Moire finis

Moire by Pelin Tezer

32 count Silkweavers Castle View

Hand Dyed Fibers Magpie Tears series

I finished up Moire yesterday. It was a freebie from Pelin Tezer and is available on her website. For whatever reason, I don't do a ton of freebies but I sure liked this one when I saw it a couple of months ago.

I'm not sure what I'm going to start next - I'm in a bit of a slump if truth be told. I want to do some work on Quaker Turtles and get little more outline done for my Book of Ink Circles. Oh and I can do part four of the Papilion Mystery. Everything thing else I want to start I need fabric for. And they are all biggies so I'd need a fat 1/4's or larger. And I really don't want to spend the money right now on linen. Tomorrow I have off work so maybe I'll look through my charts and see what I can do. I have a lot of linen but it's all fat 1/8's or not the pretty variegated stuff I like to work with.

snow!

We have a chance of snow in our forecast for today and tomorrow. Yikes! I'm done with snow. Why isn't mother nature?

You can see I have a new start - it's a freebie from Pelin Tezer called Moire. I'm doing it in HDF called Magpie Tears - all six of them. :-) It's a small piece less than 5" b 5" complete. I only have two colors to go after the one I'm working on now.

And here is my progress on Book of Ink Circles - part two. I'm going to continue to work on the outline of part one as time permits. But I'm not worried about getting to far ahead and the last time I tried to get far ahead I made a counting error and had to frog out what felt like hundreds of stitches.

This is a short work week for me - I took off Thursday, Friday and Monday. On Friday Clancy and I have an agility trial. I can't wait. I love agility trials. :-)

I've been working really hard at fixing everything the cement contractors messed up when they put in the new patio. I'm almost finished with the brick walkway in front of the patio. What back breaking work that is. Of every do-it-myself project I have ever taken on, doing brickwork is the worst. And this is the second time I've had to do this in two years. :-( Next up is fixing the lawn. Hopefully I will finish the walkway on Thursday.

Celtic Birds II Finis

Celtic Birds II by the Sunflower Seed

HDF Paua Abalone

40 count Natural Brown Linen

I finished up Celtic Birds last night. It feels good to put this one to bed! I still think Paua Abalone was not the best choice of varriagated silk to use but overall it looks ok. And it looks nice next to Celtic Birds I done with HDF Indigo Ocean.

The weather is turning here, getting back to more seasonabilly temps which for this time of year are in the 50's. I sure have enjoyed a week of 60's! It's supposed to rain for most of the weekend so I most likely won't get much work done outside. But that's ok, I need a break and I have two baby quilts to piece this weekend.

The pugs and I need to do some serious training over the weekend also. Next Friday starts the first of four agility weekends in a row. I'm hoping for his Open titles. :-) I had to laugh when I looked over at the couch and saw this:

I'm working from home today and this is how my pugs spend their day. Quite the contrast with my friend Jesse. Jesse has four pugs and they are/have all been involved in agility. In fact her two current agility pugs, Kittie and Abby are two of the top scoring pugs in the country. Anyway, Jesse posted on her blog today about her dog walking job - with photos of how her pugs spent the day - running, jumping, playing in the mud! It couldn't be any different on how my pugs spend the day. :-)

Have a good one!

something to show finally

I received my new skein of Paua Abalone so I'm moving ahead with Celtic Birds II. Home stretch! I'll be glad to have this piece complete, it's been lingering forever it seems.
Here is my progress on Book of Ink Circles. I'm almost fnished with part 2 but as you can see I have a lot to put back in for part 1. And I haven;t even started frogging out the knot to the top right of the picture. That is also one stitch off. :-( Bummer.
I also finished up the needlebook portions of Quaker Turtles. The green linen I'm using is Parkland from Silkweavers. I've tried to get a nice photo of the color but just can't. I'm tried everything. I think I need a cloudy day to get it right.

wonky weekend

I hardy put a thread to linen over the weekend. It was so nice outside both days I worked outside rather than sit inside and stitch. I got a ton of my annual spring list done and things are really shaping up well.

On Friday night I did manage to finish my first part of Quaker Turtles - the top shell of the needlebook. These pieces are so tiny! Below is my start of the bottom shell of the needlebook. I'm going to stitch all eight pieces before I start to put them together and I'm stitching them in the order of the number of stitches in the piece - I'm doing the high count items first. Maybe then I'll feel like I'm breezing through them.

