The Peacock's Feather

My Last Splurge of 2006!

When I heard about this book, Quaker  School Girl Samplers from Ackworth by Carol Humphrey, I had to get on the list and order it.  I am glad I did as it is a lovely book and well worth the money.  It is filled with many color illustrations and quite a lot of text, so it should be a very good resource to have on hand.  It seems like needlework books tend to have small print runs and when they are out of print, it is very costly to try and find a copy.  I am looking at this purchase as a bit of an investment as it would cost me much more later if I tried to find a copy, right?!

As a little temptation in case you didn't buy this yet, here is what the inside looks like.  I am looking forward to looking at this in more detail and reading it.  I seem to be in a Quaker mood lately, so this should be an excellent reference to have!

Although I said this is a last splurge for 2006, I really do need to be more cautious about spending money in 2007.  How often do I say this?  Unless I want to be beholden to credit card companies for the rest of my life, I am going to try and limit my spending when it comes to cross stitch.  I have plenty of stash to choose from anyway, and lately not much time to even stitch anyway!  I was good and even avoided The Silver Needle's annual end of the year sale, which I had planned to take advantage of!  I am not sure if I will set any goals for 2007 in terms of stitching, but this will have to be #1 on the list!

I haven't gotten in much stitching over the holiday break, but I hope to do little tonight.  It is cold and snowy out where I live, and I am not much of a New Year's party person, so I plan on staying in and watching movies!  I may work on "Miss Valentine" (which I finally started) or perhaps my "Qauker Garden" later!  Last night I went through my stash and kitted up a few things with supplies that I already have on hand!  I hope to share more stitching news more frequently next year, too!

I wish everyone a very Happy and safe New Year!  All the best in 2007!

Not much progress

Every year at this time I have a break from work, and I always think I am going to accomplish so much--that I will have oodles of stitching time.  However, every year that does not seem to be the case.  Of course the problem is the holiday smack dab in the middle of things and family and friends and shopping--and loads of other distractions.  I was thinking perhaps I could finish this design, but I don't think that is going to happen.  I have stitched a little bit on it, though.  I guess I will not try to rush at this point.  When you start something in one year and finish it in another, which year do you stitch on the design?  I do hope to put in a few stitches on my "Miss Valentine" tonight, which didn't happen last night.  I had her out and ready to start, but my niece needed help with something and I never got back to it.  Maybe tonight...

Time for New Holiday Stitching!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday yesterday!  I lucked out and received a few stitching things to start me off in the new year.  My mom always visits Washington DC and Virginia in the summer, and I suspect she found the two White House Historical Association needlework kits while she was there.  One is a needlepoint bookmark.  The design is inspired by some of the presidential china.  I especially love the kit which is a replica of "The Red Room Carpet".  This is a cross stitch kit that has the DMC floss and Aida fabric, though I think I will substitute a piece of my linen instead.  The colors are lovely and will look nice in my living room.  I also asked for the Mirabilia kit, "Miss Valentine".  I have admired this series of limited edition kits for a while, so I think I am going to break down and stitch one (maybe all of them eventually).  I hope later today to zigzag the edges of my fabric and put in the first stitches.  I didn't get a single Christmas design stitched for myself and now I feel like moving on to something completely different.  Since Valentine's Day is not terribly far off I think "Miss Valentine" will be the perfect choice!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates and Happy Holidays to everyone else!  I will be spending today with my family--hanging out and eating turkey and lots of Christmas cookies.  I hope everyone has a lovely day--however you spend it!  Cheers!

Just in the nick of time...

I have heard from my exchange partner and my package finally arrived in Singapore!  Talk about cutting it close!  Today is the last mail day before Christmas, and I really lucked out as my ornaments were finally delivered!  Here is what I stitched--two little ornaments from the Prairie Schooler chart  Christmas Day.  Although I had some problems attaching the cording, I was fairly pleased with how they turned out.  My favorite is the little snowman and I wouldn't mind stitching him for myself sometime.

At this point I guess I am not going to get any Christmas stitching done for myself.  I haven't really been able to stitch much at all this week.  I have been trying to finish my Christmas shopping, do lots of wrapping, standing in line at the post office, and making a few cookies--the usual busy sorts of things that go on at this time of year.  I have worked a tad bit on "Quaker Garden" by Blackbird Designs.  I guess that will be my vacation project as I am off work until January 2.  I would also like to finally finish my Just Nan needlecase (the dragonfly one I stitched in the summer), and maybe try and finish those little Prairie Schooler ornaments that I started earlier this year.  I am only going to finish the ones that I actually have partially stitched.  I am going to be missing some months, but that's okay.  No monthly projects for me next year.  I think I am not going to set any other goals at the moment or I will end up not getting anything accomplished at all.  It seems to be a trend that I am stitching less these days, so I need to think carefully about what I want to stitch so it is not time wasted.  I hate to have yet more bins of half finished projects!

