Making the Move

I'm finally getting around to moving my blogs to a new reader now that Google Reader is almost gone.  Not sure where I'm going yet, but you can follow me on Bloglovin'.

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Quilting Again

The first three months of 2013 have passed in a blur.  I've been handling a very busy caseload at work (up to 78 students as of last Friday) and that means I've had to bring a lot of work home.  Throw in doing the taxes, a commitment at church and lots of travel and you can see that there has been no time for the sewing machine.  The last time the machine saw any action was when I took a class on sewing zippers at the end of February.  So it was high time that I got back into sewing.  My quilt guild had a workshop on Friday night that I had signed up for before my life got so busy, and although I thought about skipping it, I managed to choose fabrics, load the machine into my car and go.  I'm so glad I did as it felt good to be piecing again.  The class used Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom pattern which looks challenging but is super-simple to put together.  Go check it out at www.quiltville.com (scroll down on the right hand side for the free pattern).

Here are my first three blocks.  I'm using mostly Kansas Troubles scraps with a few other fat quarters thrown in to make the 12" blocks.  While I like the autumn colors (so me), I'm thinking of using some of the red Kansas Troubles strips I have left over from jelly roll to give this a little more pizazz.  Making these blocks is timely as Kim is hosting Scrap Basket Sunday.  I don't know about you, but I need incentives like this and BOM Rehab to get some quilting done.

April looks like it's a little slower paced in terms of weekend plans.  Work will doubtless continue on a relentless pace until June 14, but I've planned a few days off, so life should be bearable.  Will be back soon to tell you about our trip to Scotland over my spring break.

Indulge

If I have to spend time in an airport, one of my favorite things to do is browse the bookstore.  On my latest trip, I spotted a book about choosing a word to guide your life for a year.  If I had to choose one word right now as it applys to my stitching life, it would certainly be "indulge" as that's what I've been doing during the last month.

It all started with a trip to Jacksonville to take a class from Ellen Chester.  The Lady's Worke Box is a lovely piece and I have made some progress on the needlebook beyond what we did in class.  What a fun weekend it was!  The setting at the Riverdale Inn in the historic district of Jacksonville was beautiful.  The weather was fantastic and I enjoyed a morning walk with views of the St. John's River.  Pansies were blooming!  In February!  Best of all, I got to meet people who I have known on-line for many years.  Melody  did a fabulous job organizing everything and the day of the class went so smoothly.  She's a great tour guide as well and pointed out lots of sights in the historic district.  Seeing her office in a prairie style building was a real highlight.  I sat across from Jackie and Theresa during the class.  It turns out that Jackie and I have 23 year old sons who were born just a few weeks apart.  Theresa graciously lent me her tape measure since I had neglected to put mine in my stitching bag.  We also had conversations there and at dinner about stitching retreats and classes.  It was just a lot of fun and a great memory!

The next weekend, I indulged in another stitching related adventure.  My husband and I went to Washington, D.C. for the weekend so that we could visit an exhibit at the National Gallery and go to Woodlawn in Alexandria to see the annual needlework show.  The exhibit at the National Gallery was of pre-Raphaelite painters and I confess that I was uninformed about them prior to our trip.  Now I know that William Morris was included in the group and there were a few of his tapestries and embroideries at the end of the exhibit.  One beautiful painting by another artist in the group (I neglected to write down the name) was of a mother and daughter.  I spotted a lady's worke box in the corner of the painting!  Woodlawn was fun and as always, there was some amazing stitching.  I didn't feel that there were as many entries as in the past, but the catalog listed over 700.  I think that there are more smalls now that when I first saw the show five or six years ago.  It was great to see the members of my guild, the Delaware Valley Historical Sampler Guild, do so well in the show.

And that brings me to the last bit of indulging in stitching.  Last week's program for the DVHSG was to bring in the earliest piece of stitching we had and talk a bit about how we started stitching.  So many people had similar stories of mothers, grandmothers or aunts passing down their love of needlework.  Of course, our tastes, interests and skill levels have evolved and improved since our first attempts at needlework and that was fun to see as well.

As for actual stitching--well, the word for my rest of my life has been "work" and nothing but work.  Progress reports are due along with a number of other evaluation reports and I've been spending a lot of time at the computer.  I've been making some progress on the Scottish Band Sampler from The Scarlet Letter, but I'll save that for another post.

EGA Challenge Part 2

Lily of the Valley egg

Harvest Time by Laura J. Perin

Quaker Christmas by ByGone Stitches

 

When last I left you (can it really be almost a month ago?), I was listing the projects that I hope to complete for the duClay EGA Chapter's challenge.  Here are three more.  That egg on the top is part of a series of twelve that were kits of the month a long while back at Fireside Stitchery, one of my LNSs.  I, of course, have all the kits, but what you see above is all that is stitched on any of them.  I got intimidated by the amount of compensation I need to do for the background stitches and put it aside.  I pick it up now and then, but find I spend so much time looking at where I left off that I don't get anything done.  So I just need to dedicate myself to working on this, and perhaps going out to Fireside (no affiliation) for some assistance.

