Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Oh, What Fun It Is......Stitching

Well, I guess I am feeling adventuresome, after the problems I had with blogger the last time I tried to do a post. Here's hoping this time works a lot better.

It is getting to the time that I can show Christmas presents that I have been stitching on for the last few months. Last night (Monday) the Monday night stitchers, aka Sunflower Stitchers had their Christmas Party at The Sunflower Seed. A fun time was had by all. Sometime late last summer, Janet had just finished stitching Carriage House Samplings--"Matter's Choice". Reina mentioned that she wanted to stitch that sometime. An idea popped into my head to do it for her as her Christmas present. I proceeded to stitch this for her. I finished while in Branson at Thanksgiving and picked it up from the framer last Friday. Here is the finished product.


Matter's Choice
by Carriage House Sampling
30ct WDW Mocha
CC Belle Soie - Cranberry

About 3-4 weeks ago at stitching one night when I was not there Reina asked to borrow Janet's pattern for Matter Choice. She agreed to get it to her. Later that evening, I got a call saying "were you stitching that for Reina?:". So e-mailed Janet and then she had to proceed and tell Reina stories as to why she was not getting the pattern to her. She bugged Janet several times about it. Since this all had taken place, I had to give Reina's Christmas stitching present to her at stitching. To start things off, I pulled out my copy of the pattern out and handed it to her, saying "I understand you are wanting to stitch this". Her response was "Yeah, I want to do that". Then I pulled out this wrapped present and told her that she needed to open this part of her Christmas early.

Her is her reaction after opening the gift.

Got a big "thank you" hug and an e-mail the next morning saying "you really got me, girlfriend". She is a hard one to pull a fast one on, so this turned out great. Everyone had lots of fun with it.

Our little party included pizza and lots of laughs, but not much stitching. I left there with, homemade toffee, peanut clusters, cranberry orange bread, peanut brittle, cinnamon candy , needles and 40-ct fabric and thread to do a new little design. Oh, you girls are the best friends a girl could have. Can you tell we like to eat. Besides the pizza, we had other treats as well, including more chocolate. I had made peanut butter balls. That turned into a whole other subject. You can guess where that headed with this group.

Another treat we received was a poem written by our own resident blonde. We did not know she had such talent. If you remember my write-ups about our retreats, this will make a little more sense.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

(with apologies to Clement Clark Moore)
by Jan

Twas the night before Christmas and at the Sage Inn,

Nothing was stirring, nary a needle or pin.

The stitchers were nestled, all snug in their beds,

Visions of linen, dancing in their heads.

When out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter,

Twas the mower again, dirt all a-scatter.

Elevator music was blaring once more,

Their ears started to bleed, it was such a bore.

And what to their wondering eyes did appear,

The ghost of George Custer, becoming quite clear.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the tote bags, with chocolate and stitchwork.

With Sampler, with Weeks, and with DMC,

With all kinds of linen, he filled with glee.

Then he winked and he said, as he grabbed the doorknob,

"I left lots of Belle Soie for that cute fiber snob".

And we heard him exclaim, as he rode out of sight,

Happy stitching to all and to all a good night.

We all left stitching Monday, knowing that whatever else happened we had just had one of the best Christmas celebrations that we would have all year.

Now onto the serious stuff. Stitching progress. Making good progress on my ALOHA. There are 2 full flowers and 2 partial flowers left to do and a whole lot of back stitching. Have not stitched anything with back stitching in awhile. I guess I had forgotten out tedious and boring it can be. This is turning out very nice.


Part One of "From Sea to Shining Sea" is done. Since this photo was taken, I have finished the box on Part Two and some stitching in the box. Like someone else said in their blog I might have to change the cloud color in Part two. It doesn't show up very well. Have I said it before? I love stitching with Belle Soie silk.

My part of the design model for The Sunflower Seed is done. Talked to Anita today and she said she was going to change one of the colors, so was ripping out part of it. I knew she was bothered by one color, so I am not surprised. Said she would have another one for me to stitch soon.

In my STO Yahoo group, I through out the idea of starting a new project on January 1st. They have jumped on it and several are going to join me in a "Start-A-Long". There were several choices in my stash, but I chose "American Baby". It is for the daughter of my college roommate. She is just like one of my kids. She has a new baby born the end of October, so thought I should get on this.



American Baby

by Willow Hill Sampling

28-ct Heritage from Picture This Plus

Recommended Fibers - GAST and CC



Tuesday we got around 3 inches of snow and now they are predicting freezing rain for Thursday. Don't like this part of winter. I have been staying home since I don't like to drive in the yuck. Trying to get some cooking done for various things. Have made 2 types of soup, peanut butter balls, sugar cookies and a potato casserole for Morris's office Christmas lunch. It is getting down to crunch time on Christmas preparations. The tree is up, but not many other decorations. Most of the gifts are bought, but not wrapped. No cards done and may not do any. Might do some after Christmas. Not sure where all my time goes, but cards does not seem to come to the top of the "to do" list.

Thanks to everyone for there comforting comments regarding the loss of my stitching friend. She would have loved our party Monday night. We miss you Joann.

Blogger is now messing with my spacing. Tried to fix it in HTML, but still wants to double space somethings and center everything. @@!!##$^&*!! Guess I am not smart enought to outsmart Blogger.

This has turned out longer than I planned, so sorry. Hopefully, I will find time to do one more before Christmas.

Happy Stitching.


3 comments:

Sonda said...

What a lovely gift for your friend!! Love the Xmas poem. Have a wonderful holiday!

Erica said...

Your Matters Choice is just lovely! I have that one waiting in my stash. Maybe by the time I get around to it I will have decided what color to stitch it in. I love the claret color!

Linen Stitcher said...

Great story about "Matter's Choice," and what a great finish it is! Beautiful!!