Wait, What? How’s 2023 Over?

Where did this year go? How have I not updated for 52 weeks? This year has been a complete blur. After the longest winter we’ve had since moving here 30 years ago – it was 69 on the First Day of Summer here, when it’s usually 90+ – to a summer of storms and straight-line winds with downed trees, to a mild fall with no hurricanes, and little rain, it’s been a bit unusual. The joro spider invasion was tamed a bit with the harsh winter – the only bonus of having it that cold that long. The garden was semi-productive, but I’m not sure we got as much as the tree rats did. To be honest, I don’t know how much I will bother with it next year; I don’t much enjoy the level of effort/product ratio. The herb garden is probably my best gardening effort, to the point it all came inside for the winter, so I can harvest fresh rosemary and thyme all winter long.

2023 was a rough year at the vet; after a major surgery and a couple of months, we lost our best kitty, Monkey Do. She was such a good little micro kitty, though she could be mean as a snake when she wanted to be – Salem did NOT like her anymore than he likes Opie. But she definitely became a snuggle cat somewhere along the line, after ignoring us for many years; we miss her walking on us and getting comfortable right on our femoral artery and heating us to boiling point. Rest well, Gravity Cat. And then, a few months later, we made the decision to take Auggie in for his last visit, too – the Cushing’s took its toll on him, to the point his legs were starting to give out on getting him up and down the steps. Those last several months were so hard with him, with the accidents, the destruction he did in his quest for food and water, driven by his disease; but now that he’s gone, the silence is deafening. As much as we miss Sis, Auggie is a thousand times more, I guess because he was just the center of attention every day for 16 years. We think about looking for another – and then we regain our senses.

As for the stitching, there was a lot, the Finishitis was still in full force the first half of the year. When I last updated, I was working on the 3rd piece from Long Dog’s Foursome Reel, which I finished in January – only 1 more smaller piece to go, and this set of designs are done and ready for framing; since I’ve used the same materials for all 4, I’d like to frame in the same molding, but the tiny over-1 miniature may make that hard – we’ll see if #4 ever gets done (since it’s not been started).

And after that was done, I had a quick impulse start-finish; on reddit, someone had posted a completed piece based on Harry Potter, of Snape and Harry and a textbook page on Occlumency. I had to have it – and several others. It’s from a Russian designer & site – was a little hesitant to create the necessary account, but I read reviews for Boosty, and by all accounts, it’s as legit as any other platform for artists flogging their wares, so I signed up, downloaded this and others, and worked on this every moment until it was done. The backstitching in this is extremely intense, but oh so worth it! That illuminated O and the brain diagram – yoiks!

I have 3 others kitted and just downloaded another newly released a few weeks ago; they are all DMC and I have them on plain 28ct antique white lugana – Dumbledore & Fawkes will likely be next. They are all almost the exact same size, so I should be able to frame the same, maybe just change mat colors if they get matted. Watch this space…

After that piece, I needed a break from black and backstitching, so, since Finishitis was still going, I broke out my beaded Growth Rings, and finished that, too. The last half went way faster than the first half did, I guess because I was tired of it languishing. Fun piece, I really enjoyed playing with my beads for this, and am looking for the next thing to convert, though I have a few ideas percolating for doing Tracy’s Garden Stars partially in beads – that biggest motif just kind of screams shiny emerald beads to me, always has since the day she released it.

Ink Circles Growth Rings, on 28ct white jobelan and DB0982V and DB0986M and miles of Nymo thread.

I decided it was time to work on 1 of 2 Chats that haven’t had a rotation since I determined to work through all of them before allowing myself to start another – Mushroom & Fern. I got all the points around the center done and started one of the 8 trees, but put it aside to work on the next piece, below, and just never came back to it like I had planned. What I did took 5 weeks, I think, so that’s a good rotation, I think – and I found my new favorite delica bead, 0027.

I was drawn to a new Barbara Ana release, Wildflowers. I took a break from Mushroom because I HAD to; the cat is not black, but dark navy blue. I have a few more of these Barbara Ana’s in my String Theory box, too – normally I don’t do whimsy, but I really like these…

On 32ct Vintage Country Mocha lugana, framed in a HL off-the-shelf.

