First up Wrinkledy McWrinklerson a.k.a. Sarah Elizabeth Brooke:
Sarah Elizabeth BrookeThe Scarlett House
36ct light examplar linen
DMC, Crescent Colours
You can find out more about Sarah Elizabeth at: The Scarlett House
Tanya has some exciting things in the works. So check her blog out often!
If you know me you know that I obsess over finding samplers with family names and Sarah fit my criteria, Sarah Elizabeth was my sainted great grandmother's name and Brooke, without the "e" and add an "s" for Brooks is my other great grandmother's maiden name so I thought it was pretty cool that both great grandmothers were represented in the name of this sampler. I also love the red house and the verse and it's just an all around perfect sampler.
I thought I would be showing you a finished SEB today but that so did not happen as you can see. I think the only thing I accomplished was completing some of the grass. I'm a sad panda. But there's always February and of course my March update so stay tuned!
Now Froggy McFroggerson a.k.a. Prairie Schooler's February:
February Prairie Schooler
32ct lambswool
DMC
I had to frog the roof of this house not once but twice because I stitched the same exact mistake twice. I don't know what was going on with me at the time but focus and that counting thing were definitely issues. All is frogged and will be restitched in the next couple of days. I hope to finish this before the end of the month, but we'll just have to see about that.
Which brings us to Berthe DuPont. Berthe is pretty darn beautiful in my very humble opinion. She is a free chart, there are 23 parts and she can be found here:
Which brings us to Berthe DuPont. Berthe is pretty darn beautiful in my very humble opinion. She is a free chart, there are 23 parts and she can be found here:
I believe the chart is available to purchase from her boutique if you don't want to search the site looking for all the parts. I converted the DMC to Vikki Clayton Silks. I love her silks.
Berthe DuPont
Tresors
Now to my very slow WIP, it's a triptyche from Heaven and Earth Designs the part that you see is Dark Waters with the top most part being a teeny tiny bit of the center panel(just water and sky). The design can be viewed here:
and if you really have to see the center panel just do a search for Dark Waters and the center panel will pop up, it's just more water and sky. I have loved this since I first saw the artwork. It's going to be pretty freakin' awesome when I finish it when I'm, oh, 89.
Bright Skies, Dark Waters22ct antique white hardanger
DMC, 2x1, full cross
And I have another Heaven and Earth Design started, this is Red Silk Mermaid. I had been planning on doing my bedroom over with a red and white color palette, I started this back in 2007. My bedroom is still not red and white, it's still modern American clutter covered in cat and dog hair. But one day it will be a room de romance. Maybe.
You can see the completed piece here:
When I started this piece my fellow HAED stitchers were just starting to embrace the tent stitch for these insanely large projects in that hopes that they might actually move from slow works in progress to finished projects. So I thought Red here would be a good test stitch for me to see how I feel about tenting. At first, way back when, I didn't really care for the tenting. It felt wrong. Now, after picking this piece back up and working on her here and there for the last week or so, I kind of like working over 1 on the 28ct fabric. I know, it's insane, right? I keep having dreams where my beloved little X comes and flogs me with floss because it feels I have betrayed it. But I have to say I never thought I'd ever be a person that looked forward to working over 1 on 28ct. And I do. I'm loving this process, I'm getting more and more comfortable with it as each stitching session passes. I will still do some of my HAED in full crosses but I think the ones without so much detail will definitely be tented.
I get asked all the time why do you want to stitch HAED, why not just buy the art, and really, what drew me to cross stitch all those many years ago was the fact that my dad could draw anything and my poor hangman didn't even make it to the noose my drawing is so bad. I saw cross stitch as a way to create art on fabric. Sure it's someone else's art that I'm recreating but I still love that process.
And at the same time I discovered cross stitch as art, I also was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and in The Long Winter she writes about Laura cross stitching. Laura Ingalls Wilder cross stitched! How very cool that information was for this 11 year old. So stitching art is something I'm not going to give up and I do believe that a HAED and reproduction sampler can happily reside in the same house. Like my hero Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!" and I plan to!
Red Silk MermaidHeaven and Earth Designs
28ct tea dyed Monaco
DMC, 2x1, tent
For more information about the WIPocalypse check it out here:
This next project is sad yet joyful. Last year I lost a sweet stitching friend named Chelsea. Chelsea was one of the most amazing people I have ever met. She had waited a long time for a heart and double lung transplant and eventually it was her turn. She thrived, she married her long time love, she taught kids how to swim, she crammed as much life into every single day of her life that she could. In July, due to complications, she died. It was unexpected as she had been doing so well and every single day I miss my sweet friend. When I get down, when I start feeling sorry for myself I ask myself what would Chelsea do and you know what? Chelsea would grab life by the horns and make it good! So I am trying very hard to live by that. Life is short, cram as much life into every single day that you can.
Some friends got together to make Chelsea's mom a memorial quilt. The artwork is from Hannah Disney and is titled Chelsea's Gift.
Here's a link to the art on HAED website:
I'm pretty sure my square is the very bottom right corner. This is my project so far and it's not as much as I would like but I'm getting more comfortable with tenting and feel less like I'm going to make a mess of my square.
Chelsea's GiftHeaven and Earth Designs
25ct lugana
DMC, 2x1, tent
Me and the spousal unit at the beach a month or so ago.
A Kitten Darkly(Yep, I'm lame, named her Darkly from A Scanner Darkly)This was taken in back in the autumn as you can tell.
My attempt at bokeh. The lights are supposed to be heart shaped. I need to get a 50mm lens. It's on my list! Anyone loving Project Runway All Stars like me? I want Austin Scarlet to win. I've loved him since season 1 and thought he was robbed.
I don't enjoy 24 Hour Catwalk. I can take it or leave it.
Revenge(ABC Wednesday nights)! My favorite show. Downton Abbey(PBS Sunday Nights)! Also my favorite show!
Also enjoying Grimm(Fridays on NBC) and Once Upon a Time(Sundays on ABC).
And people, new episodes of The Walking Dead start this Sunday(on AMC) check it out on Netflix if you haven't watched it and then we discuss all the zombie craziness!
Please Game of Thrones start back soon! I think it returns in April. (HBO Sunday Nights).
I just started listening to The Final Empire: Mistborn Book 1. The book starts out, the evil overlord has won. I thought that sounded interesting and so far I'm enjoying the first hour of the 25 hours. I have several friends that love this series.
I'm reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley(hope I got the author's name correct). It's a nice cozy mystery and exactly what I needed after wrapping up Stephen King's 11-22-63. I loved that book. I will be honest, I do believe Mr. King got caught up in his world building. I think he loved late 50s early 60s and certain parts of the America that used to be. I felt like I was there, but I really, really wanted him to get to Oswald and take care of business, and there's this feeling of impending doom and I wanted it to get it over with already! I was pretty tense listening to this story. It dragged but that dragging was so very important. I didn't give up on my characters. Over all it sucked me in, maybe for ten hours too many but never the less, the ending, that final scene was worth every dragging moment of the story. Really and truly it was.
So that's my life and stitching update for the moment.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings!
