Bookwise I'm not feeling particularly creative this week, so in these moments it's nice to post a few colorful stitching photos instead. I've not had much time for my needlework lately (I seem to say things like that a lot unfortunately), but I have made some progress on a few projects. I want to stitch only I seem to run out of time by the end of the evening and even on weekends I'm either too tired or too hot to pick up a needle. Even a little stitching seems to add up, however. All of a sudden stitching snow, which I will be doing in this design very shortly is sort of appealing. This is my Prairie Schooler "February Sampler" nearing the end. I have more motifs to stitch next to the horse and then it is solid white stitches (white being my most unfavorite color to work with). The bottom row will have cherries and hearts. And then I think I'll be ready to move on to something else, and I did splurge on a new chart, so I will share it when it arrives.
I pulled this out of my "unfinished projects" bin since it seemed very timely. I had two letters stitched and then it has been sitting waiting for some attention, which it finally got last weekend. I have since added a few more flowers and will hopefully do the finishing this coming weekend--just a few days after the official start of summer. I even have the little frame for it ready to go. The designer is Just Nan, whose designs are gorgeous and use the most sumptuous of materials (silk floss!), but anymore they are out of my price range. Her designs also take time as there are so many colors called for--lots of switching out after only a few stitches, but the result is always worth it. This is called "Summer Spell".
At the same time I pulled out the Just Nan project I also spotted this design by Ewe & Eye & Friends called "Liberty House". I am stitching it on a very high count linen--40 threads per inch, so it can be hard to see the weave and I think it was for that reason I set it aside. Have I mentioned that my eyesight is not as good as it used to be? So far I can still read fine, but the smaller the print the less I can make out the individual words. I've never worn glasses, so it's a real drag, but common I guess the older you get (we won't think about that, though). I'm not sure if I'll manage to work on this one before the Fourth of July, but I might get in a few stitches.
I'm not really a fan of stitching over one linen thread, which is what this design calls for, but I do love the effect if I can stick it out. The thing is--the strand of floss tends to slide around and under the linen weave and it can be frustrating. But if you guessed this was a cat (or the beginnings of one), then I am doing something right so far! The design is actually a Christmas design--there'll be a tree and and other things, but I don't think I'll finish it as an ornament. We'll see when I get that far.
This is what I do when I'm not reading, though as you can see from the infrequency of these posts I seem to be mostly reading of late. What do you do when you're not reading? And by sharing my needlework today (an easy post) I get to go and do a little extra reading tonight! Back to the books tomorrow though.