When I decided I wasn’t going to go back to Mushroom & Fern, I chose to work on a piece I had inherited from my friend Liz – if between us we don’t have almost the entire Glendon Place catalog up to just a few years ago, I’d be surprised. She had Whooligan’s Hangout started, and when she passed away last year, this was in the things her family let our local group go through and claim as we would. So I finished Whooligan’s Hangout, and framed it, and had it hanging on my wall this fall. Thank you, Liz – know that you are missed!

Whooligan’s Hangout by Cheryl Granda of Glendon Place; on the called for (discontinued) Fabric Flair linen w/DMC.

That just barely scratched the Halloween itch that resulted, so it was time to break out some charts from the Way Back – my friend Lisa destashed a copy of The Primitive Needle’s Witches Hollow, so I got the needed WDW threads I didn’t already have (again, Thanks Liz for a good pile of WDW in surprise, Halloween colors), and started Witches Hollow, on 40ct Sandstone – slick freaking Wichelt linen, ugh – but with it being Wichelt, the threads are thin/the holes are big, so 40ct wasn’t too hard to work on (I’d need a 1/2 of 36ct to fit this, so went to 40, which fits length almost perfectly). I got through about 1/3 of it – the chart is hard to see, it’s printed very small, 410 stitches long and 200 wide, but only on 6 pages, and it didn’t copy well at all for my working copy, so I’m referring to the original and online photos a LOT, which kind of made it slow going. I tried scanning it at the highest resolution my scanner has – no help. So I got as far as I could before I needed to give it a rest – it will be one of those in-small-doses WIPs, I guess.

Witches Hollow by The Primitive Needle – WDW & GAST threads on 40ct Sandstone.

I love her use of color and simple shapes; she is still missed, though, fortunately, I’ve still got a couple of charts in the stash to do. There was another on ebay that I almost bid on, but glad I didn’t, as it ended up going for $80 or so; I have way too much stuff in just the Halloween drawer alone to spend that much, even on Lisa’s designs. I wish her family would have continued distributing her designs, though I can understand why they chose not to.

I didn’t hit my Halloween ceiling yet, so I broke out two PN smalls, By the Light of the Moon, and Moon Witch (which was a freebie that can still be found in the usual online places if interested); I managed to find a piece of PTP Heritage at String Theory, so picked that up from Jackie, and got the two smalls done, and framed shortly thereafter in basic black frames (putting UV glass in frames got expensive this year):

That mostly fixed me for Halloween, though I did have to stash a few charts from Autumn Lane, as well as Kathy Barrick and Tiny Modernist; I got the Autumn Lanes because I have also stashed some gorgeous fabrics from BeStitchMe (Friday Night Fight Night wins) and my Mystic Fabrics FOTM Club from String Theory, and needed a couple of charts to go with 🙂

And then Carriage House Samplings released a couple of charts that I managed to ignore. Until I couldn’t anymore. I have all these great orange fabrics, right, so it was fate that Twisted Pumpkin came out. I have the companion, Stardust, in my box at String Theory, so it’ll go on the other side of this BeStitchMe Pumpkin Patch fabric:

I cannot get a good pic of this fabric – it is not this washed out.

That was it. Except then, I needed to do an ornie for Halloween, because I hadn’t gotten around to doing any MH kits this year, despite there being at least a dozen sitting here, waiting on me. I sent this to my Nebraska kids – now they need a Halloween Tree for me to slowly fill up for them 🙂

While I was framing things, I decided to get my Chatelaine Pumpkin Halloween-y Mandala up on the wall, but wanted to play around with some hand cut matting; it’s small, so thought I could fit it in one of the basic black square frames Hobby Lobby now stocks; started with an 8″, decided that was too tight, went back and got a 12″, which just so happens to fit 12″x12″ scrapbook paper exactly. So I played around with colors and shapes and measurements and geometry, and came up with my own one-of-a-kind matting for Pumpkin – sorry for the bad picture, I didn’t even think to take a picture without the glass in the frame until well after I’d assembled it for the 3rd-4th time.

On 30ct WDW Purple Rain, using called for fibers – added a few additional Swarovskis, because, why not?

