Love with a Capital L

Happy Dance with me!
I'm done I'm done!!! The wedding sampler for my daughter Carrie is finished and in plenty of time to have it framed and displayed at the wedding reception in September. And isn't it pretty, even if I do say so myself :-D

Now I wish I had kept track of the hours spent on this piece, but I think it would have to be upwards of 200. Whew, that was a lot of stitching. Its done on 40 ct Lambswool linen and used 4 skeins of Gloriana Cranberry silk floss. I love how it turned out, and I love the deep red stitching on the colour of the linen. Its my first large piece done all in one colour and I think that's what helped move the stitching along so quickly. And this is very close to the red that the bridesmaids will be wearing at the wedding, how perfect it all worked out since I started long before the dresses or colours were chosen.

But I have to admit that I am very eager to get back to my regularly scheduled stitching and some of these poor neglected pieces that have been languishing since the engagement was announced. Hmmm, and may be even something new?

Some close-ups!

A fresh start and needing a fresh start

Thank you for all your comments on my LHN finish! I really love working on these sweet designs.I needed to pick something else up to do at the cottage over the weekend...where there is no magnifier...and I decided on Blackbird Designs Sunflower House. I have loved this one for along time but since it was 'retired', I was so thrilled to find it for sale by another stitcher. The pattern came with this gorgeous blue linen. I'm not sure if its the called for fabric which is called Friendship Blue, but it looks wonderful with the floss colours.
I didn't get too much done however, as a book grabbed all my attention. Its not too often that I start a book that I just can't put down. This one was called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I only started reading it on Thursday night, and finished it Sunday morning. What an amazing story! Luckily I have another one book by the same author ~ A Thousand Splendid Suns ~ waiting for me at home to start.

And on to Love with a Capital L~
I really think I need to put this away for a little while. I have made so many little mistakes with this piece recently, including the large motif on the lower left, well not such a little mistake maybe since the entire thing is about 4 rows too high. And of course I didn't discover this until it was pretty much finished. Counting threads on 40 ct fabric really seems to unravel me, uh no pun intended there. So I haven't decided yet if its time to frog, I started working on the next row of flowers and thought I would better be able to tell if I could fit the wording in without too much trouble, until another mistake became apparent last night. Yup, I definitely think its time to work on something else for a while and look at Love again with fresh eyes.

Thanks for visiting!

Love Progress!

Some goodies bought at yard sales this weekend....2 Omni grid rulers, both looking brand new, and for only 25 cents each! That's a whale of a bargain! And some more wooden spools to add to my collection.
I have managed to get some good stitching time on the Love Sampler the past few days - enough so that even I can see some progress. I'm about halfway through the third set of pages, after that only one more set....I think I might get this done in time for the September wedding!
Meanwhile machine quilting has come to a dead stop. My wonderful little Janome machine has never honestly done well with free motion quilting but now its putting up such a fuss, that I'm ready to throw in the towel. I haved tried numerous different types of needles, but still the thread keeps breaking or the needle skips several stitches, not to mention the tension on the back is awful. No amount of playing with different settings seems to make any difference. So my Lucky Stars quilt sits with half the stars stippled and the other half barren. I've been checking the want ads thinking to buy an older used machine for simple machine quilting.
And I think I think some lessons in photography..... :-(

I'm leaving!

And we're off! Tomorrow, that is, to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit my daughter Kelly for a few days. I was surprised with an early Mother's Day gift from Carrie with 2 airplane tickets, one for each of us. I'm so excited to be going away and visiting with Kelly and Chris. And of course , we'll have to manage to get in a little shopping here and there :-D

I have to add in a stitching update, although I still don't feel like I'm making much progress on anything. I guess that's what happens when you in the middle of a honking big project like this one. Sorry no photos, its a dark gloomy day and I have several lights on in the house even though its morning.

Here is Love with a Capital L, 7 weeks after starting.
Its coming though and I have to remind myself I'm almost at the halfway point! And I am enjoying stitching this, I love not changing floss colours over and over again.

Have a great weekend! I'll be back at the end of next week.

A prize package

Look at the amazing haul I received from Monique (Inside Number Twenty). She held a blog contest for her 3rd anniversary of My Mark Designs, and I was one of the lucky winners. I opened up a wonderful package from her yesterday, filled with goodies~ 3 of her designs, 2 pieces of linen, finishing forms, and at the back is a cute crafting tote, with lots of zippered compartment to hold all our treasures. Wow ~ Monique, thank you so much for your generosity!

I really do need some lessons in picture taking - this one is so dark :-(

I finished off my second bookmark ~ it really does look so much better with the B/S'ing .... and its right side up this time!

