Ask and Receive

Yippee!  It seems that I've found two willing victims stitchers to help me along with Live, Love, Laugh (which from now on will be called "LLL")

My little minions new buddies are off gathering and ordering their supplies now.  I couldn't be happier!

Walking

On Tuesdays and Thursdays (and almost always one weekend day), I walk with a buddy.  On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the other weekend day, I walk alone.  It's a nice mix, because walking alone can get lonely, but being with someone else all the time can get tiresome. 

So today I was alone and feeling pretty good.  I got a little lost in the music, which is nice.  And as usual my mind flits here and there, often landing on whatever project is in my HandiClamps.  Today it was La D Da's Live, Love, Laugh.  I've been admiring that forever.  Bought it at the shop hop in May and finally got it started over the weekend. 

But am I foolish to start anything at this time of year?  Because shortly I'll be wishing and dreaming about a bunch Christmas projects and "LLL" will be gathering dust. 

If I had a plan (and if I stuck to a plan) I could probably choose one day each week to stitch LLL.  But I've only ever stuck to a stitching plan once in my life and that was only because I had a partner.  So maybe what I need is a SAL partner. 

How about it?  Any takers?

Erie Getaway Part 2

First off, I want you to see what I received for our stitched exchange. It's this lovely pincushion!

I just love having special accessories near me while I'm stitching.  I love gadgets to begin with, but there's nothing like the feeling of being immersed in your hobby.  You know...the feeling you get from having all of your tools right next to you?  Like when you sit down and you feel your mind say, "This is where I belong."  I wish I could describe it better, because it's a great feeling.  Needless to say, I'll think of the fun weekend and our friendship every time I use this.

Oh - I forgot to mention that the package I gave had some Fallingwater souvenirs in it, and the package I received had a wonderful book from a local author and some tasty treats, including wine jelly and apple salsa! 

Also, if you're interested in visiting the Lake Erie Wine Country, you can go to this website to get started.  It's pretty comprehensive and no publication can list everything, but it's a good place to start.

Back from Erie and back to NaBloPoMo!

This will be Part One as I write about this past weekend's long awaited stitching girls' trip to Erie. Well, not quite Erie, but North East, which is a small and lovely town just east of Erie. Six of us got together at a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend of stitching and laughing and eating and wine tasting. Our innkeeper couldn't have been more gracious (which may have been a challenge since we more or less took over her inn!)  and I'd recommend Peg's Grape Arbor Bed and Breakfast to anyone planning a trip to the area Erie area or its surrounding wine country.

I've been to other B&B's before.  Not a bunch...only two others.  But this one was head and shoulders above those places.  Spotlessly clean.  Wonderful bedding. Beautifully decorated.  And the 4 course gourmet breakfast?  Unbelievable.  And the cost was very reasonable.  You'll pay the same (or more) at the local Holiday Inn Express, and there isn't a place for you and your friends to gather comfortably.  And can I tell you again about the breakfast??  You won't get that 4 course breakfast at a hotel.  More like cold hardboiled eggs and bad coffee.  Needless to say, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

OK, so although this was a very low-key and unstructured trip, we all thought it would be nice to do some kind of small stitched exchange gift to swap with each other.  We all stitched a "small" and then created a gift package with some "extras" that were unique to our locality. 

Today I'll show you what I stitched (tomorrow I'll show you what I received!).  I stitched a pinkeep and the design is "My Pink House" from BBD's Needle and Thread book.  I adapted it to suit our purposes by removing the alphabet and numbers, and recharting it by adding the year above the house, and "Erie" and the grapes below the house.  In the second picture you can see the backing fabric that I used - from the BBD line of Moda fabrics.  It was super fun to stitch, although I wish I had started it earlier.  (story of my life)

More tomorrow!

October Favorite Posts page

I went for my walk this morning and it was so beautiful out.  Really cold, but really lovely.  The frost was glittering off the grass and it was like walking in a fairy tale.

I’ve updated my October Favorites this morning.  Click over there and maybe you’ll find a new-to-you blog to love!