Along with all of this stitching, I also managed to keep up with 2 blackwork SALs – the Peppermint Purple and Steady Thread 2023 SALs, like last year’s block a week releases. I picked the most complicated border, I think, for the PP piece, and did it in only 2 colors – Vikki Clayton black for the border, and then my purple Dinky Dyes mystery hank from Market a few years ago for the fills, on 28ct Star Sapphire jobelan – I think it turned out exceptionally cool. For the Steady Thread piece, I decided to do 3D hexes, so the leafy border is a bit ad lib all around to accommodate the added size. The leafy border and hexes are Thread Gatherer and Vikki Clayton silks, respectively, and then all the botanical fills are Carrie’s Threads in purples and greens, on 32ct white jobelan.

And then, because I’ve become a SAL sucker, I caved for the Fiberlicious/Bella Filippina mermaids of the Seasons SAL. I have gotten behind because I had to stop to work on Christmas gifts, but hope to catch up here the first of the year. Here are the first 2 parts, Spring and Summer, completed, and then where I stopped on Part 3, Autumn – on the recommended Fiberlicious 28ct linen using the called for DMC & Kreinik, though I converted all of the MH 11/0s to delicas.

And then it was time for the Christmas carpal tunnel season – between stitching and insanity at work in spreadsheet hell 9 hours a day, I’ve got serious wonkiness in my right wrist that I am trying to sort out with a wrist support and ibuprofen – getting old ain’t for wimps. So, first, ornaments for my sisters and the Nebraska kids:

Then the bookmark for the San Diego kid, he of the Stephen King fandom:

From Etsy – scenes from The Shining

And lastly, for Christmas, Woodcarver’s Santas is my current WIP that I am trying to finish – don’t think it’s going to be done before New Year’s as I had hoped, but it’ll be close. One of my friends on MeWe had completed this last year/year before, and I scoured ebay and found a copy of this, pages from an unknown magazine (back in the old days when they didn’t know they needed to mark most pages w/issue info; people would seriously break up a magazine to sell individual pages? Who knew?) – this was designed by Jane Chandler, who I’ve never heard of, but am glad I was able to find this. On 28ct khaki/sage jobelan, using DMC and Diamante (my add), and there will be bead snowflakes at the end.

Crappy photo – the sparkle from the Diamante is pretty subtle, in the right light, which this is not.

That’s the stitching madness for this so quick year. It took me all afternoon to pull all of this together – I used to write stuff down frequently so I wouldn’t have to remember the whens and whats, but who has time for that these days? I reallllyyyy need to start using one of the many stitching diaries I have…

For 2024, I am NOT participating in the Peppermint Purple or Steady Thread SALs – they weren’t much commitment week to week, but they were distracting, and I feel like my regular rotation suffered as a result. So I have snoozed those pages so I can avoid the temptation. I do have 1 commitment for the new year – Noah’s Sub WILL get done, hopefully prior to May, when our first GRANDCHILD will arrive! The Nebraska kids are expecting on May 4th! I’ll be tripping to Omaha a couple of times during 2024 – will I see white stuff on the ground? Who knows? Meanwhile, Mom-to-be has been baking up a storm for customers in her area – I am actually okay that they are all the way in NE, or I’d be over there all the time to see what she’s got going on in the kitchen 🙂

Rife’s Sweet Slice on FB

Work will continue to be tumultuous, I am sure – we are transitioning so many things right now, with our merger with Inmarsat in the UK (PLEASE let me visit the London office for anything – I need to return to my old stomping grounds near Ipswich! And take DH to a Chelsea game, preferably when they are getting beat by my Liverpool Reds or Newcastle), and multiple system modernization efforts that we are in the middle of. I feel like the coming year is going to be a make-or-break for this country, and feel a little more optimistic that sanity is slowly returning – so slowly, but better than not at all. The question is, are we too late, are we too far down the progressive rabbit hole, to make it back to safe footing? I don’t want to live in a 3rd world country, but we are well on our way – at least, us plebes are, the elites won’t ever be affected by these progressive/Marxist policies, will they? Not sure why we have to keep learning the lessons over and over, other than, we’ve effectively erased all of that learning from the so-called curriculum, to our detriment. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to… what, deny it ever happened? Yup. Damn shame we’ve become ignorant by choice. Oh well, I guess all I can do from here is hang on for the ride and try to direct my energies in as positive a direction as possible, while the idiocy surrounds us and maybe starts to eat its own. Pray for Peace, Plan for Shit in the Fan, and Stitch On!

