First Post of 2008

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted here. I've been preoccupied with my other blog (Ruminations), cooking, gathering recipes, doing meal plans, but still doing a lot of stitching. The past couple of weeks I've been working on "Calico Cats," and still have about 3 more cats and some background to do. But I'm setting it aside for now. I've started a mystery SAL of a design by Helga Mandl and Barbara Ana Astray Mendez. It's with the Yahoo group wXSw (Wonderful XS World). I'll be posting an update of that one in a day or two - I've just barely started it.

Over winter vacation we camped in San Diego and Oceanside, and I worked on a few other small pieces. They need finishing, but I'm still going to show pics of them.

This is a Bent Creek Snapperville piece called "Homestead." One of the reasons I stitched it was so I could use overdyed threads. I've really enjoyed taking a chart like this and selecting my own color choices. This will be easy to frame on my own since it's square. I can find a cute square frame at Michaels's or JoAnn's.

Here's another Bent Creek Holiday Snapper in honor of Arbor Day. Both of the Bent Creek pieces are stitched on a 28-count linen called Whittenburg. I like the salt-and-pepper look of this fabric.

This is an unfinished Christmas ornament from Just Cross Stitch Magazine, and the designer is monsterbubbles. I haven't attached a charm yet, but that will happen when I get around to finishing the ornament pillow-style on some bright pink cloth. The original date was 2006, but I changed it to 2008 - it shows up better in person.

I didn't stitch this - Cassandra did. She drew my name for the International Exchange on CSRR, and this arrived while I was on vacation. Isn't it cute?










So what did I accomplish in 2007? Well, I started stitching again after a 20-year layoff, and in 6 months finished 45 pieces. I've learned all about stitching on linen, developed a passion for overdyed floss, and have recently learned how easy and fun one-over-one stitching can be.

What's planned for 2008? Here are some major goals:

1. "Calico Cats"
2. "Simplicity Goodness Truth"
3. "Crabby All Year"
4. wXSw Mystery SAL
5. Signature RR in CSRR
6. as many other RRs as I can do time-wise with CSRR
7. have fun stitching!