WIP Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Hello Everyone! I’d say welcome to Works In Progress Wednesday, but today I just have a finish for you. I have been stitching, but I haven’t had time to take and edit pictures of all the WIPs I’ve been working on.

I finally fully finished Jack Frost’s Tree Farm by Little House Needleworks. I purchased the chart and floss from Traditional Stitches in Canada and was sent the chart once a month for 7 months. I substituted 32 ct Lambswool linen for the called for. I love how it turned out and I do have a plan for displaying it, but I need to get the rest of my Christmas decorations out first.

Here are the stats:

• Started: 3-1-19
• Finished: 4-2-20
• Fully Finished: 12-5-21
• Days Stitched: 84

You can see that it sat in the to be finished pile for a long time.

The frame is a sign that I purchased at JoAnn’s this fall for 60% off from the fall section. Because the background was so large, I did not want to mount the stitched piece on a fabric covered board and waste a lot of pretty fabric that couldn’t be seen. Instead, I treated it like a quilted project and added borders to the stitched piece. I calculated the size of the stitched piece + 1/4″ on each side of the stitched border. That then became the size of the stitched piece. I determined the size of the sign opening to give me the finished size of the “top”. I also wanted more of the fabric to show at the top, so I accounted for that. To calculate the size of the borders I added 1/2″ to the finished width and height, then added an additional 1 1/2″ to turn the fabric to the back. Once stitched together, I have the final piece as shown above.

I cut a piece of foam core just a sliver smaller than the sign opening. I added a piece of batting to the top of the foam core before placing the stitched piece on the board. I used applique pins to pin the piece onto the board. I adjusted as I went, using the cutting mat and a ruler to get the piece in the correct place on the board. I started with a few pins, then when I was happy with the placement, I added all those pins you see above.

I was going to lace the back, but because I was working with fabric on the back instead of the stitched piece, I used double sided stitchery tape. Then I popped it into the frame and we have a nice finished piece.

I’m not planning on hanging this on a wall, but I’m going to leave on the hanger just in case someday I want to.

I did baste the County Fair quilt, but I doubt if I will get it finished by Christmas. I plan to start quilting it though so it won’t go into a pile of quilts to be quilted.

Besides working on a few gifts, I made this cute bag from Erica Ardnt she calls the 5 Minute Gift Bag. I followed her YouTube tutorial for making it with a couple of modifications. I added fusible fleece to the outside fabric and made it a little larger to hold a few more goodies. I plan to make a few more of these before the season is up. I’ve made several of Erica’s bags from her videos and her instructions are always easy to understand.

We had a great time at the parade last Saturday and we’re going to Williamsburg this weekend for a quick visit with my father-in-law. The temperatures are supposed to be warm, but there is a chance of rain on Saturday. Saturday is one of the Grand Illumination days so I hope it holds off until Sunday.

I’m going to leave you with a few pictures from the parade. I hope you have a great week and I hope to be back next Wednesday to share lots of stitchy progress. Thanks for stopping by!

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WIP Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Hello Everyone! Wow, it’s already December! Where has the fall gone. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a lovely day with my parents, son and brother-in-law and his wife. Now it’s time to get ready for the Christmas Season.

I’ve managed to get a little quilting and sewing done, a few small gifts have been started so those will have to be shown at the end of the month. I’ve been mostly stitching, though, since I stitch early in the morning and after dinner. Since my last stitching update, I’ve had a few finishes and some new starts. I also have a few new things ready to start soon.

First the finishes. If you missed my last Sunday post, I did show the finished Scenic Farm before I took it to be framed.

On the left is Joyeux Noel by JBW designs. I started it two years ago and worked on it in December of 2019 and 2020. It’s stitched on 28 ct Aztec Red by Wichelt using DMC Blanc and stitched 1 over 1. On the right is Christmas Eve Saltbox by Melisa of Pinker N Punpkin Stitching. I used 32 ct Winter Wishes from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie and is stitched with a combination of Sulky, DMC and one hand dyed floss, 2 over 2. Both of these are sitting on the pile to be finished, which is getting pretty high now.

Now for my WIPs.

