A Work in Progress

I've  been inspired  by Syd's  posts to give the promised re-cap of the October retreat in Ocean City, Maryland.  My friend and I started out early Thursday morning and stopped in Berlin, Maryland for lunch.  We had heard great things about the town and it didn't disappoint.  There are a  number of  antique malls and we explored a few of them as well as an upscale gift store.  Then it was on to Ocean City to check into the Lankford Hotel.   We normally head right to Salty Yarns for a shopping trip, but this time, we saved that for the next day.  I settled on three projects for retreat and put some stitches in all of them.  Most of my time was spent on adding another part to Blackbird Designs Anniversaries of the Heart.  During the weekend, I completed the third section despite having to do some frogging because I was off by one thread in the border.  Fudging it would have been too noticeable so I...

I know I promised an update on all those projects I took to the retreat in Ocean City.  Progress was made, but I haven't had much time for photos or stitching.  We took another short trip up to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts to see our daughter and enjoy the fall foliage.  We hadn't seen our daughter since we moved her for her year as a creamery apprentice on a farm.  The trip didn't seem quite long enough, but she only has off one day a week.  We made the most of it by taking a trip up one of the mountains, going into Vermont to a pottery factory and an apple barn, and doing some needed shopping for her.  We also got in a visit to the Clark Art Institute which has some interesting new architecture. The foliage was gorgeous and we kept pointing out the views to each other. At home, I stitched up this Pine Mountain pillow insert that I bought in Ocean City.  It's perfect for my son who is getting his master's degree in entomo...

At 9:00 tomorrow morning, I'll be on my way to my sampler guild's semi-annual retreat at Salty Yarns and the Lankford Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland.  These trips require more than a little bit of preparation.  About six weeks ago, I started pulling potential projects.  I knew that I wanted to start Blue Ribbon Designs Quilted Garden at the retreat since that piece is hanging on the walls in the hotel.  I spent some time pulling the DMC threads from the nearly complete collection I have of my own threads and those I inherited from my mother.  And yet, I will need to buy some colors at Salty Yarns, so they went on my shopping list along with the NPIs I will need to start the Susan Rambo sampler in January. From the possible "small" projects, I chose Turkey Love from Plum Street Sampler.  After all, it is beginning to be that season.   It's only 5" x 5" finished, so I should  be able to get it stitched this weekend, right?  I ha...

Wow, less than two months between posts from me--shocking, I know!  It's been a great summer with lots of gorgeous days and cool nights.  We have wonderful memories from our trip to Germany and Vienna at the end of June although it took me quite a bit of July to get back into a routine.  I've been doing a little bit of quilting and little bit of stitching most days along with a lot of reading.  In my stitching life, I've been focusing on one project, Carriage House Samplings Alphabet, and here's my progress to date.  I'm hoping for a finish in the next two weeks so I can show this off at my guild meeting.    On the quilting front, I putting together these blocks for a lap-size quilt.  (They are laid out on my "design floor" as I call the ugly green carpet in my basement and are not outside on the grass!) The blocks were all made last year and then got put aside for another project.  Toes in the Sa...

It seems I've been on a bit of a roll with finishes the past month or so, and have one finished quilt as well as two completed needlework pieces to show for my efforts. Here's the front   and back of a baby quilt I sent up to my daughter to give to her boss and his wife who had a baby in June.  The top was done a few years ago and is a Schnibbles pattern made from a charm pack.  I originally made it for my nephew's baby.  When I got it done, I thought it looked more like a "boy" quilt and my nephew and his wife had a little girl.  So the top has been waiting in the wings and after an afternoon sandwiching the quilt and doing simple "stitch in the ditch" quilting, it went off to keep little Charlie warm.  The parents live on a farm so this was the perfect quilt. Harvest Time by Laura J. Perin was an on-line class in counted canvas work.  A three-week class way back in November, 2012...  I don't know why it took me so long to finish...

I've been silent on my blog for awhile, but good things have been happening during the past few months. My daughter was seated among these graduates on May 10th in Washington, D.C.  We were so proud to see her walk across the stage and to celebrate a very successful college career.  The boys were with us for the weekend, too, so it was a special family time.  Although, as I told several of my friends, who knew that when I became a mother, I would also become a travel agent.  The boys were flying in from Baton Rouge and from Austin (where the older one had been for work the week before graduation).  I ended up helping them coordinate flight times to arrive in Philadelphia at approximately the same time, and then making sure we got one to the Philadelphia airport on time for the return to Baton Rouge and the other on a train back to New York.  It all worked out and my daughter came home from DC a few days later.  Just enough time to see a couple...

Although I've been absent from blogland for awhile, I've been plugging away at a few of my projects.  The picture above shows my progress on Harvest Time, a counted canvas piece by Laura J. Perin.  It was offered as a three week class (ha!) last year, but became a UFO and one of my pieces for the duClay EGA yearly challenge.  I'm skipping around on it a lot because I don't enjoy working with the metallic ribbon.  I do love the grapes as they are a padded stitch and that gives them a bit more texture    I'm now at 73 bottles and  counting on Ink Circles 99 Bottles.  I didn't meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing by March, but the end is in sight.  This is another one of my EGA challenge pieces.  Last year I finished four out of ten pieces for the challenge and one of those was just under the wire.  So I feel I'm a bit farther ahead this year.    Piecing continues on Toes in the Sand and I'm hopin...

Working on these blocks from Jaybird Quilts' Toes in the Sand is helping me move on from the winter doldrums.  Each block is named for a California beach, and I can only dream about what it would be like to be on one of them right now.  Since the pattern calls for making two of each block, this will be a large quilt.  It's intended to be a wedding gift, but more on that later!

As you can see, we've been up to our chairs in snow this winter.  This photo was taken after the great ice storm of  '14 when we lost power for 44 hours.  Fortunately, we have a gas fireplace that kept us toasty for the duration, but I discovered that I get quite cranky when I've been without coffee for 72 hours. Not much on an inconvenience, really, when we knew people who were without power for five days. We've had snow on the ground since December which is quite unusual for us in the Philadelphia area.  As a result, my morale and motivation have taken quite a hit the last month.  I've hardly been at the sewing machine despite needing to keep going on the paper piecing class I'm taking.  I've been working away at those bottles of beer (stitching only--I hardly ever drink the stuff!!) and am up to 62 (of 99) completed.  I didn't make the deadline for the Smalls SAL in February.  In other words, very little to show for my time....

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'm just under the wire to check in for the Smalls SAL and Wipocalypse 2014.  I finished this small piece this afternoon.  It's by Melissa Nichols and was a project for my sampler guild a few years ago.  The finishing is supposed to be a pin, but I think I'll make it into a scissors fob. It's stitched in tent stitch over one with AVAS.  The top two bands are double running stitch which turned out to be surprisingly easy over one. I realized this afternoon that the house was supposed to be pink and the roof was to be red--oh, well. It's been a busy month for me and I have lots to post about, but that will have to wait as we are meeting friends for dinner this evening and I need to get ready.  Hope everyone is getting lots of stitching done!