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo

I'm totally groovin' to Springsteen's The Promise while I'm writing this.  Although it won't be released until November 15, you can listen to it over at NPR's First Listen.  It has a very vintage feel to it.  While I wouldn't want to go back to my teenage years, I love that this album reminds me of driving around Philly with my girlfriends, car windows open, singing along with Bruce on the radio at the top of our lungs. 

How about you?  What did you sing at the top of your lungs when you were a teenager?

I wish I could show you some stitching today, but nothing wants its picture taken just yet.  My PS Santa is still headless and it's just too sad to photograph headless things.  A project that's closest to being finished is an exchange gift, so I won't show that until it's been given.  (Yes, Erie girls - I'm still working on it!) 

Two days till our stitching weekend.  I neeeeeed this.

November SBQ: Thankful

Many of us in the US will be celebrating Thanksgiving later this month. Even if you’re not celebrating Thanksgiving in particular, it feels like at this time of year – holiday time, end of the year, etc. – many of us start taking stock of our lives and counting our blessings.   With that in mind, here’s this month’s Stitching Bloggers’ Question:

Tell us about a time that you were especially thankful for your ability to do needlework.  Try not to answer in generalities, but rather try to answer with a specific time, event, or happening that made you very thankful that you could stitch.  For instance, maybe your needlework got you through a difficult time.  Maybe your needlework made a happy time even happier.  Or perhaps your talent and skill created a wonderful situation.  You get the idea.

Finding my will to blog

It seems like I've lost my blogging motivation over the last couple of weeks.  Don't you wonder why that happens?  Sometimes it's like a slamming door.  Sometimes it's like a door slowly closing.  October posts felt like a door slowly closing.

But soon we'll see November and NaBloPoMo and I'll get back into the swing of things by writing in my blog every day. 

Now I think I should go off and do something interesting so that I have something to write about. 

Floating between projects

It has been fall break time for my college student children, so I haven't been getting much stitching time in lately.  And when I am stitching, I can't seem to focus on anything in particular.  So I'm floating between several projects. 

I shouldn't float like this.  It feels like I'm not accomplishing anything.

Isn't it funny the way that the energy in your house transfers its energy to your stitching?  For two weeks, my house had a revolving door.  It felt like I had a parade of people moving in and out, here and there, coming and going.   And that's the way my stitching has been. 

Still - there's a positive side of all of this confusion and traveling, because I've had some really nice face time with a couple stitching friends.  I met a new friend on my way to pick up Colleen.  Denise and I met up for coffee last Friday and had a wonderful visit.  She's a neat lady with an easy laugh.  Then on Tuesday I drove the little darlin' back to school and planned a visit with Barb.  I'll tell you what, the time just flies when we're talking.  What a great person!  I love it when you haven't seen someone for a year but picking back up where you left off is so easy. 

I had better get some work done...
Till next time!

Added October Favorites Page

I was going to wait until the end of the month to publish my Favorite Posts of October page, but there were so many of them already.  And some of them are time-sensitive, so I thought I'd get the page started. 

You all are so inspirational! I'm worried that these pages may get a little out of control...But that's a good thing, right?

Oscopy

Gag.  Had one of the dreaded whatever-oscopies this morning.  I'm certainly glad it's over and done with.  Needless to say, Gatorade will not ever get past my lips again.

Yesterday, since I work at home, I was able to work most of the day, which was a good thing because working actually helped keep my mind off of all of the things that I was wishing I could eat.  Late in the afternoon I plunked myself down in front of the TV and finished a Pine Mountain kit.  It was my take-along car project this fall and it was perfect.  I just needed to make the pillow insert and take its picture....

Today while I'm taking it easy, I'll answer my October SBQ, too.  To remind you,
Where do you fall in the birth order of your family?  Do you think that birth order traits have had an effect on your choice of hobby and craft? How so?