Of Chatelaines and Other Amusements

Well, here we are at the end of yet another year, and as bad as 2020 was, I can’t say 2021 was much better. On the global stage, the world is currently embroiled in a catharsis unlike any previous; civil liberties are being lost on an unprecedented scale, all in the name of “safety”, as the plandemic continues. Division is being pushed by the talking heads, and the indoctrination of the last 30-40 years is finally coming to light. Is it too late to sort out? I don’t know. I just find it so hard to believe that we (the world) have lost all we had gained from the lessons of the past. I could go on with a poli-sci lecture, but I won’t bother – there are too many out there who do it better than I do, and in the proper forum, which this is not. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to center for a bit.

On the local front, this year has been quite the roller coaster; weddings, funerals, workplace changes, and just for fun, the never ending construction right out front that was 24/7 over the summer, making sleep impossible. I was officially promoted to the job I’ve been doing for a couple of years and officially stopped the job I’d kinda been doing off and on during that time (which I still do as it suits me and my current duties). We had managerial shifts that had me juggling a department as co-interim babysitter for a while, which was a huge PITA. Get rid of one hat, pick up another, even if temporarily. I am a permanent work-from-homer now, since I don’t actually deal with anyone here, so that is pretty awesome. But – kinda hard to justify a shiny new Mustang if I’m not driving anywhere. I do NOT miss driving in Atlanta traffic on I-85. We did buy boats this year, though – yes, plural. Bought DH a john boat for Father’s day, bought a 20′ cuddy during the summer, and then DH sold his john boat and bought a full size bass boat. So guess where he is when he’s not working? Out on the Most Haunted Lake in the World, chasing the Big One.

We have a new family member – Little Kid got married in August! We got Big Kid home from Spain (with 36 hours to spare, I might add – good to see things haven’t changed much in the 30 years since I was active), and headed to Gettysburg, PA, for a great week, doing touristy things and being part of our son and daughter’s celebration.

The Happy Couple. One of Us! One of Us!

The Gettysburg battlefield was a pretty sobering experience; having never been there before, and with our current turmoil, it seems like maybe it ought to be required viewing for everyone who encourages division.

Site of the Gettysburg Address

My kids lost their last remaining grandparent in November; my mother passed away just a few weeks after I’d been up to see her. I hope she is at peace and with my brother.

Graduation 2015

And of course, I stitched through it all – a lot of stress stitching, some deadlines, and actually managed some finishes and finish-finishes! I said last year that I wanted to work through 1 rotation of all of my Chatelaine WIPs before I started another; I didn’t quite make my goal, but I definitely got close, and that works for me 🙂

When I last posted, I had started the 2006 Advent Snowflake; that got done shortly after that post – with more beads than were charted, as I had predicted:

2006 Snowflake by Martina Weber/Chatelaine. On 28ct lugana in Snowstorm from Silkweaver. Miles of silver PTB, DMC, delicas & 4mm bicones.

My next project was Desert Mandala, which was really good to get back to – the colors were just what I needed to get through the January/February drearies. I got the top totem done, as well as the sunset corners and upper borders. The backstitching in the bear was very difficult to see on the chart, so it may or may not be customized 🙂

Desert Landscape Mandala, on 28ct Desert Sky lugana from Silkweaver.

Next, I worked on Hummingbird Lace. I needed to fix the purple hummer that blended in with my fabric, so I added a bit of contrasting backstitch to him, and now he stands out much better. I got the entire inner border completed, including delicas, and got one of the inner lace corners in; that lace bit was riddled with frogs, so that was my indication to put it away again.

Hummingbird Lace, Sparkly Hummingbird, whatever is the “official” name of this mandala. On a custom-dyed 28ct jobelan.

Next, I broke out Deep Blue Sea and did 2 sections (it being the smallest one I have going, 2 sections are pretty quick). Sea horsies, jellyfish, fishies, starfish and kelp! And check out the scallop-shaped stitches on the outer corner! How fun is that?

