Sunday Slow Stitching and What's been going on in my corner of the globe.

Time sure does fly I can't believe it's been a month since I made an actual post. It's been a little topsy turvy here at casa Deborah.

Nuisance ailments,  hard to believe I follow a healthy diet and exercise and still seem to get every bug passing through.  Just getting through the strides of daily life seems to have consumed my time lately though  I did manage to do some slow stitching and finished all the stitching on the Celtic Cross piece.

The photo is right after I washed the stitch and wash product off and it dried, it needs to be ironed and then framed.  I am quite happy with the results I did leave off some of the tiny knot work it looked messy even with a single strand of floss. Just a reminder the Celtic Cross is from a free coloring page from Dover Publications. https://www.doverpublications.com/zb/samples/826686/sample7b.html

Progress on the simple granny stitch shawl I am crocheting is coming along quite nicely.  I'm glad I chose the Prism colorway of the Shawl in a Ball yarn from Lion Brand.  My friend refers to it as the Mardi Gras shawl.

I also made crocheting progress on the Shell stitch using another Lion Brand yarn this time Wool Ease cake in the Athena colorway.

My thoughts have been drifting to Spring so I ordered some pastel felt and floss from Benzie Design one of my favorite places to purchase felt because they give you the option of buying the felt and

floss together, they do such a great job matching the DMC floss to the felt.  This is the Pixie Dust color palette.  Benzie Design has a web store here: https://www.benziedesign.com/  and an Etsy shop here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BenzieDesign?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=709530662

On the non crafting side of things, my son Nick proposed marriage to his girlfriend, she said yes and are celebrating their engagement with a vacation in Ireland and are having a lovely time so far.   My grand niece Tessa celebrated her 7th birthday last weekend as I said time flies I can believe 7 years have gone by since we were blessed to have her in our lives, my son celebrated his 39th birthday on the 6th, was engaged on the 13th and left for Ireland on the 19th Life is good at Casa Deborah!

UPDATE 2/23/20
I began reading The Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs I was looking for something new to read a light mystery to wile away the hours when  my sore fingers need a break from stitching.

I haven't read a Laura Childs novel in over 10 years so I thought I would give it a try and it has one of my favorite subjects in it, Tea, and I like light cozy mysteries and 3 chapters in and I'm liking it so far. After 3 chapters I decided to audition new floss colors for my next project.

I started the hand embroidery for a new Drum and Dance series piece. I am using DMC Coloris floss 4507 for the sash and the solid floss will be for the clothing.

DMC Coloris 4507 DMC 602 798 959 3808

I started with the hands using just one strand of floss for the fingers and hand so they don't look too bulky I did the same for the feet and toes.

I like the way she is progressing and glad I decided to use only one strand of floss on the hands and feet they look pretty good.  I will be linking up at Kathy's Quilts today for the Slow Sunday Stitching
here: https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2020/02/slow-sunday-stitching_23.html

A Slow Sunday with all types of Stitching

July days in Florida are not for the faint of heart, with the humidity rising along with the temps it makes for some sticky days.  I am in the second week of a summer bug, the fever returns every few days though not 102 like it was for 3 days running, the cough is nearly gone but the nausea lingers daily, the one good thing is I'm making progress on my stitching though some days I just felt so miserable I just laid around and slept for hours.

Friday was a full on rainy day and I was feeling well enough to sit up most of the day so I made lots of progress on the granny square afghan I am crocheting for Tessa.

I like working with this Mandala yarn, the way the color changes saves me the time of changing colors and weaving in all those loose ends. The changes aren't always perfect but I like just letting the work flow, one of the groups I'm in some crocheters will cut off sections of the yarn to have a more even flow, I suppose that's a great idea for symmetry but to me it's a lot of extra work.

Yesterday I decided to unravel (frog) the a few rows of crochet I had completed on the Ruana I'm making, the stitches didn't look quite right to me, not realizing I wasn't seeing too clearly while I'm under the weather.

After looking at the pile of unraveled yarn I had second thoughts (after frogging 519 stitches) ugh! So I re-crocheted all those rows and then worked 2 more rows.  Do you ever do something like that, look at something not sure if you are happy with how it looks so you undo all your work only to realize it was fine?   I do it more often than I care to admit.

I'm nearly done stitching the Stitch at Home Challenge piece,  I think to finish it I will use a hoop as a frame so I can hang it.