Yesterday evening I sat down to work on part 2 of my Book of Ink Circles. I was almost done with the first color when I discovered that I over counted by one and I have a ton of frogging to do. I was not in the mood to do it then so I put my stitching aside for the weekend. I never even looked at my Papillion Creations Mystery. Maybe this week in the evenings after I frog out BoINK.

did a little shopping

I forgot to take a final progress photo of Celtic Birds II before I left for work this morning. Last night I used up the last of my available Paua Abalone silk and managed to finish the border and most of the head of the second bird. I have just to body to go and I'll get to that next weekend hopefully.

I did spend some time yesterday checking out the On-line Needlework Show. A couple things caught my eye. But mostly I liked the same designs I've always liked.

This is my favorite piece of the show that was new to me - its a Dutch designer - Marion Freyzer, and it's called Randenlap Celtic. Randenlap means band sampler in Dutch according the their website.

I've also been purchasing a lot of HDF lately. Vikki has started a spool program where you can request the colors of the silk and if there are five takers of spools, she will dye them special for your. This was one of the offerings this week. I was hoping it would be a bit greener but I think it will stitch up very pretty. Because.....

I bought this chart to stitch it on - Quaker Medallions by Rosewood Manor - it was a release several months ago and it's been in my mind to buy it for a while now. I'm picturing the above silk on a really dark tan. I think that would make the colors pop.

I also found a new designer (for me anyway) Stone and Thread - I puchased a couple of charts, As The Crow Flies and Garden Flowers - I think they are very cute (and quick).

No major plans for the weekend expect work on the backyard. We had a new concrete patio put in this week to replace the wood deck that was destroyed in February when the deck roof collapsed. They made such a mess of the garden in front of it and they totally ruined the brick walkway I had as an entrance to the lawn. I have to redo the entire brick walkway and it's a job and a half for one person and I need to start it this weekend. I'm away on agility events every weekend in May so it's not or never. I won't be able to move by Sunday evening. :-)

Have a great weekend!

moving on for now

Well I'm almost out of silk. :-( I have put an order in for more and I should receive it next week sometime. I'll do my best to start right back when it shows up.

Part four of the Papillion Creations mystery I'm working on is now available. So my weekend will be about the two mysteries - Ink Circles and PC. The PC part is very small - just a few hours or work I'm thinking and the IC is not much more, perhaps five hours or so. I'm hoping to finish both plus get more outline finished from IC part one.

finally a bird

As I'm almost half way with this project, I'm going to continue to move ahead. I might even order the extra skein of Paua Abalone that I need to finish it. ;-)

pugs in the sun

It felt like I stitched all weekend but when I look at my progress I don't see a whole lot. I wonder why that its like that sometimes? Above is my progress on Part one of the Celtic Mystery by Ink Circles. The second part is supposed to come out tomorrow. I was hoping to have a little more done before today but I didn't even start until Thursday evening.

On Friday I took a vacation day at work and spent the day at the Rosemont Quilt Show. The vendors are incredible there. I was hoping to get a little of my quilting mojo back and I did purchase a couple of kits. One kit is a baby quilt for one of my nieces or nephew. I need two this year! I already have a top completed and but I need to make one more. And I need to get moving as the first of the two baby showers is in five weeks. It's going to be tough to find a machine quilter at this point. Anyway, I was hoping to find some stitching stuff but all I found was a ton of rug hooking things and needlepunch. There was a lot more stitching stuff two years ago. I missed last year's show. I also fell in love with several wool kits for wall hangings and table runners but I didn't buy any because I have a couple that I purchased two years ago that I never even started. So I figured why buy more?




I'm still plugging along with Celtic Birds II even though I'm still not sure about the color. At this point, I figure I might as well finish the piece as I'm almost half way done and it should look nice with it's companion piece, Celtic Birds I. Slow progress though as I'm only stitching on it while on the train.


Saturday was cold and rainy and it even snowed a bit though none of it lasted on the ground. But Sunday was bright and sunny if cold (never got out of the 30's). Since I could not finish painting what I started last weekend because of the temps I figured I could at least get everything put together. Below are the results and I think the pugs are happy. :-)


Here starting on the left are Clancy, Aoife and Molly posing on the A-frame. It's no where near full height because Aoife is just starting agility - the apex is set at about waist high I think and regulation height is over 5 1/2 feet. Molly who hasn't been near a piece of equipment in months and months was all over it the second I put it up. They chased each other up and over it for hours. It was quite fun to watch.
Here is again from the left, Clancy, Molly and Aoife showing perfect form with a sit on the pause table.

