New Moon and TUSAL Time

 Well her it is the New Moon for April and it's that time once again for the TUSAL(Totally Useless Stitch A Long) report. Here are my Orts for April so far.  The current project I am stitching is for my personal Goddess a Month project. This is the goddess for March I need to finish.  The pattern is from Urban Threads, I wasn't too crazy with the pattern I designed and truth to tell I not so crazy about this pattern either.  Originally I was going to alter the pattern to elongate the figures as they look squash to me, but as I am stitching further I am liking the pattern more. 

Not sure what a TUSAL is you can click the link to It's Daffy Cat's blog https://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-totally-useless-stitch-long.html

UPDATE: I'm late posting this I thought I had it posted but it was still in draft mode. Ugh! one of those days.

Happy Easter

 

It’s been a crazy few weeks since the first day of Spring and I haven’t had much time to post here, I have taken advantage of the days when I wasn’t feeling ill and spending time in the sunshine, getting in some reading time and working on my goddess of the month hand embroidery project.

This month I also joined in the Susannah Conway April Love 2021 photo challenge and thought I would share my post for today. The prompt is vintage:

Day 4: Vintage, The Rider Tarot deck my first deck of tarot cads. I purchased these in 1971 when I was a girl of 16. If you look close enough you can see my hand written notes on the cards as I taught myself to read the cards. Over the years I bought new decks and have quite a growing collection of Tarot and Oracle cards. When I give a reading for an old friend they always ask me to use my trusty old Rider Deck. 

Here is the link for the challenge if you are interested in the prompts and participating https://www.susannahconway.com/april-2/

 I am enjoying this challenge quite a bit, seeing what other participants are posting is interesting and quite revealing too, the post for notebook disclosed many of us with multiple notebooks, avid journal keepers, and others like me that are quite addicted to notebooks, not to mention those creating notebooks of their own. I think notebooks was my favorite prompt so far.

The Goddess of the month for March is slow going and I hope to have her done soon here is my progress so far, I think the problem is I am not too fond of the pattern, I made my own Hecate pattern that one wasn’t so great so I purchased the pattern I am using for Hecate, from Urban Threads, I was going to elongate the image before printing it but forgot. I usually like the patterns from Urban Threads but for me this one just doesn’t grab me. Oh well it doesn’t matter I’m stitching her. I used DMC Diamant Grande for the triple moon, and DMC retired floss for the hair and the torch flames. All other floss is DMC stitched on 100% cotton white tone on tone fabric with spirals.

I will be linking this post to https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/04/slow-sunday-stitching.html for some Slow Easter Sunday stitching.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

 

Slow Sunday Stitching today

My new water bottle tells it all after a lightning strike on Wednesday took out the internet modem, DVD player, and the HDMI capabilities on the TV. You could hear the strike, then a crackle and loud snap and those surge protectors were toast but did the job they were made for well mostly. ugh sucks to live in the lightning capital of the world. On the up side went to the Xfinity store to get a replacement modem and was in and out in 10 minutes, So business can continue as usual.  The rest of the week kind of went downhill after that.  

In between labeling about 800 items to send into Amazon to restock the store, running the usual errands and dropping my son's car off for repairs and than dropping mine off the next day for a new tire which I found out was the reason for the crazy vibration lucky my usual mechanic was available and he also fixed the controls on the door at no charge so the buttons are no longer sinking into the arm rest and I can use the buttons to adjust my mirrors and open the windows which I won't be doing for awhile it too darn hot a

terribly humid.  I am ordering another tire for the front so both can wear down at the same time, since it is showing quite a bit of wear it will only be a matter of weeks before it goes bad, so much for the warranty to 70,000 miles.  

I finally had time to get a little bit of crocheting done on my sisters Granny Afghan on Friday evening, 

I put off  doing any hand embroidery for a few days because after handling all those adhesive labels and bagging everything my fingertips are quite sore (I have a sensitivity to adhesives).  I'll work on the Greenwoman piece today for the Slow Stitching.

I also have a new project I started to crochet it's another afghan using the Lion Brand Mandala yarn in the Wishing Well colorway which looks kind of beachy to me.

