One Stitch At A Thyme

As promised I managed to get a picture of my progress on "Our Days" uploaded to my WiPs page. Didn't quite get the flower buds and backstitching done, but I came real close to my goal. The cross stitching is finished for the most part, now it's back stitching the verse and the names. I'm hoping that it will go quickly and I'll have plenty of time to get it washed, laced, & framed well before the end of January.

Wedding Stitchery: I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the “Our Days” sampler. I should have the bells and flowers/ribbons done by this weekend for a new picture update Sunday the 18th. If I keep pushing myself, I should have it finished by the second weekend in January. (cross-fingers)

This Blog: I’m getting a little tired of looking at the same old background and page layout of this template and I'm thinking about changing it. I don’t know if I’ll come up with my own background or just use one of Bogglers free templates. That’s only if they’ve some new and/or different ones from the last time.


Time to close this blog, Donn is taking me out to dinner at Applebee’s tonight.

Stitching Progress: I created a new WiP page for my "Our Days" progress, and I managed to just get the bell bottoms done. Not much work for 3 weeks even if I was sick. I really need to get my butt in gear put in time each day on it - at least 5 hours.

Here’s the model picture:

Stitchery Update: I started it Saturday November 12th while I was still getting over my sinus infection. It was slow going that first week, feeling run down, and coughing. It had thrown my back out and I was in considerable pain when I coughed.

I’ve managed to get most of the bell portion done; by tomorrow I should be finished and starting on the flowers and ribbons on top of the 2 bells. I’ll be setting up a WiP page for it today, but I won’t be taking a picture and uploading it to my stitchery site until the 1st of December.

Well time to end this Blog Blurb and get started on that WiP page for my web site.

Jobs: Last month I tried out for a circuit board plant I really thought I had a chance at. It was 8am to 4:30pm Monday thru Friday soldering components on circuit boards. I went in and took a soldering test/interview and never got a call back. I really wasn’t too disappointed in losing that one, the smell from the chemical cleaners made me sick all the next day.

I think I’m going to quit looking until after the holiday season sometime in January and just avoid being turned down for work. Beside I have other things to keep me busy.

A lot of other things really: Like stitching a wedding announcement for my younger brother. Seems they’ve moved their wedding date from July 2006 to January 27, 2006 which only gives me a little over 1 ½ months to get “Our Days” done. That and just last Saturday my younger sister informed everyone that’s she engaged and is getting married in October 2006 for the second time. So I’ll be stitching her an announcement too, and somewhere in there I have to find time to stitch my parents a 50th anniversary sampler for June 2006.

Well here it is as promised.
Fabric: Deep Teal Green 28ct Jazlyn by Zweigart
Thread: Sampler Threads from The Gentle Art -Limited Edition Color- “Coastal Fog”
Chart Name: fleur-de-lys Finished size: approx. 6.5” w x 6” h
Designer: Me!



Silkweavers never did get their ASS in gear and send me the floss I needed to finish the chart. I gave them 2 whole weeks, that should have been plenty of time. At any rate, I ended up using PhotoShop to create a mirror image of the piece, just so I could enter it into the contest. I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to enter it just because it was unfinished do to their mishandling of my order. Besides the odds of me winning this contest are maybe 100 to 1, so I don’t consider it cheating. Besides the prize is only a $100 gift certificate or a fabric of the month club order if you win.


Selling My Stash: I decided to try and sell some of my stitchery stash on Ebay. Mostly it’s stuff I’ve gotten from the mark-down aisle at Michael’s or at Book Warehouse. Booklets, leaflets, magazines, and kits. Stuff that I don’t have anymore interest in or will never find the time to stitch. The trouble with selling it is all the fees on Ebay and paypal you incur. More often as not I end up losing money on every thing I sell because of it. Anyway it gives me something to do while I’m looking for work.

Time to start stitching on Camelot Sampler, so I’ll close this Blog Blurb for today.

Wow I can’t believe that 3 months have come and gone by so quickly. One more week and the kids will be back in school.

