Ann Wellington 1809 - Week 3

Week 3, still enjoying stitching this sampler.  Not sick of it yet, and opining about what's next!

I will admit that I haven't stitched as much as I normally would.  Came down with a pesky upper respiratory infection. Which required a doctor visit, and antibiotics, plus lots of Mucinex DM.  Plus I have been sleeping a lot.

Today is the second day of antibiotics.  So hopefully I will feel better really soon.

Wouldn't you know when you feel bad, crap happens. Last Monday I lost the use of my washing machine for almost the entire week.  For someone like me, who generally used the washing machine almost every day, I was not a happy camper.  Especially towards the end of the week when I was running low on "unmentionables!" 

Piece of advice!  Check Yelp first when calling for service or repairs.  If I had, I'd never had called the company I did.  And would have saved myself a lot of frustration and aggravation.  It's fixed now.  

I will also admit I was a bit perturbed that my husband insisted on getting the 8 year old washing machine fixed for a quote of $350, when for a bit more money I could have had a new washer the same day.  Men just don't understand that there are certain things women just can't live without.  I have no desire to hangout at the laundry mat or find some creek with rocks so I can pound out the dirt the old fashioned way.

My daughter's official diploma came and so sometime this week I will be heading off to get it framed along with the Skyros Island Schooner sampler.

On another note I started on some wall art for my daughter's apartment. Learned some valuable lessons.  Make sure each coat is dry. All I have to do now is add colored buttons for the leaves.

Guess that's all for this week!  Happy enjoyable stitching!

Ann Wellington Sampler - Week 2

Again, am happy with my progress on Ann, even though I didn't get that much stitching time in.

Am a tad bit early in my post, because I absolutely had to move my fabric up some more on the scroll rods.  I have a bit of Satin stitching to do, and I can move the fabric even more.

My youngest came home from JMU for a few days.  It was especially nice to see him.  I know one of my days was running errands with him.  Plus he helped me out when I had to take my car back to the dealor because I was having difficulty starting it,  and the engine light came on.  

Dropped it off the night before, which was great since there was an 8 am appointment.  Come to find out the key had gone bad plus some internal computer. I saw the bill the dealor was sending to Chevy for the repairs.  Almost $500.  Thankfully it is under warranty.  But since I've only had my car for 2 months, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's not a lemon.

Also spent two days going to a car dealor with my hubby. I really dislike purchasing cars.  It's a long process and the only good deal is when you drive out with the car.  Which didn't happen in my husband's case.  We walked out. But hey if they want to lose the sale, there are plenty of other dealers out there that would just love to put you in a vehicle. 

Seriously do they think if they keep you there longer that you'll buy 2 cars instead of one? Then you'd be there twice as long!

On another brain idea of mine. I decided to clean the walls of the shower with the swifter wet floor thingees.  Worked pretty well, since the tile goes all the way to the ceiling.  I finish, and leave the glass shower door open so it could dry out.  Sort of forgot about it, until it was time to go to bed.  Course I'm at the age that I must visit the bathroom before I climb into bed or else be woken up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.  Didn't turn any lights on, and proceeded to walk right into the edge of the shower door right above my right eye.  

Yea, I could actually see stars!  But what I was praying for, was no bleeding so I wouldn't have to go to the ER. It wasn't.  But I do have a very sore area on my eyebrow line with a nice little bump and indentation from the edge of the door, and some pale yellow-greenish bruise.

Note to self- always shut shower door.

I'm sure other stitchers may be aware of this, but I just realized that if you are looking at fabric on 123stitch, that they provide the DMC equivalent.  Comes in handy for someone like my sister who doesn't have a LNS close.  She can just pull the thread color to get a better idea.

Well that's bout all my news this week.  Happy stitching!

Ann Wellington 1809 - Week 1

Ann Wellington Sampler 1809

T&N Designs Inc

32 ct. Magnolia linen

DMC

Back to my beloved reproduction samplers!  Oh so happy bout it too!

This is a chart my sister gave to me. She fell out of love with it, so I got to be the lucky recipient.  I can tell you I debated stitching her.  But with the fiasco of  not having the right fabrics for the next 3 samplers I planned to stitch.  Ann quickly moved to the top of the list.

I am honestly enjoying stitching her.  She's progressing quite nicely. Plus the colors are actually pretty too.  Greens and coral pinks. 

At this point I'm about 1/3rd through the chart.  I'll be moving the scroll rods tomorrow, but wanted to share the upper border. 

All 3 pieces of my 27 ct. Unbleached/Raw/natural showed up.  So maybe by the end of the year I'll have worked my way through all the charts in my stash with 1980's copyright dates.  Yea that's right I have charts that are almost 30 years old.  

I finished organizing my scroll rods and wanted to share the finished product.

Best idea I've had in awhile!  Well besides ordering these from the Internet!

Seriously I never can figure out which pull works the light or the fan.  Guess that's because I'm a visual person!

Short post this week!  Happy stitching all!