And again demonstrating a down.

Here is the dog walk. It's set low for Aoife - here it is about two feet tall and it needs to be around 4 feet. I have a really nice set of aluminum legs on order.
Here is the teeter. It's set at full height because I haven't started to train the puppy yet and she really isn't going near it. As soon as she starts, I'll have to lower it to almost to the ground and slowly raise it as she gains confidence. This is one of the hardest pieces of equipment for dogs to learn since it moves.

And lastly just a beauty shot of the girls. Molly standing and Aoife in a perfect down. :-) I can't keep that girl away from the camera. :-)

not loving it

Here is my progress with Celtic Birds II - I'm not loving the color silk I picked out - Paua Abalone by HDF. I think there might be too much variation of the colors. But I'm going to put in at least one bird before I decide on whether or not to axe this one. And I've come to the realization that I'll need another skein. I hate when that happens. And I should know better by now.

not much to show

I did not put a single stitch in linen over the weekend - the weather was so nice that I worked outside both days and got a lot of my spring clean up done as well as panting all my agility equipment for the pugs. A large part of the backyard looks like an agility trial. It's amazing how much space that stuff takes up.

I'm working on two projects Quaker Turtles, an over one piece and Celtic Birds II, a piece on 40 count. Here are the progress photos. Not much going on. :-) And I'm dying to start the Ink Circles Mystery. I have everything ready to go.

My Needle's Heart finis

My Needle's Heart by Little House Needleworks

32 count Silkweaver Cameo

Recommended Crescent Colours fiber

I finished up My Needle's Heart last night while watching season 3 of Battlestar Galatica (which in my opinion is the best SciFi show to come along in the last couple of decades).

I also had time to put a few stitches into Quaker Turtles but it's really leaving me cold. I think it's just the over one stitching, I really have to be in the mood for that and I'm just not feeling it right now. I also wish I would have changed out the green that was recommended. I would have much preferred something a little more, well exciting. :-) It's a pretty dark green but it doesn't really change much when doing over one.

I have to reorder a red for my Ink Circles mystery. I'm going with HDF from Vikki Clayton. I picked out colors from my swatch binder that I have but my sample piece of Garnet doesn't show the complete color range of the skeins. It goes from a red to a dark purple red which isn't right for the other silk I picked out for the piece. I'm going to order Old Maid of the Heart - that should work out ok. I'm also going to order a really pretty blue (Blueberry Soup) for my AlphaBlu piece that I want to start. I'm planning on doing mine on 32 count so I need to order a special cut from Silkweavers. It's too big for the fat quarters that I currently own. Bummer.

No major plans for the weekend - my pug meetup is tomorrow and the weather forecast is almost 60 degrees! But it's been raining for the past day so the park will be sloppy with mud. That means the pugs are getting a bath when they get home. Oh well, they are due for one in any case. Then I'll work on painting all the agility equipment I have built over the past two months. I have everything ready to go except my A-frame which is still in my brother's basement. I sure hope he brings it over on Sunday so I can paint it also. I'd just call him tonight but I don't want to be a bigger pain then I already have been. :-) I'm just happy he helped me out.

Have a great weekend! Happy stitching!

almost

I'm almost finished with My Needle's Heart. I'm hoping to put the last stitches in tonight. I'm really not sure at this point what I'm going to start next. What's calling me the loudest is Quaker Turtles and a small piece called Celtic Birds II from Sunflower Seed. But that piece is on 40 count and Quaker Turtles is over one so neither piece is really suited for the train. Maybe I'll have to work on the Ink Circles Mystery for a week or so. But really who knows what I'll feel like in the morning. :-)

Papillion Creations Mystery Part 3 finis

I finished up part 3 of the Papillion Creations Mystery on Sunday. It was fast like the other two parts. It's pretty and I'm glad I started it.