Stitchery progress: Well I never did get to work on the Cam Sam jousting scene. I got side tracked with Silkweavers “Summer Fun Pack” Summer Fabric & Fiber Fun Event. I ran out of fiber and put in an order 2 weeks ago, but haven’t received anything yet. I hope it shows up by Monday because the contest is over with on Wednesday the 31st. The prize is $100 gift certificate or a 6-month fabric-of-the-month membership. I’ll post my entry here as soon as it’s finished. It’s something I designed myself.


And that's today’s Blog Blurb.......

As I mentioned before, I scraped together the $10 dollars needed for Pam Kellogg’s last official stitch-along mystery “Garden Jewels”. It’s subject matter is alright, but not really what I’m interested in; and certainly not worth $10. Don’t get me wrong, I like Pam’s designs but let’s just say I’m not fretting over the fact that this is her last official on-line mystery.

Teresa Wentzler also released her last cross stitch chart this week as well,
[ Tropical Dream ] and for my tastes it’s mediocre at best. No real picture per se to cross stitch, it’s mostly a band sampler with rows of specialty stitches, both pulled and cut-work and some over-one stitching. She seems to be on this kick of using new specialty dyed fibers of varying weights and newer heavier weight metallic fibers called "Ombre" manufactured by Kreinik. Stuff that’s far too expensive for me to be shelling out $2.00 or more for a single skein.

I hate to say it but I’m very disappointed in her last effort. I was really kind of hoping for the "Old World Map" or "Illuminated Manuscript". I’m afraid the only reason I bought Tropical Dream is because it’s her last project; I doubt I’ll ever stitch it.

Since this week has been fairly crappy for me, I’ve decided that from now until next Monday I’m going to put job hunting, bills, and all that other stress related crap out of my mind. I’m going to concentrate on Camelot Sampler and see if I can get at least part of the left knights horse finished. That and watch a few DVD’s that I’ve bought over the last two years and never seem to have the time to watch.

I hadn’t heard from Tina, the owner of Count & Stitch, in over a month. So I called her up today to find out what happened to my order. It seems to have gotten screwed-up and had to be reordered and it should be in by this Saturday. But the really shocking news is that Saturday is also the last day the shop is open. Yep, Count & Stitch is going out of business. Seems she just couldn’t recover from that employee theft at the first of the year and the two people that were interested in buying her business changed their minds.

Also, Teresa Wentzler’s final chart “Tropical Dream” was sent out on shop automatics last Friday. I told Tina about it so hopefully she’ll remember to snag one for me this week. Damn, but I’m going to miss Count & Stitch. It was the only local needlework shop we’ve had since last one closed 15-20 years ago . Now I’ll have to buy all my fabric over the internet. I’m so glad I managed to buy a copy of the Wichelt and Zweigart fabric sample books when she first opened up in 2003.

As promised, here’s a picture of the bookmark.



It’s not much but I had to think of something to give to mom for her birthday this November. And since she’s always scribbling something down in her diary I figured she could use a bookmark to keep her place.

It’s not intentional it’s just with my allergies, chronic fatigue and no luck in job hunting I just haven’t felt like writing.

On The Stitching Front: I decided I needed a break from Camelot Sampler so I’m finishing up a flowers and vine bookmark that I started while I was in Leavenworth. I’ve got just a simple line border and a small backstitch box for three initials and it’ll be finished. Since mom’s birthday is coming up in November I thought I’d give it to her. She’s always needed one for her daily diary. When it’s done I’ll post a picture here.

Well that’s all for this blog blurb.

since I dropped a line or two, so here goes.

X-Stitching and Such: I decided to send Pam Kellogg $10.00 for the “Garden Jewels Mystery” stitch-along chart. I wasn’t going to at first, but then I found out that this was going to be her last mystery for her Bulletin Board. In fact, she’s now saying that the BB on ezboard is going to be deleted in October or possibly moved somewhere else. I think she should just leave it and let the gold community status lapse. It won’t affect those of us who’ve got ezsupporter memberships, and those who don’t can just put up with the pop-ups.