So last night I pulled out my Love Sampler and I was excited to get back to work on it. I am really enjoying working on this. There is something about pulling out a length of silk and working it through to the end. Endless colour changes can be for the birds sometimes!

And I better not forget to add the 'e' to 'Rud'! I left the centre of the motif on the right open (there is a matching one on the left side of the piece that I didn't scan) because the designer mentions you can add the couple's initials in this spot and I'm not sure if Carrie and JF want theirs to be stitched in.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter!

I'm WIP'ing along with the Love Sampler. I actually finished the first 3 pages! Only 9 left to go. I know its creased and crumpled looking but isn't it beautiful? I'm so proud of how its coming along.

And I managed a wee start on LHN's Stitcher's Prayer. I needed something to do for the Guild embroidery meeting, and I can't very well drag the magnifier with me ~ a Tim's coffee and my goodie bag are about it.

And look who I found dozing away on the couch, exactly where she is not allowed to be ~ Miss Kelsey. She is obviously called Princess for a good reason.

Happy Easter and thanks for dropping by!

Love with a Capital L

This was my update picture as of Friday...but I've stitched quite a bit since then and have some of the wording done and border along the right hand side. Its coming along so nicely and I am loving working on this. I'm almost through my first skein of Gloriana silk. Let's see, that's 4 yards of 12 stranded silk, using 1 strand over 2 fabric threads, so that makes 48 yards of silk so far. Well, when you put it like that, my needle has been flying!

I have fabric ready to start LHN's Stitcher's Prayer as I would like to get this one going too.
We had rain yesterday and dark gloomy skies today which means more rain...and our snow is quickly disappearing. It was hard to imagine these great mounds of snow everywhere can so quickly be reduced to little piles of darkened yuckiness. Come on rain!

I am so stoked to hear about the new cross stitch shop opening in Whitby, Hedgehog Stitchery! Thanks Vickie for stopping by and letting me know. I'll be sure to pass the word along to our fellow stitchers who I am sure will be just as enthusiastic about having a real live shop to visit. There is nothing like seeing fabric and floss in real life to be re-inspired. And that its opening on the second floor of the Kniterary is a nice little treat to us knitters too!

Thanks for dropping by!

Snow...Snow...and more Snow

It started on Friday and came with a vengeance on Saturday which was lucky really for all the commuters. The weather forecasters were telling everyone to stay inside and not to venture out. But did we listen? Of course not, we had to go wedding dress shopping! And the stores were empty so it was a great time to go! Carrie made her final decision and ended up back at the store that is 5 minutes from our house LOL! So the dress is on order, veil and headpiece too!!

Here are a couple of pictures of the aftermath~

Hubby measured snowfall on Saturday to be about 10" or 27 cm in our back yard. Poor doggies had a hard time as every time they went outside, they had to create new pathways for themselves. We are only 17 cm short of a new record snowfall this winter for the Greater Toronto region...yeah, whoopee....Its pretty until you have to start shovelling it!

On the stitching front, I started Love with a Capital L! And I love working on it. I decided on using the 40 ct lambswool linen, the colour worked a little better with the Gloriana Cranberry silk floss we decided to use, and the 40 ct gave me slightly more room for edging since I only had a fat1/4 of the 40 ct and 36 ct fabric. This is a picture after about 10 hours on it.
Thanks so much to everyone who drops by and reads my blog! Staci, I'm so happy you have joined the blogging world, I've tried tracking your blog numerous times and I was so grateful to find it! Here is the link everyone: Snippets and Stash. She's a new blogger and has some gorgeous pictures of her wonderful work.

Paradigm Lost and Love

I spent last night working on Paradigm Lost...still working on this huge motif that I've been at the past month. I'm thinking this one will be in the works for months at the rate I'm going. I have to admit its a little discouraging to spend a good part of the evening stitching and see such a little bit get accomplished. Well I guess it doesn't help that I had to frog the end section, not once, but twice! I should comment on the amazing recuperative power of Gloriana silk - its awesome. Most threads would have crumbled away after being pulled out bit by bit but not this stuff. Its like the Energizer bunny, its just keeps going and going, no matter how many times I pulled it back out and re-used it.

I've been asking Carrie to pick a wedding sampler for me to stitch for her and JF and she settled on a gorgeous one, and it really is one that suits them so very well. Its Papillon Creations Love with a Capital L:

Beautiful! But .... humongous! I almost fell over when I saw the stitch count ~ 260 x 434! And I'm hoping to have this done and framed for the wedding in September .... of this year! I guess if I could put in some stitching all-nighters, for a month or two LOL.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!