Frame, floss, and vacation

I had a hair appointment last night right after work and I didn't get home until 7:30 so no sewing happened. On my way home from the salon, I stopped at the Goodwill store to see it they had any frames that would work for framing cross stitch. I only found one wood frame that was suitable, but it was a good one for only three bucks!

The next stop was at Michael's to get a skein of blue floss. Now I can finish stitching that small Ukraine piece. I just need to find that sunflower fabric for the back so I can fully finish it this upcoming weekend.

When I got home there was a white plastic shipping bag at the mailbox. My prescription finally arrived! I fileted that bag open, checked the number stamped on the pills, then did a happy dance!

Wanda, here is the patch of Ajuga in my back yard. It is very purple in the summer and the patch gets bigger every year.

I am taking vacation Thursday and Friday since I will be heading to a gig to work the merch booth for my nephew's band on Thursday. The band hasn't played since last September so I am anxious to hear them play again. The show is at a venue I have never been at so it is always interesting going someplace new. Thursday morning I will travel and hour and 15 minutes to my eye doctor to get the replacement lenses. Hopefully, they will work better than the new ones I got a few weeks ago.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be all about finishing the Harley quilt and maybe getting a bit of yardwork done. Catch up with you  on Monday! Have a great weekend!

Guessed wrong

I thought I had enough blue floss to complete the Ukraine Peace piece, but I guess wrong. LOL!! I do like the border better with the two rows of blue and yellow. I will be traveling by a Michael's tonight so I will stop and get a skein of blue floss so I can get this done.

Meanwhile I went looking for some sunflower fabric to put on the back of this small so I went digging in my stash. So far I haven't found a scrap of sunflower fabric, but I did find some pieces of baseball fabric which I can use for those two quilts I need to make for my sister's friend.

While I was speed watching the Oscars that I had taped, I sewed on this Ukraine flag patch I had ordered from a place in Austin on the back of my AC/DC hoodie. The place is called Patch Addict.com and they are fast with the shipping. I ordered the patch Friday morning and got it Monday. The fellow in the next cubical wanted to order some Ukraine flag patches so we put together an order so I have a few more patches coming to add to this hoodie. We used the 15% off coupon they sent me plus ordered enough to get free shipping!

My next cross stitch project is this sampler I found on ebay.

I will not chart the whole thing out. I just like to start stitching and will just fudge as I go as needed. I thought it was a cute sampler despite the condition. Here is my start.

My daffodils look very sad because of the cold and snow. As the weather warms up today I am hoping they pick themselves up. For the last three weeks every time I walked passed them to get the mail I told them it was too early to show up! LOL!!

Finally figured it out

I have been trying to figure out why I am so tired all the time and can fall asleep even though I had a good night's sleep. The blood pressure med take - I have had pills from three different manufacturers. The one where I have no issues with, the refill is suppose to be here somewhere between March 29 and April 1. I have no idea why it is taking so long to get here. The pills I have now don't control my BP very well and make me sleepy/tired/lazy. Therefore, it is easy for me to procrastinate which resulted in me not getting the Harley quilt done. I did make progress some progress. I only have about half of this black shirt to finish and the white shirt at the corner thenn it is quilted.

I did make a pizza Saturday and a loaf of banana bread Sunday.

I did stitch on this small piece on Saturday. The design called for two rows of yellow and two rows of blue for the border, but I didn't have enough blue floss - or at least I thought I didn't - to stitch two rows. Last night when I went to brush my teeth I found two strands of blue floss stuck to a towel. The floss must have been on a shirt and when I rubbed up against the towel it got stuck to the towel. I found one other piece of floss with 4 strands so I now have enough to stitch that second blue border. I messed up the curl on the upper left, so if I have enough floss I will fix that too.

It snowed here all day Saturday so Sunday when I got up it looked like this.

We had light flurries on and off Sunday, but no accumulation. I wish I could take a good picture of the snow coming down here now. Two inches has already fallen and it is not slowing down. With this big window at my cubical, I feel like I am in a snow globe! There was no snow on those stacks of lumber when I got to work this morning. Wednesday the high is forecasted to be 70. Right now it is 19 degrees.

Happy Friday - a finish, a start

Oh, it has been a long week. Eight more hours and then home! I finished the George Eisenbrey sampler. It is a small piece - 6 1/8" wide X 6 5/8" high. I have a hair appointment next week so on my way home I will stop at the Goodwill and see if I can find some more frames to cut down for all these pieces I have been stitching lately.

I got started on this small piece from Modern Folk Embroidery. Jacob designed this as a freebie to honor Ukraine. It says Peace.

I haven't touched it since I started it at the beginning of March, but my plan is to stick with it until it is done. Here is where I am at right now

My goal this weekend is to finish the Harley quilt. The weather is going to be cold, some rain, and possible snow on Saturday; not good for working in the yard! LOL! Have a great weekend!

90% done, repotting, and a gig

The only time the sun shone yesterday was on my trip home from work, then the gray skies and rain started up again. That mean no natural light for quilting those black t-shirts. I did get the tan one done which put me at 90% done.

It was warm enough outside to take the peace lily home to repot it. It was so root bound that there was very little soil to hold moisture and the plant was suffering.

I had to use my hand pruners to help cut the thru the roots to divide the plant. I have one plant to take to work and one for me. It was only 44 this morning so I wrapped the plant up in a sheet and plastic bag to keep it from getting shocked. Here are the two plants I got after dividing them. I took the one on the right back to work.  The fellow that left gave me the plant and it was from his Mother's funeral.  

My nephew called me on my way home from work to ask me if I would be available to work the merchandise booth at a gig that he booked next Thursday. I said yes so the band will be opening for Ace Frehley, former member of Kiss. It will be a short set, but it's a good thing to add to his resume. Here is the poster he designed for the show.