Ann Wellington 1809 Sampler

Ann Wellington Sampler 1809

T&N Designs Inc

32 ct. Magnolia linen

DMC

As I reported earlier this week, I had started the Lucy Redd sampler.  After several days of sewing, I wasn't really pleased with the result.  So, I went through my stash list and found several samplers that were on the list to stitch.

Actually there were 5 total. All with copyright dates in the 80's. Unfortunately, 2 besides the Lucy Redd chart also called for natural/raw/unbleached 27 ct. Linen.  Fabric is in transit for all three of those charts.  Meanwhile, not one to sit on my hands.  I pulled the remaining 2 charts. One is a kit, but it's a rather long and wide band sampler.  I just don't have it in me right now to start another huge piece.  So by default, Ann won out. 

Supposedly when finished, it's about 18" square. Luckily in my fabric stash I had a piece of the right count and decent color to begin stitching.  I think there's only about 12 DMC colors used.

So it's not a real colorful sampler.  And it's quite basic in style for that period.  

Plus a couple basic stitches.

I do not know if I'll keep it, or gift it to someone.  Only time will tell.

Did I mention how much I love my serger to finish off the edges?  Best investment ever!

I keep my scroll rods in a blanket Rubbermaid box.  Every time I start a project I invariably spend quite a bit of time digging in the box to find rods that are long enough for the project, and two the same size.

Well today I came up with an idea to organize my rods better.  I bought this at Walmarts.  It's double sided Velcro.  Costs about $5.00 and can be found in with Velcro items in the sewing/craft department.  

It looks like it's black, and you can probably buy black if you want, but I bought white.  That way I can write on it with a sharpee pen.  I plan to cut strips for each set of rods (maybe 2 or 3 depending on length), and write the length of the rods on the Velcro.

That will keep them together, and I'll know which pair to hunt for!  Plus I'm going to take the time to inventory which lengths I have and which ones I may have to purchase later.  

Planting in the yard continues.  I finally purchased more flowers for my side planter boxes and my flower bed under my living room window.  Was even more thrilled that many of the ones I purchased at Walmart had been marked down for under $2.00 each.  Won't feel so bad when or if they don't make it!  I've come to the conclusion I'm a better "picker" than "grower!"

Well that's bout all the news this week.  Happy stitching!

Lucy Redd Sampler

I know, I'm really early in posting this week.  Normally I try to post every Sun., but no later than Monday of my weekly progress.

But I know for a fact that there will nothing to show or post on Sunday!

The reason why, is all the stitching you see, I ripped it all out!  Whenever I buy fabric for a chart, I put the chart and the fabric in a freezer bag together.  So when I pull something from my stash, to stitch, other than pulling threads, I'm ready to go!

The fabric pictured here, was in with my chart.  I have to presume it was the correct one.  It's the correct count. But the more I stitched, the more I wasn't satisfied with the results.  I can tell you the fabric is some sort of evenweave, not sure about the color.  But it was so close to the DMC colors used, that you could barely see the stitching.

Who wants to do all that work, and you can barely see it?!  So I looked at the chart again and it said, it used 27 ct. Unbleached linen.  

Come to find out I have 2 more charts from the late 80's, that also call for same linen and count.  So off I go to the Internet in search of the linen.  Evidently this count must have been quite popular then.  Not so much now!  

Could I swapped out for a different count.  Sure.  But I liked how the samplers looked in the pictures in the charts.  So....I managed to find one piece on etsy, for one chart.  And bought 2 pieces for the other 2 charts, from Anita Little Stitches.  Those 2 pieces I used my handy dandy PayPal credit, because that's a purchase I don't really want the hubby to be all that knowledgeable about.  Ignorance is bliss! Plus if you used PayPal credit they give you 6 months no interest to pay. I usually pay it in full in within one or two months.

Plus 27 ct. In Unbleached/natural wasn't all that easy to find. So figured I should just bite the bullet and get all 3 pieces at once.   And wouldn't you know all 3 charts are wider than 18" so I have to buy the next size up.  Now I am rethinking my choice and probably should have gone up in count, so I could get away with a smaller piece of linen!  Darn!  Sometimes impulsiveness is such a bummer!

So...over the next several days I will be picking threads out of my previously stitched fabric, so I can use it for something else!

Guess that's okay.  Since my wrists need a rest. Went strawberry picking with my friend today.  So that didn't exactly help either!  Plus every time I moved I could hear my knees and ankles crack.  Getting old is no fun!  I know for sure my leg muscles will let me know about their disdain tomorrow.

We picked 3 buckets like this.  I took one, and my friend took 2.  It was perfect for picking!  Slight breeze, cloudy.  Plus we filled those buckets quickly!  All my experience from picking strawberries in Michigan growing up!

I washed and hulled them this evening.  Put one bag in fridge, 2 in the freezer, and gave a bag to our next door neighbor.  My friend made 9 jars of strawberry jam.

I finally managed to put some flowers in my new pots for my front stoop.  But gonna have to stop and get some replacement flowers for my railing baskets! Plus my side flower beds.  Some of my perennials didn't make it!  

Until next week - very happy stitching all!