Saturday, June 25, 2005: Well now that I have all this spare time, I’m getting plenty done on Camelot Sampler. Just the twisted outer border on Guinevere’s side to finish and I’ll up date my WiPs page, that should be sometime today. Then it’s finally on to the jousting scene

Friday, July 08, 2005: Progress is going slowly on the jousting scene. I’ve managed to stitch just the outside borders. Hopefully this weekend I can sit down and get started on the tent background

Up to the present: Work on Camelot Sampler is going at a snail’s pace. All I’ve managed to do on the jousting scene in the last week is the shadow for the tent and the left horse. The entire scene is over-one so it’s going to be tedious at best. The good news is once that’s done all I have left is the twisted rope border along the sides and top. The beads I’m leaving until after I’ve washed and re-stretched it. I really need to push myself if I’m going to get it done by December.

Book Stuff: Bought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the 16th when it hit the shelves. I got it at Costco on CD for $38.99. I forced myself to split up the CD for three days of listening fun. Man, oh man, was that ever hard to do. I did NOT want to stop listening but plow right through the whole set in one day. I already knew who was going to die from all the hoopla over the british bookies report on the news. No matter, it was still fun listening to all that teenaged angst and paranoia. Rowling did manage to leave herself one heck of an opened ended out. She can either end the series with book seven or have Harry hunting down Lord Voldamort, Snape, Malfoy, and the rest of them for as many books as she likes.

Other news: Well it didn’t take long. My sister’s new boyfriend has got himself all moved in with his furniture and multiple computers. Guess he’s a bit of a computer geek. In any case, that puts me permanently out of a babysitting job as long as he’s there to do it for free.

My boyfriend decided to take me on a weekend vacation get-away starting tomorrow. Three whole days of no worries and no bitchy “get a job” parents. We’re going to Leavenworth WA. - Bavarian tourist trap of the central Washington (Ha Ha). Anyway, I’d better bring this Blog Blurb to an end, as I still have to pack my suitcase before I go to bed.

It’s been a week and a half since Maryann told me she didn’t need my services; and yet today makes the second time she’s called me at the last minute to watch the kids at 7am because one of them was sick. I see little point in looking for a new job if she’s going to keep relying on me as a last minuet babysitter. Hunting for a new job isn’t going well either.

On the stitching front: I’ve managed to complete Guinn and the twisted rope border on Arthur’s side. I hope to start the twisted rope border on Guinn’s side tonight. I’ve decided not to work on any of my other WiPs as I really need to get Camelot Sampler finished. I’ll post an update as soon as the other border is finished.

Well that’s all for today’s blog blurb.

I can't believe it's 2am! But that's how long it took me (all day Saturday) to re-vamp and re-upload my WiPs pages. Check 'em out [<-- See side bar ] The information is a lot easier to read now and the pictures are better organized.

I updated The Berlin Woolwork Sampler page and the Summer's End page with my latest pictures as well. So now that means I'm officially going to start working on Camelot Sampler, after I grab a few hours of sleep that is. ( LOL )

One last thing: On Monday the 6th I was told that after Friday the 10th my babysitting services will no longer be needed now that school is out for the summer. Yep, my sister has this bright idea that she can sign her kids up for all day summer fun camp through the local elementary school.

Well I guess that 3 months of free time for stitching won’t be a bad thing.

Just a little note to pat myself on the back. I got motif #13 of the Woolwork Sampler done today at 8 pm. Wahooooo!!!

I can officially put it on the bottom of the WiP pile. The picture is a bit washed out and blurry, but that's because I was in a hurry and took it outside in the bright setting sun. BTW, it's the one that looks like a 2-band woven ribbon at the bottom of the picture.



Well that's all for now. I probably won't be writing anything until I show some progress on my Camelot Sampler.

As many of you know by now EzBoard was attacked and whole forum postings and Boards were lost on Memorial Day, Mon. 30th. I found out about this on Thursday but didn’t realize the extent of the damage done until today when I finally had a chance to visit my 4 main boards and 6 others that I occasionally check. It really pisses me off that some ass hole decided it would be fun to destroy over a years worth of posts, Chest Funds for various boards, membership access, and God knows what else.

From reading the EzBoard Announcement/Information Board for their daily updates on the situation and reading between the lines, it looks like an inside job. Probably someone who was recently fired who decided to take out his/her revenge. The systems that were attacked clearly needed special key codes that only an employee would have access to. Anyway that’s my theory on the matter, and I hope they fry the ass hole when they catch them.