So I will take Thursday and Friday off next week. I won't get home until late on Thursday. I will use the time off to run errands and get some stuff done around the house.

89% done

Last evening I managed to get this shirt quilted

and over half of this shirt quilted.

I need to have a sunny evening so I can have more light to quilt those three black shirts. After those I just have the one in the corner and it will be all quilted.  It continues to be rainy and overcast with no sunshine until next Monday.  We had more sunshine this past winter than we are having now.  

George Eisenbrey sampler

I found the book where I got the chart for this sampler. As I stitched this I found that the chart floss key was incomplete. There were two symbols used on the chart that were not on the floss key so I just winged it! Since I had a colored picture of the sampler I just matched up with what I thought was close. George's mistakes were charted and stitching those kind of threw me off. Here is where I was last Tuesday and where I am today. Yes, I am almost done.

Here is the book that this sampler was shown in. The book was printed in 1992.

As I was glancing thru the book again, there are a lot of pretty samplers in this book. I might have to stitch another one out of it. Here is the state of my daffodils. Looks like I will get some flowers soon!

Harley quilt progress

I am now 85% done with quilting the Harley quilt. I outlined the shirts I have left to quilt.

I made a pizza and a loaf of banana bread on Saturday. Sunday I made a big crockpot of chili for meals for this week.

While I was eating leftover pizza on Sunday for lunch I felt something hard in my mouth. What the heck? It ended up being one of my gold crowns came off. I am just glad I didn't chomp down and break a tooth on it and that I didn't swallow it! It doesn't hurt because I think that is the tooth I had a root canal on a few years back. I left a voice message at my dentist's office so I just hope they can fit me in this week.

This morning I was gifted this plant. The fellow's last day is Wednesday and he doesn't want to take it with him. He is moving to TN to be closer to family. Since I had rehabbed the plants in the office, he knows I will be a good steward. It desperately needs repotted so one more thing to do on the list!

I didn't get any yardwork done. It rained all day Saturday and finally quit Sunday morning. It was too wet to play in the dirt so things are going to have to dry out a bit.

So glad it is Friday

I had a list of things to get done when I got home so no sewing happened. I did walk around the yard and saw that many of my Lenten Roses have started blooming! I also saw that I need to get out there and clean the leaves out of them! LOL!! So here are pictures of some of the blooms

My plans for the weekend are to work on the Harley quilt, clean up around the house a bit, and spend some time outside since it is forecasted to be nice except for possible rain on Saturday. Have a great weekend!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We are having a St. P's day luncheon at work today and people were asked to bring dessert. I spent last evening making 5 dozen shamrock cutout cookies so no sewing happened.

Harley quilt progress

After work I stopped at the library to pu a couple CDs, stitched a bit, washed dishes, then quilted on the Harley quilt. It was a busy evening! I am now 67% done with the quilting. I quilted the blue shirt with the eagle on it last night.

I also took a few monents to watch the deer. I could see six of them chillin' out. They were spread out all over the backyard so apparently they like their space. Here are four of them.

Early work, newest project

I don't know if it is the time change or what, but I was tired when I got home from work and didn't feel like doing anything. I did mention to one of my readers that I ought to show some of my early cross stitch pieces and the difference of when I started and how it has changed! This is the first sample I ever stitched. I didn't date it, but I think it was from the early 70's. I bought this stamped pieced from an offer on the back of a Kleenex box. There also was a crewel piece that had two pigs on it that I stitched, but no longer have. I don't remember how much I paid for it or if it came with the floss.  It couldn't have been very much money.  I used babysitting money.

I then made this piece which was an iron on transfer. I don't remember which pattern company this came from - McCall's or Simplicity. The fabric is an off white muslin. Those squirrels are scary! Not dated, but I would say the early 70's.

Moving on to Aida for this piece which is dated 1983

Sometime between 1983 and 1985 I graduated to stitching on linen. I have this little piece dated 2-85. I know I stitched this for a gift for someone too. I have no idea about the pattern, although I think I have seen the chart recently on ebay.

I was still stitching on Aida as this piece is dated July 1983. I think at that time this piece was shown to be  stitched on Aida so that is what I did. Now I would stitch it on linen.

I stitched this piece in 1985 but didn't frame it until 2/16/87. I had gone to a place that would cut all the pieces then you could use their tools and frame it yourself. It cost me $15.13 to frame it. I can't believe I had written all this info on the back, but I am so glad I did.

I framed this one the same day as the previous piece -  2/16/1987. It cost $10.42. I know I stitched this piece more than once to give as a gift. It was a very quick stitch and I saw the chart for sale on ebay yesterday for this with another small sampler from The Scarlet Letter.

Then there is this piece which seems to be the last sampler I stitched until last year. I framed it December of 1988 and it cost me $34.00. It is stitched on linen and now that I look at it the border is so plain! I have no idea where I got the chart from.

Last year I finished the cross stitch stocking, the Danish cross stitch tree, tbe Birds of a Feather piece, the Harris zebra sampler, an Irish Blessing, a little red sampler, three smalls, and two cross stitch pieces that I made pillows for Xmas gifts so I guess you could say I have gotten back into cross stitching after a 30 year hiatus! My next project is this reproduction sampler originally stitched by a nine year old boy, George Eisenbrey. I haven't seen any other samplers stitched by a boy so I like that this one is unique. I found this in a library book although I have seen that you can buy the chart. The original is in the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in DC.   I don't remember the library book, but I will post that information when I figure out which book it was in. It is a small sampler so this one should not take long to stitch.

Here is my little start. I am using 28 count Italian linen with the called for DMC colors. There was one color that was silk, but I substituted DMC.