Last week work was started on the replacing of a sliding door with a window in the sewing room. The workmen carefully covered everything in there with large sheets of plastic. I am grateful that the dust and such won’t be all over my stash, but I can’t get to anything in there.

I have been steadily making headway on the Pilgrim though. I finished page 1, the upper left corner, most of page 2, and pages 3 and 4 are about 70% done. Most of the stitching is the “sky” above the houses, this piece has a 305×367 stitch count. I was checking to see if I missed any motifs last night and I found I forgot a squirrel (?!?) and a butterfly under the crow. I might just leave the squirrel for last.

Speaking of cross-stitch, the annual Stitch-Market in Nashville is coming up. Many stitchery stores are having presages of upcoming patterns too. I was looking at a few new ones from Teresa Kogut, Two samplers, Nature and Remember Me, really appealed to me. I pre-bought them, they aren’t that big, and I was going to “kit them up” for the future stitching project pile. Then I remembered that the DMC and linens are not accessible at this time either. So all I have is these pictures.

I guess I’ll just have to work in the garden this week.

Be Kind.

This week was a handwork week, although I did turn on the machine a few times. I worked on the Message in a Bottle BOM, completed month two and set up month three. I got the fabric kit for month seven in the mail yesterday, I am very behind. Each monthly section has a main appliqué block and a few 3 ½ inch blocks for fillers. Month two and three have large pieced backgrounds behind the appliqué. I am glad that the finished size is 52″ square, as there are so many pieces, and anything larger would be too much.

Stitching on the Pilgrim has been taking most of my sewing room time. In my last post I was considering starting another large sampler, Heaven and Nature (a Teresa Kogurt design). I got it all kitted up and had sat down to stitch, as I was removing the hoop from Pilgrim, I thought to myself, maybe just finish up this motif…then it became this section, then page. I have less than two pages left to finish, I want to do that more than start a new piece. In the photos below, the one on the left is from October 2022, and todays is on the right. My ulterior motive is that once pilgrim is done, then H&N can become my new “big” project, and I can start a new small(er) one too. Win-Win!

The HST poinsettia quilt is still on my design wall, but I have made a digital copy of it in EQ8. Moving pieces around on screen is much easier than on the wall, plus the dogs can’t help. One swipe of the tail, and hours of placement are lost.

Off to sew.

Be Kind.

I finished stitching the “Silent Night” (I have been calling it Winter) cross stitch piece I started late last month. I am going to start “Heaven and Nature” a Teresa Kogut pattern. I am pretty sure I have all the flosses and linen together with the pattern. I feel like I should work a bit on The Pilgrim, as I really want to finish it soon. Perhaps I should alternate daily, but start-i-tis is is motivating me this day.

I made an apron this week. My mom was asking for one, and since her Bday is approaching, I thought I would fill that request. I ordered some pretty pinstriped canvas from Michigan last weekend, but it didn’t get here yet. I needed to go to the Spa and hot tub store to get a special filter last Monday, and wouldn’t you know, there was a Joann’s on the same street. I shopped a bit and found this cute coffee print canvas and got a few yards. There are hundreds of free apron patterns on-line, I choose this one, Two-Tone Light Weight Canvas Apron from Sew4Home. I made a few alterations, I didn’t use the decorative stitches, and used quilters weight cotton for the accent pieces and ties. I also reinforced the cotton with fusible interfacing. I want to make another different style one out of the pinstripe, using this pattern, Cross Back Apron from Purl Soho. I like that it is easy to put on and remove, I may even make one for myself out of some extra Essex Linen I have.

Another new start is a knitted Cardigan for my oldest son. I made him a dark green one a few years ago, and he asked me for a dark blue one. I am working on it during daylight hours, as it is hard to see the dark yarn stitches a night. Maybe I should eat more carrots… I am getting the rhythm of the pattern down, cables and honeycombs.

There was an interesting Essay/Opinion piece about knitting in the NYT today. “The Revolutionary Power of a Skein of Yarn” by Peggy Orenstein. She is also the author of “Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater.” I can’t link it here, as one has to subscribe to read it. I thought her comments were poignant, particularly this part.

