One Stitch At A Thyme

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.