How is your weekend?

Did you have a good Thanksgiving?

This is the view from our deck on Thanksgiving morning.

Wasn't that pretty?  Fortunately the roads were clear and we were able to travel over the river (the Delaware) and through the woods (the Pinelands) to the Captain's mother's house.  We took all the fixings for our dinner with us as well as the desserts I had prepared on Tuesday.

This is a little picture of our feast.  Not a lot of food, but way too much for four people.  We brought a lot of the food home with us.  We did leave my mother-in-law a plate of food (her request) and some of the desserts.

I spent yesterday relaxing.  

Dorothea Benton Frank (the author) posted this on her Facebook page yesterday:

Forget Black Friday. This ought to be a national holiday for women. Women Don't Have to Raise a Finger Day. Or Women Take a Break Day. What do y'all think?

I went and got a pedicure and manicure.  And I ran into the grocery store for a few things.  Other than that I didn't do any shopping.   After my taxing morning I returned home, made a cup of Decaf Lady Grey and settled in to read the last 200 pages of The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. What a nice love story.  I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon and part of the evening reading.  

Today I made a batch of turkey soup and some 9 grain bread in the bread maker.  Such a wonderful dinner.  I have been puttering in the stitching room but don't have anything finished that I can show you.

Have a wonderful evening.

Keep  on Stitching!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you are having a wonderful day filled with good food, family, and fun.

If you were to visit my house for dinner today you would see these pieces in my dining room.

I've shown these other times but like to bring them out and display them every year.

Keep on Stitching!

The Final Finishes from the Weekend

Here are the rest of my finishes from last weekend:

Little Sheep Virtue #7 Patience by Little House Needleworks.  I stitched this over one.  This is my interpretation of their finish.

Love Is by Summer House Stitchworkes using the finishing fabric and key provided in the kit.

And finally Bountiful Blessings by Threadwork Primitives.  The finishing fabric, wool, jute, and acorn were provided in the kit I purchased.  I love the detail of the wool leaf on the back of the pillow.  

Keep on Stitching!

More Finishes and Holiday Preparations

Here are two more finishes from the weekend

Salute to Abigail by Blackbird Designs.  This was  a special piece designed for the Prim Stitcher's Society sponsored by Dyeing to Stitch.

I did a very primitive finish as suggested by the finishing instructions.  I will hang this in my kitchen with my other patriotic pieces.

I did finally finish the stitching on the fob for the Delaware House Stitch Book.

My attempt at the octagonal fob did not come out exactly as I had planned, but I think it's good enough.  You can see the inside piece glued in place.  The space under the tree was left blank so that needles and pins could be placed there.

And finally, the cover.  I am happy with this finish and feel confident that I can do this again with the other patterns I have chosen that have this finish.

Tonight I did some baking in preparation for Thanksgiving.

First, Peanut Butter Bars or Crack Brownies as my Baby Boy calls them.  They are highly addictive. The recipe calls for a yellow cake mix, peanut butter, eggs, butter, sweetened condensed milk, and chocolate chips.

And then a batch of mini pumpkin pies.  I found the inspiration for this thanks to  Mary from Home is Where the Boat Is.  Hers are truly mini works of art.  Mine, well, I think they look pretty good for my first attempt and for using a knife to free-hand cut out my leaves and pumpkins.  After looking at Mary's blog I realize I have a long way to go in the styling department.  Something for me to aspire to.

Snow is predicted for tomorrow which could impact travel plans.  I'm headed of to work in the morning regardless.

Keep on Stitching!

Finishes

Yesterday I had a productive day in the stitching room.   I managed to finish these projects.

A nice little bunch.  I had hoped to do more but greatly underestimated the amount of time some of the finishes would require.

Today, I'll show you close ups of just one of  the projects.

Chocolate Roses by Needlemade Designs shown in a Sudberry Vintage pincushion.  The ruching on this is one of the things I greatly undersestimated.  I remember doing ruching before and attaching it as I went along. That's not what the directions stated this time. And I followed the directions.  I stitched this in different colors than shown on chart below.  These were more my kind of colors than the raspberry fabric and white floss shown below.  The ruching looks a little wonky in the picture above.  I does push back into place.  I may need to use a few more stitches to secure it so that it doesn't move.

The pattern calls for ruching around the scissor fob, but I ran out of ribbon.  I think it looks ok without it.  

 No finishes for today.  I took a little break and hope to get more done after work this week and over the long weekend.

Keep on Stitching!

Preparation

Last night I prepared by my stitching room for some finishing time by setting up my stations.

A station for cutting,

one for ironing,

a place to sort through finishing supplies and trims,

and last but not least, my sewing machine.

The first project  finished today was Sweet Little Sewing Basket by Homespun Elegance. This has been lingering in the box of shame for quite some time.

Here's my finish.

A quick and easy finish to start.  I can use this little basket and pincushion alongside my stitching nest.

