Black Cat Sampler Finis

Black Cat Sampler by Brenda Gervais - With My Needle and Thread

28 count linen hand-dyed by myself

various over-dyed floss

I finished up Black Cat Sampler yesterday and even put it into pillow form! This is the only fall/Halloween piece I'm going to get done this year. :-( I got so caught up in my Quaker piece that I didn't even think to do anything else for most of October.

I have been making some progress on Beyond My Heart - I'm over half way pattern wise but I have the heavier stitching left to go. I'll most likely be done with this sometime next week.

Happy Halloween from the pugs

Yes, I do dress up my pugs for Halloween. :-) Yesterday we attended a Halloween party at the training center where we train for agility. A good time was had by all. And we won second prize for best group - I also had on a poodle skirt. The hours I spent on the costumes where well worth it I think. They looked so cute - Molly's photo even made the local newspaper today. :-)

Molly in her pink poodle skirt
Clancy in his letter jacket from PUG U.
And of course little Aoife in her blue poodle skirt.



I barely put a stitch in all weekend so I have nothing to show today. Maybe tomorrow or Wednesday I'll have a stitching update. I did start a small Halloween design because it felt right to be working on pumpkins. There is a small chance I'll be able to complete it by Friday but it's slow going since it's on black and I hate working on black. :-)

Friday is my birthday and no major plans for the day/weekend. Like the past few years, I'm taking the day off work so I can play. And a hot date with the SO at one of my favorite restaurants that evening. Nummy. :-) The pugs have another costume party to attend with our meetup group friends. That should also be fun. I love seeing pugs dressed up.

a small finis and a new start

Thanks so much for all your kind words regarding my Quaker Casket. I find myself looking at it all the time. :-) And I can't wait to start filling it with little Quaker treasures.

Part 11 of the Book of Ink Circles was released on Tuesday and I finished it up yesterday. Only six more sections to go! Although I do wish I could have them all now. I'd love to have this piece finished. As much as I love mysteries, I hate when they drag on and on. The last section of this one won't be released until February 24th - a full four months from now.

On Sunday I started the newest Loose Feather from Blackbird Designs, Beyond My Heart. I still have to find time for the one before this and I'm still trying to get to the last release from the previous year. I told myself if I don't stay current with these, I will stop the auto ship that I'm signed up for. So far I've been pretty good with keeping up with these and for the most part, they have all been must stitches for me.

When this is finished sometime next week, I'll start back on my St. Reatham and the goal will be to finish at least one page but I'd really like to finish two pages. This is where I left off.

Quaker Casket finis

Quaker Casket by Sampler Cove

32 count Lakeside Linen Maple Syrup

Magpie Twitters silk floss by Vikki Clayton Hand Dyed Fibers

one over two

It took many hours yesterday to install the stitched pieces into the casket. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I purchased museum glass for all five panels. It cost $85.00 for a 24x30 inch piece. But the results are so worth it, there is no glare at all and when looking at the panels, it's hard to tell there is glass there at all. I posted photos of the two panels that I changed from the pattern. I added my initials to one of the end pieces in one over one and I swapped out the family initials and changed it to the alphabet.

I'm so pleased with this piece, it's a true heirloom. A stitching friend told me about another casket pattern and she is going to scan a photo of it so I can see it. If I like it, I'll start to search for the magazine it was published in. I also found another pattern - it's a Spanish style band sampler and I'm looking for that one also. I would love to be able to swap out the panels every couple of years or so. But really any band sampler could be adapted with just a little work. I have many band patterns so I'll be set for many years to come. :-)

The rest of the weekend will be about sewing the pugs Halloween costumes. We are going to a party next Sunday. This year I'm even going to dress up so I had better get going! I have a ton of sewing to do today.

Quaker Casket finis and an exchange piece

I finished up the stitching for my Quaker Casket last night. I also received the actual casket itself. It's amazing. I'm planning on putting it all together over the next few days and I'll post photos as soon as it's complete.

Today I received my Prairie Schooler exchange piece from the Hooked on Exchanging group. My partner was Mylene from The Netherlands. I love it! She stitched a mattress style pincushion for me. It's so cute.
Mylene also sent along the above goodies! Thanks again, I can wait to play with everything.

almost :-)

Just three motifs to go. :-)

it's in the mail

My casket is in the mail and the expected delivery date is this Friday. I'm almost finished with the stitching on the current page - just one tiny motif and a biggish sized one left. I'll be done with those by tonight if I stitch before leaving for agility class with Clancy. Then it's onto the last page which has two small motifs and three larger ones and a couple of numbers. There is a small chance I'll be finished before I get the mail after work on Friday. :-) If not I'll be finished with the stitching by Saturday for sure and that means sometime on Sunday, I'll have a finished Quaker Casket sitting on my coffee table full of my stitching treasures. :-) I can't wait.

Then of course I need to pick out what's next! I'm really thinking of stitching my St. Reatham for a couple of weeks. The plan had been to finish it this year and I still have three full pages (out of eight) of chart to go. I dated it this year and I don't want to have to pull out those stitches. I haven't worked on it a bit since June - I can't believe how long it's been. Much, much too long. If nothing else, I could always try to work on it every Thursday. That had been the plan when I started it last year (on April 26) but I only kept that up for a couple of weeks.

The last page

I'm over a third of the way complete on the top of my Quaker Casket. As I said last week, it's a very fast moving piece. I did have hopes of finishing it by today (if I stitched like crazy over the weekend), but I had an agility trial with Clancy and didn't stitch much at all. I also need to find a place to put my initials. The front piece as charted had room for it but I changed mine a ton so there was not room for initials after I was finished. Maybe on the end pieces there will be space. I'll have to take a look and check it out.

As mentioned above, Clancy and I had an agility trial over the weekend. We bombed big time. On Saturday he was so hyped up he had no control and had several off courses and on Sunday I was just off, sending him to the wrong things and generally just flat. Currently we nothing on our calender but there are a couple of three and four day trials around the corner that I'm looking at.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your kind comments! :-)

a couple of small finis

I finished up part 10 of the Book of Ink Circles by Ink Circles. Only seven parts to go! I'm hoping for a couple more animals like the bird before it's over. I'm very pleased with how this piece is shaping up.

I also finished up Part 9 of the Papillion Creations Mystery, How Does Your Garden Grow? I'm really late with this one as I except Part 10 to be out any time now. I'll start back with the Quaker Casket today with the final section - the top. :-)

And I finished up my front piece to the Quaker Casket. Only the top to go! :-)

sad weekend

My beloved Cubs didn't make the cut. Again. A gloomy pall hangs over the city. Most of us die hard fans thought this would be the year because they have been playing so well. They were only out of first place for a couple of days the entire season. But a different team showed up for the playoffs. Next year for sure. :-)

I've continued my work on Quaker Casket but I didn't get as much done as I was hoping. The plan was to be working on the largest section by now but I just didn't feel like stitching much. If you are familiar with the design of this piece, you can see I changed the above front panel. It was designed to be a memorial sort of piece with family initials/dates and such. But I don't have much family of my own (well actually none except for my three pugs :-)) so I changed it to be the alphabet. I like how it turned out very much. I only have one more motif and a couple more letters and I'm ready to start the top piece. And just in the nick of time! I received an email yesterday saying my casket was almost ready to ship. I can't wait to see it.

progress

I haven't been making a ton of progress with Quaker Casket because I haven't been stitching much. But what I have completed I love. I'm very happy with the color now - at first I was worried it would be too light. Now I think it's just right. :-) My goal is of course to have all the stitching completed by the time my casket comes. I'm figuring that will be sometime in early November. I should make it with plenty of time to spare.