Some Slow Stitching

Well time is moving at a slower pace this week since I closed the shops the day before Christmas Eve. Still there were many packages to pack and ship for the items that were waiting and a few that were pending, not to mention labeling 24 boxes of inventory to send off to Amazon so the store would be fully stocked.  It was crazy right up to the last moments but as the dust settled I was able to slow down and stitch.

I pulled out the Celtic Cross piece which has been patiently waiting for me to get back to it, rather I have been waiting to get back to it, I did.

While it may not look like much progress was made the hours passed pleasantly enough while I found my groove and felt the tension leave my body.   I left off here last night:

I didn't just manage to get in hand embroidery this week, I finally finished the mystery novel I began in November and after unraveling the start of a shawl I was crocheting I restarted it adding a stitch marker to the bottom so I wouldn't make the same error I did when I put it aside for a time. So now if I get to the stitch marker I know I went wrong again and won't have to tear as much out.

The original start of the shawl

the restarted shawl

So progress was made on the crocheting which I tend to pick up when my fingers start to ache from holding the embroidery needle or when my eyes just can't see the fine lines to embroider.

Yesterday morning I bake some strawberry scones, another mix from the Sticky Fingers Bakery, I love the ease of just adding water and baking.

The weather yesterday was gloomy and humid so the dough was sticky but still dropped okay

and the end result was just wonderful.

Today is another rainy day here in Florida and while my plants are getting a nice watering I am a bit tired of the rain.  We have had rain just about every day for two weeks and this is our dry season.

Despite the rain the hibiscus gives me blooms of sunshine even on a cloudy day and these quite surprised me because most of the time the rain knocks the flowers off.   

The New Year is fast approaching so I spent some time searching for a few online groups and challenges to start in 2020, the first is a FACEBOOK group Journal Threaders which can be found here  https://www.facebook.com/groups/journalthreaders/?ref=nf_target&fref=nf   if interested check it out closing sign up is January 14th.  The concept of stitching as a way to journal is interesting to me, not sure how I am going to layout my piece but the idea seed is planted.

I have rejoined the A Year of Stitches for 2020,  the link is

here if you are interested in joining.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ayearinstitches/?notif_id=1577580593742356&notif_t=group_r2j_approved&ref=notif

I participated in the Year of Stitches for several years which kept me motivated to stitch each day or as often as I could in the early days of rediscovering hand embroidery, when I go through my clearing out the groups I don't participate in I purged this group in error, thinking it was 1 Year of Stitches.  Do you ever do that?

I will continue to do the at home challenges put out by the San Francisco School of Needlework and Design and hope to have my piece completed for the current challenge deadline of January 15th.  You can find the info here on the website https://www.sfneedleworkanddesign.org/

Well it's getting late and I need a bot more coffee before I pick up my needle and stitchery, my post today I'm linking up at Kathy's Quilts for the last Slow Sunday Stitching of the year. Take a few minutes to see what other bloggers are slow stithcing https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/12/slow-sunday-stitching_29.html

Thank you all for your comments, for taking the time from your day to stop and read my blog. I wish all of you a Happy New Year! 

Sunday Stitching, Sunshine and a Savings of Sorts.

Sunday stitching and sunshine a great way to start the week.  Spring is in the air though for many not in the weather.
The dreaded Daylight Savings time has us springing forward one hour, I know longer set  my clocks before I go to bed it really doesn't make a difference I don't set an alarm, I am usually awake before daylight peeks through the curtains and really what's going to happen are the timekeeper police going to ticket me for failing to set my clocks ahead at 2:00 a.m.   Though Maxine says it all

I don't mind the change at all, in fact I welcome the later daylight hours in the evenings, I'm already drink my coffee in the darkness of early morning.

Spring is in the air so I thought a little pastel stitching would be a nice change from the greens of the greenman piece. The sampler pattern was traced onto my fabric yesterday afternoon it was a free Bronwyn Hayes pattern from several years back offered on the Red Brolly web-site due to her illness is no longer available.

I began stitching it this morning while sipping coffee and watching the sun come up, though right now the colors are so pastel just white and brown.

