The Two Ann's
Elizabeth
I've slowed down a bit again with my stitching to work on some other sewing projects but I am confident that I should soon be able to finish Ann Grant by Shakespeare's Peddler pretty soon.


I finished the alphabet up top, even though I cheated and did regular cross stitches instead of the eyelets - I like doing those in small batches, but I didn't think I would have the patience to do all those letters that way. Thinking back on it, I could have done just a few of the letters for effect and the more I do think about it it's turning out to be an idea I really like. We'll see. 

All these Ann samplers have me getting them confused, especially considering I've just added Ann Harrison 1830 also by Shakespeare's Peddler to my wish-list and Ann Dale is on her way as we speak. They are all so beautifully unique, though, I won't have any problems remembering their names when they're all finished and (hopefully) showcased. 


I am quite happy with how Miss Rayner is coming along. I've had to order some more of the red thread so my house is on hold until that arrives. It's part of the reason I switched back to Ann Grant but I have both out and about in the living room so I can pick either one up as the mood takes me. I wasn't sure if I was liking the colors of the flower basket in the middle, but as I kept working I really started to like the overall piece more and more. Houses are usually where my eye goes first, but I will enjoy the flowers being the center of this sampler. 


Knowing what the Soie D'Alger silks were going to look like I am so happy I decided to switch to HDF. This guy would have looked all sorts of strange. 


Luckily I seem to have found a nice balance with my school work and my 'therapy' so all my samplers are getting ample attention, which makes me so happy. In addition to all these beauties, I'm eagerly awaiting some back-ordered Belle Soie silks so I can start Sarah Elizabeth Brooke. Of course the main thread I would have used to start the border is one of the ones I'm missing but now that the furor from market is down hopefully I'll be seeing those soon! 

I also want to say hello to all my new followers! It's been so much fun following your progress and sharing with you my own work. You all keep me stitching on those days I'm so frustrated or feel only half-interested in picking up my needle. 

Until next time... 


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Ann Rayner Thread Conversions
Elizabeth
I've had a request to post the thread conversions I made for Ann Rayner to HDF silks so I thought I'd go ahead and do it now before this week carries me further away! There are a few colors that I stuck with the Au ver a Soie colors, so I'll be sure to make those notation.




DMC                              HDF                         AVS
310                                 5300
311                                 2415
335                                 1247
347                                 1111                         2645
407                                 4461
414                                 5321
420                                 4131
522                                 3363  
543                                 5161
597                                 2453
760                                 1105                         2914
801                                 5137
841                                 5265
842                                 5263
920                                 4321
922                                 4317
926                                 2451
928                                 2447
930                                 2349
975                                 4409
976                                 4405
3012                               3445
3013                               3443
3046                               4113
3363                               3403                         3724
3721                               1411                         2916
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Ann Rayner...
Elizabeth
... is my difficult child. Before I say anything else, I just want to make clear that this has nothing whatsoever to do with the designer's work - it is my own mistakes making Ann's and my journey so difficult.

Ann Rayner 1839 by Threads Through Time
36ct coffee-dyed linen
Hand-dyed Fibers/Soie d'Alger silk

My difficulty started with using two strands of linen over two and I quickly discovered that on 36ct. linen it just wasn't going to work well - so that was redo number one. When I started working on Ann's sampler again I had a nagging feeling that the colors weren't right. Most of the Soie d'Alger silks were just too bright and shiny for what I think was the intended palette. 


Beyond the issue of color, I was not relishing the challenge of these little sheep she has scattered in the grass.  Both of these things seemed to work against me and I just had to put Ann Rayner in the WIP stack for another day. With new colors using HDF silk (which I think match up a bit better with DMC) I am much happier with the look and now I have one of these guys out of the way.


My gentleman's coat and trousers look much better and a lot less flashy with these other colors. I just couldn't picture any gentleman farmer wearing such a bright garment - surely it would upset the sheep. 


