Finished Stitch Book

Boo, y'all!

For the past week, all my crafting energies have been directed to making Christmas gifts. Since I'm not sure who looks at my blog, this is all that gets shown at this time. I'll post real pictures after the holidays.

I did finish the Susan Greening Davis design Susan's Needlebook of Stitches. Here's a picture of the assembled book. All fourteen pages are bound with ribbon. Even though no stitches have been documented, I'm very pleased with the results. I've designed what I want for the back cover, but it will have to wait until I'm finished with all my holiday/birthday crafting.

When I was stitching the cover, there was a point when I was reloading the needle and took a look - a real look - at what I had sitting in my lap. "My stitches are filled with me" Ain't that the truth? It was just a fluke that I needed to reload at that point, but I'm glad I saw it and captured the image.

Here's a detail shot of the ribbon rose and "doo-dah" from the cover. When you attend a class with Susan Greening Davis, you're given a charm at the end of each class. In addition to the charm she selects for a class, the little scissors are the customary charm for first time students. Susan has taught me so much about stitching and the history associated with it, and I'm so grateful for it. For this reason, I put my first class charm on this project and it makes the project that much more special. I hope that some day this book teaches someone else.

In addition to being Halloween, today is Caturday! So, I'll leave you with a picture of the ever charming and loving Bob.

TUSAL for October and something new

The New Moon is upon us and it's time to post a progress picture of my TUSAL orts bottle. The orts that have been added come from the SGD project I've been working on diligently. There's a new #8 perle cotton #738 ball label in the jar. For those of you at home keeping count, that's the second one. It's getting really full and should be overflowing by the end of the year.

See the little bottle sitting next to the TUSAL bottle? That's something new I've started: a waste knot whatnot. The vial is about 2 inches tall and 7/8 inch wide. I tend to use waste knots to start my stitching and just stitch over the thread/floss to secure it. The waste knot whatnot has only been in action for a few days but I'm liking it so far and look forward to a little bottle full of colorful knots. Too bad I didn't think of saving them earlier. Ok, they were saved - in the TUSAL bottle - just not separately.

Today's stitching was on the cover for Susan's Needlebook of Stitches and that added some color to the orts bottle. There are a few more specialty stitches to be done, and seven pages need some eyelets and then it's time to assemble it. Pictures will follow when it's all together. I like posting pictures of things that are done; progress pictures, enh, not so much.

With the holiday season fast approaching, Susan's Needlebook of Stitches stitch documention may have to wait a while. It's getting really close to time to start the ol' creative juices flowing for gift ideas.

Cat walking

Buying a cat walking jacket from MetPet was probably the best thing I've ever done for Bob. He loves it! And it took surprisingly little time for him to learn that if he tolerates getting the jacket on that he gets to go outside and sniff, sniff, sniff. Our walks haven't gone far - just around the yard - but for Bob it's all about smelling what's been going on.

"Does this jacket make my butt look big?"






Sniffing the bushes, reading the p-mail.









"Who's been here?"










"What do you mean 'time to go in?'"

Rainy Tuesday

I got a nice surprise in the mail: a $10 check from the State Fair Creative Arts department. That's $6 for the second place sampler and $4 for the one that placed third. I think that's rather quaint. Bet those prize moneys haven't been updated in a coon's age.

In the not so nice department, the city of Nashville no longer wants to foot the bill for the State Fair so this last one really may be The. Last. One. It was nice to have the experience of participating in it.

No stitching since the weekend. I've been mulling over the placement of the eyelets and haven't reached a firm conclusion. The original design called for two eyelets on each page and a ribbon run through both, tied on the front. That's great if you've just got a few or even several pages, but I'm dealing with 14 of those boogers. I'm thinking I need three to four eyelets for a more stable stitching book.

Mull, mull, mull.

Oh, Mr. Stinky II is browsing at the feral cat bowls. The first Mr. Stinky met his demise crossing the street last year, so I know this isn't the same one. Seems like I'm running a soup kitchen for animals these days: Patches, Ginger, Big Yellow Cat, Tabby with White Feet (who I now know is named Ziggy), Patches's Evil Twin, and Tippy, the chubby gray and white cat with the white tip on his tail that lives across the street but always likes to grab a bite or two on my front porch. And sometimes this huge white German sheperd comes by really, really early in the morning and cleans out what little is left in the bowl overnight.

Still here...

It's been way too long since I last posted. My free evening time has been devoted to stitching on a Susan Greening Davis project Susan's Needlebook of Stitches, a handmade expanable notebook of stitches. I chose to make 14 pages for the notebook and have been working on them since the Alaskan cruise. The end is finally in sight, though, as I put in the final four-sided stitch on page 14 last evening. Now, it's on to the eyelets!