I have several of the Bronwyn Hayes patterns from years back when I was a member of her newsletter via her web-site.  I have a few of her patterns and a book or two. While clearing out some clutter a few days ago I came across a CD of old patterns that I copied to disk when I upgraded my computer after I moved here in 2011. Side note: I have replaced my computer two or three times since, out of necessity to read as computer crashed and once when an unwitting friend set an email with a rather nasty virus. 

I was surprised at all the patterns I came across and also surprised that many of those websites and blogs are gone or haven't been updated in years a few of the bloggers did go on to create Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook pages.

I also traced a Crab Apple Hill Studio design to begin stitching this week The Queen of the Needle

I just love the sweetness of Meg Hawkey's designs and to my pleasant surprise I have a set of tea cup patterns from 2004 which I believe I purchased at a quilt show about 5 years ago.

I have quite a few Crab Apple Hill patterns, it's about time I get some of them traced onto fabric so I can start stitching them.   I have quite of few garden related patterns by several designers including Barb Smith aka Theodora Cleaves, Gail Pan, Kathy Schmitz, Bird Brain Designs.  It may be time to weed out a few of these patterns so sit down and trace every one of them onto fabric and just stitch a way. 
Well time will tell in the meantime I'm linking to Kathy's Quilts today for some Slow Sunday Stitching https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/03/slow-sunday-stitching-finished-middling.html

Slow Sunday Stitching and Garden Works to send off April.

This is the last Sunday in April I thought I would share my newest hand embroidery piece Entering the Forest Clearing on Beltane Eve.  A fitting piece for the end of April.

Just when I thought the stitching was complete until I noticed there was no ground to stand upon. Using one of those pens that remove stitching lines when pressed with a warm iron I must have 'erased' the ground when I was pressing out lines to make a few changes. So literally I am back to the drawing board. Some day I will learn not to make changes midway through my designs.

The weather here has been lovely dry and cool pleasant enough to get out in the garden and clean things up a bit.  After the winter freezes we had I wasn't sure any of my plants would survive but lucky for me Mother Nature had different plans for some of my plants.

My Canna Lily bloomed last weekend so this week I cleaned away all the dead debris and she will get a larger pot this week.  

There is a new shoot coming up, so glad I kept this one.  I  first spotted this plant at the Silver Springs park a few years ago so I did a little research and sure enough it blooms through late summer dies off and returns in the Spring. Even though it's a perennial I had my doubts after the hard freezes we had and the cover came off twice.

The Mexican Petunias are looking quite healthy now that I cut off all the dead stalks these will be transplanted into the large pot this week.  The Caladiums and the black Elephant Ears are burst out as well.

I pulled out the dead leaves yesterday I'll plant these in a large pot or possibly the ground, here is a stray from a spent leaf I tossed last summer peeking out from behind a few empty pots.

These elephant ear are all from spent leaves I just tossed in a half filled pot, last year while away the planter feel over leaving me a bunch of dead plants upon my return.

Then it wouldn't be Spring without a few new plants to perk things up in the front of my house.

There is Lantana, Pentas, Lavender, and Rosemary, another Lavender and Lantana plant, all will be planted into larger pots this week.  I had every intention of transplanting them yesterday but when I opened the garage the large bag of soil waiting was garden soil and not potting soil and I learned a few years ago there is a big difference when planting in pots.

Butterflies love Pentas and Lantana so I have those just for that purpose, The lavender is for me because I love it one is a culinary type.  This Rosemary was so lush and healthy I just couldn't pass it up.

So this week while the weather is pleasant I will be working in my garden, I don't plant to do much this year while I'm house hunting because truly I don't want to have to pack up a bunch of plants because the last time I moved I lost the majority of them.

Today though with  my allergies in high gear I have plans to sit and get in some slow stitching and hopefully finish the Greenman embroidery and perhaps start new project or two.

There isn't much more stitching to go on him and I'm looking forward to completing him, but first I need to add some ground to my Beltane Forest piece.  I will be linking today at Kathy's Quilts click the link and find out what other bloggers are Slow Stitching today. 

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2018/04/slow-sunday-stitching_29.html