A Bit of Progress- Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

I am slowly stitching away at Carriage House Samplings "Houses of Hawk Run Hollow".  I have been stunned at the size of this piece.  It is utterly amazing, truly.

I am stitching this on 32 count Belfast Linen. I now wish I had gone with a higher count, but I am not about to start over.  This is the only piece I am working on at the present time.

After about a month's work I am still not quite done with the first square.  There are twelve squares total! This may end up being an abbreviated version of the twelve square piece. We will see.

I do not stitch every day, but I am keeping track of stitching hours on this one.  This first square has taken many, many hours.

I am using DMC threads, and the colors are looking great to me. Here it is:

Last week I cooked minestrone for dinner one evening.  It was so delicious! If you're interested in cooking up some, here's the recipe.  It's been nice and cool around here lately, which is unusual this time of year. I'm enjoying the cool air immensely.

Finally, a photo of some flowers from Mother's Day.  It was a tough day--the first Mother's Day without my mom.  And so it goes...

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A New Start- Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

I am not one who enjoys starting projects. I know that puts me in a minority, it seems, but that's the truth. It's not so much that I don't like starting, it's that I don't like gathering materials and putting it all together. I prefer just stitching on them!  I did, amazing as it is,  start and finish Mary Ann Blackburn already this year, so I am in a full swing stitching frenzy compared to my usual self.

Just about two weeks ago I started the Houses of Hawk Run Hollow.  It's been a lot of fun so far. I am tracking my hours of stitching on this one. This is something I used to do all the time, starting way back in the days of being an active participant in the Yuku Rotation Stitch Board.  That was long, long ago.

I'm amazed at how large this project will be in the end.  I started with the block that's in the second row, third to the right. The houses I am thus working on are rather small compared to the houses that are in many of the other blocks.  I truly had no concept of the size of this until starting. I love the hot air balloon in this block, and look forward to getting to that at some point in the next few weeks or so.

Here's a few photos to show the project, threads, and progress so far.

The completed project:

All the DMC colors for the project. I had to buy quite a few, even though my floss collection is quite large! 

My very first stitches on  this project look rather forlorn at this point. 

A bit more progress: 

Here's how it looked this morning when I finished a small stitching session:

Finally, I wanted to share this photo of Quaker Diamonds framed and hanging. For  years we had my great-great grandma's 1839 sampler hanging where Quaker Diamonds is now displayed. For now I will keep it this way.  I moved my great-great grandma's sampler to another part of the living room. This is my 'stitchy view' while in this room of the house.  Our television is to the right, and our front window is off directly to my left.  It's a very relaxing place to spend time. 

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Finished~~ Wedding Ring Bouquet by Paula Vaughan

I finally finished Wedding Ring Bouquet.  I started it on March 16, 2003 and finished it on April 14, 2016.  Thirteen years!

I did work on other projects during this time.

I started it 'on a whim' as I had the 22 count hardanger fabric in my fabric drawer, as well as the pattern. I'd picked it up somewhere for just $1.00.  I also had stitched two other PV patterns back in the late 80s, and I enjoyed stitching those immensely.  Thus I barreled ahead with this project.

At times I didn't enjoy the very small count of fabric, but in the end it wasn't too bad.  The entire design isn't very large at around five tall by seven inches wide.

Phew. It's done. Framing will come later.

One more photo, with scissors for size reference:

I did start a new project on Saturday.  So excited about that one, more details at a later time.

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Embroidered Pieces

Last month in the world of Facebook there has been yet another 'challenge'.  This particular challenge asked for stitchers to share their needlework for seven days.  On one of the days I shared a collage of my surface/stamped embroidery work.  My grandma taught me how to embroider in 1974, and I recently came upon a photo of me stitching for the first time along side my grandma. At that time my grandma was 84 years old! She was fortunate, and lived a full life and was in her own home until the end of her life, passing away when she was 96.  I miss her to this day. 

 This collage shows a bunch of pieces I stitched between 1975 and 2015 or so: 

I still own the cut-off shorts and chambray shirt, but it's for sure they don't fit me anymore.

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Embroidered Bed Cover

I recently received a beautiful gift from a dear family member. It's a lovely embroidered vintage European bed cover. I layed it on the antique bed that's in our guest room, and I love the colors of the cover and how they cheer the room.

I love how the corners' colors are different from one another. It makes it so much more unique, and whimsical to me.

Also, it's fun to see areas where color creativity really took hold:

I wonder who embroidered this piece,  where they lived, and when it was done. All I know is that originally it was purchased somewhere in Europe and then brought to the U.S.A.  to be sold at a huge vintage market held each year back in the Cape Cod area. Wherever it's from, and whatever its story might be--it's fun enjoying and appreciating it today! 

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Tea Towels--Finished, Finally!

Okay, I know it's been such a long time since I've said much of anything here at all, stitchy or otherwise. So here I am, finally with a finish!

The last eleven months have been monumentous. A move, a goodbye to an old house, a hello to our new home, a dear family member's medical struggles, projects here at the new 'old' house, family fun, and work, work, work.

That being said, I finished these towels for my daughter, and gave them to her on her birthday. It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish them, but that's how it goes. Life has been very busy, with little free time to pick up a needle.

Here they are. In case you're wondering, my daughter chose the words herself.

Love this one, nom, nom, nom!

This one makes me want to whip up a cake. Well, almost.

Yearning to find a timer like this one. Remember these?

The patterns are from Sublime Stitching. Aren't they fun? Now I need to pull out one of my VOPs and get to work. (very old projects) Soon, yes, soon!

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A Gorgeous Sampler

Happy Day sampler done, a photo by Gina2424 on Flickr.

I found this sampler by Gina2424 on Flickr recently. Don't you just love the colors and free form feeling of it? Fun, fun, fun!

1983 Chick

1983 Chick, a photo by loves2stitch2 on Flickr.

The first counted cross stitch piece I did, back in 1983. This is frightfully close up, and I do see some problems with the threads.

Twenty-eight years ago...yikes! Where does time go?

Quotable

The future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

I have always loved quotations. They inspire me, and make me think. My love of quotations goes back to childhood.  I actually preferred non-fiction reading as a child, and I still do!

Non-fiction is what was actually more available to read in our home, so maybe that explains it. On the other hand, I often start reading novels to this day and find I just don't get drawn into the book.  Do any of you have that problem? On the other hand, at times I get so drawn in that I can barely put a book down. That's an entirely different problem.

Other problems have prevented me from liking novels. One time when I was a child I tried to read Pippi Longstocking, and I couldn't get into it because I couldn't figure out how to pronounce Pippi's name. I don't know why I just didn't ask someone, but I instead put the book down.  If I had asked my mom, she would have told me to "Look it up." Perhaps that too explains my love of non-fiction books. I became a constant friend of the dictionary and encyclopedia set in our house since "Look it up" was constantly heard. I think it's okay to tell a kid to "Look it up". It encourages independence, and also great investigative skills.

One of the books on our family book shelves that I did read often was Bartlett's Famous Quotations.  I also loved reading my brother's books on travel around the world (with all those wonderful maps), as well as my mom's nursing textbooks. The latter choice probably wasn't such a good one, as it was rather scary reading about diseases at such a young age (and seeing photos of them, too).
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Later today I think I'll work on the tea towel set (Sublime Stitching) I'm embroidering as a housewarming gift. Here is the latest progress picture of one of them:


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