Thank you all & kittens

Hello and Happy 4th!   Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.  I wanted to thank you for the helpful emails and comments.  Your advice is greatly appreciated and necessary!  I did not know about using tent stitches for thread jams.  Stitching on 28-30 mostly, this was never a problem and your guidance taught me what the chart and my books did not.  I tried it for a few letters and it was much better, but because they are so tiny and the color was light, the thread was barely noticeable as a design.  So I continued on with the full cross, and then realized the entire design is over one. 

I always loved this design and assumed the center flower and such were over two.  I'm not happy.  But I will complete this and then never ever ever again NOT read the chart before starting, do anything that has more than letters over one, or take whipped cream icing out of the freezer a day early and expect there to be enough left to frost the cake.

This is the full design with satin stitch on the bottom border. 
 Not a stitch I do well.  I'm not happy with the wonky look of what I've completed so far because they are not uniform at all.   I must spend too much time at Glenna's and Margaret's and all the other fabulous advanced 40 count silky perfect stitchers' blogs.  It looks like 2 threads were used on the ABC, but the chart states one. I've heard of the happy dance, and I'll be doing one when this is over till the varicose veins pop.

 So now on to the kitty pics I'm posting at local pet shops...Take a look at these calicos. The really dark one is much like the mother, mostly dark brown, black, and orange splashes, including that sweet tail tip.  Does this count as a calico?  Brother is able to pet two babies now and they seem to be coming around, so hopefully, we can find homes.  Yeah, right.  Every agency here is overloaded.  Wish me luck.  Have a great weekend and listen for the popping veins.

Pear with me...

Hiya.  I'm making some progress on Pears Two but as always, two steps back also.  I decided to use the silks I inherited and matched colors with the DMC.  Not sure I like them.  No.  Wait.  I'm sure.  I don't like them.  I can't even pronounce them.  And they shred with every little frogging movement.  And I think they're fat.  One strand, 36 count (AUGH!), no problem on the large Eyes.  The over one is what's bothering me.  First of all, the silk I have is YLI and it's smoother, thinner, and less twist than Soie d' Alger.  YLI is the ABC and gold border.  Soie d' Alger is the over one letters.  It's too fat.  I found some Au Ver à Soie and decided to try that instead.  Seems smoother, less twist, looks a little better, still don't like it.  The letters are so bunched with floss that they are almost unreadable, to me anyway.  Obviously there is a big difference in brands of silk and dummy me thought not.  Wrong again.  Seems I'm learning a lot since picking up a needle again, but why is it always the hard way?  Lack of a local shop!!   Here's a few pics of my mess.

 Can you see the difference in the YLI (gold)?  It lays better in the border and is thinner.  Look how fat the little letters are.  This next one is with the Au Ver à Soie (recommended thread) on the right and although the picture doesn't show well, it looks a little less bulky but I still don't think you can see the letters.  I tried removing the Soie d'Alger and it's impossible.  It's shredding and I can't get under it to pull out - not even the Lift 'n Snips are working.  So now I have two different greens and will waste a lot of time removing what I can't remove.  I'm a determined old fart.   I'm going to do a few stitches with one strand of DMC to see how thick it looks for future 36 count silk thread projects that I'll never do.  If I like it, is it wrong to mix silk and cotton?  Do I care?  So tell me, can you look at a framed sampler and tell if it's silk or not?  You can? 

What?

 I decided to take a break so Bud and I had a donut.  I fried mine.  Bud #2 was not happy.  She's the prettiest of the bunch with her silver coat.

It's too bad I don't like the taste of alcohol.  A glass of wine might do me good.  But another two Advil and the sound of a second donut sizzling in that hot pan will work too.  

To be continued.....

Saint Clare

Hello boys and girls. I haven't posted since the 21st, a week ago, the day I moved into the 6th decade. Well, technically, I'm 40 with 20 years experience. I've been busy getting outside projects completed so I don't have a summer like 2010. Waiting, waiting, waiting, while staring at mud with no where to sit. I hired a new landscaper and he's already completed three projects so we should be done soon. Yes I work with them or watch them because I've been stung too many times, regardless of how good looking they are.  What?   I finally finished planting the flowers in pots.  One of my favorites is this little rusty paint can on a small hook. 

I pour old paint on to cardboard appliance boxes and when dry, burn.  I hate to throw the cans in the garbage (no recycling in my township) so I decided to let them rust, poke holes in the bottom, and plant! 

My other wire baskets I line with two layers of burlap, fill, and plant.  I put slits in the fabric and poke starts in the sides, eventually flowers cover the entire pot and no one sees the burlap.  Doesn't matter to me since I like primitive style crap anyway.   I've covered plastic pots with burlap too, and tied it on with raffia or jute.