I was so embolden by my over-one sheep working out that I decided to tackle the lady head on. I'm still figuring out how I want to go about her hair and hat, but at least the tiny stitches are set and though by no means perfect I think she turned out pretty well. I have to say that while these over-one stitches can be a nice effect I don't think I am quite there as far as skill goes. But we all have to learn sometime. 

Now on to the big red house! Until next time...



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First (Almost) Finish of 2012!
Elizabeth
Not to complain here because lots of people have crazy lives and manage just fine but school is just kicking me in the you-know-what and the last week or more has been a huge wake-up call that I need to stay more on top of things! Of course, I will defend to my grave the 'need' for those relaxing moments and cross-stitch and quilting serve that purpose for me. I just can't relax too often! But in the minutes here and there I managed to break away I was able to put the finishing touches on the New England Sampler.

New England Sampler by The Sampler Company
36ct. Lentil by Lakeside Linens
Hand-dyed Fibers silks

Well, as you can see, it's almost finished. I ran out of the thread I needed for the border and I toyed with the idea of picking out what I had already done or using some of my left-over Gloriana silks, but I really hate picking out my stitches. So the border will have to wait until I get that skein in the mail.


I love the scene here and I know it is supposed to represent the New England area, but I think it could also be the Baltimore waterfront. My DH's grandmother grew up in the heart of Baltimore and lived in one of the neat row houses. We actually have a beautiful armoire that came from the house and my MIL tells me she remembers how the exposed basement walls had oyster shells as part of the makeup.


I wonder if DH would have wanted to join the military if this was his uniform? Some guys can be so funny about things like that but I haven't a clue as to why he likes his current uniform. The flight suit is basically an ugly, green onesie so it's quite a treat when he has to wear his dress blues or whites. He claims it's super comfortable, though. I can understand why Lydia liked all the English officers so much!


Slightly changing course here I wanted to brag about my latest cool find from my local needlework shop. I happened to be in there one day without the hooligan  child and so was able to poke around a bit more instead of dashing in and picking up only what I needed. I was pretty excited to find the 'Of household stuff' there and snatched it up before anyone else saw it. I'm a huge, HUGE fan of Bess of Hardwick, or Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury, because she is among other things a) a fascinating person on her own, b) she was known for her building schemes and loading her houses with beautiful embroideries and c) she was an extremely talented embroiderer in her own right.

(from Wikipedia Commons)

I won't go into much here (because I could go on for quite some time) but she is someone I really enjoy studying and one day I really hope to make it to New (and Old) Hardwick Hall the next time I'm in England. It will be a pilgrimage of sorts to me. What she bought and made are true pieces of art and I think she recognized what she was leaving to posterity while she was collecting. But the 'On household stuff' does not have any pictures; instead it is a wonderful glimpse into a 1601 inventory ordered by the Countess. It's an in-depth look at what comprised a household like hers. The books on her are sometimes tricky to find, but if this kind of thing interests you, they are well worth the hunt. 

Until next time...
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Oh no!
Elizabeth
In the midst of what is going to be a very busy week, temptation showed up in my mailbox today making me so excited but bummed at the same time.


After drooling over Nicole's Needlework and Days of a Sampler Lover blogs and agonizing between this kit and Ann Dale from Shakespeare's Peddler I finally ordered Sarah Elizabeth Brooke by The Scarlett Letter. I was actually hoping this would arrive later in the week so it wouldn't be a huge distraction but I guess the USPS decided to be super fast this week. I'm really excited to start this but I really have to practice some self control and do the things I have to do first... so unfair!

Anniversaries of the Heart by Blackbird Designs

I finished up this square and the colors were so soft and sweet I wanted to do 'dedicate' it to my little one. I also like the fact that this is kind of the center of the pattern and so my eye will often be drawn to it. I was happy to work on this for a bit and I think from here on out I will try to do one block a month so this will be wrapped up this year. 

