A Work in Progress

These items have actually been finished for a couple of weeks, but since my stitching time has been limited this month, I have nothing else to show.  The pincushion and scissors fob were made for my sampler guild's exchange from Blackbird Designs Wild Lilies pattern.  They're sitting on a square made by my grandmother who crocheted and did tatting.  I own three pieces of linen from her and they have  a  special story that I'll save for another post. This seems to be the season of finishes or milestones in our lives.  My daughter turned 20 on Wednesday and that marked the end of having teenagers in the house.  My husband is the one with the big "finish" as he will be officially retired on December 31.  We've been thinking about this and planning for it for at least 18 months, but the transition has not been without its bittersweet moments.  My husband and I are of a generation who  spend their entire careers with one company.  He...

Nineteen years ago today we moved into our current house.  As in other situations of great trauma and/or drama, so many details of that day are etched into my mind.  The move was precipitated by the birth of our daughter, our third child.  We were rapidly outgrowing our contemporary style two-bedroom with a loft house.  So in August of 1992, we put the house on the market and began our search for another home.  We found the house we are now living in pretty quickly and for a few days, it looked as if the seller would buy our house.  (I remember spending the night of my 39th birthday on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor so it was clean for the showing the next morning.) However, the seller was going through a contentious divorce and the husband didn't really want to sell.  So he refused our offer which also meant the wife wouldn't be able to buy our home and we kept looking.  Every other house paled in compariso...

Although I don't post about it often, I read a lot.  A lot, as in 138 books and counting this year.  It helps that I like to listen to audio books.  Since I read for pleasure, much of this material doesn't require deep thought and therefore, I don't burden you with my reviews.  In case you're really curous about what I'm reading, you can check out the Goodreads link in the sidebar.  If there's one thing I have more of than cross stitch charts, it's books.  I'm taking the Off the Shelf challenge sponsored by Bookish Ardour and committing to reading 50 of the books that are already on my shelves.  That will only make a small dent in the pile, but it's a start.  If you want to take the challenge, too, the sign-up is open until the last two weeks of December.

I've been working on some smalls for my sampler guild's exchange next Saturday.  Can't show you any more than this, but trI'm pretty close to finishing.  I got slowed down by a little "reverse stitching", but I'm back on track to have the pieces assembled this weekend.  The smalls exchange is an annual event at my guild and is a lot of fun. Participation is voluntary and even if someone doesn't bring a stitched piece, she can still ooh and aah over what others have done.  We've expanded the event a bit in the last year or two to include appetizers and desserts (which reminds me that I signed up to bring a dessert and we're going out to dinner the night bfore--guess I'll have to plan ahead!). After the meeting, I'm planning to meet a friend so we can see the embroidery exhibit  at Winterthur in Delaware.  Should be a fun stitching day!

X-block quilt Close-up of block Here's one of the quilts I took to the long-armer last summer.  As yet, it has no name.  This quilt was one of the projects from my monthly "scrap club" and I did indeed use some of the black and white prints in my stash.  The block is made with an X-block ruler.  In the case of this pattern, I made a nine patch and then placed the ruler so that the outside patches would be cut at an angle.  Those pieces were used in the border.  The whole time I was making the blocks, I thought about how to put a little color in the quilt.  My choices were running to lime green or yellow as I don't tend to like the red/black/white quilts I've seen.  Then I spotted this perfect red and black print and it all came together.  Good thing, as I wasn't loving this quilt in its pre-border stage.  Now it's a family favorite.  It resides on the back of our couch and each of the kids tried to make off with it whe...