In my part of the world we say you are a fool if your passion for a pursuit overcomes all practical sense. I am a stitching fool, and I stitch foolishness.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Mini Happy Dance!

Branches and buds or berries or whatever they are--DONE!


Yes, it's a horrendous picture, but it's ten o'clock at night and I couldn't wait until daylight to announce that this part is stitched.

And, no, it hasn't taken me all week to do this. Actually, although I packed the whole kit and caboodle and took everything with me on a business trip, I never threaded a needle until last night. And then I just held it in my hand for about fifteen minutes before I staggered off to bed.

However, tonight I was determined. Boy howdy, was I determined. And now all those bitty stitches over one are done!

You will, however, notice that the centers of the two cartouches are blank. When Catherine designed this sampler, it was meant to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild, and the cartouches had the guild name and anniversary dates.  While I am now a member of that esteemed body, I was not then, so it's not appropriate.  I took the class at one of Jeannine's Gatherings in Williamsburg.

I thought about putting that, but the problem is that I stitched part of a leaf and a thread or two in the border and made lots of notes. That does not deserve a mention. It deserves a footnote.

So I'm pondering. And while I'm pondering, I'm going to move to the bottom of the inside border and do more sprays of flowers and a few more bees and several blackbirds. At the moment, the plan is to park myself in the wing chair and stitch. I also plan to totally ignore some very necessary and quite overdue housecleaning and stitch until posterior paralysis and crossed eyes set in. At that point, I may run the vacuum and dust rag until the blood starts to circulate. Then I will stitch again.

On another note, does it seem to anyone else that April sort of vanished in a puff of smoke?  I thought March would never end, but it seems like I sneezed (and sneezed and sneezed--the pollen is killing me) and April was all but gone.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Bees and Branches and Buds

I have been stitching every night this week for multiple hours each night (except for last night, when I went to an ANG meeting).

And this is all I have to show for it:


There are a few bees and a lot of little branches and a few buds. For the most part, they are all stitched over one thread.

And that means that it's slow.  Soooooooo slow. Slow, slow, slow.

Excruciatingly slow.

And there's another cartouche with even more branches and buds on the other side of the sampler.

I'm not thinking about that at the moment.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

A Flurry of Flowers

Half the flower sprays are stitched.


This is not all that happened this week-end. Baby Girl and I enjoyed an outing with the Piedmont Heritage Sampler Guild. We visited the Mordecai museum in Raleigh, where we viewed samplers that were stitched at the Mordecai school, operated by the father of the gentleman whose name is attached to the museum. Chris gave a wonderful report on the outing at PHSG's blog, so I will not recap.

I will mention that Baby Girl and I did not do lunch or stash enhancement. After missing a turn--twice--we decided to head back to her home for an afternoon of stitching. She was under-caffeinated and my wonky knees have been giving me problems, so we decided to get caffeine for her and an ice pack for me. I think for everyone's overall enjoyment, this was probably a very good idea.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The birds and the bees

I don't have much to show for the last several days, but I did get several teeny tiny blackbirds stitched (over ONE!)  (with BLACK SILK!) on Morning Has Broken.

There are also a couple of bees buzzing about.

And I've started stitching the first of many, many sprays of flowers.  I think I'm going to enjoy this motif. That's a good thing. Did I mention that this spray of flowers is repeated around the sampler?  Many, many times? Many times.

So I should get to it.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Committed

I'm committed now.


I put a date in the cartouche at the top of Morning Has Broken.  Now I have to get it finished in 2014, or I have to pick out cross stitch over one to change the date.

So I'm committed to finishing it.

Or I should be committed for committing.