Deep Blue Sea on 28ct Surf hand painted jobelan from Sunny Dyes fabrics.

I had to take a small break and do a ring bearer’s pillow for the happy couple – you know how I am with those last minute ideas (though this was not entirely last minute – I did plan for it as soon as I knew when it was needed). JBW Designs, pink silk, navy and pink delicas, and pretty damn close to a perfect match to her pink – not bad for having to look her dresses up online and pick from 7-8 silks that I had to audition. I sent the completed stitching to my friend Tricia, who made it into a pillow for me (yeah, not even going to try to sew something this important – me & straight lines aren’t on good terms most of the time). I added a bit of simple lace to finish it up, and the tiny ring bearer did a good job (there were decoy rings on the pillow, the Best Man had the real ones)!

Wedding Pillow, on 28ct white lugana. center modified to add their initials over-1.

Back to the Chatelaines – next came Japanese Zen Moss Garden. The center sand part bogged me down when I started it – I never stop before finishing the center section! But I got the center done, and half of the next inner ring of blues.

Japanese Zen Moss Garden, on 28ct jobelan in Shimmering Pools from HDF by Stephanie.

I needed a break from Chatelaines for a bit, so broke out Growth Rings – my all-bead version – for about 10 days and did a pretty good chunk on it. Next time I get in Finish It mode, this will be near the top of the list.

Ink Circles’ Growth rings, in 2 Delica bead mixes, on 28ct white lugana.

I also did some framing – I had to get 2 done to go to PA with us, so I could get them to their recipients without fear of breakage during shipping – has the USPS NOT destroyed any package recently? Passing Saturn for my great nephew, and mermaid Cara Mia for my great niece. Not shown – a purple bookmark for another great-niece

By the time we got back from PA, I was definitely ready for fall, and Halloween stuff just started yelling at me. So I cranked out Halloween Cat by Satsuma Street in record time:

Halloween Cat by Satsuma Street, on a custom dyed 32ct linen from Silkweaver.

Halloween wasn’t done there – when I got the Halloween tree out, it needed some new Mill Hill ornies, so I did some:

And the Halloween itch still wasn’t scratched, so I broke my deal with myself – but in a good way. I started – and finished – Chatelaine Halloween-y Pumpkin Mandala. I have to admit, despite it being Halloween, this was my least favorite Chatelaine to date (roughly tied with the meadow section of Mushroom & Fern Mandala that about killed me last year). Not sure what, exactly, but didn’t really enjoy the Caron Wildflowers used for the blackwork pumpkins – too thick, kind of obscured the fact that they are pumpkins, but even though i had the same color in silk, I decided not to swap it out, hoping it’d all pull together in the end. I also probably should have used a shade or two lighter fabric, to help those details stand out. But, it’s done and I’m happy with the end result, it’s just not my favorite Chat.

Halloween-y Pumpkin Mandala, on 30ct Purple Rain from WDW. I added a few Swarovskis – it needed more 🙂

THAT fixed me for Halloween. Halloween Cat got framed, but I don’t seem to have taken a pic of it; the mandala may be framed in time for next Halloween.

Next on the Chatelaine countdown, Winter Watergarden. I needed some lighter colors after all the dark Halloween stitching. I managed to get two blackwork corners done, and 2 of the over-1 cardinals. These cardinals are a lot pinker than I thought they would be, but from a distance, they work.

Winter Watergarden Mandala, on 28ct Frozen Fractals opal lugana from HDF by Stephanie.

So I managed to finish 2 small Chats, and worked through a rotation on 5 of the 7 big ones I have going. Not bad! Those, coupled with the other pieces I did, feels like a LOT of stitching; again, lots of stress stitching gong on this year. And that’s not all! I also whipped up a couple of Christmas presents for my sisters, again Mill Hill kits. And then did a very last minute gift for the newlyweds, who don’t have a Christmas tree yet, but when they do, they will have a Christmas Pickle to put on it 🙂

When I went to see my mother, I took some finished pieces for my sister to see – she wants a piece or two to hang in her house. My Birds of a Feather SAL and Celtic Banner will get framed and go to her, along with a By The Bay WIP I’ve had, which matches her decor so perfectly, it’s a little bit spooky – she has a print that is very similar, so I wonder if BTB is a fan of that particular artists too? I finished Meadow Hills a few weeks ago. There are a couple of other pieces I am doing for her – have a hank of black silk from Silks4U for some motif samplers, either a Long Dog or a Vierlanden from Wiehenburg that I have, in red & black. My LD Pandemic red is the wrong red for her house, so that one will stay here (and who knows, maybe get finished).