I'll be back tomorrow with more.

Keep on Stitching!

Weekend Plans

This weekend I hope to spend some quality time in my stitching room tackling this:

the 'box of shame.'   It is full of all my finished/unfinished projects.  Those projects that are stitched and need to be assembled or framed.  I have a few frames on the top for projects that are inside.

And, yes, before you ask, it is full.  Surely more than a weekend's work.  But I figure that a start is better than nothing.  Truth be told, I'm not even sure what all is in there.  And, I haven't decided how I'm going to tackle it all, yet.  Probably best to just dive in and do one thing at a time.  Although,  I am thinking about doing all of the sewing machine sewing first and then working on the stuffing and hand finishing.  I think.

Hopefully the next time I post I will have some finished items to show you.

Keep on Stitching!

Delaware House Stitch Book

Last Saturday I traveled to Delaware to attend a class taught by Linda Lautenschlager of Chessie & Me.  She designed this project for our guild.  This is the cover photo for the kit.  We received our kits in October.

I should have had plenty of time to accomplish the pre-stitching.  By Friday night I had completed this much:

and this much of the fob,

In class we painted our boxes and lined them with paper that Linda provided.  We also scuffed them up a bit to make them look aged.

We cut out our stitching and mounted it on wool.

In between the steps while waiting for the paint and glue to dry I was able to get a bit more stitching done on the fob.

In order to finish I need to give the box a quick spray with polyurethane, glue the pieces on the cover and inside.  And finish the fob.  Linda showed a square scissor fob.  I think I will finish mine as an octagon.  We also made cording in class for the scissor fob.  I hope to get to some of that this weekend.

A nice day spent with some very nice ladies.

Keep on Stitching!

A Gift Received

Last Wednesday we got together to celebrate our friend's birthday.  We met at our usual Panera.  We chatted, ate, and the guest of honor opened her gifts.

We had intended to gift her with When Pigs Fly by Sam Sara all stitched and finished.  However, fate intervened and it didn't quite happen.  Two of the pigs are stitched.  The two stitched pigs and supplies for the third pig were passed on to one of the members of our group to be stitched.  Little did we know that she would be hospitalized days later and remain that way for about three months until she lost her battle with cancer.  So, the project is at her house.  We've asked her husband to keep an eye out for it and to let us know if he finds it.  Otherwise, I guess we'll have to start over.  This get together was bittersweet.  Our first since we lost one of our group.  But it was good to get together and talk, laugh, and remember.

While I was in Ocean City last month I purchased this case by Namaste which is actually red not pink like it appears in these pictures.

When I got home I kept thinking how great this would look with the case.

I sent my friend an email and asked her to pick it up for me.  Imagine my surprise when she presented it to me as an early birthday gift!  Thank you, Debbie.  I can't wait to get started on the stitching.  It's over one and I've found that lately I have to choose my times for stitching over one very carefully.  I am having a very hard time seeing it lately.

Keep on Stitching!

Jamboree

Ladies started to arrive on Thursday and Friday for Jamboree which officially started on Friday night with dinner by Sara, Sally, and Mary.  Dinner was followed by a Meet and Greet with appetizers and dessert.  At that time our teachers for the weekend were introduced and Sara went over some basic rules for weekend.  Like, no saving seats in the lobby.  A problem in previous years but not  this year.  Nothing too difficult.  

We were each given a goodie bag that contained these items.

A needlework tray filled with goodies.  There was also a bag of lizard litter which I've put away with my other finishing things.

The inside of the tray, and

a pair of Sullivan's scissors was included to go along with one of the projects we would be working on in class.

Classes started on Saturday morning.  My first class was with Lori Markovick of La-D-Da.  We had pre-stitched the name tag.  Class time was spent assembling the name tag with Lori's guidance.  I think everyone finished theirs.  Here's mine:

Lori had all the pockets prefinished for us.  So nice to just sit and put this together.

After lunch we returned to our classrooms. The class angels had set out a primitive looking pumpkin at each seat that contained a gift card for Salty Yarns!

My afternoon class was with Maegan and Vickie of Needlework Press.  Their piece was also a pre-stitch.  And we each left class with a finished piece.  These pieces are replicas of antiques that Vickie has found in her travels.  At one time these paper patterns were given away by advertisers. 

My final class on Sunday morning was with Sharon Verbos of The Purple Thread.  We made the little thimble box and the pinkeep.  The thimble box is the same technique used to complete the larger piece in Salty Caramel.  I had never made a pinkeep like this and could see lots of possibilities for these with different fabrics, etc. 

We were each given this little kit on Sunday morning.  Such a cute idea.  And a quick one. This kit is in a matchbox to give you an idea of the size.  What a great idea!

Jamboree was a wonderful way to finish my week in Ocean City.  And I brought home two finished projects!  You can read the Salty Yarns post about Jamboree here.

Keep on Stitching!