august 6 - starts & finishes

I haven't been stitching as much as I'd like, but I do have a few things to share.

These are two Lizzie Kate designs that I finished into pin pillows -- both for stitching friends. The first is "Prayer Connection", stitched over one on 25 ct. evenweave with DMC variegated threads.



This one is an old freebie called "Freedom". Since it was a summer exchange going to the UK, I changed it to say "summer". It is stitched on a piece of "water lily" jobelan with the called for threads (mostly). I substituted an anchor thread for the gold color.



I also stitched two "doodles", but I can't show them as they are part of a surprise gift.

This is "This Too Shall Pass" by My Big Toe Designs, stitched on a piece of peach colored linen with Valdani floss. I received both the fabric and the floss in this years "Calendar Girls" exchange on Friendly Stitchers. I had never used that type of floss before and it was really nice to work with and the colors are beautiful. The piece is finished as a no-sew cube.


This second no-sew cube is "Marion the Librarian" from La-D-Da, stitched on natural fiddler's cloth using the called for threads. I stitched this one years ago, but it has been languishing in a box with other stitched, bit not finished pieces. I finally have a place to put it in my office/cubby at the library, so it has been saved!



"The Hunt" by Homespun Samplar is the round robin that my Quaker round robin group is doing this time. This is not my piece, but I love the three different blues that Jinger chose.


I was much more boring and stuck to just one color, but I think all three pieces will look great. I haven't seen Clare's piece yet but I stitch on that one next.


I also stitched Lizzie Kate's "Friendship Grows" for a challenge on the Lizzie Kate Lovers blog, but I can't show that until the challenge is over.

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But my startitis has not subsided, and here a few pieces I have recently started...all in various degrees of "startedness" (huh??)

"Love Lives Here" from Erynne's Red House Designs:


"With My Needle" from PrimitiveBettys Designs:


"Flying Monkeys" from Glory Bee Designs


"Green Flips" from Lizzie Kate Designs (this is a SAL that I started way late):


"Tea with Jane Austen" from the Sampler Girl:


Whew! It looks like I have my work cut out for me!

Thanks for visiting!

august 5 - Grandma Bragging

It's hard to believe that Asher is two years old!

Last Friday, we took him to the County fair and he had a blast. It's a real county fair --more animals than carny rides--and he had so much fun running through the different barns & recognizing all the animals. Of course, he's never heard a cow moo quite so loudly before! There was a play area and a sandbox type thing filled with corn...he really loved playing around ion that. Most of the children were his age and they were having a ball. There were a couple of older kids and the little ones had fun burying them in the corn kernels!


So grandma went a bit overboard with the Thomas toys, but he is crazy about those little trains! He seems to always have one (or more) in his hands & the first thing he says when he wakes up is "toot toot" (translated..."where are my trains?")


Happy birthday, sweetie. Two is going to be lots of fun!


Thanks for visiting!

august 4 - getting back to "normal"

We're finally getting settled in at the new/old library. It's such a beautiful building, but just so small. We only have about 20% of our collection here...the rest is all in storage until the next move. It breaks my heart! We do have Wi-Fi though which is why I can be posting this now!

So many of our patrons have such wonderful memories of the last time the library was housed here in the Carnegie. We've got some wonderful old photos that we had framed and will be putting up soon. We're hoping to do some kind of historical project so people can share their memories.

It just feels like I am busier than ever, but that's ok.

We have a vacation week coming up toward the end of the month, and we're looking forward to that. We were going to take a road trip but my husband has a broken rib, so I think we'll stick closer to home this time. We can just relax and maybe take a couple of day trips to the coast instead. Maybe even get some stitching done!

I'm thinking again (always a dangerous thing!) about starting a rotation for my projects (again). Since we've moved the library, I go in to work later (8:30 instead of 6 am)...which means I can stay up later, assuming I don't fall asleep on the couch! So I should be able to get at least a few stitches in every day (at least in theory!)

I'm wondering how many of you have some kind of rotation -- or plan -- for your stitching time. It seems like I'm always making lists of what I want to do when, but then something usually comes up and the best laid plans & all that.....So I'm thinking, maybe work on one project for each day of the week....it's not like I don't have enough different projects to choose from!

Must think on this one....

Thanks for visiting!