Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Needle's Work Sampler - Weeks 5 & 6

Once again, I have been particularly lax about updating my blog.  I think as the weather has gotten nicer, I have been stricken with Spring Disease, and have had so many things that I still need to get done.


I will admit, that week 5 of this sampler, I didn't work on it at all.  I sort of lost my stitching "mojo!" I actually made a comment to my 95 year old mother about my lack of "mojo" and her response was hysterical.  Evidently, she is not familiar with the term "mojo" and her response was "well maybe it fell off, and it's under your chair!"  If it was only so easy to lose and find again!  If any of my readers are interested in getting your own copy of the Needle's Work Sampler chart of your own, please leave your email address in the comments section, and I will send you the information.  This chart is no longer available in stores, and can only be obtained directly through the designer.

I finally got my samplers back from Michael's and will post the pictures.  Left Loara Standish there for them to redo, as I didn't care for the buckling along the edges of the sampler.  I have already figured out where to put them.  Ann Rayner will go directly above my grandfather clock in the front hallway and the rest will be grouped together on a wall between my son's room and the guest bedroom.

I also tried framing one of my smaller projects myself.  After wondering for a long time, I finally found a frame, I thought was about the right size.  I had my hubbie remove the wall hanger from the short side of the frame, and put it on the long side.  I then, watched several You Tube videos on framing needlework, including lacing the back.  I also received some hints from a FB friend in Oregon, who frames a lot of her own needlework, that was very useful in keeping the fabric lined up and even on the foam board.  I may try to do some other projects myself, as far as the lacing, and perhaps save some amount of the mounting costs.  Especially since the framing costs, with coupons is still outrageous.  There are a few things I did learn from this project, that I need to make a mental note, if I decide to do my own in the future.


Interesting topic on one of the FB stitching groups this weekend.  It was a show and tell weekend of stitcher's  WIP (works in progress) or UFO's (unfinished objects.)  OMG!  I have to tell you, I'm a one at a time sampler stitcher.  I used to have at least 3 projects going, one a take along, one lap stand up on the first floor, and one in the basement on my floor stand.  Since I rarely go anyways, no need to have a take along project.  Once the hubbie started working out of the house, I no longer spent so much time on the first floor, and therefore, stopped putting one on my lap stand.  Now - it's floor stand only.  I'm not saying that towards the end of any project, I'm not sick of it, or I can't wait till it's finished.  But.....finished is the end result.  Stitching should be something you do because you love it and enjoy it, but having all these just started, half finished projects, sitting around would drive me crazy.  I have found that many of the multiple project stitchers, have some sort of rotation of their various projects.  I can tell you I'm a voracious stitcher!  Stitching usually many a hours a day, because I don't work outside the house.  Even then, some of my samplers have taken anywhere from
5-6 weeks if not months to finish.  That's working on it, every single day.  I guess I don't understand the math, if you have 10-15 projects in some stage, and work on it a day, a week, when can one anticipate a finish?

To be quite honest, I guess it also boils down to that I'm lazy and cheap!  I don't want to break my floor stand down every single time to switch out one project to the next.  I have a multitude of scroll rods, but I don't want to have a bunch of extra scroll rods that I don't need, and threads.  I pull threads for the project I am working on, then once completed, file them back, and pull threads for the next project.  Works for me.

I am happy to share, that I did manage to finish the two Christmas ornaments I volunteered to donate to a family that their stitcher passed away.  Took me for ever to find an appropriate chart, since I didn't know the lady personally, other than through FB.  I thought the sampler style ornaments were the answer.


With that, I will end my rambling and wish you all a wonderful week and Happy Stitching!