I have made a little more progress on Home for Christmas by Plum Street Samplers, finishing the top row of stars and continuing to stitch the pomegranates. I’m stitching this 1 over 2 on 36 ct Cinnamon Toast, hand dyed by Luminous Fiber Arts using most of the called for threads. I changed the white to B5200 and used two strands for the snow flakes. The colors in the picture are a little darker than in real life. I’ll try to take a picture in natural light next time to show how pretty the fabric is. I’m going to work my way down on both sides before starting the house.

I finally finished the 1 over 1 stitching on the words on the Peace on Earth Sampler by Cottage Garden Samplings. I started this on my birthday in July 2019 and have worked on it sporadically. For the past few weeks, I have been stitching the words. I am going to continue to work on it several days a week through the season. It’s stitched on 32 ct Vintage Country Mocha, 1 over 2 (except the words). I’m using most of the called for colors, but had to substitute a few. This is my first sampler and like the other two I have going, it is a slow process for me. I like to work on several things at a time, and because they are larger, it is taking longer to get them finished. I thought of making this my morning stitch, but I decided to make Home for Christmas my morning stitch because I really want to finish it soon.

My new start is Happy Christmas by the Prairie Schooler. This is another chart that I’ve had for a couple of years and decided it was time to start it. I’m stitching it with the called for 18 ct black Aida and all the called for threads except the red where I substituted DMC 3777 for DMC 355. I am enjoying stitching this one, although Aida is usually not my favorite. I’m so used to working over 2 threads, that trying to find the correct hole for my needle can be challenging, especially on the black. I do seem to pull out my thread more often to fix my stitches.

To be started soon…

The Prairie Schooler’s December, stitched on LFA 32 ct Macchiato Lugana with most of the called for colors.

A Cardinal’s Carol by Misty of LFA, stitched on 32 ct White linen from Zwiegert using most of the called for colors. I am changing the bells to be gray because one of my favorite Christmas songs is “Silver Bells”. This will probably be the next start.

And finally, The Cookie Exchange, a mystery stitch by Hands On Design that starts today. I have all the called for floss, but will need to see the first part before deciding on a fabric color. I think the color called for is in an aqua/teal range. The only color I have that is similar is 25 ct Lugana. I’m not sure that stitch count will work.

This week I plan on basting the County Fair quilt, but when I checked the weather earlier, the warm day is supposed to also be a very windy day. Because I spray baste, I want to baste outside because the spray can leave a residue. I will also continue to stitch all the above and start one more new thing. I’m also going to set aside some time to start fully finishing some of the cross stitch pieces. AND I need to start with the Christmas decorations. It looks like it’s going to be a busy week ahead.

For fun stuff with my husband, we are planning on attending a Christmas parade in a nearby town. I’m looking forward to that. I haven’t been to a parade in a long time. We also got our booster shot Tuesday morning. As of this writing (Tuesday afternoon), no side effects, but we will see how that affects my plans, too.

I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Quilt Top and Cross Stitch Finish

Hello Everyone! I hope you all are having a great weekend and for those here in the US, getting ready to share a wonderful Thanksgiving with family members. I have already made my cranberry sauce and it smelled wonderful while the cranberries were cooking. I also managed to get the County Fair quilt top and Scenic Farm finished this week!

I couldn’t get a good picture of the entire quilt, but this one shows the borders. I’m very happy with it and love the Christmas Figs fabric by Fig Tree. I’ll have to wait until after Thanksgiving to spray baste it. I hope it warms up some since I’ll need to do it outside.

If you follow me on Instagram, you saw my picture of the last stitch in Scenic Farm. I love it! After looking at it on the design wall, I knew it had to be blocked before taking it to be framed.

I have a blocking mat that I use for my knitting and it came in handy to block Scenic Farm. I got it mostly straight on the left edge and I’m hoping the framer will be able to stretch it as he pins it to make the left edge straight. I took it to Michael’s where I had Anniversaries of the Heart framed, but the framer who did that one had moved to another store in Maryland. I grilled the new guy about how he was going to frame it and I was satisfied he had enough experience with stitched pieces that I left it after choosing the frame. It should be done in a few weeks, so I’ll have the statistics figured out by the time I have it back.

It may be a week from Wednesday before my next post. I plan on enjoying time with family this week and probably won’t get much sewing done, although I am going to start a few new cross stitch projects. Even after the year and a half that we’ve had, I hope we can all reflect on things to be thankful for. I appreciate that you all take time to stop by a couple of times a week and share my crafting and travel journeys with me. Take care and I hope you all have a great week and Thanksgiving.