I was the victim of a lost membership to the Aion Needlecrafts Board. And when I finally got re-registered and checked the stitchalong forums I post in Le Marquoir d’Annick Abrial, and French Mystery Sampler, all the postings were gone. It’s been 5 days since the attack and looks like the backup information was lost as well. Since no one else has listed them I re-posted the chart links in both forums.

In the Camelot Sampler Forum on the Teresa Wentzler Board all the posts from April ’04 to the present are gone. Granted there wasn’t much chatter in the forum but the loss of the Gallery thread with everyone’s finished Cam Sam’s is a big disappointment. I haven’t checked the Christmas Forum yet but I can pretty much gather that they’ll be missing threads in there too.

What’s really depressing to think about is the collection of forum threads that held found errors for TW’s charts. I hope the moderators for those forums have that information saved on their home computers so it can be restored. I can be thankful that I decided to save the forum posting under TWBB Stitcher Spotlight when Teresa was featured back in August ‘04 because that thread is gone too.

I’ll be getting back to motif #13, of the spot sampler, after I post this and I’ll work on it the rest of the day. I’m still hoping to get it finished and a pic posted to my WiPs page on my web site tomorrow.

That’s all for today's depressing Blog Blurb.

at work and went blog bumming
through several stitching blogs and found this
quiz link. Being a Harry Potter fan I had to try
it out.

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

I was a bad little stitcher for the last two days. I haven't done any work on my spot sampler, which means that motif #13 probably won't be done by this Sunday. I'm not going to write anymore in this blog until I get that motif finished!!!

Thus end-th another blog blurb.

Sunday, my sister’s new boy friend said he had the day off Monday and took care of the kids all day so I could have at least one day off from the 12-day study she’s pulled. Nice guy, I hope he becomes a permanent fixture.

After neglecting to read the R.C.T.N. newsgroup for months, today I finally D/L’ed over 2000 message headers. I was thrilled to find a posting from Mary Monica (aka Monica Ferris) that her latest hardbound book “Embroidered Truths”, coming out this June, will also be an audio book by the BBC Audio! I just hope for the $50 price tag it comes out as unabridged and in CD format.

Had a nice quiet day and got 4 hours worth of stitching done on motif #13 for the spot sampler. Looks like I will be getting it finished by this coming Sunday – YEAH!!!

That all for today's Blog Blurb.

I didn’t get the motif finished on the Woolwork Sampler, I was just too tired. My workaholic sister has pulled a 12 day-straight animal study; which means "I" work 12 days without a break from her kids. :( Five days down, seven more to go. Which means no Memorial Day off for me.

OK enough bitching, now back to the purpose of this blog entry. Motif #13 for the sampler is roughly half done and I’ll post a pic of it here, but on my main WiPs page after I finish all of part 2; which probably won’t be until the end of the summer.

My Summer’s End pillow project is slowly progressing. I was going to stitch it in progression from part 1 to part 4 as the mystery sections were e-mailed. But since I’ve got all the parts and it really isn’t a mystery anymore; I’ve decided to drop that idea and just stitch it from the final part. Since I’ve got part one done, the daises, I’m going to work my way around the outer edges starting with the upper right corner. I’ll hopefully get some of the backstitching done today. I’ll post a pic at the bottom of the today’s blog blurb. As for my focus piece, I’ll be getting back to it on Saturday the 4th instead of the 1st because of the slow progress with the spot sampler.

Well here’s what I’ve done with motif #13 so far;





and here’s Summer’s End. I won’t update my main WiPs page until I have at least the upper half finished.





Until next Friday's (or whenever) blog blurb……

Well made it to "Count n' Stitch" today for the stitchalong get-together. Of the four ladies, only myself and the owner Tina was present. This makes the third month in a row, and of all of the stitchers, I'm the only one that's started part 2. I find that rather surprising since I started the spot sampler two months after the stitchalong/class began back in December 2004. Tina never mentioned today if the others were even working on it anymore. Seems only Tina and I are interested in motivating each other. Since it takes almost an hour on the bus to get to the store, and the fare cost is going up next month, I think I’ll stop going to the get-togethers for the summer until maybe September. I’ll simply e-mail Tina with a picture and a progress report to keep her updated.

