in reality.  Since I am really looking a lot at color when picking out designs, the cover pics that are not showing me the truth makes me tired....  Anyone else out there having the same problem?  for this design, I loved the soft pistachio green of the linen, but that is not quite the shade of the cut I got.

Here is a close-up showing the effect of the variegated floss.  I love how the greens turned out - just wish that the red had shown the same beautiful shading.

Other than that, we really need rain badly here.  They have the record for the wettest summer in recorded history in Stockholm, while we haven't gotten a drop for over a week now.  Everything is wilting in the garden - no surprise, since our temperatures are up in the 90:s and flowers and leaves are getting burned into smithereens.  We have been promised a cold-front, but nothing noticeable has come by yet.
I did take some garden photos one early morning last week. I love the lazy looking passion flowers!

DH  took about 20 photos of this little bunny that hangs out around our house.  He is quite a bit smaller than Bubba and Princess....  So very, very cute!  I love the good-bye waves by his little white tail when he takes off.

Well, I'd better unpack the work-computer and get a few slides written before bed.
I hope that all of you are doing great!  And thanks so much for all your sweet congrats on my last post - that really meant a lot to me.
Take care and Happy Stitching - I really hope that I will be able to visit all of you soon,

Ahhh, Saturday!

Hi everyone! As always, thanks so much for all your comments. A lot of you signed up for the give-away and I got a bunch of new followers from all over the world, which is always a thrill. The give-away drawing is scheduled for today, but I will get to that that later tonight. I have popped down to the basement to give a quick summary of the week, both in stitching and in general.

I would also like to thank you so much for all the sweet and interesting comments in regards to the "mixed mess" post. Thanks, I really appreciate it! Please keep in mind that I am still not real savvy when it comes to responding to comments. I am trying, but generally I just pop by your blogs and leave comments there. I hope that works!

We do now have two more contributors (and one in process) and 8 followers at the Brightneedle Blog, so that is really cool. One contributor, Maggee, even posted a picture of her stash a couple of days ago, so we are officially up and running now!
This will be my latest post on that blog; Brightneedle's Button Satchel:

Let me assure you, my hands are not of an abnormally large size, this pouch is just very, very small. The kit came without a photo or dimensions on the front cover, so as usual, I had no clue what I was buying... LOL
As you can imagine, I was a bit surprised (= long nose) when I opened up the package to find a piece of linen that was smaller than my hand to work with! Oh well, at least it meant that it was a quick stitch... A very small project for quite a bit of money, so I would probably not recommend this kit, if that is all right to say out loud - even though I do admit that it is very cute!!! Anyway, how much stuff can I really store in this pouch? Not even a lip-gloss... :-o
If you do decide to invest in the kit, be aware of the fact that the size is pretty much exactly as large as it needs to be, so take care when placing your stitch area. It has to be placed pretty much in the exact position that was intended for it, or you won't have any extra linen to work with in the assembly step.

BTW, the French manicure in the photo above is that "gel stuff" that I wrote about months ago. Still love it; the photo shows how it looks more than 2 weeks after having it done - impressive huh!?

Since we are on the subject of collaboration boards; I have finally gotten around to posting my first Christmas project over at the All Year Christmas SAL blog. I'll post the pics here too, but don't be shy - feel free to hop over the the Xmas SAL blog and check it out! :-)
Here it is; the Noel Quadrielle:

I decided to do the assembly a little bit different than how the instructions are written. Instead of using just one piece of interfacing, I opted to go for 4 separate pieces. I figured that it would be easier to get four crisp corners that way and I do believe that it did make the assembly a bit easier.
I am sure that most of you are well aware of this trick, but I do recall the mixed duh-and aha-moment when I first learned it; using a scanner to get perfect templates.
Scan back of stitched piece:

Pin cut-out scans to interface, card-board or any iece needed for assembly:

Iron corresponding piece of interfacing to back of stitched piece (remove scanned cut-out before ironing):

Finish as usual:

I have been on a finishing kick lately and I finally framed a Brightneedle piece that I stitched back in 2008. Oddly enough, I get more stressed out by all the stitched-but-not-finished projects that I have lying around than all the kits, charts and materials that are waiting for some TLC. The story about the frame is pretty neat, but I already wrote about that on the Brightneedle blog...

Four years after stitching the Sweetheart Tree Happy Birthday Knob Knocker, I finally finished it into an actual knob knocker using my newly arrived Far Far Away 3 fabric stash (yay!). I was lazy and used an elastic type lace-trim to finish the edges. I am not so sure that I like the hanger made with the lace, so I may have to rip out and modify a bit once I get a better idea.

Just a quick note about the fabrics. If you like me love the larger Snow-white prints, do not buy the fat quarters but do invest in the 1/2 or, even better, full yards. The reason why is that all my three Snow-white FQs were cut so that the main motifs ended up on the edges and the majority were snipped in half. I still love this fabbie, but I can't really do as much with it as I had envisioned. At least now I do have a better idea about color and size, so that will help for future orders. Let me know if you would like to see an example and I'll post or shoot an e-mail with a pic of my FQs.

Another finish; a small harvest bouquet kit from Fremme mounted on a Clara Weaver phone book that I found on e-bay for cheap a while back. I don't really need two phone books, so I have to figure out who to give one of them to (interested anyone?). I am pretty pleased with the way that it turned out, even though I went with a fairly bold printed paper for the back.

Not a whole lot going on here on the stitching front. I have pulled back out a sampler form the Scarlet Letter, the EH 1669 Reproduction Sampler, that I will try to spend some quality time with for a while. I am estimating that I am about 1/6 of the way there... (I love (not so much) how I always manage to get bird-seeds in all my pics, btw...)

My grand new beginning looks incredibly pathetic with maybe a total of max 30 stitches, so no use posting that sad story here...
However, I did bite the bullet and got the over-one stitching done for my Lucet class in October. Now I have a bunch of pre-finishing steps that I really should hop on board with, but it looks so complicated that I am a little turned off... ever felt that way?

Last, but not least - introducing our latest family member (as always, excuse the state of the floor. Believe it or not, DH vacuumed it less than 24 hrs ago...):

I am so excited - I have never had a bunny before, so if anyone has any special tricks and tips to share, I would be all ears! I am not sure what to name him yet. I have been thinking either Bobby, Chocolate or Kanin (the latter means rabbit in Swedish). All my name ideas are pretty lame, so if you have a suggestion for a name, don't hesitate to leave me a comment. That poor bunny needs a name!
He is a real snuggle-bun and the people at the pet-store says that he is really social with people but he does not like other bunnies. I have been cuddling with him like crazy and he doesn't seem to mind in the least. He is also pretty curious and hops around and sniffs at everything, so we will have to bunny-safe the living-room now (I hear that they like to gnaw on electrical cords and such, so we have our work cut out for us in that department). The birds are not real interested, which is pretty much ideal.
I love him more than I love my new shoes and that says something, 'cuz my new kicks are pretty cool!

Can you believe that I got even more spoiled than shoes and bunnies this week!? Hip*Hip gave me a couple of charts as a thanks for having fun last weekend. So sweet of her and absolutely not necessary! I love both of the charts, but the favorite is the May I chart from All Through the Night (which I have been admiring on-line with my hand hovering over the Buy Now icon...)

Thanks for spoiling me, Hip*Hip!!!! :-)

Well, time to run off. There are drawings to prepare and bunnies to cuddle with. I am planning on making some Patera jewelry tonight too - if i can get my printer to work, that is...

Thanks so much for swinging by! Have a great weekend and Happy Stitching,