Samplermaker- Carriage House Samplings

This is to be my final finish of 2015!  I know I don't have a thing in my stash that can be done before the chimes ring out 2015 and welcome in 2016.

Tavern Signs - Samplermaker

Carriage House Samplings

30 ct. Iced Cappucino

DMC

I have so much to share on this post!  We had a wonderful Christmas.  I received a new camera, a notebook and several gift cards.  The food was absolutely delicious  and we will be enjoying leftovers for many days. 

I want to share the pictures of the Altoid sewing kits I made. One for myself, which was for practice and to work through the kinks.  The other two were gifted to my sister and my bestie, Cathy.  All the tops were the same, but I finished the insides to coordinate with the crane scissors.

 Inside I put needle threader, tweezers, scissors,  and some packages of petit needles.  Yes the black on the inside lid is a magnet. Pretty proud of myself with the making of all the coordinating cording out of DMC.  My electric hand mixer, sure got a workout!

Once I finished the last sampler, I pulled out my stash.  Talk about being over the top!  I actually made a spread sheet of my existing stash.

I had someone point out to me, with all these charts, I'd have to live to be 200 to finish them all.  Never underestimate a driven stitcher like me! Got me thinking of my completions in 2015.

Here they are:

EH 1875 (started in 2014)

Amish Life- Tending the Garden

Dunvegan Sampler

Family Name Sampler

Amish Life- Hanging the Quilts

Rhoda Hastings 1863

Isabella Gray 1838

Ann Pegg 1877

Tropical Quaker Sampler

Antique Sampler

Karoline Beringer

Mexican School girl Practice Sampler

 In addition to

Knitted 3 baby blankets plus 3 teen scarves

Knit one eternity scarf

Made 3 tin topper sewing kits

Plus made slip covers for a couch and love seat, cushion covers for both. Plus recovered the pillows.

And made a valance.

Made one small baby quilt

Samplermaker Tavern Sign

If I hadn't been so crafty with sewing and knitting, I'd had a few more samplers finished!

Which brings me how I will decide what is next in my stitching rotation.  I decided to go by copyright year, and start with the oldest.  However, anything overseas had no copyright year and so I may occasional slip one of those in randomly.

So with that being said, if I have the right material my next sampler will be Hannah Lancaster with a 1985 copyright date. 

Next post will officially be in 2016.  May the New Year bring you happiness and joy.  May it allow plenty of time to stitch!

Mexican School Girl Practice - Week 6

Mexican School Girl Practice

By Samplers Remembered

40 ct. Porcelain linen 

DMC

Just put the last stitches in this beauty! Now the hard work begins of deciding what is next!  So many charts, so many to consider.

It's time to do some more administration and organizing of my existing charts before I start pulling threads, and putting needle to fabric.

I have, in this last week managed to finish wrapping all existing Christmas purchases. So the only things left are those still in transit.  Hopefully they'll arrive before Christmas.

We also got the tree decorated. My husband was in charge of lights and beads. I was in charge of ornaments, and icicles. This tree is smaller in height than previous years.  I know that because I didn't run out of either ornaments or lights.

Again another short entry this week. To all my followers. May you and your family have a very Merry Blessed Christmas!

Until next week!  Happy Stitching!!!!!

Mexican School Girl Practice - Week 5

I am at the point where each of us gets when working on a larger piece!  I just want to be done, finished! I only have one more page to go, and at least it's not a full page.  

I don't know why I'm in such a hurry.  It's not like I have a clue what I'm doing next. Still haven't been able to figure out what to do.

Besides, I have so much to do besides stitching! I have my shopping done, but I still need to wrap.  The house is partially decorated. We got the outside done, while the weather was being cooperative.  It was actually 73 degrees here today.  Sure doesn't feel like Christmas!

The tree is up, lights in, but no decorations. I kiddingly said to the hubby, well if we don't put anything else on, it'll be less to take down.  

The youngins will be home this week from college. So I really do need to get their stuff wrapped. And am trying to figure out how to wrap my mother's gifts when she is always with me.  Guess I'll have to wrap them after she retires one night.  But by the end of the day, I just want to zone!

I finished all the gifts I made, and I'd share the pics but some of the recipients read my blog.  So pics will have to wait until after Christmas!

Short post this week!  Happy stitching!

Week 4 - Mexican Schoolgirl Practice

Mexican School Girl Practice

By Samplers Remembered

40 ct. Porcelain linen 

DMC

Slow progress this week and yet I still managed to finish a while page from the chart.  Can't tell you how much stitching I did, followed by ripping out, restitching, reripping and finally the third time was either a charm or as good as it was gonna get.

But alas the joys of stitching! Sometimes it is one stitch forward and two stitches back.

I have managed to get some of the house decorated for Christmas. All the candles are in the window. The wreaths are hung and the stockings too.  The tree sits in its stand no lights, no ornaments.  Wish I had had the gumption Saturday night to put the lights on it.  

We still need to add lights and the inflatables to the front yard.  My mother hauled out her Christmas decorations that she brought with her.  I'll have to figure out to work those into the decor.  

I am pretty pleased with myself, that other than my husband , Christmas shopping is almost done. I've got a few things to mail as well.  