I've already told you all that I'm the oldest of five children in my family.  We were all born within 2-3 years of each other (and how my mother dealt with all of those cloth diapers, I'll never know).  I actually do display about half of the characteristics of a first born, but I don't think we can all be painted with a broad brush stroke based on our birth order traits.  I think that the point that Alfred Adler was trying to make was that humans are social beings and as such we are influenced by social situations.  My social experience in our family was different than the situation that my youngest brother experienced.

And who controls that early social experience more than our parents?  If your parents treat you in a certain way as a first born, I believe it has an effect on your personality.  My parents (rightly or wrongly) always gave me a lot of responsibility around the house especially when they charged me to take care of the younger kids.  They also laid it on thick when it came to "setting a good example" for my brothers and sisters.  I'll always feel that I walked a pretty thin, yet clearly delineated line.  And I still do.

I think that early upbringing had a big influence on my choices as an adult.  I started off my vocational life as a counselor, but discovered early on that it wasn't a good career for me.  The exact science in the textbooks didn't match up to the real world.  Duh?  But it took 4 years of undergraduate work, 2 years of graduate  school and 5 years of working for me to figure that out.  Luckily my math minor came in handy in later years and I discovered that I was a pretty good bookkeeper.  I like it when things add up.  Love my columns of numbers and my reports.  I like it when people ask me for a report and use my data for important decisions.  It's perfect for me.

As for stitching, I love the precision and the way that things line up just so.  I'm learning to love to switch things up a bit, but the crux of the craft is still its precision. 

So I guess that's a long answer to a short question.  I'm the oldest daughter of my family but I think it's more a case of upbringing than a case of birth order that has formed my personality and directed me to the world of needlework.

Cute fall freebie alert

This is just too cute.

Sorry for the tweet-like post, but if I wait until tomorrow to post about it, I'll forget.

October Stitching Bloggers Question

The last time that I got together with a couple of stitching friends, we discovered that we were all first born daughters.  I'm the oldest of five children.  Carol is the oldest of four, and Linda is the oldest of four.  Very interesting!

Even though we were all the the oldest daughters in our families, the other two ladies very casually - so as not to conjure up my trait of not responding well to being told what to do - mentioned that this might make a good Question of the Month.  So...


Where do you fall in the birth order of your family?  Do you think that birth order traits have had an effect on your choice of hobby and craft? How so?

I'm running away from home

Well, not until November.  Some of you guys have asked where I'm going.  I'm not attending an organized camp this year.  I like stitch camps and organized stitching retreats.  In fact, I like them a lot. I've never had what I'd call a bad experience.  (Although nothing is ever perfect, those little imperfections have never been a big deal.)  But I'm really looking forward to changing things up a bit this year.  So my November trip will be more like a girls' getaway with stitching.

We're staying in an almost-perfect place that we found near Erie, PA. The only thing that wasn't perfect about it was that the Bed and Breakfast we chose filled up for that weekend almost immediately and that was all the way back in the beginning of May.  I feel like we were very lucky to get our rooms, because when I tried to make a room change a week later, I was told sorry...everything else is booked.  Really.  Back on May 8!

Apparently it's a Harvest Wine weekend for the Chautauqua Lake Erie Wine Trail or something like that and all of the wine lovers will be there.  So tell me...what vintage of boxed of wine is appropriate to take to a Wine Trail weekend?

Hanging out in Ohio

Ohio and I have become good friends over the past month or so.  My little red (station) wagon has visited Wooster, Cedarville, Westerville and Delaware recently, mostly for my daughter's cross country meets.  The poor kid is struggling this year, and for as much as we are motivated to see her when she's running well, we feel doubly motivated to see her when she struggles.  So about every two weeks, I-70 and I become reacquainted.  And I-70?  If you're listening?  Please reopen some of your rest areas.  And don't call it a rest area if the vending machines are open but the bathrooms are closed.

By the way, are all Ohio residents Ohio State fans?  It seems like these meets always coincide with Ohio State home football games and this Pitt girl feels wildly out of place.

Here are a few photos of Friday's meet - the All Ohio Championship.  Our Wooster girls were in the first slot at the beginning, meaning that they started at the far left of the line.  That's not a good place to be if you're running, but nice if you're a picture-taking parent.

