"Workplace Bathroom" (and workplace gift) finish

I went home early yesterday because I wasn't feeling well and went ahead and finished my work-gift project.

It's on a mystery piece of opalescent fabric.  Blue/white mottled (quite pretty), and I thought it was 28 count, but it's bigger than the finished piece should have been, so I guess maybe 25 ct?

I'll be buying a hoop to frame it in, I got a 5" hoop, but it's a bit too small with the slightly larger size. 

The link to the etsy shop (La Hoopla) is here :)

Texas! (again :) ) and some other progress

Welp, I started off with a wild and crazy Friday night.

I broke out my new vacuum sealer and spent the night inventorying the freezer, properly sealing things, and processing veggies for the freezer.    Wooooo.   Young me would be soooo envious of old me's Friday night partying ;)

I actually wanted another model of a FoodSaver (I've had one in the past), but it was more than twice the price of this little unit and I wanted to make sure I'd actually use it a bunch before I spent the money on the fancy one.   To be honest, this little sucker is running like a champ and has most of the features I could ever use, so I don't even know if I'll need the more expensive one, now.

But by the end of the night, my kitchen was totally trashed, but hey!   No more veggies on the counter top! (until Saturday when I harvested again, any way).

I decided the weekend (after my Friday night 'party') would be all about no-chores.   Which was awesome, but I'm sure I'll regret later.   A huge cold front moved through the area on Friday night and there was a high of 78 on Saturday.  I'm sure when I get around to finishing some of the yard-work I've been stalling out on, I'll regret not doing it in less sweaty weather when I get the chance :)

So I decided to go ahead and knock out Texas:

And here it is sew into the wall hanging.    When I get back to the machine, I'll get the binding on all of the pieces so I can get them up.

And then I started a piece for my boss.   Her birthday is this week and since she started here earlier this year they've buried her in a crap tonne of administrative work, so it seemed apropos (even if strictly not work apropos ;) )    I bought the hoop above (used for the Texas piece) to display this, but I think it's going to be too big, so I'll have to get a bigger one.   I don't generally use hoops, so I was a little frustrated it's too large, though it's turned out to be helpful for the tiny things I can't put in my qsnaps.

This piece is on a mystery piece from my stash.    I ended up with a bunch of fabric from a friend who no longer stitches, and I'm pretty sure this is from her because it's opalescent, and I generally don't like that style of fabric - I think it'll work great for this piece.   It's gotta be done by Wed!

Sugar Skull by Mill Hill - Fini!

Unfortunately, the Partner and I ran amok of a little norovirus this past weekend.
The upside was a lot of audiobook listening and a bit of stitching while I was burning the house down washing a whole lot of loads of laundry to make sure it didn't come back.  Luckily we have a three day norovirus policy at work, so at least I didn't use my PTO for it.

But I finished the Mill Hill Skull!   I would have finished it three days earlier if I'd found the posy button sooner.  It went missing in one of my bags and it took me a bit to find.  I was actually trying to order a new one when I finally ran across it (in my Freshwater Pearls project bag).

I stitched it on 28ct white lugana rather than the perforated paper that came in the kit.  I love the effect with all of the beads, I enjoyed doing it a lot less (haha).

Sugar Skull by Mill Hill, Finished 9 Apr 2018

There was definitely more than enough beads and threads for this kit.  I'll have to give it away because I don't want to waste (not enough to do it entirely a second time, but probably enough where it won't cost too much).

I started working on Deco Spirits, hopefully the Air block will be my next mini-finish before I move onto something else... or maybe onto the next block.  :D

Plenty and Blessings by Brooke's Books

Today I have too many pictures of my Brooke's Books finishes - Plenty (fruit basket) and Blessings (fish).   These are both part of the Bride's Tree series.  I know Brooke's Books mostly from the 'dress up' series that are really pretty dresses from the Disney princesses.

Both of these were fun to stitch, Plenty was way faster/more fun than I thought it would be!

This is Plenty, this first picture is the best color-correct photo I managed.  The close ups seem to pull warmer, but that's OK.  I really, really like the addition of the champagne beads, they're fantastic.

The pattern calls for an overdye, but I did it with the equivalent DMC (which is listed in the pattern)

Wine! Pickles!   Plenty, by Brookes Books, finished 3-18-2018

And then there was Blessings.
I saw this finished as a sample in Stitcher's Paradise (in Las Vegas).  It is such a pretty fish, and I just loved stitching on it.

I couldn't find a place where I liked my signature, so I ended ups signing in the dirt (as it were).

So those are the ornaments - I think they're super adorable.   Hopefully I'll have more progress for WIPocalypse (since I skipped last month), now that I'm stitching again.

TUSAL and IHSW!