Here is my progress on My Needle's Work. I should be finished by the end of the week if I can stay awake on the train. ;-)

Clancy ended the agility trial over the weekend with just the one First Place Novice Standard finish and his new Novice Standard title. On Sunday his open jumpers run as incredible as Saturday's but I pulled him off a jump causing him to back jump it (sorry Clancy) and his first open standard run was forgettable. He didn't even do his weaves which he had been doing perfect his other three runs. But I'm still very proud of him. Two titles in just six trials. Tonight is class and I'm bringing cookies with his name on them to celebrate.

My agility coach, Anne Riba was at the AKC Nationals Trial in Oklahoma City over the weekend. She came in second place in the 20" category with her Belgian Malinois, Temi. Congratulations Anne!

wow, Wow, WOW!

Yesterday the pugs and I didn't drag our sorry butts into the house into after 7:00pm. That's late for an agility trial and despite the good day Clancy and I had, we were all beat (all three pugs come to the trials). There was this huge brown envelope in my mail stack - it weighted a ton. I thought to myself, what in the world have I ordered now? And then I noticed it was Royal Mail. Now I don't know about you, but I get a huge kick out of receiving Royal Mail. :-) I looked at the return address and didn't know the sender and then it came to me - it's from my Biscornu HoE partner, Stephanie from the UK!

I opened it up and it was beautifully packaged and inside the smaller package was a beautiful biscornu. Stephanie stitched Tudor by Cross Stitch Direct on Periwinkle Mist linen from Silkweavers using fiber from Carrie's Creation called Clouds in the Sky. She finished it with two wonderful silver buttons and put a lovely bead and crystal detail on four of the corners. On the back, she put our initials and the date. Stephenie, your work is beautiful! But wait that's not all! She also totally spoiled me with the gift of a chart that was been on my wish list forever, from The Drawn Thread, An Open Heart. Also she gave me a delightful citrus smelling (my favorite scent by the way) bubble bar from Lush, a chocolate bar, some pretty gold pins, a piece of linen from Kiwi Illusions, a spool of ribbon and not to be left out, she sent the pugs a bag of treats!

I'm truly overwhelmed by such generosity. Thank you so much Stephanie!

As for Clancy and yesterday's trial, he is now Clancy O'Share, NA NAJ. We got his last leg for our Novice Standard Agility title! I won't mention how ugly a finish is was thou. ;-) But his first run of the day, his Open Jumpers is noteworthy. He was in fine form, perfect except when I did a bone head move and pulled him a bit before a triple jump. He lost his momentum and the result was a dropped bar. So his excellent performance was an NQ. And it was my fault, I hate it when I mess up and he is great.

So today we are all open - I'll report tomorrow on today's showing.

cute ladies

I'm making good progress on My Needle's Work. I'll start on the skirt on the way home from work tonight.

I was reading Nicole's blog yesterday, and she is working on LHN's The Sampler Lady and mentioned how she thought it would be a great companion piece to My Needle's Work. And it is! Thanks Nicole for pointing that out. I'm going to pick up that chart as soon as I can. And then I'll have two ladies. :-) Won't they be cute together?

Clancy and I have an agility trial this weekend in St. Charles. We have one Q to go and we have our Novice Standard Agility title. So that is our goal, one Q. Oh, and nice weave poles in Open Jumpers. :-) As for stitching dispite the fact that I always bring some along to trials, I never really put in more than a couple of stitches. But I'll drag my lady along just in case. At night I'm hoping to finish part 3 of my Papillion Mystery. I only have a couple of things left and I'm finished.

Have a great weekend!

another new start

Since I have such a hard time stitching over one on the train, I started My Needle's Work by LHN just for my train rides. This one will be pretty quick to stitch I'm thinking. In the evening I'll continue to work on Quaker Turtles where I can see the tiny stitches. I ordered all my silk for the Ink Circles Mystery. Now do I start it on the fat 1/4 of a light tan that I have on hand or do I order a special cut of Purely Primitive? I'm thinking I'll go with what I have on hand. I don't like to spend a lot of money of freebies. :-)

Gem Show #1 finis

Gem Show #1 by Courtney Collection

Vikki Clayton Premium Silk

32 count Silkweaver Shadowbrook

I finished up Gem Show #1 from the Courtney Collection yesterday. It was a quick stitch and I think it would look great as a pillow. I would like to do another in a contrasting color but I have too many other things to get to right now to stitch it again right away.