At first glance, the course appeared to be flat, but really it was just disguising gradual but very long uphill climbs.  In other words it wasn't as easy as it looked.  Miami University (Ohio) literally ran away with the Men's and Women's titles.  Five men set course records, with the winner setting the new bar with a 24:11 finish of the men's  8K course.  One woman set a new record also, with a 17:12 finish in the women's 5K.  

Hey, I'm so glad that you guys like my Favorite Posts of the Month page.  It's a lot of fun for me to revisit your posts as I write it.  I've finished the September 2010 page and you can find it here.

Favorite Posts of the Month

I've been playing with the pages that Blogger has allowed us to add to our blog.  The truth is, I lead a very boring life and sometimes I can hardly come up with a post that isn't a total snore.  So I don't really have anything to fill up additional pages.

But you?  Now you're a different story.  I use Google Reader and I can't even tell you how many of your posts that I've "starred" to keep.  Sometimes I just want to go back and read something again.  You write so well and can be so thought-provoking that I want to remember your words.  Sometimes you've posted about a great design or your interpretation or finishing idea is so wonderful that I want to keep it around for a good long time. 

So I've added a new page to my blog, called Favorite Posts of the Month.  I've been working on a September page, but since I didn't think about this until late in the month, I know I've omitted several great posts from earlier in September.  But a girl has to start somewhere.

Anyway, it's a static page, so it won't update in your blog readers like a regular blog post.  I guess I'll just post here at the end of the month when I've completed the page and then you can click over. 

You all are so talented.  And I'm really happy that you all share your work and your words with the rest of the blogging world.  And now I have material for a second page!  See?  It all works out.

Things to pack for camp

So let's get ready for Stitch Camp Season!  Now, maybe you're not a veteran camper like some of us.  And really, even an experienced camper may get to camp only to find out that she's missing some important piece of equipment.  One of the pleasures of camp is that they are usually out in the countryside and so your camp is probably miles from the nearest Whatever-Mart, so it pays to be prepared.  Seriously - check out the list prepared last year by Ms. Stitch Bitch, because it's surely the best one I've seen.

But if you want to be a truly memorable camper...one that the other campers will talk about for years to come...you'll want to consider MY list, too.  (I just love the fall catalog season)

First of all, nobody will remember you if you are a wallflower.   Sure, you can try to be the Funny One, but that's a lot of pressure.  You can be the Loud Voiced One, but that gets you nothing but a sore throat (and sometimes dirty looks).  So here's your solution:  You can be the One Who Knows Everything.  Personally, I like to bone up on my knowledge about everything before I go to camp, but you can pack this book and then set it on your table so that everyone will realize that YOU are the one to ask about everything.  In fact, don't wait till they ask you.  People love a person who knows everything, so why make them wait?  Speak up!  Everyone is probably just waiting to know where they can order their salmon skin bikini.  (Wait...it's probably in this same catalog)

Then we have our clothing.  Comfortable clothing is a really big deal at camp.  So make sure that you pack your comfy shoes and I even like to take slippers that can double as a shoe for a quick trip outside.  Say....do they make pajamas like that?  Why yes, they do! Pack your double-duty lounge pants and nobody will know that you've spent the day in your pajamas.  So I've decided to switch from this, which was my usual outfit: 

To this outfit.  Because you know I love a cowboy theme.

Ok, we've covered conversation and comfort, now we can finally address our snacks.  Personally, I always begin my day with coffee, and everyone else usually has some neat-o mug with a stitchy saying.  Why not make their mornings memorable with YOUR mug.

Fellow campers love it when you give them too much information.

Besides our meals (and they're usually fabulous!) campers like to bring snacks to pick at through the day.  You can be a real Debbie Downer and remind your stitching companions about the dangers of over eating, or you can just give them a set of these!  Everyone will thank you.

Oh and finally, a truly memorable camper will probably end her evening with cocktails.  But you don't have to worry about spilling your cocktail on anyone's lovely stitching when you have this handy accessory.  It's also helpful because I don't like to share.  And don't think I won't know if you come around and steal one. 