More Photos

I thought I would try and take better photos of the two ornaments that I received in exchanges this  year.  Here is a better photo of one of the Kitty designs by Brittercup Designs--not sure if it is from one of their charts or an older issue of JCS.  I think the finishing on it is gorgeous, and I would love to learn how to make a pillow like this.

Yesterday's photo of the Biscornu ornament wasn't really that bad, but what the heck, I thought I would take another photo!  I didn't manage to stitch anything for myself with a Christmas theme.  I have two ornaments I would like to try and sew, and one other one that is partially stitched.  Maybe I can make some progress on those.  The little set of ornaments I made for this exchange have not yet arrived.  It has now been over two weeks that the package has been in the mail.  I am worried that it might be lost (though likely it is just stuck in customs), and am sick every day when I check and don't hear anything from the recipient.  I am sure she will post when she has it.  So much for it getting there by Christmas! :(

Christmas Goodies!

 

I received a wonderful package from French stitcher, Elisabeth B., in the mail today.  It is for a Christmas ornament exchange on the Stitching Bloggers Exchange Bulletin Board.  Earlier year I made a Bicornu for Elisabeth for an exchange!  She made me this gorgeous Biscornu to hang on my tree!  It is from one of the Prairie Schooler charts (it is funny as I was thinking of making this same design and finishing it into a Biscornu, too!!), and I *love* it!

My gifts came inside this lovely doll (remember the one I bought earlier and now have hanging with my ornaments) that Elisabeth made!!  She is lovely and will hang next to my angel! I wish I was a good enough seamstress to make something like her!  The top of her dress has a drawstring so you can keep things inside.  I will do as Elisabeth suggested and keep some of my stitching supplies inside and I will display her year round!  Her dress is made out of vintage fabrics that she bought at a flea market--I love things like this!!  She also sent along a lovely wooden ornament for my tree and yummy sweets.  She tells me they are called Gavottes, which are a specialty in Bretagne.  The inside is a thin sort of crepe, and only at Christmas time do they dip them in chocolate.  I am sorry to say that they are already almost all gone!!  I feel very spoiled!  Many thanks Elisabeth--I love everything!!!!

Christmas Goodies!

 

I received a wonderful package in the mail today.  This is from one of the Christmas ornament exchanges I participated in.  I love everything--especially the little kitty ornament.  I have wanted one of these designs for some time now, and it is even stitched over one!  I need to take a better photo of the ornament close up. I also received fabric (perfect for a holiday design), Watercolours floss, scissors (I can always use scissors!), a notepad (I give these away quite often but never buy them for myself!), tiny cookie cutters (perfect timing as I plan on making Christmas cookies this week), and finally a totally gorgeous peacock feather!  I feel very spoiled.  I already am displaying my ornament and have my peacock feather hanging in my computer room!

"Strawberry Blonde"

I mentioned earlier that I bought the Carriage House Samplings chart "Strawberry Blonde".  Then I discovered that Theresa at Shakespeare's Peddler had converted the colors from NPI silks to Crescent Colors overdyed floss.  I liked the idea of stitching this with overdyeds, so I ordered the floss and fabric (I am using 40 count Meadow Rue).  They came in the mail yesterday and I put in a few stitches today.  I think I will enjoy this project--so now I have two big ones on the go (well, not thinking of those other big ones waiting for me by me bed that have been long ignored!).  I did end up with two charts.  I had ordered one a while ago and only meant to order the fabric and floss.  I must not have been very clear in my email when I ordered the supplies that I already had the chart.  So now I have two.  Would anyone be interested in doing a trade?  There are going to be lots of leaves to stitch on this!!  By the way, have you already seen Kathy's house photos?  Wow.  How I would love to live in a house like that!  I guess I will just have to content myself with stitching her designs!

Bloglines

I have just discovered Bloglines!  Actually I was aware of it before, but I never bothered to check this service out.  I am beginning to upload all the links in my blogroll into my new bloglines account (hopefully will get it done this weekend).  I hope this will be the solution  for keeping up on my needlework blog reading!  I have so many now that is is literally a gigantic task to try and read them every day--and I have lately given up even trying due to time constraints.  I hope this way I can check into bloglines several times a week and keep up on all the news!  They only list the blogs that have been updated (since you last checked), so that you don't have to click into each blog to find and read new posts (and not all bloggers update daily).  This should cut down the time it takes to go through the blogroll.  And they are all linked together, so you just scroll through the posts.  If you decide you want to actually click out to the blog, you can do so to leave a comment or read more posts.  Why did I not do this a long time ago??!!