Slow Sunday Stitching

 Oh my goddess it's the 8th of December!  I've been so busy with the shops I have barely had time to lift my head to take a breath.  We have had a cold snap this week with temperatures dropping to the low 30's, its been warming up a little but for some reason I feel cold all day.  

This year I'm finding dealing with the  A-Fib while pulling and packing items to be a bit of a challenge. I have had to get a little creative with my time and energy.  Taking short catch your breath moments and stop and wait for the heart rate to slow down seems to be working. Mondays are the hardest days because I am packing stuff from Friday evening through the 8:00 am Monday cut off time.  

This weekend I am working throughout the weekend taking a small amount of time for myself.  I am so glad there is only 2 weeks lefts before Christmas. 

The one good thing about all this is I am determined to find a doctor that specializes in Atrial Fibrillation so that  maybe something can be done to improve the condition.  I have done a bit of research and there are procedures and medications used for some people, I just don't know if there is anything for someone that is considered 100% in A-FIB.  I need to know more.  While I have a medication to prevent me from having a stroke, and a very over priced med at that.  I need a way to function in my day to day life.  I want to make my bed without feeling like I should take a nap.  I want to take a nice long walk with out feeling exhausted for days.  I want to do more than sit and read a book or stitch some embroidery, while I love those things I want to be more active again without needing days to recover. Because as I see it lately this is not living, I feel myself getting depressed and I'm not having that right now.

On an up note I finished the last block of the Woven Wreaths Stitch Along,  I enjoyed stitching these little motifs through the year.  Here is December:

I did a little more on the autumn goddess slow stitched piece, adding and oak leaves and acorns headpiece, some drifting leaves and an owl.

I stitched an oak and acorns piece and added it to the top corner, later today I plan to add a few more drifting leaves and a few other bits.  I will link my post to Kathy's Quilts for the Sunday slow stitching here is the link: https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/12/slow-sunday-stitching_01163368706.html 

I am currently reading The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan.  I am enjoying this book so much.

Here is a little peek inside the covers:

I love the hand written pages and sketches of the birds so much I am inspired to start a nature journal for 2025.  

I have come to a major decision for me, this year is the last year I will keep a personal written journal.  I'm 69 years old and my first diary/journal I began when I was 9. Sixty years of keeping a personal journal is long enough. 

Anyway time to post so I can have some lunch and then start packing stuff for Monday's shipping.

Slow Stitching Sundays October Woven Wreaths And Fight Night

 I finished the stitching on the Kathy Schmitz Woven Wreath October block and began the stitching on the Fright Night mat.

Last night I stitched one pumpkin and this morning I began stitching the cat which I will continue to stitch later today.

 

There was a hiccup with the Harvest Hues SAL with a slight delay in getting the stitching started as Mary Corbet is dealing with some eye issues. She may be able to get a midweek start this week, I may go ahead and stitch a set of leaves on my own and once Mary is back to stitching I will stitch along with her.  I love the leaf patterns so having an extra set will help me use up some of my stash of floss and fabrics.

The newest prompt for the Roxy's Journal of Stitchery Vol. 6 is autumnal colors which I have a few leaf motifs to stitch as well as some leafy fabric to fussy cut and slow stitch for my page.

I will add my post to Kathy's Quilts for slow stitching Sunday here is the link drop on over and take a look at what other bloggers are slow stitching today. 

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/10/slow-sunday-stitching.html

It looks like we are facing another hurricane this week with lots of rain wind and power outages.  This one looks like its going to cross the entire state of Florida. For anyone in it's path Stay Safe.

Welcome August and the First Sunday Slow Stitch!

 

Wow what happened to July?  Is it just me or is the summer flying by, I noticed a few days ago the days are growing shorter.  I feel like I blinked my eyes and summer is nearly over.   It was a very hot and humid July this year with quite a few record high temps.  I am actually looking forward to the end of summer which will be upon us in a flash.

I actually stitched the August blocked for the Kathy Schmitz Woven Wreaths SAL. This little smiling sun took quite awhile to stitch.  

My pieces for the K3n.clothtales for weeks   Week 31 which is a Shisha style piece. I used a foil covered circle of cardboard for the Shisha mirror. I love the weekly prompts of this SAL, I am learning so many interesting ways to stitch.

Zokin was week 28, Traditionally Zokin cloths are used for dusting or cleaning in Japanese households.

Stitched leaves was week 27 I chose to do fabric leaves instead of real leaves because with the humidity here in Florida leaves tend to get moldy when drying.

Week 30 was folded fabric where we stitched bits of fabric while making folds while stitching. 