New England Sampler by The Sampler Company
36ct. Lentil by Lakeside Linens
Hand-dyed Fibers silk

I'm making really good progress on this sampler and my goal is to finish this one before starting another one and I think I can actually complete this in a week or so...well, maybe two. 


All the people still need heads but to save time I'm just going to leave that for the last as I'm adding final touches - and I just noticed somebody needs feet as well. 

If I happen to get my hands on Sarah this week, I'll never tell. Until next time...




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Say Cheese...
Elizabeth
All right, admittedly that is a very ridiculous title. I am, however, super thrilled about my new hobby. 


I made my first bit of cheese the other night! Recently I've become interested in doing things like this; canning/preserving, grinding my own flour, generally trying to pinpoint my food sources as much as possible and making my own (simple) cheeses. I was introduced to a blog/website called PunkDomestics that will guide you through all sorts of at-home adventures. Next blackberry crop is going to be wine! 

In any event, I followed this recipe but substituted the cows milk with organic goats milk. I really love the tang of chèvre, and though my cheese did not get as much of a pungent flavor, it is pretty close and very creamy. It tasted great on pears and with dried pita chips. I cannot wait to experiment with adding flavors soon!

Until next time...
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Minimal Progress
Elizabeth


This was the most snow that finally settled over us about the middle of last week and lingered until the rain inevitably came to wash it all away. It was pretty to look out of my crafting room and see the pristine white and enjoy that sense of peaceful stillness that seems to settle with the snow.


We were definitely home-bound for a few days and the kiddo was unable to get to daycare but at least dad had a few days off work where they were able to enjoy it. I only went out driving a few times to relieve the pent-up feeling and while there were some tense moments going up and down some of our hills, my little Volkswagen did a lovely job. It was pretty funny at times to see snow chains on Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics but as long as the people felt safer, I guess that's the most important thing.

New England Sampler by the Sampler Company
36ct. Lentil by Lakeside Linens
Hand-dyed Fibers Silk

I was unable to start another project this Sunday because of the demands of school but it let me get quite a bit of work done on my New England Sampler. The hand-dyed fiber silks are really working out, but I did have to cheat and pull that deep red of the woman's dress from my NPI stash. And I noticed when I started to work again on my Blackbird mystery sampler that that fabric was 40ct and what I was using for my NES was actually 36ct. My eyes were in for a bit of surprise there - they already thought the stitches were fine enough!

I'm eyeball deep in Greek civilization right now for school so it's always nice to come back to something a bit closer to home (well, I used to live close to the New England area). Did you know that we get the word 'laconic' from the Greek city-state of Sparta? It seems the Spartans were known throughout the Greek world for their brevity of speech and so the term was applied them and comes down to us today. Learning is FUNdamental, eh?

Anniversaries of the Heart by Blackbird Designs
40ct Pearled Barley (?) by Lakeside Linens
Comb. of WDW, GA and CC cotton

So instead of starting a totally new project, I pulled my old friend out of my stash and started working on Blackbird Design's Anniversary of the Heart from last year making it to the seventh block. 


I decided to turn the 'Happy Birthday' block into a happy anniversary one instead and make it for me and DH. I moved onto block seven because I was too impatient to work out the new placement of the words 'happy anniversary'. That's for another day when I want to think more...


This guy took me a bit to complete. I find that very light threads show the slightest hiccup in your stitches and so I had to go back and remove some that were uglying up the swan. Sometimes the strangest things occur to me while I'm stitching - this time being that I should name my swans and so here we have Albert. Of course by naming him Albert I'll probably have to name the other one Victoria. I will have to see where my thoughts take me next time. 

I have also realized there has been a lack of posting about books on here for a while. I'm doing very little reading for fun these days but I have been re-reading Sharon Kay Penman's Devil's Brood in preparation for Lionheart, which is next on my list of things to read. If you've never read anything by her please treat yourself. One of her best series (in my opinion) focuses on the ever-lasting conflict between Wales and England in the early 13th century and begins with Here Be Dragons. Truly great stuff! 

Back to Greece for me, until next time...

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