A Taste of October

It's been dark and dreary here most of the day so taking a decent picture, for someone already camera challenged, well, I did the best the I could. Below is my table centerpiece, such that it is. The two pinkeeps are from Notforgotten Farm's Three Pinkeeps chart. I hope I have the name correct. The crow was stitched on a silvery gray fabric, 32ct I think, and then coffee stained. "I Told You I Was Sick" is on good old 32ct antique white. I stuffed them both with walnut litter available at your local pet store. I can never decide how good to stuff them. I think the tombstone could have used a tablespoon more litter.

click to make bigger

The piece above is Shadows of a Thousand Years by Jennifer Taylor Gass. The white fabric to the right is the original color before I dunked it in coffee and baked it in the oven for a little bit.

Near Halloween

The Primitive Needle

32ct Picture This Plus Dill

WDW Floss

(click to make bigger)

Above you see Primitive Needle's Near Halloween(Designs - The Primitive Needle). I really thought I got a better picture of this, even with the dark and dreary afternoon light but apparently my camera is getting ready to kiss me goodbye.

And posing with my Notforgotten Farm pinkeeps is my Lolita Queen of the Dead needle attracter(yeah probably not a word but I'm not sure if the term needleminder is trademarked, so work with me ok?) I saw the cabochon and had to have it. A touch of glue, a super magnet and viola, a needle sucker of my own making.

I hope to have a few more things to show by Halloween day but we'll see how that goes. It's been hard to be in an autumnal frame of mind with the temperature being in the mid-80s and the humidity at 100%, it's like the middle of July down here. I'm ready for some cooler weather. I'm sick and tired of being hot.

If I don't see ya'll before, may the Great Pumpkin see how truly sincere your pumpkin patches are and shower you all with candy and stitching stuff.

The Process is Very Organic

Isn't that what designers tell Tim Gunn when they don't have a clue what they are doing? I've been toying with an idea for a sampler for a while but have been very lazy about actually doing something about it because my artistic skilz are nonexistent but I wanted this piece to be mine from the verse to the design elements. So like I usually do, instead of jumping in with a feeling of joy and adventure and a "que sera sera" mindset, I just avoid it all together. I mean it's not like I don't have a million other things to stitch. So the other day I started digging through the stash trying to find my cross stitch font book, of course it was no where to be found. I had figured out my first verse and wanted to jump in it if you know what I mean. So I pulled out my Woman's Day Guide to American Needlework by Rose Wilder Lane and found a sampler I liked and modified my letters from those in the sampler.

I charted out the words on some graph paper I printed out from the Cyberstitchers site.

The moon face is actually a sun face I took from Here Be Wyverns by Nancy Spies. The current debate around my house is whether to make the moon actually round or leave his face floating out there. Right now I'm thinking about leaving him as is because I'm having issues charting a circle, it's wonky as all get out and I'm pretty sure when the stitchin's done I'll be dyeing my fabric so stitching the moon or outlining the moon is a decision I can make later.

My No Name Sampler

32ct antique white(until I dye it)

DMC 310

2x2
I freehanded the waves and basically just started stitching and frogging until I got a shape I liked. I did mention this whole process is organic right?

My witch silhouette was a doodle, then I tried to chart the outline and then stitch her from that. She's not perfect but just attempting this got me out of my comfort zone which is a good thing, I think.

Good or bad the verse is 100% mine. I'm struggling with my second verse and the scene so I've set it aside to work on Primitive Needle's Tis Halloween and Scarlet Letter's Emma Lerch.

All I'll say about Market is OMG, I have to have all of the new Primitive Needle designs, I love Plum Street Sampler's Sea Hag and the Prairie Moon Halloween sampler.

Don't forget to check out Missy Ann's blog for the 31 Days of Halloween giveaway extravaganza!

My Wednesday was Wicked

Wednesday from here on out, at least until I get bored with the idea, will be known as Wicked Wednesday. That means I can stitch on Halloween/Autumn/tombstone designs or Adam & Eve designs because I was raised Southern Baptist and well that serpent is the epitomy of wicked according to some powers that be. Work with me here because this gives me an option of switching from Autumn themed stitching to A&E and gives me an out when I'm tired of orange and falling leaves, not that I can ever see that happening but one never knows which way the cross stitch wind might be blowing.

Wednesday night after working on La D Da's In the Garden and Notforgotten Farm's Halloween Queen I had the strangest dream. You see the snake? You see my Pumpkinheaded Queen? Well in my dream they were chasing me. The dogs woke me up at 2 a.m. which is why I don't know if they ever caught me but let me tell you I woke up sweating and exhausted. See the snake below? He was chasing me in his coiled around Eve shape. Eve was no where to be found so he was kind of bouncing like a Slinky or sproingy springy kind of thing. Yes, it was as weird as it sounds. And no I did not drop any acid before bedtime. If I had I suspect his coloring might have been a bit more vivid.

The Halloween Queen a.k.a. Pumpkinheaded Queen was chasing me and trying to hit me with the branch she is holding that I haven't stitched yet. I was kind of freakin' when I woke up because it was so real. I'm not sure why these two decided to work together to torment my subconscious but they made a great team!

Here's a close up of my Halloween Queen. I love this design so much. The designer is Lori Brechlin of Notforgotten Farm.

It was a little breezy today so I pulled out some books to help hold down the Queen during her photo shoot because I wasn't in the mood to whacked with a stick or for her to blow off the table and get dirty. I have enough dog and cat hair issues to add outside dirt to the equation.

Here's my progress on La D Da's In the Garden. I'm loving this piece too. I have trouble every day deciding which of these projects to work on. So far I've been splitting my stitching time between them and it seems to be working well for the time being.

This being October 1st and all, don't forget to stop by Missy Ann's blog for the 31 Days of Halloween extravaganza.