Jumpstart!

 Well, if today's mail doesn't jumpstart the stitching mojo, it can't be revived!

On the left, we have Barbara Jackson's 2026 Christmas ornament from Shining Needle Society. I've been stitching Barbara's ornaments ever since she started doing them through SNS, plus I have some others that I bought from the late, great Haus Tirol in Williamsburg. Basically, I could say Barbara decorates my tree every Christmas.

And, on the right, I have the materials pack from Clara Warschauer for the Pomegranate class she is teaching through Ecclesiastical Stitching in early December. This will be my first Clara class, and I'm really looking forward to it--I have heard so many good things about her.

So my Christmas season has started. I think I may pull out the Muppets Christmas Carol DVD, or maybe White Christmas, or A Christmas Story.

Dearly Beloved is just sitting here, shaking his head.

(Today is his Natal Anniversary. If you've been reading me for awhile, you know he doesn't like having his birthday celebrated whereas I think birthdays deserve much rejoicing. How we've stayed married for 50 years is a mystery.)

True Confession Time

I have confessions to make.

I'm taking another really wonderful class from Sara Rickards of Deep Dive class fame. I am way, way, way behind. Like we've had five classes thus far. And I haven't done anything.

This morning I watched the tape for the first class and started working on the very first part of the project.

It took a minute for the stitch to sink into my brain--like I had to watch the tape for that part about three times to reach the Ah-HA! moment--but I think I can get it done now.

The second confession:

This is all that I've managed to stitch on the Stitcher's Pocket since I last posted.

I am SOOOOOOO close to a finish on stitching the design. I mean, I just have to fill in these two patterns and do the part that will become the flap for the pocket and it will be ready for a Final Finish.

Third confession:

The ironing board has been sitting in the corner for three months now, with a project ready for pressing and sewing together all spread out on it. Nothing has been pressed or sewn.

Fourth and Final Confession:

If I would stay away from Instagram and Flosstubes, seeing what other people are doing instead of doing things myself, I would likely have more accomplished.

However, it's a new month. And nothing says you have to wait for New Year's to make plans for a change. And it's November, when, in the olden days of blogging, you were supposed to blog every day. So let's see where we're going from here.

The Fall Funk

I'm getting ready to vent. You may want to skip this post.

Yes, I have been absent again, for even longer this time.

This is a stitching blog. If I don't stitch, I have nothing to blog about.

I did not thread a needle for a solid week.

Not one stitch was stitched.

I'm in my Fall Funk. 

Flosstubes and Facebook posts and Instagram pictures are full of lovely projects stitched in Fall colors or celebrating Halloween. It seems like three out of three stitchers say that Fall is their favorite season. They love the oranges and browns and golds of this time of year.

Okay, I'm very happy that the weather is cooler and the humidity level is much, much lower. That's it.

Fall means that the days are getting shorter and shorter, and the weather is going to get colder and colder. Neither of those things make me happier. Of all the colors in the palette, orange and brown are my least favorites. There, I said it. I don't like Fall colors. I prefer the soft greens and pastels of the Spring, the vivid colors of Summer. I even find the stark grays and blues and black of Winter attractive (plus once the Winter Solstice passes, the days start getting longer, thus more daylight).

And I am not into Halloween. I love Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July. I do not love Halloween. I do enjoy ghost stories, but Halloween now seems to be more horror-oriented than haunted.

The only way for me to get out of any funk is to stitch. So I finally hitched up the Granny panties and pulled out Jackie's Stitcher's Pocket and made some forward progress.

I want to get this finished--there isn't much left to stitch--and I want to work on Kate Barlow's Heartsease and sew the petals on Zina's Elizabethan Rose and catch up with my Sara Rickard crewel class.

And then we'll see where I go from there.

Out of the Fall Funk.

May I Present

A Carter is done!

I am very happy with how she turned out. I love the colors and the motifs (even the bugs) and I especially adore the two little ladies with their hands on their hips and their umbrellas by their sides.

I will admit  that I had to force myself to finish that last dancing crab urn, but I had two Zoom stitch-ins yesterday, and that gave me dedicated stitching time.

So today I'm going to decide what other trouble I can get into. I have options.

Which leads me to something else. Tara of Sully Stitches on Flosstube has started doing a Stitch Roulette. Basically, she picked 25 projects from her stash, plopped them into manila envelopes, and stuck a number from 1 to 25 on the outside of each envelope. She mixed things up so she would have no idea what was in each bag. On Sundays, she pulls a. number from her Roulette tray, and that's the project she starts that week. She isn't limiting herself to working on just that one project--but every week there's a new start.

And now Brenda and Laura of Brenda and the Serial Starter are pulling out projects for their Stitch Roulettes for 2027. They showed piles of potential projects. They're mixing it up a little; I think Brenda is putting in some things she has already started.

I admit, I thought about it. I'm still thinking about it. I'm thinking I get into enough trouble starting things without a program. 

But I'm still thinking.

Definitely a Rose

I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw a crab in the urn on A. Carter! Thank you for your comments!

However, the next motif is most definitely a rose:

 And I am on the home stretch! One more butterfly, four little flowers along the bottom, and a second crab urn and this can go in the Finished column!

However, please notice that there is yet another bug that apparently escaped the top panel of the sampler and is heading toward the rose. Dearly Beloved has declared that it is an aphid, and he should know. At one point, he was growing roses and was on a daily mission to eradicate aphids from the natural world.  It was a battle to the death. Literally. When I say that the man was in a homicidal--or should that be a bugicidal--rage, I am not exaggerating. 

I will say that the roses were finally healthy and aphid-free.

Long Time, No See

 I realized last night that we're a third of the way through October and I haven't blogged at all. There are reasons.

Unfortunately, the big one is that Mother has been in the hospital. As usual, The Saint has been doing all the heavy lifting, but we're hoping she will be released back to The Home today--depending on today's lab results. She is two months away from her 99th birthday, so each day is a gift.

And I had both Covid and flu shots in the same arm on the same day. I understand this year's flu shot for those of us over 65 is a little more powerful because this year's strain of flu is more virulent. All I know is that for the first time in several years, I was foggy for a couple of days afterwards.

Then, apparently A. Carter turned me into a monogamous stitcher. I think I mentioned before that I was thinking about working the side borders down to the next big chunk of grass, then stitching grass, then doing the bottom border. I did that, but didn't feel like any of it merited a blog post since stitching big swaths of grass is about as boring as, well, watching grass grow.

Finally I got past all that and now have the first big urn on the bottom finished.

I've been trying to figure out what that figure on the base of the urn could possibly be. My first thought was a crab.

The design kept nagging at me until I remembered that one of my great-aunts had a tea set with a rose pattern in gold. If you kind of squint at it, you could "see" a rose with leaves coming out the top and one side and a stem at the bottom.

Or you can squint and see a crab.

Happy Colors!

 I've finished the next section of A. Carter, and I am officially halfway through.

And, oh, the colors! They are so happy--and really pop! against the darker background.

I'm thinking about finishing the side borders, then stitching the six rows of green across the bottom of the sampler. This is REALLY eating one's veggies before getting to dessert, since the bottom panel of the sampler has two giant urns with equally large flowers, plus a beautiful rose in the center. Those would be so much fun to end the sampler with, as opposed to stitch after stitch of green, green, green.

I'm not so crazy about block stitching.

Can you tell?