A little late Susan but I bet you had a wonderful Christmas with your 3 kids home for the holidays. Hope you have special memories and many blessing Melody
I'm participating in year long challenges with both the duClay EGA chapter in Jacksonville, FL and my local guild, Delaware Valley Historic Sampler Guild ( dvhsg.org ). The challenges are similar since both allowed participants to choose up to a specified number of pieces to focus on during the year, and prizes may be awarded for completion. Delaware Inspiration from Heart's Ease Examplar Workes is my main focus piece this year. Here's where I was a week ago. Notice the vines and leaves on the upper right? They have been ripped out and re-stitched twice, both times because I was off by one vertical thread. The frogs have been banished from my house and this is where I was as of last night. I'm using the Belle Soie silks called for in the chart, and the colors are amazing.
For at least the past two years, the duClay EGA chapter has hosted a stitch-a-long based on a designer. Members are free to stitch any design by the designer and it's fun to see what projects everyone is working on. This year, the chosen designer was Plum Street Samplers. I had *several* charts to chose from, but decided on Rubie Owl's Sampler. I used DMC threads on a 36 count linen from my stash and finished it yesterday. I love the autumn colors and that little owl sitting on top of the tree. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to say that stitching those leaves drove me a bit crazy. I ended up making a working copy of the chart and marking each leaf off as it was stitched since I found it easy to lose track of where I was. I'd love to know what's been keeping you busy!
Last March, my husband accompanied me to the needlework show at Woodlawn and was very patient while I closely inspected the entries. Afterward, we went to a nearby needlework store where he spied a stitched model of Ink Circles "99 Bottles" on the wall. While I would have glanced at it and wandered away, he was quite taken with the design. As you can see, the chart came home with us. I put a few stitches in and went back to other projects. Soon, there were questions about when the bottles were going to be finished, and soon after that, pointed questions about how many bottles were done. So I am currently stitching one bottle a day with the goal of being finished by the end of March. This is actually turning out to be quite colorful and it's fun to have a little finish every day. (And aren't you glad I didn't title this post, 99 Bottles, so you don't have that song stuck in your head?)
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Susan!
ReplyDeleteA little late Susan but I bet you had a wonderful Christmas with your 3 kids home for the holidays. Hope you have special memories and many blessing Melody
ReplyDelete