WIP Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Hello Everyone and welcome to Works In Progress Wednesday. I hope you all are having a good week. For those in the United States, I hope you get to visit family this year for Thanksgiving. I am hosting dinner this year and am looking forward to having my son, my parents and my brother-in-law and his wife with us. I haven’t had more than the four of us for Thanksgiving in many years. I already have my list of things to make and when to make them so things will be go as smoothly as possible. I’m not planning a stitching update next Wednesday, but I will share what I’ve done between now and Saturday in my Sunday post.

I have finished all the backstitching on Scenic Farm and started on the Colonial Knots. The pattern calls for French Knots, but when done correctly, I like the look of the Colonial Knots better.

In the tree above are the second round of knots. They are definitely getting better. These are a little more consistent than the first tree, but nobody is going to see those up close so they are staying. I’m going to put the piece in my stand hoop so I can use both hands to hold the thread. This is the tutorial I used to make them if you are interested. There are still alot to go in the last three trees, but I want to finish it so I can take it to be framed by Saturday. I may have to block it before I take it in. The left side looks a little stretched to me.

I also took time out on Monday to finish Thanksgiving House and Mr. McGobble by Melisa of Pinker N Punkin Quilting & Stitching. She always has the cutest freebies. They are both stitched on 32 count Lt Mocha using most of the DMC floss called for although I did use some hand-dyed floss for the turkey feathers.

I only stitched Mr McGobble and not the words on this one. I thought he would look good in the round. I used the the small and large template from Hands On Design Well Rounded Finishing kit to trace the perfect size for the turkey and background piece onto mat board. I added three graduating batting pieces to the cross stitch (small one on top), then gathered the circle and laced the back. I made two back pieces. The one in front has one layer of batting and I did the same thing with both of those pieces, gathered the circle, then laced the back. Then I glued all three pieces together with Aleen’s glue. I also glued the trims in place after the pieces were glued together.

They look cute in my rearranged bowl for Thanksgiving. The other turkey pillow is by Teresa Kogut called Give Thanks.

I’ve almost finished the house on Melisa’s Christmas Eve Saltbox. Last week I showed you the Sulky threads I was going to use, but the darker red was too dark and too maroon. I ended up changing to DMC 3777 and I think it’s perfect with the red. I hope to have this one finished in another week or so.

I started Home for Christmas over the weekend and like how this is going. I had to play with the colors a little. I’m using everything but the called for white and the pink color inside the stars. It calls for DMC 632 but I thought it was too brown. I changed it to DMC 3722. The white is DMC B5200. The fabric is really pretty, 36 ct Cinnamon Toast, hand dyed by Luminous Fiber Arts. I’m stitching 1 over 2.

I have been trying to make plans for Christmas stitching and I have several smalls pulled out and kitted. I still would like to plan a few new starts that probably won’t be finished this year, but I would like to start working on them for next year.

I hope you all are getting in some Holiday stitching or quilting, whether it’s still fall or Christmas or winter. I think it always helps me get into the holiday spirit to be working on something in season. I hope you have a great rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.

I’ll leave you with a picture of sunrise on Monday morning. It was gorgeous. Also a very cold and blustery day.

A Quilting Update and Another Hokie Hike

Hello Everyone! I hope your weekend is going well. This has been a busy week. Early in the week, we were still catching up on doctor’s appointments (it takes forever to get appointments for new patients), we went on a great hike on Wednesday, hit a winery on Thursday and I met with the community quilt group on Friday. I told my husband he was welcome to go out on Saturday, but I was staying home! I did manage to get the center of my quilt finished despite being gone alot.

First though, I want to share our Hokie Hike. We registered through Alumni Relations and this time we had our shirts. It was a sunny day, but more hazy than on the last few hikes I’ve shared.

I found a new trail nearby so we headed west towards West Virginia! I believe those rocks at the top of the mountain are where we ended up.

We hiked the short part of the Eagle Rock Trail, which is part of the Tuscarora Trail. Our hike was 2.8 miles long.