If all goes well and hopefully feeling better I plan to have it completed this week or early next week which will give me plenty of time to make the August 15th deadline.  My fingers are holding out fairly well with all the stitching and crochet, but the right side of my neck gets so stiff I can barely move it.  Well if it isn't one thing it's another, we do suffer for our Art don't we?

I will link up to Kathy's Quilts today for Slow Sunday Stitching, hop on over to see what Kathy and other talented bloggers are working on:  https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/07/slow-sunday-stitching_22.html

I'm feeling a bit weary so let me post this, make a cup of tea and try to get some stitching done today.

A new month begins with a birthday, a good read and a yarn a long.

Here we are starting a whole new month, summer is well underway here in Florida with lots of hot humid days and thunderstorms rolling through just about every afternoon.

On the 1st of July I celebrated my 63rd birthday, enjoyed a lovely day with my son and some birthday cake in the afternoon.

The day before my sister and great niece Tessa came for a visit, Tessa made me a sweet birthday card and bookmark.

I am using my new bookmark to keep my page in this week's read Hardcore Twenty-Four another fun Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich, I really enjoy her Plum novels they make me laugh out loud and always bring back memories of my home life back in NJ.

We spent a few hours at Silver Springs State Park, took the 30 minute glass bottom boat ride which Tessa just loved.

fish seen through the glass bottom boat

I finished stitching the Green Woman hand embroidery piece last week, now I am trying to decide whether to frame her or make her a wall hanging or pillow cover.

In the meantime I am crocheting a continuous granny square afghan for Tessa using Lion Brand Mandala yarn in Wood Nymph colorway. It's odd for me to be crocheting an afghan, usually the summer months in Florida are too hot to have a large project on my lap even with air conditioning yet I have been itching to crochet and so far the heat isn't bothering me. 

growing granny square

When Tessa saw the afghan she rubbed it on her face claiming it was so squishy and soft it was like fluffy clouds.  She says she loves pink and purple so I told her it was a good thing I was making it for her.

So yesterday I spent 45 minutes at the DMV to renew my driver's license and to my surprise the birth certificate I have had for 63 years is no longer acceptable and I will have to send for a new copy. Which I just finished doing, hoping it is processed quickly but I have the ugh moment of ordering a new birth certificate from NY.  In the meantime, I have an exception letter so I can drive using the new license for the next 60 days and if I don't have the new certificate by then I just bring in proof that I sent for the birth certificate and I can get an extension.  I'm fairly confident I'll receive it in time since the place I ordered was actually an outsourced company, which take up to 3 weeks to process and I paid $17.00 for UPS express shipping rather than the US Mail.   Our local DMV office is quite helpful, the employees are friendly and I always have a pleasant experience. Oh and the eye test was a breeze.

For my birthday one of my friends sent me some lovely Shawl in a Ball yarn in the Prism colorway

I love this blend of cotton and acrylic yarn and I love the colors. I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet though I was thinking of trying the Virus Shawl pattern, I've watched much of the YouTube video and think I will use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOQ6GBjTjO8

I am linking today at Super Mom No Cape https://www.supermomnocape.com/embroidered-felt-christmas-baubles/
And also here for Yarn Along http://www.gsheller.com/2018/07/yarn-along-july.html

Hello June

Well Hello June you have arrived and brought with you our first mid-day rains which is much needed. Today also marks the start of hurricane season which we really don't need but those daily rain showers would be nice.

I have been working on my winter Goddess hand embroidery piece though I am kind of dragging my feet on it, I'm just not sure I even like the piece at this point and keep asking myself if I want to finish it.

Here is a look at my ORTS from January 1^st to June 1^st I'd say I accumulated a nice little pile of bits and pieces of threads, floss and some yarn too. Not bad for 6 months of stitching my jar is half full.

Orts January to June

Orts Jar

I have a new project I plan to start crocheting this month, it's this lovely Ruana pattern from Two of Wands I bought a few weeks ago.

I don't usually crochet during the warm weather season but I just loved this pattern when I first saw it I knew I wanted to make it right away. Here is a link to the site I purchased the pattern from:

http://www.twoofwands.com/patterns/women/playa-ruana-pattern?category=Ponchos+%2B+Ruanas

There are other crochet patterns and some lovely knitted patterns too. 

I want to use the Shawl in a Ball yarn I purchased a few months ago from Lion Brand yarn I was just waiting for the right pattern, I think this is the one. Here is a link for the yarn http://www.lionbrand.com/yarn/shawl-in-a-ball-yarn.html

I also need to get started on the Stitch at Home Challenge embroidery project the August 15th deadline will be here before I know it so its time to stop tweaking and get stitching.