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.

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.

A Finish and Some Works in Progress

A new blog post, shocking, huh? Always the unexpected around here. The Monkey Sampler

Midsummer Night Designs

28ct Sandcastle Lugana

DMC

According to my records I finished Midsummer Night's Monkey Sampler on July 21st.

This has been my take along project for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time. It was pretty much the only project I worked on while I was at my momma's since it's stitched on 28ct and I could see the holes in the fabric even in the poor lighting. That green yard just about did me in but I perservered and now it's finished! It always feels so good to put those last stitches in a project. Then again, it takes me forever to finish a project so a lot of life happens while all that stitching is being done. This project has been to Tennessee twice, once when I went home for my dad's memorial service and the second time most recently when I went to stay a week with my mother when she was released from the rehab center. She has COPD and had to learn how to breathe again, and also to learn how to live with her new best friend, her oxygen tank. This particular project has also seen a lot of time at Panera while I wait on kids to do whatever it is kids find to do at the mall for hours on end.

Liberty Sampler

Hester's Needle

32ct Natural (or maybe Raw) linen

DMC

My new take along project can be seen above, Hester's Needle's Liberty Sampler. I really thought I was farther along on this than I am. Let's keep our fingers crossed that there's a lot more quality Panera time in my future.

When I started this piece a few years ago I wasn't quite ready for the satin stitched band so I just did good old cross stitches. I debated frogging this band and stitching it as charted and then my sanity surfaced and I decided I liked the little Xs just fine thank you very much.



Rachael Holmes
Heartstring Samplery
32ct dyed by me linen(more aged actually)
A Potpourri of fiber from the stash

Heartstring Samplery's Rachael Holmes is seeing a lot of stitching time at the moment. This is a fun sampler and I got over myself and just pulled threads from the stash to see what would work with Beth's color palette. It's kind of liberating to pull out the handy dandy DMC color card, a fiber conversion lists and dig through the stash and find what works.

Black'd Skie
The Primitive Needle
40ct Vintage Pear
Pure Palette Silks

This is my progress on Black'd Skie. It's been a bit slow for me but it's due more to having the wrong magnification of readers, I was using 2.00 and that's just way too strong. I had misplaced my 1.50 and those 2.00's gave me a headache every single time I tried to stitch. So I found my 1.50 and now I'm back to happy headache free stitching.

I love the Pure Palette Silks. I am not an expert on silks, I rarely use them, but I really love stitching with these.

Halloween Queen
Notforgotten Farm
28 or 32ct fabric from the stash(it was unlabeled)

DMC


A few weeks ago I started a project that's been on my to do list for a year or two. Notforgotten Farm's Halloween Queen. I found a piece of linen in the stash and gave in to the urge and made a good start on the Halloween Queen.

In the Garden
La D Da
36 or 40ct Lambswool(that's a guess)
DMC


And another project seeing a lot of needle time, La D Da's In the Garden. This is another project I've had the chart for for ages and decided to see if I had a piece of fabric that would work and dug around in the old fabric drawer until I came upon this piece that I'm pretty sure is 40ct lambswool but it's possible it's 36ct. I did a floss toss and decided this could work. I had thought about using GAST but didn't have all five colors so decided to go with DMC.

Last week I made my first trip to Needle Delights, my LNS, in ages. It felt like coming home. I dropped off three pieces for framing, my Cape Cod Girls(changed to Gulf Coast Girls), Salem Remembered and my 13th Colony Bay. I ended up bringing my 13th Colony Bay home with me for a bath. I had no idea it was so dirty until Tonia put it under the light on the framing table. OMG! I wanted to throw up it was so dirty. I was extra, extra glad I stitched 13th Colony Bay with DMC because washing it was no problem and I was mortified at how dirty it was. I thought I had been careful, kept it tucked away in a baggie in a drawer but I did stitch on it forever and I stitch outside when it's nice. I enjoy stitching outside but this piece was definitely a wake up call that only DMC projects will be worked on while sitting on the porch or in the backyard from now on.

That's all the news from here at the moment. Hope everyone is managing to stay cool this summer because the air down here along the Gulf is a force to be reckoned with.