A Work in Progress

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 onlin...

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 ...

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 w...

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 ...

Around 9:00 this morning, I was outside an elementary school supervising our students' arrival.  I noticed that a car had stopped in the street and a parent was letting her kindergarten child get out and walk between parked cars to get to the sidewalk.  I approached the car and asked the woman to park her car and let our crossing guard take the child across the street.  I reminded her that we are always trying to keep our children safe.  I hope that mother gave her daughter an extra hug this evening.  Parents of twenty children in Conneticut will never have that chance again.

While cruising the blogs recently, I ran across mention of Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year challenge.  I have exactly one Scarlet Letter kit, Scottish Band, in my stash and it's been there since the beginning of time.  Well, maybe, not that long, but certainly since the start of the millenium.  In fact, it's been there so long that I raided the kit for silks I needed for another project.  I think this challenge is just what I need to get stitching on this project.  Wish me luck!

I'll bet that post title will cause some internet searchers to be surprised when pictures of my blocks of the month come up.  In spite of not sewing a whole lot in the last month, I have done a few more in the Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Designer BOM.  These are (mostly) fun, especially that top block where I constructed the center by piecing strips and then cutting it down to size.  And it worked!!  I'm still new enough to quilting that I'm sometimes amazed by what I can produce, with matching seams and everything.  This quilt has a long way to go as it has a large center piece and then stars in the sashing.  I'm not rushing it and just enjoying the journey. Speaking of not rushing things, remember the Thimbleberries quilt border ?  I'm still plugging away on it.  I sewed one strip of 27 half-square triangles together and came up an inch short.  I tried adjusting seams and couldn't get it to come out correctly.  So I employed my ...