Carol S received my HoE Biscornu on Friday and she says she likes it. :-) Here it is. I really enjoyed making this one for her. It's only my second and I did everything according to the instructions and it's huge! Or at least bigger than I thought it would be. :-)

Peachy Biscornu by Heirloom Embroideries

28 count Antique White Linen

DMC floss and DMC Pearl Cotton

Here is a snap that Carol took of the whole thing. I made her an Easter basket. :-)

I had the hardest time picking out something to start on today. I'm in the middle of working on part 3 of the Papillon Creations Mystery but I didn't want to work on that while on the train as it's in Q-snaps for that's harder to work with on the train. I pulled out Quaker Turtles from With my Needle and My Needle's Work by LHN and had the hardest time deciding. I ended up going with Quaker Turtles which is over one. It sure is hard to work over one on the darkish train. I might change my mind for the rest of the week and work on QT at home and My Needle's Work on my commute. But in any case, I feel asleep after only 30 minutes of stitching so I didn't take a photo. :-)

Heart of America Finis

Heart of America by Little House Needleworks

Recommended fibers and buttons

32 count French Vanilla Swirl by Silkweaver

I finished up Heart of America this morning. It's so cute! I made one change to the Old Glory block, it had the year of the start on it but since my year of start was the same as my completion year on the acorn block, I changed it.

I'll spend my weekend working on a couple of other WIPs, namely Gem Show and part 3 of the Papillon mystery. We are expecting up to 9 inches of snow today and tonight. It's been snowing steady since morning . It's pretty but I'm so sick and tired of snow. And all the old snow had almost melted away. The poor robins!

I'm going to be also stitching the Ink Circles mystery as soon as I receive my silk and linen. I picked out Hand Dyed Fibers from Vikki Clayton. I'm thinking of using Purely Primitive from Silkweaver but I have to buy a big cut of steal it from something else I have kitted up. Right now I'm thinking of stealing it. :-) Here is a picture of the silk on French Vanilla Swirl but I think it will look better on the slightly more grey Purely Primitive. I think it looks nice, a bit more muted that what I thought I first wanted but it all goes nicely together.

Have a great weekend

quick update

Here is my progress on Heart of America. I'm really moving right along with this piece. I was hoping to have it finished by the weekend but I'm not sure if I will or not. I'm finding myself distracted by other things. :-)

lazy weekend

As you can see, not much progress was made on Heart of America. :-) Too many other things kept distracting me from stitching this. Including other stitching! :-) I'm almost done with the quilt block, just need to finish Freedom and do the back stitching around the quilt. Then it's onto the two boxes to the left. Those are the two biggest blocks and I wish now that I didn't leave them for last. Hopefully this week, I'll finish this piece.

On Saturday I received my Vikki Clayton HDF and I just had to see if they worked for Gem Show #1. I picked out a piece of Silkweavers 32 count linen called Shadowbrook. It's a dark grayish tan with touches of dark teally green on it. It's just beautiful and my photo doesn't even start to do it justice. I picked out a variegated silk that matched the linen and then I picked out silks from those color ranges. I love how it's turning out. I'm about half way finished with it and it will be a test of will to see if I finish this piece before Heart of America. I LOVE pieces that consist of nothing but motifs. I also finished stitching my exchange piece for the Hooked on Exchanging group but of course I can't show that. My goal is to get it in the mail before the weekend.
I really spent most of the weekend working on the yard and getting my agility equipment ready to go. On Sunday one of my brothers came over and we started work on building an A-frame. It's all put together and the only thing left is adding the slats that are on each side and of course painting it. I actually have a lot of painting to do, I haven't even started yet and in addition to the A-frame, I have to paint the dog walk, the teeter and the table. But I've had to wait for the weather to get a little nicer so I can paint everything outside. I have a ton of work left and I hope to have everything finished and set up by April 5th. I was hoping that I would have everything done before my next agility trial on the 29th and 30th but my brother has to work the next two Saturdays and I'll only have his help on next Sunday. I'll be honest, I'm crossing my fingers that he will surprise me and put to slats on one night this week and bring it over to my house. :-) I'd love to be able to work with the puppy on the contact equipment. Aoife wasn't too fond of the A-frame in our first class and this could help us out a lot. Clancy of course is a rock star ;-) but he needs help in making his contacts 100%. And that is all practice, practice, practice. It's a good thing he likes it so much. :-)

Have a great week!