It started as a gentle incline, then a steeper climb near the end. The leaves on the western side of the mountain were almost all yellow and were waning, but we saw some of the prettiest leaves and color on this ride and hike than we have all fall.

Even through the haze, you can see how beautiful this view was. We are looking southwest along the Great North Mountain ridge line.

From here, we hiked up to and past the next set of rocks. The trail leveled out and looked like it was going to continue along the ridge for a ways so we turned around for the trip back. We had the whole trail to ourselves so a selfie is the best we could do.

Before we hiked, I read alot about the hike and hikers mentioned not seeing Eagle Rock. We searched around for it and on on our way back down, we stopped again to look at the main overlook and my husband found it. At least we are guessing this is it. Do you see it? Look at the top rock as the eagle’s head and the one to the right as the wing.

The best leaf color was in the parking area! The time to log the Hokie Hike miles is through November 20 so maybe we’ll get one more hike in next week.

So during all the business, I managed to sew a few rows of the County Fair quilt together and finish the main part of the quilt.

After finishing the quilt center, I played around with the border settings and have decided on the one above. In the pattern, there are four borders, each 2″. I really wanted the red fabric to shine, so I’ll have three graduating borders.

I also spent an hour Face Timing my friend Lydia in Georgia. While we were chatting, I worked on this English Paper Piecing project that I started in the fall of 2019. I was only working on it once a month when I met with a group at a local quilt shop. Well that ended in the winter of 2020 and I have only done a little bit since. I was able to stitch the top red row together while talking with her. My next step is to make more hexies. I have this sitting out so I’ll remember to work on it.

Thanks for stopping by this week. I appreciate all the comments that I receive. I hope you have a great week!

WIP Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Works in Progress Wednesday. Today, I’m sharing the last of my fall stitching and the beginnings of Christmas and Winter stitching plus and update on my quilting progress last week.

I didn’t post quilting progress on Sunday because we were out all day on Saturday and I only have one picture to share, but I did make lots of progress last week on the County Fair quilt.

I am slowly sewing this quilt together. I had already sewn the sashing strips to the blocks, so last week, I sewed the blocks together, then had to sew the corner stones to the sashing strips. I am in the process of sewing the rows together now. It’s slow because I pin all those nine patch seams together. It takes me twice as long to pin than it does to sew. My goal is to finish the quilt in time to use it this Christmas.

I hit a large milestone in Scenic Farms. The stitching is all complete! I am backstitching this last section and need to go back and repair a place or two where the backstitching has gotten loose. Then, it’s time to make all the French Knots! I’ll be watching for frame sales. If a really good one starts, I may put everything else aside to get this one finished.

These are the last two pieces of fall stitching for this year. Both are by Melisa at Pinker N Punkin Quilting. The house is Thanksgiving House and was a fun piece to stitch. In 1863, Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be a day of Thanksgiving. You can read more of the story on Melisa’s blog. I’ll be finishing it as a small pillow like the other saltbox houses that I’ve stitched.

The turkey is called Mr. McGobble and I just stitched the turkey from Melisa’s sweet pattern. I changed the turkey feather colors and used some over-dyed threads. It only took two nights to stitch, so you still have time if you want one for Thanksgiving. I haven’t decided how I’ll finish it yet, but hopefully we’ll all know by next week!

I’ve spent some time over the past week pulling out Christmas and Winter charts, trying to decide which ones I want to start and which ones I’d like to get started and finished! When I finished Mr. McGobble, I wanted to stitch something Holidayish, but small. I pulled out Joyeux Noel by JBW Designs and started working on it again. It’s stitched on 28 ct linen, 1 over 1 and for me the stitching is slow. I started it in 2019 and stitched on it only a little last year. I have made good progress over the past two days though. I stitched the entire bottom row and the branch on the right side above that row. I will probably finish it as some kind of standup, either on a block or as a flat fold. First though to finish the stitching!

I had some waiting to do yesterday morning while my husband had a procedure, so I started Melisa’s Christmas Eve Saltbox. I’m stitching it on 32 ct Winter Wishes linen, possibly by Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie (the tag doesn’t say). I thought Santa should fly through a gray snow filled sky. I’m going to use Melisa’s colors but in Sulky 12 wt threads instead of DMCs. I have a few extra’s I’ll be using such as B5200 for the white and Hunter from Weeks for the Christmas tree. As you can see, I only have a small start, but I’ll continue to build the house this week while I decide on other things to stitch for the season.