Week 29 was to stitch a mandala, instead of making a traditional mandala with bits of fabric scraps I decided to make a mandala of wool oak leaves adding an acorn button in the center.  As Katharine always says "You do you." and the oak leaves mandala is me doing me.  I will link to Kathy's Quilts here https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/08/slow-sunday-stitching-olympics.html

The end of July brought some Happy Mail, the 1st thing is the Ingrid's Wildflowers hand embroidery kit order from Missouri Star QuiltCo . https://www.missouriquiltco.com/  

The kit includes 20 stick and stitch wildflower motifs, full size balls of perle cotton, needles, needle threader, scissors and needle minder and the instructions to make a quilt all packed in a lovely tin box.

The kit contains everything you need to stitch the 20 blocks using the 20 stick and stitch patterns 

The included stitch book has the color guide and stitch guide for each motif.  A bonus motif was available making a total of 21 motifs to stitch and an added surprise was a download for each motif in 3 sizes 3, 4 and 5 inches.

The 2nd piece of Happy Mail is the DMC Eco Vita boxed set of natural dyed organic wool floss which is stranded so you can separate it just like the cotton floss.   Included was the DMC needle minders

Here are the colors close up, there are 30 colors in the boxed set.

Inside the booklet are 2 patterns and number/color card.  When I received the email alerting me the kit was back in stock I immediately ordered it, a few days later it was delivered.

One piece of mail that arrived was not happy mail at all, it was a ruined issue of Somerset Studio magazine, apparently either the mail sorter or the mail carrier spilled coffee, tea of a soft drink on the issue which was in a plastic bag.  I don't know how long it sat but half the issues pages were stuck together.  I was livid.

It took 5 days for the pages to dry completely, I was able to separate the pages except the last 5 in the back, about a quarter of the front of the magazine pages are fine, the rest of the pages are stained light brown and warped.  Sadly this isn't an isolated incident where magazines were delivered with coffee spills and cup rings on the pages. The cup rings stopped when the magazines I get started arriving in plastic bags which are compostable.  Complaints to the post office doesn't help. A replacement copy is on the way.

Slow Stitching Sunday: The Summer Goddess in Progress

 I can't believe we are halfway through the month of April, this month is just flying by.  We have had some crazy weather here in north central Florida, from hot sunny days that feel like the middle of summer to wicked rain storms and tornado warnings to cold mornings and glorious afternoons.

The Solar eclipse came and went without much fanfare here, though I will say the sun appeared extra bright and the birds were quiet for a while.  For the K3n.clothtales SAL our weekly prompt was the Sun which seemed right with the star and moon prompts the previous weeks.  The weekly prompt included the eclipse.  Here is my piece for week 15 along with the moon with wolf and friendship star pieces. I am coming to embrace the wonkiness of my pieces, I love the raw edges and the layering of fabrics. I have always admired the work of others yet never imagined I would love the process as much as I do.

I have been working on several goddess pieces in the slow stitch style, I am currently working on the Summer goddess.  First, I pulled out lots of yellow fabrics, many scraps from my stash. Then I cut or tore them into strips. I traced the template onto muslin then began to randomly stitch them on where you can see a vague figure.

Once each piece is stitched onto the fabric I stitch vertical lines of running stitch down the length of the entire piece, once that is done I stitch around the traced line of the template.  Once all the stitching is completed I cut out the goddess shape and then mount her onto a background fabric. 

Then I just build onto the piece with some fussy cut pieces, hand embroidery, other embellishments as I work. 

The fussy cut piece I added is from In the Beginning, Sun Moon and Stars by Jason Yenter.

I have also mounted the purple goddess onto the background fabric and will begin work soon, I have autumn and winter in the planning stages.

I finished the Kathy Schmitz Woven Wreath's SAL block piece for April and March which I didn't post. 

I changed a few of the stitches on both the bee and the bunny, preferring the back stitch over the stem stitch.

I began the stitching on the Stitchdoodles SAL last week, the SAL began on April 3 and post each Wednesday.

I also have a hand embroidery started a moon gazing hare I just started it on Friday night using the DMC Etoile floss for the moon

The purple goddess is also on her background piece and I will start adding bits and pieces in the coming weeks ahead.

I'm adding my post over at Kathy's Quilts here https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2024/04/slow-sunday-stitching_0587940416.html

Here are the links for the 

Kathy Schmitz SAL https://www.youtube.com/c/TothePointwithKathySchmitz/videos

K3n.clothtales:https://www.youtube.com/@k3n.clothtales/featured

Stitchdoodles:https://www.stitchdoodles.com/