I'm partial to the pink one.

Now go pack for camp!

Stitched last year at camp

This was my project from the 2009 Camp Gottastitch.  It was a wonderful and low key camp, and even though part of our camp fee included several kits of freebie designs with fabric and threads, most people were working on their own projects.  We had several finishes in our group, including my finish of Prairie Schooler's Book 132, Autumn Leaves. 

But then (and this will come as no great shock), I came home, put it in the cupboard and forgot about it.  And last week while I was hunting for some stitching to use for the flange pillow tutorial, I found it again.  (One nice thing about being so forgetful is that sometimes I give myself a pleasant surprise.)

I started to finish this as a bell pull, even adding the fabric to the back, but lately my bell pulls have seemed a little wonky to me, so at the last minute I changed my mind and decided to use a simple pinkeep method.  Very simple.  I figure that if I decide that it's too simple later, I can always add to it.  But right now I'm liking it just like this.

I bought this as a kit a handful of years ago from Theresa at Shakespeare's Peddler.  She had converted the threads to Crescent Colours, and I think you can still buy her conversion here (scroll down the page a bit)

And now this has me thinking about stitching camps.  Fall is THE time for so many camps.  The weather is still decent for traveling, and we're spending more time indoors.  Spring seems very popular, too,  but I guess I'm tuned into Fall camps.  I'm not going to an organized camp this year, but I am going to a stitching getaway, and I'm starting to think about what I'll be packing. 

More later!

Easier than pie flange pillow

This flange pillow is best suited to designs that are horizontal, like this sampler.  So I went through my stitched stuff and took out this JBW designs sampler from 19-something-or-other. 
OK, so your stitching is going to be the flange (flap) part of the pillow.  I like at least an inch all the way around my stitching, and that means that I must measure out 1.5 inches from my stitching (because we have to consider our  seam allowance).  In this case, my stitching is about 5” x 8”, so I cut the linen 8” x 11”.  Make sure that all of your corners are nice and square.  Now cut a piece of plain fabric (ie. muslin) the same size as your stitched piece.

Sew these two pieces together, joining them at the bottom of your stitching.  THE BOTTOM.  That’s very important.  Add the muslin to the BOTTOM.  Unless you enjoy looking at your pillow while standing on your head.
  Now fold the assembled piece in half, right sides facing out.  It will form a rectangle. Find your main pillow fabric and lay your stitched flap on top of the body fabric and eyeball how much fabric you want showing at the bottom of the pillow.  This is totally up to you. 
Hmmmm.  I liked the look of 3 inches showing at the bottom.  Measure from the top of your stitched fabric to the bottom of the pillow.  I measured this at 11 inches.  Now, add 1 inch to this measurement and double it.  So for the body of the pillow, I needed a piece of fabric 24 ((11 + 1) X 2) inches long and exactly as wide as my stitched panel- 11 inches. 

Make a 1/2 inch hem at one end of the pillow fabric. (no photo) Then place the folded flange on the other end, right sides together and matching the raw edges of the body and the flange.  (The right side of your stitching is facing the right side of the main pillow fabric.)  Sew together at the top.

Then fold the hemmed edge at the bottom of the pillow fabric up to almost meet the seam you just sewed. Make sure the flange is tucked inside the folded fabric.
Now sew up the right and left sides of the pillow.  You may want to clip the corners a bit to eliminate some bulk.

Then reach in from the top and start flipping and unfolding and you’ll have this!

Now you can either create your own custom sized pillow form and insert it, or you can just stuff it as is.  I’ve become lazy and I don’t fuss with the extra step of making a pillow form anymore.  And be careful about overstuffing it.  That’ll kind of distort everything.  You can also add buttons or a bow or whatever and ta-dah!  Finished!


Oh - no luck with yesterdays Daily Number. It would have been crazy good if 777 had hit!

This is so weird

Today is the seventh anniversary of my blog.
And this is my 777th post.

I really must go play the lottery today.