So much to catch up on!

I've been slacking in the reading and blogging departments because of the househunting. I nearly have all the real estate listings in 2 Pennsylvania counties memories - our real estate agent is amazed that I know so much about the inventory! I think it comes from my job in pharmaceuticals, having to know where each piece (of hundreds!) of promotional material is in the system at all times. I have pretty good recall for things like that.

Anyway, to give myself a break from searching and stressing, I did a little stitching, and I FINISHED a Blue Crab! First up, though, is my progress on Carriage House Sampling's Acorns and Threads. I went from this:

To this:

This is the smaller of the 2 patterns included, and I'm stitching over 2 on 40 ct. fabric. I'm using GAST Dark Chocolate and Apple Cider for this one. I am loving how it's coming out, and it's a very relaxing pattern to stitch. Seeing the progress happen so quickly is gratifying, and it's especially nice the longer our house hunt drags on.

And now for Blue Crab, which I finished the other night:

Blue Crab by Judy Greer Carmean
Chart purchased at Sea Needles, Bethany Beach, DE
Stitched on 28 ct. Lamsbwool Jobelean with DMC Threads

This is what a real blue crab looks like:

I think mine turned out pretty good! I can't wait to get him framed and hung up.

In case you were wondering, I do in fact have a fondness for crabs, both eating them and the crab motif. Also, my husband and my best friend are astrological Cancers and are represented by the crab, so crabs remind me of them as well.

A finish and more progress

I finished one of the ornaments I had been working on - the Sea Girt Lighthouse. The fabric you see in the background is the fabric I used to make the backing on the ornament. And there's not as much of a gap in the cording as it looks. This is from Treetrunk Designs Guardians of our Waterways piece. I also need to finish up the Boston Harbor one I made for a gift. I'll be doing that with a red and black fabric on the back and in an oval shape.

I have a few other ornaments to finish up. Most of them are stockings my husband stitched a while back. He laced them on the cardboard, but for some reason we never got around to completely finishing them. I'm going to glue a ribbon for hanging in each one, and then cover the back with coordinating felt. He did these when we first started stitching, so while the stitching is beautiful, we really didn't leave enough room to finish them, so they come right up to the edge of the cardboard underneath. Oh well - they'll be family heirlooms someday!

I also made some progress on Nautical Dreams - the whole bottom part is finished except for some stitching in white on the sky. I did the outlining, but I'll come back when I'm done to add the personalization info. I think the stitching will support the outlining without stretching it out, but I don't want to stretch the personalization info since it's going to be done in one thread in the blank areas.

An apology, some progress and an SBQ: Recycling

I am such a dumb ass. I was wondering why nobody was leaving me comments and then I figured out I had them turned off. Hopefully that's all fixed now! (Thanks for letting me know, Anita!)

The good news is I did make some progress on my baby gift. The bottom panel is almost complete - I have to stitch the rest of the sky in white and do the outlining. I've also started doing the rope border.

Today’s SBQ is:

When you have to frog out stitches, do you reuse that thread or do you start over with a new strand?

I am OBSESSIVE about checking and double checking and triple checking my work against my chart. Obsessive. Mostly because a mistake will bother me to the point where I will have to rip it all out and redo it, even if it is a tiny little mistake. I'd rather spend the extra time checking on something instead of tearing it out and restitching it. Usually I'm pretty good though - I'm most obsessive about the first part of stitching, and then I work from that, so everything else usually lines up.

When I do have to frog something out, I reverse stitch back to the mistake and go on from there with the same thread if I catch it soon enough. But if the mistake is large or deep into the piece, I keep a seam ripper and tweezers with my stitching stuff and tear it all out, then stitch it over again with a new thread.

My Current Work in Progress

My friend Christine and her husband just had their first child, Alexa. Since her nursery is a nautical theme, I picked this piece from the Design Connection. (I noticed I have quite a few Design Connection pieces in my stash.)

I'm personalizing the piece with some modifications. The first line of text in the piece will be changed to the baby's first and middle names, and the second line of text will be her birthdate. In the space below the third section, I'm able to fit in her weight, length and time of birth.

It's a LOT of stitching, but there are large sections of simple cross stitching in one color, so that makes it easier. I've started by doing half crosses in those large sections, and then I'll come back later and fill in the other half of the stitch. I think it will be really cute when it's done.