But back to stitching- it's usually bout this time in a project that I'm already thinking "what's next?" Or I already know what's next.  This time my mind is a total blank.  Not a clue.  Maybe I should number my charts, put pieces of  papers with duplicate numbers and just pick randomly!  

But at least I'm not adding anymore new charts.  Didn't even ask for a single one. I did ask for Michaels gift cards for framing and 123stitch for supplies.

I'll have to ponder some of my ideas over the next week!

Until then happy stitching!!!!!

Mexican School Girl Practice - Week 3

Even with all the Thanksgiving dinner preparations, I still managed to get in some stitching.

I finished the last page that runs across the top of the sampler.  Course I miss at admit that some of my time was spent ripping out a few lines, when I realized I had added an extra curly cue to the brown motif, and therefore alignments of lower motifs were off.

If it's a small mistake sometimes I'll just leave it, and adjust accordingly.  Really because there isn't any perfect.  

We had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Food turned out perfecto, and my oldest took a cooler home of leftovers.  I think it's funny since when he lived at home he was quite vocal about my cooking. Suddenly it's not so bad! But things always taste better when it's someone else doing the cooking!

All three of my kids were here, but my oldest and his girlfriend had to return to Norfolk because he had the watch. My daughter has spent most of her time working, and my youngest had racked up many hours of sleep. 

But it was nice to have them here and the mom is just happier when her chicks are here and together.

The agenda today consists of my update on a new phone.  I'm finally just learning all the ins and outs of this one.  Plus making a trek to Gainesville to pick up a Christmas tree.  Then home again for laundry!

I forgot to share this little story in my earlier posts.  But a few weeks back I had a snake in my house.  I don't like reptiles, amphibians, spiders and bugs if any sort. Wouldn't you know my husband wasn't home, so I had to at least attempt to catch it myself.  I did, but not before having some panic attacks. Trapped under a food storage container until the hubby could relocate it outside.

It wasn't very big. In fact my husband pointed out that I had I put longer night crawlers on a fishing hook.  I don't care! It was still a snake!

All for now, happy stitching!

Mexican School Girl Practice - Week Two

Still making adequate progress on my current project.  

Although I didn't get the second page (really page 3 of the chart), completely finished this week. I had to break down and clean because my children would be here for Thanksgiving.  

Plus grocery shop, laundry, taking my mom to her appointments and church. Plus I spent a good day sorting through various statements, and filing them.  My hubby had a mini melt down because he couldn't find some paperwork.  According to him he keeps up on the filing, but many of the statements went back to 2014.

But I got to use my filing skills which is where I started out when I began working in high school at a bank. Still have a few piles left.  But the paperwork was spread all over my dining room floor, table, sideboard and chairs, as I went about separating the statements into some type of fileable order.  

I picked up some more pictures from Michaels today.  Rhoda Hastings and the Amish Life series. They turned out wonderfully and I already have spots to hang them.

Probably won't get much stitching done this week, because of the preprep work that goes into Thanksgiving dinner.  

Then the craziness of Christmas will be upon us. Getting a tree, decorating a tree. Christmas shopping. 

Hope everyone tuned in to my blog has a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We all have many things to be thankful for and we must remember to count our blessings!

Till next week- happy stitching!

Mexican School Girl Practice - Page 1

This is my first full week of stitching on this project. Moving along quite nicely. Like the vivid colors.

Someone on one of the cross stitch FB pages had commented that she had stitched this sampler. She said she did hers in long stitch because she read Mexican samplers were generally stitched in long stitch.  

I decided to go back and look at the many pages included with the chart, and sure enough it talks about it being stitched with long stitch.  Perhaps I should have read the directions better!   But by then I was too far into the sampler  to rip out my previous stitching and start all over.  Plus I pulled out my handy dandy stitch encyclopedia and took a gander at the illustrations fit long stitch.  Made my head just explode even contemplating how you would go about fitting it in doing long stitch when it was charted for regular cross stitch.

Some charts are just better than others and I'd rate this more on a basic chart!  No shaded overlap, in fact there is no overlap from one page to another.  The darker graph lines doesn't show up well, so I had to use magic marker to high light those.  There are parts that I think you might have to do some back stitching but even then not so sure because the directions doesn't mention any. Plus the picture isn't so great on the front that you could even get a hint if your suppositions are correct. Ahhh the joys of cross stitch!

I managed to wrap and mail the baby blankets and scarves this week.  It's funny that someone posted on FB that some people think if you give someone a handmade gift, that some people think you're being cheap.  Having made my fair share of gifts over the year, nothing I have ever given, would I consider as being cheap.  Anything I knitted the yarn hadn't been all that cheap not including my time. It would have been cheaper for me to go to Babies R Us and purchase a blanket or gift card.

Then there is the cross stitch, materials, my time and I always have them professional framed.  Nothing cheap there.  Heck just to mail the scarves and blankets was almost $30.  I hope no one ever says that to me!  Cuz I'd give them a piece of my mind that I don't really have to spare.

I completed Christmas shopping for my daughter, happy bout that.  Still have my youngest son, my mother, and my husband to shop for.  But it's still November!!!

Well that's all for all this week happy, relaxing enjoyable stitching.