Oh on Friday Urban Threads was having a sale which is running through August 24th and I bought a five new hand embroidery patterns all the patterns I bought were 50% off so each one cost me fifty cents.
This is one of the patterns, here's the link:
 https://www.urbanthreads.com/recentRelease.aspx?date=081718 

https://www.urbanthreads.com/recentRelease.aspx?date=081718

The piece above isn't mine it's a photo I borrowed from the email I received alerting me to the sale, you can bet I will have it traced out soon.  This one is called Moon Phases Quilting Square, I also bought one similar called Around the Sun quilting square.  I love celestial pieces and I have just the fabric I want to try out and I think it will look great.  

The Herbiary by Maia Toll arrived a few days ago, it feeds my weakness for unusual books and my love of  herbs and gardens mostly I just love the colorful illustrations.

36 botanical cards 

The book includes 36 cards neatly tucked into an envelope in the back of the book and don't you just love the end pages.

Cards tucked away

Luscious end-papers

Here is a look at some of my favorite pages so far.  I have a few friends that would just love this book so

Oats 

Rosemary

Elderberry

I think I need to order a few and get a jump start on the holiday shopping this year.  Well that's about all I have for this post. I'm linking up to Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching click on over and have a look   https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/08/slow-sunday-stitching_19.html

I will leave you with this thought...it made me smile.

Greenman Stitched

I finished the hand embroidery on the newest Greenman piece a few days ago, the pattern is by Urban Threads.

I am pleased how he turned out.  He is worked on cotton muslin fabric using 3 strands of DMC floss, the main color is 890, the secondary colors are 987 and 986, his eyes were done using DMC variegated floss 111, I was going for amber eyes and I think I got it right.  He measures 8x8 inches now I need to find a frame for him.

Thursday I drove over to Brick City Cross Stitch for some new colors for an upcoming project.  I don't need more floss but for some reason I found myself wanting to used over dyed floss so off I went. I picked up some Weeks Dye Works and The Gentle Arts floss.

It's the 7 colors of green in the center, all of them named after herbs which I plan to use for for one or two projects.  I am drafting my pattern for the next stitch at home challenge which I posted on my blog on May 1st.  The other pattern I have completed and now I'm just deciding on my fabric choice. Both are going to be using green floss.  Those two floss colors to the left are just colors that appealed to me, absinthe is the bright green and amber is next to it, both are Weeks Dye Works so I will do a run/bleed test before I stitch with them, some over dyed flosses have been known to run when wet.  The 3 colors to the right are DMC variegated skeins to replace what I used up. 

December's First Slow Stitching Sunday

December seems to have arrived while I wasn't looking, after being ill with the flu and viral infection for a few weeks the days tend to run together and before I knew it I was turning the page on my calendar.  I am happy to say I am feeling much better not quite 100% but very close and I'm back to my hand embroidery with a clear head. 

I finished the 3rd house block for the I Love Home series by Jacqueline Steves, so now I need to print off and trace block 4 which is the last block for the project. https://jacquelynnesteves.com/

I have two new embroidery projects  in the works. One project has been printed onto the Pellon Stitch N Washway stabilizer and affixed to the fabric and await stitching. I love using this when I have a piece with a lot of detail like the greenman pattern below, it's much easier to print the pattern onto the product that way I don't miss any of the details, which I have done in the past.

The first project is another Greenman piece, he is being worked on unbleached cotton muslin which I am also using for backing the piece for more stability. I think this is the 6th Greenman I'm doing.

Greenman from Urban Threads

This Greenman pattern is another from Urban Threads, I have quite of few of their patterns this one can be found here: http://www.urbanthreads.com/products.aspx?productid=UTH1590 

I was out and about a few days ago dropping off a bag of donations at one of my favorite thrift shops and decided to browse for a few minutes, I'm so glad I did I stumbled upon a great find I nearly missed 50 packages of Mill Hill beads and 6 charms, all sealed packets for $5.00.