We are planning another hiking trip later this morning. It should be a pretty day and I hope we have some pretty views. Based on the trees around here, I don’t expect to see many pretty colors in the trees. A lot of trees are still green, and when they turn, they are going straight to brown. I guess that’s the result of our warm days in October.

That’s it for this week. I hope you have a pleasant rest of your week and weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

WIP Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Hello Everyone and welcome to Works In Progress Wednesday. I actually only have one WIP that I’m currently working on, two finishes and a new start.

The one WIP is Scenic Farm. We are getting there! Another week or two and this one should be finished! It would be finished sooner if I didn’t stop working on it to finish something else, like I did this weekend!

I stayed up late on Halloween to get Pumpkin Pageant finished! This was a free handout in the ’90s from Cross Stitch Design and the chart is by Louise Young. I did further investigating and did find out that the inner part of the design was published by the Need’l Love Company It does look like the Leaflet might still be available. I am still happy to send anyone a copy if they want one.

I did make a few changes for the floss. I only used two greens, the darker one is DMC 166 and the lighter is 734. I changed the words from one of the yellows to DMC 413. I think it’s really cute and I will make a flat finish and display it on a board of some kind. I’m not sure if I’ll finish it now, or wait until next year.

I also finished a Raven’s Reply by Luminous Fiber Arts. I had hoped to get this one fully finished by now, but other things always seem to come up. I’m also thinking of making this a flat finish. I have several small wood items that I’ve collected over time. I’ll see if it will fit on one of them. This is stitched on 40 ct Porcelain hand dyed by Luminous Fiber Arts and stitched 1 over 2 with the called for threads.

My new start is Thanksgiving House by Melisa of Pinker n Pumpkin Quilting. I started it on Monday and finished about half of the house. I hope to have if finished by this weekend and made into a little pillow for my bowl.

I had hoped to do at least two other fall/Thanksgiving smalls, but I think after I finish the Thanksgiving house, I’m going to move on to Christmas stitching. There are a few things I started last year to finish and few new ones to start.

As I was going through my stitching things, I pulled out everything that I have finished, but needs to be fully finished. As you can see, a few Christmas/Winter things are included. I think I finally have a plan for the two large ones, Farmhouse Christmas (left) and Jack Frost’s Tree Farm (right) both by Little House Needleworks. I’ve had these finished for over a year now so it’s time to get these ready to display. For the Let’s Talk Winter (black fabric, lower left) all I have to do is lace it to the already prepped mat board, then it’s ready to go. Even though I would like to stitch a few more of the Prairie Schooler Ornaments (top), I am going to go ahead and fully finish these for this year. I’m just going to have to set aside a few days in a row to get these finished!

Besides all of this, I would like to get my County Fair quilt finished in time for the Holiday Season! It’s hard to get things done when we go out to play in our pretty area!

I hope you all have a great and productive week ahead. Thanks for stopping by!

Hawksbill Summit, SNP, Hokie Hike and Searching for Color

Hello Everyone! I’m back today to share a few photos from our day trip last week through the Shenandoah NP and Fort Valley. We went hiking and we were searching for some colorful leaves. The hike did not disappoint, but the leaves were a little harder to find. We did see some color at the higher altitudes in the park, but mostly with the yellow trees. The oaks (red) were just starting to change. There were also some trees that were already bare.

We started our trip from Front Royal and took US 340 south on the west side of the park. We entered the park at the Thornton Gap entrance near Luray and headed south on the Skyline Drive. As we got higher in elevation, we started seeing some pretty yellow color in the trees.

We were heading to Hawksbill Summit, the highest spot in the park, for our hike. As we rounded a corner, we could see a few clouds just grazing the top of the mountains and thought that’s probably where we were going to hike. We ended up driving in some light fog for a few miles, but it was clearing up by the time we reached the trailhead.

There were several ways to reach the summit. We chose the mostly straight up way (about 700 feet in elevation) because I don’t like going down steep hills. Next time, we will probably do an out and back on the back side, longer, but less steep to reach the top.

It was worth every step we took to get to the top! As you can see, it was a spectacular day. A cold front had gone through the day before and really cleared up the sky.