Meadow Hills from By The Bay, on 28ct Star Sapphire jobelan.

As I was wrapping up Meadow Hills, Snow Queen was hollering at me – it was pretty cold around Thanksgiving, so was in the mood for winter-ish designs. NOTE: I still despise winter. I worked the dress down to the border that contains the Wisper – I blew if off as long as I could, but ended up finishing this section, including the Wisper, before I needed to move on. This thing is HUGE, I haven’t even touched the reindeer yet. And I’m really itching to get beads on it, but as many bugles as are on it, I will probably wait until the end and do them all at once, since bugles aren’t scroll-friendly.

Nora Corbett’s Snow Queen, on 28ct Changeling jobelan from HDF by Stephanie. The Wisper will be fluffed after I get the beads on it, so I don’t miss any.

And with that, I thought I deserved a New Year’s start, a few days early. I was patiently waiting for Martina to finish her Elizabethan mandala when she unexpectedly passed away. Knowing the design wasn’t finished – no instructions for backstitch or any of the specialty stitches or crystal call outs/placement – I bought it anyway. I got the kit from ECC, got a yard of Colonial Parchment jobelan from HDF by Stephanie right before she stopped carrying jobelan (why oh why did my favorite dyer stop carrying my favorite fabric? Fiberlicious it is from here on out, I guess). I figured I’d better get Elizabeth going while I’ve got the brain power to make the choices I’m going to have to make; the way the chart was delivered, takes a lot of back & forth between pages to get it figured out, and it has a lot of too-faint-to-print stuff in it, so I’ve actually had to work on my work computer’s 27″ monitors to blow the flesh-tone over-1 charts up so I could get the middle section started. Way too many flesh tones in this (like 12-14? A lot), but I think you get an idea who it’s supposed to be (if you know English monarchy history at all) even without the ruff and bodice – with seed pearls no less – done yet:

And that is a year’s worth of stitching! Still to see daylight – Tuscany Town Mandala and Mushroom & Fern Mandala, which was the newest start, so good that it’ll be the last to make a rotation. I still have a good pile of Chat kits waiting in the wings – have been waiting a YEAR for 3 threads for the Gothic Arches bundle; good thing I’m fairly patient, huh? Not shown – I also did several jewelry pieces over the summer, though I don’t know why; working from home, I have nowhere to wear any of my pieces now, since fishing on the lake is strictly casual. I had not made an album for jewelry before, just because it’s kind of a don’t care if you see me in person wearing things, but someone at work in another location wanted to see some of my pieces, so I created an album and took pictures of the new stuff and the old stuff.

May 2022 be a MUCH better year than 2021 was. May the world right itself and all the hardships lessen and anger that fills the air dissipate. May calmer heads prevail, and may the propagandists get their due. In the words of one of the greatest books I’ve read, which is now one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, Fear is the Mind Killer; I think we’ve all had enough of the fear these last 2 years. Time to get back to living.

Be well, and Happy Stitching!

Edited to add a better meme that actually includes the last line – kinda important… Dune didn’t have a blue sky, but the words are what is important. If I can find a cool one on reddit again, I will swap again.

‘Tis The Season – an Autumn Update

It’s been a while! Summer has come and gone, finally – we weren’t sure it was going to leave this year, as it was near 100 into the first week of October, and almost no rain since July. But Fall is definitely here – we got into the 40s the last few nights, making for some chilly mornings, and making sure the furnace works, too early. Trees have been dropping leaves, though more because they are cooked & dry.