I thought how serendipitous since I signed up to take part in the 2018 Crazy Quilt Journal Project, I'm sure some of my embellishing will include some beads.  Registration is open until December 31 here is the link if you are interested in taking part and signing up:   https://crazyquiltjournalproject2018.blogspot.com/p/crazy-quilt-journal-project-2018.html

The thrift shop where I found the beads is the same shop I found spools and spools of velvet ribbons and all kinds of lace trim a year or so ago.  I wonder if there is a crazy quilter in the vicinity.  I am linking my post today over at Kathy's Quilts come over and have a look at what other bloggers are slow stitching today https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2017/12/slow-sunday-stitching.html

A future project coming up will involve embroidering these blocks by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman's Windowsill Garden collection, there are eight blocks and I decided to do both the colors and the redwork blocks.

in colors

all red

I like to have something at hand for when I get tired of working the same project or the tedious use of one color which will happen when I begin stitching the Greenman. 

Another Slow Sunday and block Nine is done

The mid point of September had me completing the final hand embroidery stitches in block 9 so I am putting together a few new projects to work on along with the Hocuspocusville Quilt block 10. I like to take a break from all the black thread with a project or two.

block 9 complete

The first project will be in the form of a class held at Tomorrow's Treasures quilt shop here in Ocala, the Christmas Tree Skirt from Gail Pan's book Christmas Patchwork Loves Embroidery will be the class project. 

I had purchased the book a few weeks ago when I was attending a Hand Embroidery Club meeting and DeeAnn, who will teach the class, was working on the project in the book. The first class is on Wednesday September 21^st, and will meet on the third Wednesday in October and November. The Hand Embroidery Club meets the first Wednesdays of the month which will give ample time to work on the embroidery pieces. Here is a link to the website for the shop in Ocala and the Crystal River shop: http://www.crquilts.com/

I also have a pattern from Urban Threads I plan to work on over the next few weeks, the Goddess is printed onto washable stabilizer so I didn't have to trace the pattern. 

goddess pattern from Urban Threads

I chose a pale blue fabric with white snowflakes since I'm planning to make her a winter goddess. I am currently sorting through my embroidery floss for the colors I want to use, I'd like to add some beading and metallic thread to this piece. http://www.urbanthreads.com/  Here is a link for Urban Threads if you hand embroider or machine embroider there are some great contemporary patterns available for purchase.

blue fabric white snowflakes

Here is a look at block 10 before I begin the hand embroidery, its another of my favorite blocks I just love the clothesline and the cat.

block 10

I am linking up for Slow Sunday Stitching today over at Kathy's Quilts follow the linnk for a look at what other bloggers are slow stitching today:

 https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2016/09/slow-sunday-stitching.html
On Monday I will link up at Super Mom NO Cape here for lots of hand stitching wonders;
http://www.supermomnocape.com/2016/09/19/vintage-embroidery-monday-stitchery-link-party-76/

Sunday Slow stitching projects a new beginning and a completed stitchery

Today I am homesick for my northern roots, it's late November, less than a week till Thanksgiving and I long for the crisp cool air, rapidly falling leaves of assorted colors and the familiar surroundings of New Jersey, instead I'm in the land of perpetual green aka Florida. Today I can fool myself just a litte, it's a gray rainy autumn day, I'm inside where the ar conditioning is cool so it feels like autumn, and the leaves of my sycamore tree have turned the usual paperbag brown and mostly fallen to the ground so it looks like a northen autumn day until you step outside and are hit in the face with the humidity and warm temps and know it is autumn in Florida. After twenty odd years in Florida I am always surprised when the homesickness grabs hold of me.

On this rainy Sunday I have started stitching the hand embroidery for the third block of the Hocuspocusville quilt. I had this all ready to begin a few weeks ago but I started on the Holly King and just kept on stitching. As you can see I'm off to a slow start but than thats what Sundays are all about, slowing down, resting and taking time to breathe and do some much loved hand stitching.

Here is a look at the Holly King, all the hand embroidery is done now I need to decide how I want to finish him.

 After looking at the piece for a while I think I should have crayon tinted his face so I decided to eventually make another.  I'm not sure if I mentiond this in a previous post, the pattern for the Holly King is from Urban Threads which offers patterns for hand and machine embroidery. Here is a link 

http://www.urbanthreads.com/

I plan to keep stitching on block three for today and I am linking up here once again for Slow Stitching Sunday http://www.kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/