Mary Ann Blackburn Finish

Well, I took the above picture a little over a week ago.  I had planned to do a progress post of Mary Ann Blackburn by Blackbird designs and then life just got in the way and I've been busy.  So, I'm posting it today even though on Tuesday I finished Mary Ann! 

I love both of the above pictures!  I stitched Mary Ann Blackburn on a beautiful cut of 40 count Sheep's Straw Linen with the called for GAST/WDW/CC Cotton overdyed threads.  I love how the piece is nice with lots of warm browns in the first photo and then how it just pops with the reds in the finished version.  I wasn't sure if I was going to like the CC Used Brick which is what was called for as the red in the piece and had thought about switching to WDW Brick.  But, I do love how it turned out so now all I have to do is pick a frame and get her up on my wall! 

While she waits for me to pick a frame, she's sitting on my craft room table which is literally covered with projects needing finishing or framing.  I had cleaned out the closet in this room over the past couple weekends to make better use of the space for stash organizing and that included cleaning off the table.  I love the look of all these pieces piled up but would really rather see them all up on my walls or finished as smalls.  So, I'd better get busy!  At least I was able to get the box painted for Spring Song! 

I had a helper while pressing Mary Ann for photography today too, miss Kitty loves sleeping in my craft room, who can blame her??   

I have seen several Dutch Beauty finishes of late and most recently Paulette's gorgeous finish!  I am in LOVE with this piece but I have no idea how Paulette had the patience to stitch this with 2 strands on 32 count linen.  LOL!  I added this to my stash a couple months ago and have been trying to pick a linen so I could start it, I'd love for it to be huge but I really prefer stitching with 1 strand now so I have a dilemma.  I've been thinking a nice 35 or 36 count linen would preserve some of the size while allowing me to stitch with one strand and my friend Katrina and I did a floss toss and loved R&R Sheep's straw.  I was all set to commit to 35 count Sheep's straw when I found these...

Two WIP's!!!  Yikes!  I thought I had just one, a drawn thread sampler that just needs the cross stitch portion done.  This is "A Very Fine Sampler" by Birds of a Feather (top) and "Betsy" by Sheepish Designs (bottom).  I started both of these in the last year or two on different colors of 35 cout R&R and set both aside because the linen was crunchy.  Now, don't get me wrong, R&R makes a beautiful linen, I think I just prefer the 40 count.  I stitched on the top piece a bit last night to see how it felt and it wasn't bad and both pieces went into my dryer with a dryer sheet to try to soften them up.  It seems to have helped a bit.  So, maybe I'll go with a 40 count Sheep's Straw?  I'd consider another manufacturer of linen, like Lakeside or Weeks but in 35 or 36 count I need larger than a half yard cut. 

So, now I find myself with Mary Ann Blackburn done, two WIP's to work on and no clear answer to Dutch Beauty.  Sigh.  Maybe I'll just go start something new...  :) 

There's Something About Mary

Mary Little that is!  After over six months of searching since seeing the completed Mary Little on Siobhan's blog, I finally found the pattern and have started stitching her!  Here's my start on her, not much to see yet but she should stitch up quickly!
But, before I could start, I needed to do some stash diving to find threads and linen.  What started as a stash dive quickly turned into an hour and a half of stash organizing!  You see, I wanted to stitch Mary with overdyed cotton threads and hand dyed 40 count linen.  I pulled the DMC it called for but then started looking through my big bag of sampler threads.  It's impossible to find anything in that bag, let alone a specific color.  I purchased some large 5" binder rings so decided that the sampler threads needed to be organized before I could get to stitching.  Here's the floss before, just dumped out of the bag.  

And, of course I had help in sorting, my little floss thief kitty decided to supervise.  Here she is checking out the pile of floss, just waiting for her opportunity.  Sorry for the poor quality of photos in this post, I was using my ancient iPhone (which I joke with some family friends still runs iOS1).  I'm waiting patiently for the iPhone 5 to be released and then it's upgrade city!
Here she is admiring the neatly arranged piles of floss
:
And then here she is stealing the pile of "S" for her own fun!

Here is miss Sage wondering when this nonsense will end so we can puh-lease go do something fun outside...

