Stitching Away!

  It's been a very hot week here!  Friday was 105 with the humidity at about 40 percent!  I needed to get some ribbon to turn Santa# 11 into a finished ornament, so I headed out and on the way home I got stuck in some road construction.  As I was sitting and waiting for our turn to pass thru the one lane road my check engine light came on and my eyesight system turned off!  UGH!    You know that aweful feeling in your tummy when things go wrong.  Well, I was only about a mile from home so I continued home and my husband and I got out the manual.   Well, our car has about three or four manuals and so it took a while but we figured out what the problem might be.  I guess the eyesight system only works with a certain temperature range and it had just gotten too HOT!  So after about 15 minutes in the garage we went back out and everything was back to normal. WHOOo HOO!  So I sat down with a cool drink and started Santa#11 take two.  I haven't gotten very far but he is coming along.

 Saturday my husband joined my son for a day of mudding in his Razor!  So what a lovely time for me to spend some time in  the sewing room.  I found a tutorial by Vonna Pfeiffer ,the twisted stitcher, that seemed pretty easy.  I really don't have much experience with finishing cross stitch projects and hope to explore that subject more this next year. This is a simple pillow ornament, however I changed the hanger and sewed it into the seam of the pillow instead of hand sewing it on afterwards.   I am happy with the turnout and hope my online quilting friend will like it too!  Now to get it off in the mail this week.

I am hoping to make some progress today on Santa #11 take two, as the new chart for the Linen and  Threads SAL 2020 chart will come out for September.  I also need to find time to get back in the sewing room and turn my Kathy Schmitz embroidery into a pillow.  I picked out some fabrics from my stash now I need to make sure I have enough of each fabric and get it sewn up!

Santa #11 is complete, but...............................

I felt pretty good about the sewing I did this week.   First off I actually went in to my sewing room and stitched up a little pillow.  The front of the pillow is a quilt block that my online quilting friend Lynne so graciously sent me.  There's a little story behind me getting this block.  I pretty much begged for several years for Lynne to send her beautiful Starburst quilt to my house.  Well, no matter how much I tried, I failed but earlier this summer she let me know that she had come across an extra block she had made and she was willing to send it to me!!!!!!  How sweet is that!  I told her it would make a cute little pillow for  great grandpa's rocking chair that I have and she even sent enough fabric to make the backing.  What a wonderful surprise for sure!

Lynne's Starburst Quilt!

My finished pillow!

I think little Teddy really likes it and I like the way it turned out!  I also finished the crossstitch on Santa #11!  He's the Quilting Santa and I am very happy with this finish!  And since Lynne was so gracious, I thought a nice way to thank her is to send Quilter Santa to her house.  I will try to remember to snap a shot of him finished before he goes on his trip.   Anyways, that means I need to stitch #11 again so that I have one for my collection! 

I also started the August Kathy Schmitz embroidery and decided to use black thread. I am using some presentia pearl cotton I think it's size 16 that I had used on a big stitch project.  I am surprised how quickly the embroidery goes!

I was able to go out and get some new thread colors to use on my Little House Needleworks fall chart!  I can't wait to get started on it, but first I need to decided on the fabric I want to use!  Decisions need to be made soon if that is going to happen!

Finished Strawberry!

 It seems I always have good intentions when it comes to stitching!  Somehow, especially since my husband has retired, they don't seem to happen.  I do make sure I get in my exercise and in the summer we swim at least five days of the week and all that takes time!  With covid, we are eating more meals at home and Tom does fix almost as many meals as I do so I really shouldn't complain, still I don't seem to find much time to stitch.  I did finish my embroidered strawberry this week. It was fun to stitch and it's the first time I embroidered with batting on the back of the fabric.  It gives this strawberry a quilted effect.  I filled it with ground walnut shells and am very pleased with my first attempt at making one!

I also started on Santa #11.  He's a quilter Santa!!!!!  How fun is that!  I have a long ways to go but I am really looking forward to how he finishes!

I traced a Kathy Schmitz design that came out in August  I am not sure if I want to do all black like on the strawberry or go with a colorful design.  I think I am leaning toward the black!

The august motifs for the Linen and Threads SAL is completed and I am looking forward to what September will bring.  I love the addition of a few more birds!

10 down 2 to go

 I finished up woodland Santa and he is waiting with the others to be made into an pillow ornament!  I really like this one with the raccoon, squirrel and rabbit and all the birds!  Two more charts to stitch and I will have 12 Santa's completed!  

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Then I started working on Linen and Threads 2020SAL.   I was glad to see a few more birds are in this chart!  This one shouldn't take very long, but I spent most of yesterday unpicking the stitches from the day before.  You know, that darn one stitch off!!!!!!  But I am back on track and hope to finish up this chart today!

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I went on line to look at more prairie schooler Santas and I saw a couple of charts from  Little House Needlworks that I decided to order instead!  One is the Summer ABC's and the other Fall ABC's.  Hopefully I can get the fall one stitched up and ready to hang for this fall.

I also need to pull out my lightbox and trace a few Kathy Schmitz patterns and work on embroidering them.  If I can get the tracing done I know they wouldn't take long to do, but somehow my days get away from me.  

Santa Progress

I haven't shared my progress in a while, so I thought I would share today!  I finished up Santa number 9 over a week ago.  He's a caroling Santa who looks like he really enjoys singing.  

Then I moved right on to Santa number 10.  He's a woodland Santa enjoying nature and the animals seems to love him as much as kids do.   I have made a lot of progress on him also.

I have two more Santas to complete before I start finishing them into the final product.  I have some fabric I have had for years that I think will work really great as the back of the Santas.  I will have to see how much I have to see if it is enough for all twelve.  I haven't ordered any more charts yet, but I can see that happening as I get near finishing the twelve up!  Its been such a beautiful summer here in North Texas.  We have received some rain in late July which doesn't happen very often and with it came some cool north breezes that have us in the lower 90s.  It was 69 degrees yesterday morning which is really unreal for this time of year.  I think we only had one or two days of above 100 so far this summer.  Hopefully we can continue that trend thru August.   I took some pics of our Meyer lemon tree we purchased late last winter. It was really quite pathetic looking when we found it.  It was stuck in the far corner of a green house.  We brought it home and potted it up and kept it inside until the last frost date.  It was blooming profusely, but was also losing leaves and soon looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  But, we didn't give up, and our patience will produce 5 lemons this year.  Finally in July, I saw new leave sprouts come shooting out and now I feel more confident that it is happy in it's pot.  The plan is to winter it over in the garage that faces south and we will open the door on our  sunny freezing days which here in Texas is most of the time. 

 I also have been entertaining myself with growing some herbs and lettuce hydroponically indoors this year.  It's a fun project and its so nice to have fresh herbs to use in our kitchen.  I am so thankful for my stitching and my gardening projects as they help me keep my sanity as we navigate thru living in this pandemic.