Not long ago, Michelle Obama posted a black-and-white photo of herself on Instagram, cozy in an armchair, a nearby side table displaying an adorable baby pic of Malia and Sasha. She is barefoot, dressed in wide-legged jeans and a satin shirt, smiling widely as she looks down … at her knitting. “Every time I tell people how much I love to knit,” she writes in the caption, “They seem so surprised!”

And I thought, why?

I suspect it’s because knitters, unlike Mrs. Obama, are presumed to be aging ungracefully: prim, elderly (probably white) ladies rocking away on the porch in cultural irrelevance. Before I refute that — yarn lovers come in all ages, genders, sexualities and races — I want to ask, even if it were true, so what? The dismissal, the reflexive derision of women from midlife onward — especially if we stop chasing social media standards of beauty — is a nasty form of ageist sexism. ~ Peggy Orenstein

I worked a bit on more HST’s for the Poinsettia flower that is blooming on my design wall. I cut a bunch more, treated myself to a new blade in my cutter too. Why do I wait so long in between changing it out? I keep thinking that this would be easier to design on EQ8, maybe this weekend I’ll try, so many HSTs to rotate.

Be Kind.

I feel very productive today, because it has been a productive week, so far.

I finished the Chilhowie mystery quilt top. WhooHoo! I ended up changing the sewing rectangles a bit. I added a strip of purple to the ends. This makes the four patches join together, and forms a secondary block. When I was laying the blocks out on the floor, I realized that there was too much white. I had used a bunch of white on white prints for the sashing and it was too stark. It made the main blocks look small and uninteresting, they were receding and making the quilt uninteresting. One would think that purple, orange, and turquoise would be in your face interesting – lol. All that piecing not to be seen? No, not for this quilt. I dug through the stash and found some prints on white and recut most of the sash rectangles and added the stripe. I like it much better now. I noticed that a few fellow mystery makers added triangles to the ends of their rectangles, to make a star around the four patch. I wish I had seen that before my version, but I like mine as well.

I worked on the Simple pleasures BOM, I started this in February 2021. I have all the blocks sewn and marked for embroidery and appliqué. This is the third finished of nine, lots of stitching to go.

My other BOM, the Message in a Bottle wall hanging, saw the light of day this week too. I thought I was on block/month three, but sadly, only two. I just got the sixth part a few days ago, got some catching up to do with this too.

With the rain falling, there is nothing I like better than to sit in my sewing chair with an audio book, a cup of hot tea and a project. I have been making lots of X’s on the Winter piece, and thinking about my next “start” for 2023 – “Heaven and Nature”. This photo makes it look very dark, but it’s not.

About half way through this month and I have reached my goals for it. To have the three quilt tops done seemed like a lot, but when there’s really nothing else to do when it’s raining, things get done.

Be Kind.

After finishing the flying geese border for the Forest Whimsy quilt, I felt like I needed to use up the rest of the red scraps. The Accuquilt die cuts the goose part out of a 3 3/4 inch rectangle, so the scraps can easily be cut down into 2 ½ inch triangles. I had a little over 200 red ones, I cut all the white ones with another die that cuts 12 hsts at a time. I thought about doing a hst sampler, or something, then remembered the SuperNova quilt tutorial that Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict has. I laid out all the triangles and added an additional three rows to finish it off. Now it is an odd size, I’m thinking of adding some green hsts to it, because I think it looks a little like a poinsettia flower. I’m going to leave it up on the wall for a bit longer and think on it.

Yesterday I started cutting the sashing and inner border pieces for my Chilhowie quilt. I got the big pieces done, and today I am hoping that I will get to the aqua and flying geese section. I also need to lay it out to do the sashings, which will be on the floor in the guest room. I can close the door to this room, which is a plus when ones has large dogs about.

My “Winter” cross stitch is progressing, I am almost finished with the house. Probably should work the border a bit more.

We lost power early this morning, our generator is doing its job. The electric company is saying we may not get our power back until Thursday. This is due to them being stretched a bit thin during these relentless storms. I’m surprised that it had stayed on this long, as many trees have fallen, and the wind has been fierce at times.

Be Kind.