Harvest Time is a Laura J. Perin design that she offered as a three-part class online in the fall.  I have read all the instructions from the class, but just haven't executed them.  It went pretty quickly when I did stitch on it, but I got sidetracked by Christmas stitching and preparations.

Finally, I hang my head in shame that Quaker Christmas is still not done.  I love stitching each motif and feel as if I  have accomplished something when each one is done.  Using primarily one color makes the stitching go faster as well.  Again, I just need to put some time in on this.

I have managed to get in some time on Maryland Inspiration and Scottish Band Sampler, although not nearly as much as I would like.  Work has been crazy busy and I have actually had to bring work home several nights a week in order to stay on top of reports and lesson plans.  That cuts into my stitching time too much, so I'm hoping the craziness ends soon!

It's been cold this winter in Pennsylvania, but my husband and I have been kept warm by the memory of our trip to Baton Rouge in mid-January to watch our middle son run in the Louisiana Marathon.  He placed first in his age group with a time of 3:05:15. When we saw him round the corner near the finish line and realized he was in the top 25, we were beyond thrilled..  This is the kid who ran last for his team in nearly every race in high school and college, but loved running so much he kept at it. Just shows what you can do when you put your mind to it!

Until next time, happy stitching!

EGA Challenge, Part 1

I'm now a member of the duClay Chapter of the EGA in Jacksonville, Florida, since I'm going to be joining them for an Ellen Chester class in February.  I can't tell you how excited I am about that!  I feel as if I already know some of the members from their blogs or postings on bulletin boards and can't wait to meet them in person.  If you know me well in real life, you would know that going to Jacksonville for a weekend is somewhat out of character for me.  I tend to dither about how guilty I feel spending the money and leaving my husband home alone.  But as I near 60 and retirement, I seem to be adopting a new attitude and when this opportunity came up, I decided to just go for it.  I'm sure it will be a fantastic experience.

 

The deClay EGA seems to be an active chapter and although I can't attend their meetings, I can participate in this year's challenge.  Participants may choose up to 10 projects and assign a value of $1-5 to them depending upon the size and stage of completion.  Completed projects will earn entries in the year-end drawing equal to the dollar value assigned (e.g. $5 values earn 5 entries).  The drawing will be held at the holiday party when the winner will take home half of the money collected.  What a fun way to contribute to the chapter and have an incentive to get some things completed.  I've had a lot of fun choosing the projects and made a happy discovery while getting them ready to be photographed.  When I hung my Advent tree with its Kathy Schenkel needlepoint ornaments this year, there were four left to be put on the it.  I would have sworn that I still had four left to stitch and went into a mild panic when I could only find the three you see above in my project bag.  A search ensued and the fourth ornament was finally found--in my pile of completed projects!  It's time to finish up the rest of the ornaments and get them off to the finisher so I can have a full tree next December.

 

 



A New Start

You probably didn't notice (or maybe you all are just too polite to say anything), but I didn't stitch much this fall.  It was a combination of things including being very busy at work with my new assignment, incorporating more exercise into my schedule, and a persistent problem with my right shoulder.  Not to mention that I tend to fall asleep as soon as I sit down to stitch!  So most nights, I was putting one to two strands into my piece before I had to call it quits.  Not conducive to progress and therefore, not too much to show on this blog. 

The shoulder problem is mostly resolved, thanks to physical therapy.  However, I was still feeling some twinges when I was stitching.  I thought that using a stand would help by changing the motion of stitching slightly and/or allowing me to keep my right arm still if I could learn to stitch with my left hand on top of the piece and my right hand under.  I'm happy to say that the new stand that was under the Christmas tree for me does the trick!  I'll post more on this wonderful addition to my stitching life later, but for now you cam see that I'm making some actual stitching progress!  This is my start on The Scottish Band Sampler from Scarlet Letter (started on Christmas Day).  Even though the start of the "B' is in the wrong place and will have to be restitched, I feel I'm moving along nicely on this piece.  It's being stitched with the recommended AVAS silks and a 30-count linen that was included in the kit.  The linen is a larger count than I would normally choose, but I decided to keep it because the bottom section of this sampler is stitched in the Hungarian or flame stitch.  I figured I would need the large count to see where to place the stitches, as I understand it's a challenging pattern.

Happy New Year to all of my readers!  May it be a year full of stitching fun and finished projects!

Almost Ready!

The house is decorated, the cards are sent and the gifts are wrapped.  Holiday parties have been attended and pollyanna exchanges have been fun.  Two trips to the airport and one to the train station have been made to welcome home our middle son  from Baton Rouge, our daughter from a semester abroad in Edinburgh, and our oldest from New York.  Food shopping is done and menus are planned, thanks to the help of my husband who really enjoys that sort of thing more than I do.   We even had a brief celebration last night for our daughter's 21st birthday (actually on 12-21-12 when the world didn't come to an end) after she arrived from the airport.  All that's left is to deliver gifts to three of our neighbors, and to make the above stitching into an ornament.  I stitched three of these this year, one for each of the kids, as has been my tradition.  Of course, every year I promise myself that I will do the finishing before the first of December, and every year I leave it until the 23rd or 24th.  Somehow, everything gets accomplished.

Thanks to all who have been readers of this blog during the past year.  I wish all of you joy, peace and much happiness in 2013!