DH has been working the last couple of weeks adding about 500 square feet of new deck out back, which we’ve wanted to do for years, so we can actually enjoy our back yard without 1) sliding down the hill, 2) twisting ankles on the acorns and rocks, and 3) getting stuck at the bottom and too tired to get back up. Now we can really sit out in our tree house 🙂

I think when I last updated, I was either just getting Tuscany Town Mandala out, or had worked on it just a bit. I got 2 corners of Neverending Trees done – will probably split the last two up unless I am reallllyyyy motivated – and got Piazza del Campo & Sienna Cathedral, the right side, done. It’s big enough now that I can’t get a very good picture of it:

Chatelaine Tuscany Town Mandala, on 28ct Waterlily jobelan. Using DMC, silks, PTB & lots of Miyuki delicas :)Definitely on the downhill side now….

After I put this up, I got Winter Watergarden out for a turn, and put Part 2 in – I wish these photos could show it off better, the fabric and the subtle color changes in the threads are so much prettier in person:

Chatelaine Winter Watergarden, on 28ct opal Frozen Fractals from Stephanie, suing all called-for fibers. LOVE these cat tails!

After that, I decided to work on a gift for my great niece, who loves all things pink – Nor’a mermaid Cara Mia. I raided my friend Jackie’s stash for the perfect piece of fabric, a 28ct opal lugana from Under the Sea, Caribbean Tides. I used all called for fibers & beads – despite all the pink (so much pink!), I think she turned out great!

Cara Mia by Nora. If she doesn’t display correctly, I have edited all I can…

I don’t have pictures of either of my travel bag projects – a By The Bay piece, Meadow Hills, and also the 3rd of 4 of the Foursome Reel by Long Dog. I only started the LD because Julia has been releasing charts I want too fast for me to keep up with, so while I waited for Templar Prophecy to get to me, I was compelled to start Life After Death, though I had to go back & forth w/Silkweaver (Needleworker’s Delight) to get the right color fabric for my purple Silks4U silk – ended up w/36ct Silvery Moon:

1/2 silk on 36ct Silvery Moon – just barely grey. Templar Prophecy will be silver silk on purple fabric 🙂

And then, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, I started yet another Nora, Snow Queen. I saw this one done on FB, or I likely would never have paid any attention. Of course, that’s how half of my Chatelaines came into my possession, too, so… I have her on 28ct jobelan in Changeling from Stephanie, and so far, have an entire skein of white in her, along with several other colors, including two Carons:

This fabric is beautiful – but like most, doesn’t photograph well.

After I put her away last week, I really wanted to work on something Halloween – hard to believe, I know 🙂 Remember Primitive Needle, the designer who was swept away in a flash flood several years ago? I loved her work and miss her designs, but fortunately, I have a couple. I broke out a little kit, Halloween Garden, which came with 35ct WDW fabric (Tin Roof maybe? I forget, I don’t have it handy now), and kitted it up with a variety of fibers – some of the called-for WDW, some old HDF, DD, and a Caron leftover. A nice 6-day project 🙂

Halloween Garden – again, if it doesn’t display upright, it’s not for lack of editing the image….

And lastly, another Primitive Needle that has yelled at me pretty steadily for years – Wicked Alphabet. I pulled this piece of 36ct Thunderstorm fabric as soon as I got the chart, but it took a couple of tries to find the right HDF silk – I tried BeGrimed, but it wasn’t dark enough, and then I found Rubbed Black – perfect! The design is charted for multiple colors, but I’m doing it in one, except the with will probably have a couple of additional colors added (gotta have a green face, I think) when I get that far. I just started last night, so not much to see yet:

Primitive Needle’s Wicked Alphabet, started 10/19/19.

That’s the stitching news for the last few months! In health news, I am 4 days away from being done with my treatments, so hope to have a clean bill of health shortly, as soon as I get rid of all the nasty side effects from the capecitebine (Xeloda) that has been destroying my feet, among other things, the last 4 months. I would like to be able to walk normally again by Thanksgiving, when we should have one of the boys home. Added to work stress, this year just needs to be over. Next year will be making up for being on hold the last 15 months 🙂 Until next time, here are some visitors we’ve had this summer….

What kind of bird is that???
Flutterby
Bambi, Faline, and Bambi’s mom…
Dragonfly sitting on a bird.