 I haven't put this swing out for the last three years.  We had it custom made for mom, and you can see the handle on the post that she used to pull herself up.  Big swings were too unwieldy for her so I found someone to make a single.  We had it positioned to watch her from the kitchen window so I see it all the time, very hard.  But I love to swing in it like a little kid and remember how she enjoyed her special spot.  You can see another new paint can that hasn't rusted yet. 

Anyway, I'm haven't stitched and I'm really upset with myself.  But before I get into that, a blogger mentioned getting another pair of scissors recently, a new style, and I thought I would embarrassingly show you mine....

Fiskers.  Orange plastic Fiskers.  Did I hear tsk tsk tsk?  Are you embarrassed for me or am I not the only one that uses orange plastic scissors???  Should I treat myself to a pretty pair? 

Tonight I will work on that Pears Two chart since the supplies were pulled a while ago. Part of why I'm procrastinating is having to find the linen, figure the size, and CUT it. Grow up girl. It does no one any good sitting in a drawer. If a project was ready to go, I would certainly have started it, but I really hate searching through linen and trying to figure out the count. Excuses excuses. So this came to me when I was digging a hole.....do we have a patron saint to pray to when we are in stitch distress? You probably all know that we do, but I didn't.   She is Saint Clare.   I found her story here and I enjoyed the article. Another article from the New York Public Library is here. Technically she is Saint Clare of Assisi and developed Assisi embroidery. If you are like me and unaware that stitchers have a patron saint, it is pretty interesting to read.  Never did I expect to find her when I Googled for patron saints.  Maybe she and I will have a long talk tonight. 

Thank you for visiting, commenting, emailing, and putting up with stitching absentia.   Not sure if that is the correct term for my affliction, but I don't care.  I own it.  And it ends tonight!!!

Antique Samplers

This photo is from the Antique Samplers.org site homepage.   It's their featured sampler, Margaret Jack.

Hello all you stitchers who are actually working on a project, big or small, with enthusiasm and intent to complete, along with the desire to pick up another project at the same time, or if not, to at least be contemplating the next design to be worked, colors of linen dancing in your head, choices of threads dangling from the chosen fabric, excitement at the first few stitches of colors on that blank canvas, driven to continue on as the design comes to life, the bittersweet final stitch......
Sounds like fun - so what's my problem?  I'm still not ready to commit to a larger project.  In fact, I've been so busy with outdoor hard labor that I really haven't had time or energy to focus on a project.  Contractors promise they will show up for work, and then make you wait and wait.   Back to stitching.  I haven't visited Antique Samplers for quite some time, but did this evening.  I even forgot that you have to click the years at the bottom of the page to browse.  Amazing wonderful samplers.  I started at 1826 -1850 because I'm the type that starts a magazine from the back.   Ann Bowness,  Ann Campbell,  Agness Buchanan,  Christian Cochrane and SO many others that have houses or buildings as focal points, which is what attracts me to a larger sampler.  Quite a bit of interesting information on samplers also, well worth revisiting.  As you know, you can spend hours clicking on each one.   I'll be doing just that, hoping for motivation.  My goal is to continue with smalls, but also have a larger project started.  Lucy Redd is what I chose but .....  not sure what the but is!  Procrastination?  Probably.  Preoccupation with turning 60?   BINGO!!

Happy Father's Day

To Dominic Casaccia, my wonderful dad.  It's been 10 years since we lost you and those tortuous weeks of your suffering haven't left us, and never will.  Neither will our memories of your love for us, your kindness to others, generosity, and devotion to your family.  While looking for an old picture of you in our family photos, I realized there are no photos of you alone.  There was always a family member or mom with you, I guess because you never wanted to be the center of attention.  But I did find this, taken 60 years ago....... just you and me Dad.

I love you and miss you,
your baby girl



Sampler bag freebie

Please bear with me!  I have no idea how to do this correctly so if this doesn't work - I'll try to find the correct procedure and post again.  There is a chart with color only, and one with symbols.  I don't think this program shows the symbols clearly so I wanted to post both.  I'm editing here to add that I checked the blog once this was posted and the symbols for the vase are not correct.  I can't get them to be all the same but they should be - the color is 844 and the vase is solid.  Same with the bird - the legs have two symbols but they should be all 844.  The program is very user friendly, but I can see now that it saves differently than the original file.  Yikes.  Using the color chart, it may be hard to tell the browns apart, so 898 is the middle border line and the entire small alphabet.  The other brown areas are 829.  The page with floss colors is separate.  Why?  Because I can't get them on one page!!!  WHY???  You should be able to click on them to enlarge, save, and then print.  Please email and let me know if this isn't working.   I hope this works and hope you enjoy the chart!!  Feel free to email me with problems or comments.  I'm new!!!  Help!!

I also forgot to mention in the prior post that I kept the selvage edge showing on the bag because it has a little fuzz looking like chenille trim and I liked that.