As for the sampler, I’ve started with motif #13 and should have it done by next Saturday - I hope. After that I’m putting it away and getting back to "Camelot Sampler", I really need to force myself to work on this. There’s only 6 months left in the year and I have to get it finished, since I’ve already put the date on it for 2005.


I’m going to work exclusively on Cam Sam for the month of June, and then I think I’m going to start rotating my WiPs, stitching on a different one each week. I’m up to nine projects now, and there’s one that I haven’t worked on since 1999. I’m determined to set a goal of at least showing progress on each of them and hopefully getting something finished.

Look what came in the mail today. Isn’t she just the cutest thing!





Her name is.. "A Stitch in Time" and I found her at http://www.countryartists.co.uk/

I’m really not into figurines but when I saw her I just couldn’t resist.

One last thing: That webpage I was trying to load yesterday that had the “progress bars”html code doesn’t exist anymore. So I’ll have to look for it somewhere else.

I've just finished adding the last few side bar items on my blog and I'm going to sign up for my first blog ring "Stitching Bloggers" I hope my musings aren't to ....hummmm.... intense to be rejected. Anyway....

WIP Updates: Since the stitchalong at my LNS is tomorrow, I need to get started on part 2 of "The Berlin Woolwork Sampler" tonight. This is my first spot sampler and I have to say it's been really interesting working on it. I'm not going very fast as I only can make it to one class meeting a month (the 3rd Saturday) . Sometimes it's really a challenge trying to puzzle out the diagrams, part 2 is really skimpy on diagrams. But I'm doing OK.

"Camelot Sampler" my focus piece is coming right along. I've almost got Guinn done, all that's left is her eyes, backstitching, and the net pattern behind her. Hopefully I'll have an update picture up on my other website by the end of this month.

Other Musings: I'd really like to add progress bars to a wips section in my side bar. I've even found the URL that everyone has been getting theirs from, but for some reason I can't seem to load this page. http://annamation.ca/annaknits/freeblogstuff.php I've tried for two days at several different times during the day and I always get a "can't load page error". For some strange reason I've always had trouble loading Canadian webpages.

Well time to get started on my spot sampler.

The mystery for June is still a go. Guess I'll either get it for free (cross-fingers) or I'll have to buy it off her site. She also said that she'll still be doing the mysteries as long as people are still interested in them enough to buy them. If I have to buy this one I think it will be the last. I've got far too many charts in my stash already, and paying for any more is just foolish. With TW not designing for the time being I feel I should really get to finishing all the wips I've got and then take stock of the kits/charts I've got and set my priorities about what to stitch next.

Oh yeah, it always seems to come in threes. :-(

Well here's number two, ironically posted on the same day as Teresa's bombshell. From Chris George, Pam's webmaster guru: "It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that due to slow sales, I have been forced to discontinue the TreasuryOfCrafts.com downloadable craft chart service."

Which poses the question. What will happen to Pam's stitchalong mysteries? There was one slated for June 2005, Garden Jewels. Will it still be available as a mystery and from Pam's webpage? Chris says "During the next week I will make Pam's mysteries (and possibly some of her other designs) available for purchase directly from her via her website www.kittyandme.com." But he doesn't say for how long. I've posted a question about this in the thread in the Pam's Design forum. I hope I get a positive answer from Chris.

Now I guess I'll be waiting for the next bad news "shoe" to drop..........

SUCKS!!! My favorite designer Teresa Wentzler dropped a bombshell on her bulletin board Monday the 16th. She’s decided to retire from designing counted cross stitch charts! And to go back to pursuing her art work/painting.

Everyone on her BB is all – we understand and we’ll miss you and good luck. That’s such a load of CRAP!!! I’m mad and depressed that she’d do this to us without a hint or warning. The one thing in my life that kept me motivated, to get through whatever shit was slung my way, was that I always had a refuge in my private stitching world knowing that I would have her stitching charts to look forward to.

The only thing I can be grateful about is that the TWBB will still be allowed to run and “she says” she’ll still stop by to answer questions.

Update Friday May 20, 2005 10:11 PM

Well I've been reading the fall out from the news on the TWBB this week and it seems she's back peddling.

Now she says it's only a "temporary leave of absence" and she's not totally quitting chart designing. Which is a total relief to my shred of sanity. I'm hoping after a year or two there'll be another chart from her.