Saturday, July 25, 2009

New Finishing Skill

Last year, I completed this sampler, shown here freshly ironed and taking up most of the ironing board. The sampler, it's a big 'un - 18" x 30" - and there's a lot of stitching in it. And not just cross stitch. All the grass is long and short satin stitch, the center flower is Turkey work and the vines are crewel, the top and bottom bands are rice stitch, the other dividing bands are various other stitches, and I finished it with an antique hem stitch around the whole magilla. It's on 32 ct Glenshee linen and stitched with Rainbow silks (except for the Turkey work and crewel which were done in wool.)

Since the piece was hemmed, it would have to be sewn to a mat board, instead of stretched, to be framed. I decided to try to tackle this myself and Cathy, the framing artist at the LNS, gave me a quick lesson in sewing on to mat board. A couple of weekends ago I started the (seemingly endless) measuring and pinning (and measuring and pinning) of this booger to the mat. (Note: this makes for some sore thumbs.) This morning, I decided to quit piddling around and finish the job.

It soon became apparent that the most important tool of this job was the handy-dandy paper piercer that I found in the scrapbooking section at JoAnn's. See it? It's at the bottom of the picture, between the pin cushion and the mat board and next to the glaring metal ruler. It made poking all those bleepin' holes a much nicer task than using a pushpin or a T-pin. So, with #22 needle and Gennie Thompson Ivory Linen Thread in one hand and the paper piecer in the other, I commenced to marrying sampler to mat.

Here we see one side (and a bit around the corner) done.

Yippe! Twenty inches down and only 76 to go!







And four hours later...taa-dah!

I meant to take the sampler to the LNS tonight to have Cathy the Great complete the framing, but the sampler failed to make it to the car. Rut-row. So now it will have to wait until Monday. Stay tuned to see the final pictures!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

TUSAL for July

Tonight's the new moon and time to post my progress picture for the Totally Useless (but very artful) Stitch-A-Long hosted by Yoyo at DragonMyNeedle. Not a huge amount added this month. I've been stitching mostly with Caron Waterlilies (Jade) and stitching over one on 28 ct (or perhaps 32 ct - I haven't stopped to count it) even-weave. So one ply goes a long way; hence, not a lot of ortage.

I want to show off a beautiful scissor fob my dear friend SU made for me. Isn't it just darling? I'm in total awe of anyone that crochets or knits at all, but start doing the tiny stuff with thread and the little hooks and needle with multiple 0's I just swoon. For Christmas, SU had knitted a mini sweater scissor fob for me. When summer rolled around I took that fob off -- not the season, you know. The next time I saw SU I apologized for not having it on the scissors, it being summer and all. The next week, when I saw SU again, she surprized me with this lovely summer frock with pettycoat and matching hat with flowers. How dear a friend is that??

I call this "Still Life with Orts". *snicker* I crack myself up some times. Remember, all the pictures are clickable if you want to get an up-close look at something.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Kitteh break

After all the heartbreak in the last week or so, it's time for a kitteh break. Sweet ol' Bob doesn't meow a lot, mostly he trills. It's adorable, but it would be nice if he'd talk like Cosmo in this video I found at ICanHasCheezburger

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Khen Moore

The world lost a great guy this week: Khen Moore passed away. Start the swill, big guy, and one day we'll all join you in the ConSuite in the Sky.
Happy birthday, America.