 

And finally, the organized floss neatly on a ring, colors for Mary Little picked:

We'll see who gets the last laugh...

I also started Mary Roe by the Scarlett House the other weekend.  I didn't do anything but stitch the border vine but boy was I happy when it matched up when I got to the last corner.  Here's a photo of my start, I'm sure you'll be seeing more of Miss Mary Roe in the near future, she's going to be a fun stitch!   She is sideways in this photo and I guess I'm too lazy to edit to make the photo go the right way!

I also want to start Mary Ann Blackburn by Blackbird designs, so see there really is something about Mary!

Paradise Lost Update and Market Must Haves

Well, I was able to get some stitching time in and it was so much fun working on the bird and flowers to the right of the big tree that I'm stuck on in the middle of.  Here's another wrinkly picture of my progress.  Next will be to finish that tree and then onto the middle of the sampler.

 
I'd love to predict when I will finish this sampler but with the Nashville Market coming and so many wonderful things to be released I have a feeling that I may set this aside for a bit to start on something new.  I am especially excited to start stitching Mary Roe 1808 by The Scarlett House.  A couple years ago I stitched Olga by Plum Street Samplers and have been trying to resist Boris and Sergi ever since.  And now Paulette comes out with Maxim and Zoya so now I think I have at least three Plum Street Samplers charts to add to my stitching list!  And of course, I'm curious to try stitching in wool to work on Jane Pattison by Shakespeare's Peddler.  I'm sure that will be just the tip of the iceberg once the market reports start coming out.  What's on your must stitch list from the market sneak peeks that we've seen so far??

Speaking of stitching lists... I may have mentioned that I was doing some organizing of my stash.  I used to have an inventory of charts and fibers and what linens I had to stitch them on well when I moved 4 years ago but then things went into storage well my inventory got horribly out of date.  So, I've spent some precious stitching time over the past few weeks organizing and cataloging my stuff so I have an updated list again and won't let that happen again! 

Well, I went to IKEA and purchased some pink baskets to hold my newly organized stash and while I was sorting and updating my list, my cat decided that he wanted to help too.  What I find especially humorous about this picture is that my Halloween kitty jumped into the wrong bin, he's sorted with the Christmas stash, not Halloween!  I guess I needed to switch the labels!  These baskets will eventually go into Expedit shelving which will go into a closet, I just need to go back and buy the shelves now that I'm ready to load it up! 

Lions and Tiger and TUSAL, Oh My!

Lions...  I've been busily stitching away on Paradise Lost since my last post.  I finished the motifs along the top so I jumped down and stitched the lions.  I've been dying to stitch more animals so rewarded myself.  Take a look...

And, here's a shot of the total progress:

I am so excited to get to this point!  Next I think I'll take a break from the tree and finish the motifs on the far right which will let me pick a frame whenever.  Then, I'll finish the tree and then I'm on to all the fun animals and Adam and Eve in the middle! 

Tiger... Nicola is having a contest on her blog, Stitching by a Cornish Sea Shore to share the cutest pictures of our animals sleeping.  Well, I think all my animals are cute when sleeping but one of the things I've been getting a kick out of over the last year is how the cats have completely taken over the dog's beds.  In fact, she has several on the chance that she might get one but usually there is a cat on it instead.  Here's Tiger on the dog's bed...
Granted, I woke her up trying to take this picture.  I had stacked the dog beds up to vacuum the family room and then later in the day found Miss Tiger cuddled up on top, kind of makes me think of Princess and the Pea and believe me, she is definitely a princess!  But, this is one of my favorites.  This is Mr. Scooter on the dog bed and Miss Sage on the floor.  You can definitely see who is the boss in this relationship...

TUSAL...

Lastly it's time for my February TUSAL report.  Here's my jar as of today, I squished it down recently and am now wishing I had waited until after I took this photo.  Oh well!  It is sitting next to a star shaped basket that I recently picked up at Pier One thinking it would be great for all my smalls.  Hmm, I suppose I should get busy on finishing those smalls!  LOL!  I'll take a photo of the basked when I have something to put into it I suppose.  :) 

I hope you have a wonderful week!