Elizabeth Sheffield Framed

Wow, this might be my last Elizabeth Sheffield post.  So sad.  She was such a fun sampler to stitch and last weekend I got her all framed up.  Here she is up on the wall.
I just hung her up so I could get a good picture but I haven't decided just where I'm going to hang her yet.  I may just audition a few spots and see where she fits best.  Here is a close up of the frame itself.
As usual I ordered my frame from Lynn's of Madison and then my Mom mailed me her frame (Lynn's will ship but my Mom offered).  Well, FedEx was faster than predicted so the frame arrived Saturday morning.  I had one other project to frame so I spent some time Saturday afternoon at my craft desk working on framing.  It took me over 2 hours to get Elizabeth laced up!  I used 35 count Weeks straw linen and it was really stretchy.  In fact, we ordered this frame a little larger than normal so it had room to stretch, but then I had to actually stretch it instead of just snugging it into place. 

Since it was such stretchy fabric I had to really work to get it to line up well.  It's not 100% perfect but it feels pretty close.  To do this I laced really close together on the back, closer than I normally would and made sure to use the same linen thread to line up my lacing, another thing that I'm not always great about.  Here's what the back looked like after doing just one side.

I thought about waiting to finish the other side for the next day but really wanted to get this finished so I could work on finding a spot for her so I went ahead and finished the lacing and added the backing, bumpers and wire.  Here's the back after I was done lacing.  Whew, I'm glad to have this framing project so I can now just enjoy the fruits of my labor! 

Thanks for dropping by! 

Elizabeth Sheffield Finish

Here she is, my Elizabeth Sheffield all finished!  I finished her last weekend just in time for the Sampler Guild of the Rockies meeting.  I brought her just to show a few friends who have been following my progress on her and ended up getting lots of nice compliments on her and showed her during the show and share portion of the meeting.  I've already ordered a frame and will post another picture when she's in her frame and up on the wall. 

I just love the bright colors in this piece and for those who don't know, I stitched her using 35 count WDW Straw linen and the called for DMC threads.  I did make one minor color change but don't have that in front of me at the moment.  I changed the centers of the pink flowers under the brown bird to just mute it down a tad.  I haven't decided where to hang this yet.  I do have another Rhode Island samper that I stitched and was contemplating stitching Anne Anthony by the Essamplaire but I need a break from over one stitching.  I would love to hang a collection of Rhode Island samplers someday but for now I think she'll be pretty hanging in my guest room with other pieces with pretty colors.

It's been nice here today so I've got the windows open for the kitties to enjoy.  Why is it that whenever the weather is great, my black cat sits in the sunniest spot to soak it all up?  I think this would be hot but he seems to enjoy it!  That's all for now!

Jen

Done with Over One!

That's right, I'm done with all of the over one on Elizabeth Sheffield, and there was a lot of it!  I was able to finish all the over one for the people and the windows of the house and now all that's left is to finish filling in the house itself.  The windows were all charted for over one and after finishing up the people I was really tempted to just fill it in over two threads so it would go faster but wanted to stay true to the reproduction so I stitched them over one linen thread as the chart called for.  No picture today but check back soon for a finish! 

In the meantime, here is a photo of my completed snowflakes so I can assemble them at our next guild meeting: 

And, I don't know what happened to the photo I attached of my cute TUSAL jar last time so I'm trying that again...

New Year's Starts

I know that many of you out there in blogland started new projects for New Year's day and so did I.  Only I started not one but two new projects!  First, I started Paradise Lost by Plum Street Samplers.  You might remember that I was trying to decide between this and Ann Grant and this won.  I'm so glad I did too, it's such a fun design!  I started with the verse at the bottom because words are never my favorite. 

I did a little grass above the words so I'd have something other than red done.  :)  I'm stitching this on 36 count Vintage Light Examplar fabric with the called for silks.  Sorry for the poor picture, you'll see better photos when I come back to this.