This weekend was IHSW - the International Hermit and Stitch weekend hosted by Joysze at her blog and on Facebook.  I worked on a couple of gift pieces while I watched the other half (re)play Last of Us.

These two little pieces were really fun to stitch!

Blessings, by Brooke's Books

Plenty, by Brooke's Books

And I really wanted to work on Boink or DecoSpirits, but I ended up picking up my MillHill Sugar Skull again.  Because of all of the beadwork, I think I'll rush to get this one done next.   I just kind of want it out of the way with all of those beads mingling in bags.

And finally, it's also time for TUSAL, the Totally Useful Stitch A Long hosted by Daffycat (also on Facebook), where we show off our orts.  These are the orts I've collected since the beginning of 2018.

If the rats' nest of threads I still have available from the Mill Hill kit doesn't take a big hit, I'll end up with a whole lotta threads for that container!

I'll have a more detailed post re: the finishes tomorrow; I wanted to get this up this morning, but didn't have time (danged meetings!)...

Desert Sunrise, Sunrise II, and Sunset (a kind of TBT)

I didn't get a chance to show off my finished Desert Sunrise, because I finished it and handed it off for framing at Nick's.  I did get her back, and the sister pieces!

I bought the three Desert pieces from Fireside Originals at Ginger's Needlework in Austin when I lived there in the late 90s.   I finished the first one in 2001 on the recommended Feather Blue(?) 18 ct aida.  Years later I decided I wanted to do them on evenweave because I don't like the look of aida when it shows in the piece.   The problem is that I couldn't find a perfect match with the Feather Blue aida, and because I don't have an LNS, I ended up having a lot of different 36ct blueish greys - I stick to the 36ct because I really wanted all three pieces to be the same size. 

Nick is (of course) a genius and came up with this stunning framing combo.  I didn't even realize that mat cores came in some of these colors.  All of the black mats have different colored cores, and he matched as well as he could, and I think they came out great.  The rough country wood look to the frame is just perfect.  Even the OtherHalf really liked them.

I can't wait to figure out a place to hang all three of these beauties.   Arizona is one of the places I'd be happy to move back to.

This is Desert Sunrise, by Fireside Originals; Finished in 2001

Desert Sunrise II; Finished 2017

And my very favorite, finished this year; and part of the Year of WIPs :)
Desert Sunset; Finished 2018

So those are my three beauties.  I think I know where I'm going to hang them, but I'm still cogitating on whether I think it's a prominent enough spot, because I'm super proud of these.

Hearts of America - North Carolina

Well, I'm one step closer to the state bellpull I want to make - I've finished North Carolina!

This heart features a cardinal, dogwood, and a strawberry (the official red berry of NC)

I always liked The Victoria Sampler's little kits for teaching new stitches.  If there was something particularly difficult for me *coughbullioncough* I'd work on one of these kits.   When I saw the state hearts, I just loved them and got the three states I'd lived in at the time.  I recently purchased the charts (I think it's a 5 part series, let's hope I don't need another one!) to get NC, the latest state, since I can't find any kits anywhere.

I made two small changes:
1.  I stitched this using PB03 instead of the called upon Kreinik.  I just like PTB better
2.  I added little seed stitches to the strawberry, they're not super obvious, but I think it makes it look a little less like a cherry.  I thought about french knots, but I thought they might be too big.

Cardinal with a couple of specialty stitch bands

I'm very pleased with these dogwood flowers

Leviathan stitch was the feature specialty band for this piece

The strawberry I added little seeds to...

So there's another finish for the books;  two down for the Year of WIPs and almost down for WIPocalypse (the band is my final goal)

This week/weekend I'm going to a gaming convention, so I hope I'll have a fun report of the games I'll be playing then.  I'm looking forward to it - well, that, and a bit less snow as what we got this past week melts away!

Lavender Bouquet Biscornu

Finished!

I finished Lavender Bouquet Biscornu by Rainburst Embroidery (on etsy) this weekend.   I stitched the top on 28 cameo peach jobelan, and the back is antique white evenweave (of some flavor) from my stash.    I chose this biscornu for my 2016 orts because the partner and I went to the San Juan Islands for a vacation (and Seattle) and while we were there we went to Pelindaba Lavender.  It was a great vacation and I hope to go back sometime.

So I did the front:

I did the back (adding 2016 in the lavender colors):

And I finished her off:

Entertainingly enough, 2016 was a pretty prolific year in terms of stitching for me, and two of the finished pieces were from kits, which really jumped up the amount of orts (I put the leftover kit threads in there).   So I only used about half the orts to stuff the biscornu.  Sucker is as dense as a hockey puck, so I couldn't add more.  I'm thinking of working on my Vino block party sometime this year and using extra orts from 2016 and any others I can't quite fit (and maybe bits from the quilting/sewing I've been doing as well).  This is also the largest biscornu in the collection, so I know I didn't make her too small!