Sunday, August 19, 2007

Stitching, Stashing, Working (not really).....

It seems like forever since I did a post. My plan was to do it yesterday evening, but when I went to do pictures the battery was low on the camera. They are rechargeable and I thought it would only take an hour or so, well it did not happen before bedtime. And my bedtime is very late.
The big news is that when I went to the LNS on Wednesday afternoon for my afternoon stitching therapy, I found out my fabric was in for Villages of Hawk Run Hallow. So since I needed to work at the LNS on Thursday, I got to cut my own piece for the Village. I had trouble sleeping Wednesday night knowing that I might be able to take a few stitches on that BAP on Thursday. The morning at the shop was fairly steady with one customer at a time. I was partially through cutting my fabric and had to stop and wait on customers. I make that sound like a bad thing. It is not. Now that I have been in the shop off and on for 3 years, many of those that come in are now my friends too. Another enjoyable thing about working in the "candy store". There were several things I needed to do before starting on the Village. Priced all the new Lizzie*Kate designs, limited edition Christmas design kit, 2007 Santa, and the last of this years Flip-it Series. Cute stuff. At long last I was able to actually take a few stitches on the Village piece. Below is my progress so far.


Village of Hawk Run Hallow
by Carriage House Samplings
32 ct. R&R Lt. Cappuccino
Vikki Clayton Silks
My plan is to do one block a month. Since I started on August 16th, my month will run from the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next. I have been communicating with a couple of gals regarding doing a Village SAL. When I was back in the LNS on Friday to show Anita (owner/designer) my progress on one of her designs and to check colors that I was not sure of, she mentioned she would like to do the Village also. Maybe she will join me on a SAL. We already have one regular stitcher that is working on Block 5. For awhile it is going to be hard to keep me focused on stitching design models and Christmas presents instead of the Village.

Give Me A Home
28-ct Tea Dyed Irish Linen
Sampler Threads
Speaking of Anita, the designer, aka The Sunflower Seed, I can now show you pictures of the designs that I have recently stitched for her. The first one is "Give me a Home". We are waiting for it to come back from the framer. Frame is just laying on it for photo purposes. This is the one I finished about 3 weeks ago. It is easy to tell Anita's background. Born and raised in Kansas. She was the Friday Feature on Hoffman Distributing a week ago, if you would like to learn more about her and her designs.

Here is the 2007 edition of Kansas Xmas, that Anita has going. I stitched this one for her.

Kansas Xmas VI
32 ct Lambswool Linen
Weeks and Sampler Threads
Both designs should be available from your LNS very soon. If not you can contact, ww.thesunflowerseed.com. I am currently working on another design model for release soon. There are two other relatively new designs on that web site also. I ended up working at the shop again yesterday. Business was fairly steady with at least one person in the shop most of the time. I was working on assembling patterns for the design "Tequila and Salt". Ready to mail off to the distributor. About the time I had things going so I could sit down and take a couple of stitches, I had more customers. That is a good thing.
During last week, I made 2 trips to JoAnn's Fabrics. I can go weeks, if not months without stopping there and it is only 2 doors down from the LNS. Anita told me that had these nice rolling totes for portable sewing machines. She got one and used her 40% coupon. So Wednesday I went over and came back with this one. I have a very old Singer portable and I have carried it a lot of places, put it is really heavy. This will be perfect.
Also decided it will be just the thing to take to cross stitch camp when I go go Oklahoma City in October with my sister and a couple of my stitching buddies. Just the thing to carry all my many projects that I just have to take with me. Lot easier than carrying a bag over your shoulder.
Then yesterday after I closed the LNS I went over to JoAnn because they had Christmas and Halloween fabric 50% off for the weekend. Here is what I got for less than $20. I got a yard of everything, but the skeletons. It was the end of the bolt and ended up with 1 1/2 yards.

The skeletons are sparkly. I am sure that I will find a use for these as time goes by, either as part of a finish of a cross stitch piece or in some quilting project.

My intention was to get this done, by the time the NASCAR race started. Had a couple of glitches that took longer than I thought. Now the NASCAR race has been cancelled til tomorrow. I will catch it then. Went in my stitching room to straighten out one thing and it has led to a totally different thing to straighten and clean -up. Need to see about finishing that up and off to stitch on the design model, Christmas presents or the Village.
Hope everyone has had a good weekend. Stitching and doing whatever helps you relax and get retooled for another busy week. I know many of you have been struggling with hot temps like we have, stay cool. Thanks for taking time to read my ramblings. Your comments and interest is greatly appreciated.
Keep on stitching.

6 comments:

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

Good Luck on the Village :)
I have Block 1 and 2 completed and 1/2 of 12 and all the outlined boxes finished....but I haven't worked on it since like May... :(
All the finishes/designs looks so lovely and I love the fabrics!

Hazel said...

Thank you Kathy. I never really thought of it like that before as we never have big family things. I hope you're right. Love Vof HRH. Great wip. xx

Mary Ann said...

I loved reading your post--so newsy!! I'm looking forward to seeing the Village grow each month!

Sue said...

All your finishes are great and I love the fabrics too. Your start on the Village is great, I'm almost finished with mine, yippee ;)

jane said...

I love your holiday fabrics, what are you going to do with them? I used to work in a cross-stitch shop - back in the '80s - and I loved it! You are so lucky!

Marie said...

Oooohhh~you have started and I am still working on getting that fabric. Looks like I will be playing "catch up" :-)
You are a very productive stitcher!