Then, I started the pre-stitching for a project that we're assembling at our next Sampler Guild of the Rockies meeting, a snowflake biscornu.  I have never assembled or stitched a biscornu before so this was a great opportunity for me to learn!  But, ugh, all that backstitching...  Here's my progress, I hope to finish the rest of the snowflakes in the next day or two:

Once I finish the pre-stitching for the biscornu project then I'll go back and finish up Elizabeth Sheffield.  I made some nice progress on her and ordered a frame at Lynn's when I was home at Christmas.  I'm going to wait to show you an overall photo until she's done but all I have left is the band with the little people and the house:

For some reason I keep thinking that the guy on the left looks like some of my old lego dudes from when I was a kid.  Maybe it's the shape of his face, maybe it's the funny (but cute) smile but I kept thinking Legos when I was stitching.  What do you think?

And, last but certainly not least, I signed up for a couple challenges this year.  One is the BAP (Big Arse Project) challenge hosted by Becky Bee.  Paradise Lost will be my challenge piece for this challenge since it's larger than 10" x 12".  I'll be posting updates here on this blog as I work on her (after finishing Elizabeth Sheffield of course) so check back to see how it's coming along. 

The other challenge I signed up for is the TUSAL Challenge.  For those who don't know, TUSAL stands for Totally Useless Stitch A-Long.  It's where stitchers post a photo on their blogs of a jar filled with their ORT's (Old Ratty Threads) on or around every full moon.  I had a lot of fun seeing these ORT jars on other people's blogs over the last year so I decided to jump in too!  The challenge is open, anyone can join in at any time of the year and all the information is on Daffycat's blog.  I have had this pretty fluted jar in my basement forever trying to figure out what to do with it.  So, I tied a pretty ribbon around it and voila! that's my TUSAL jar.  My first update will be later in January so check back for more photos of this one too. 

Well, that's it, I'm off to go work on snowflakes so I can go back to stitching on Elizabeth Sheffield.  I hope to have a finish on her to show you sometime soon! 

Jen

Broccoli Band

I know, some of you are wondering what the heck I'm talking about.  Well, I've spent some time recently stitching the bottom, inner band of Elizabeth Sheffield.  The picture on the pattern makes it looks like this band contains giant broccoli or else really little animals.  I know that they are supposed to be trees with giant animals but I've had it in my head that this is broccoli so that's what I thought about when stitching it.  Take a look:

With any luck I'll finish her around the New Year so my New Year's start can be the only thing I'm stitching on for awhile.  Oh, and I decided that Paradise Lost will be my New Year's start.  I still have the band with the people and house which will take awhile but I'm almost done with the bottom of the sampler.  I decided to wait to stitch the people for last because I think they're going to be a lot of fun!! 
Here's my overall progress on Elizabeth...

Elizabeth Sheffield

I mentioned awhile ago that I had plans to start Elizabeth Sheffield.  Well, she's started!  I'm stitching her on 35 count WDW Straw linen with DMC floss.  This chart was created by The Scarlet Letter and had both a cotton and a silk conversion.  I am stitching all the over one in full cross stitch as charted but I think that if I had stitched in silk it would have either needed to be tent stitched or stitched on a different count of fabric.  Even with all of the over one stitching I am enjoying this stitch immensely!

I'm a bit farther along than this now but stopped to take a few photos.  I'm so ready to stitch the band with the people in it, but decided to jump down and do some words since that tends to be a bit boring.  I did however stitch in the people's shoes so I know where to begin when I get back to the people , aren't they cute? 

I have a bunch more over one to stitch, including the light blue alphabet above the verse, several more blue flowers and the plants and animals in the bottom of the center section.  However, even with all the over one, I'm really enjoying stitching it and it looks so cute to have all those teeny tiny stitches. 

In fact, when I purchased the supplies for this, one of the women working at Lynn's told me that the blue bird in the top right corner is just spectacular.  I didn't doubt that so I couldn't wait to start stitching.  Well, I started with the darkest blue to outline the bird, continued with the medium blue and it wasn't until I got to the lightest blue that I could really appreciate how wonderful this blue bird really is.  What do you think?