If we look a little cold, it’s because we were. When we left the car at 10:15, it was 45 degrees. I’m sure with the wind chill factor, it was in the 30’s at the top. The wind was really blowing, too. We are using this hike as part of the Hokie Hike that we signed up for through Virginia Tech Alumni Relations.

More views from the top!

This is a closer look at the color in the trees of the the smaller ridge to the west.

As we continued the hike back down and around to the west towards the car, we made sure to stop and enjoy our surroundings.

This guy almost walked up to me so I was able to get a pretty good picture. He didn’t seem to care that we were around.

As we neared the end of the hike, there was a rock slide. We are still on the trail here, but right around the corner, we had to do a horizontal rock scramble to get back onto the trail. I didn’t take pictures because I needed my hands to help get across. Makes me think a little harder about some of the hikes that need a rock scramble to get to the top of some of the trails.

It was a great hike and like I said, I’m know we’ll do it again. We came through a Mountain Laurel grove, so I’m sure that is beautiful when the trees are blooming in the spring. The total length of our hike was 3.7 miles. A good length that took about 2 hours with a 15 minute pause at the summit.

We continued out drive south to The Big Meadows Wayside where we had our picnic lunch. After that we exited the park at the Swift Run Gap entrance and made our way to Elkton before turning north towards home. Instead of coming home all the way on US340, we crossed the Massanutten Mountain and drove through home on the Fort Valley road. I took a few pictures as we drove through, but the trees were still very green through the valley.

We really enjoyed our day out and look forward to another soon. We are supposed to get very cold here this week, so we are going to go ahead and winterize our camper. I was hoping that we could get out for a few days close by, but we don’t want to risk the water lines freezing. A snowflake popped up on my weather app for Friday, but it’s been replaced by rain now. It will probably change a dozen times before the end of the week!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and that you, too, can get out and do a little exploring! Thanks for stopping by as always!

Quilty Finishes!

Hello Everyone and Happy Halloween! I hope you are enjoying this weekend. We had a great day trip on Wednesday, but I thought I would do a separate post so this one doesn’t get too long. We are also finally seeing some color changes in the trees. The color is not as vibrant as last year, but it is still pretty. This week I was able to get the little quilts/pillow tops finished that I’ve been working on.

I finished the Pirouette Wreath Pillow Top that I made by changing the size of the pattern found in “A Scrapbook of Quilts” by Joanna Figueroa and Carrie Nelson.

County Fair Blocks

The fabric is Christmas Figs by Fig Tree and all the half square triangles were leftovers from trimming the corners of the County Fair blocks.

The center of the wreath was just begging for some special quilting, so a holly branch was added. I marked the branch and leaves before quilting using an air erasable marker. I used a green 50 wt Mettler thread that matched the green fabric. Then I switched to a 50 wt Aurifil thread to quilt the tiny meander design to really make the leaves pop.

At least the pillow will be ready for the Christmas season. I haven’t worked on the County Fair quilt in weeks. I would like to have it finished for Christmas, too.

I also finished the pillow top and mug rug from the leftover star point trimmings of the Pumpkin Run Table Runner.

There were so many different ways to turn those HSTs. I’m really happy with this layout.

Since I went with the brown Fig Tree fabric instead of black, I can use these through Thanksgiving.

This week I’ll go back to working on the County Fair quilt. It’s time to start sewing the sashing and blocks together.

Don’t forget that today is the last day to use the coupon code FALL15 in my Esty shop to get 15% off everything in the shop including the project bags. Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

WIP Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Hello Everyone! We made a good decision about the camping trip. Where we were camping got some heavy rain, then some high winds as the front went through. There would have been only one good day to enjoy the outside before more rain. We are going on a day trip today so I hope there will still be leaves on the trees after the wind!

I’ve only worked on three cross stitch projects this week so this will be short.

We’ll start with Scenic Farm. I finished all the background leaves! Yeah! I also stitched that small fir tree. There are two small buildings left to stitch and some snow on the ground, then the main stitching will be finished. There is still lots of backstitching to do in this section, though. There are also lots and lots of French knots to be stitched in the trees. I wanted to do those last so they wouldn’t get crushed. I may try to make colonial knots instead. I’ll have to see what lays better.

I almost have The Raven’s Reply finished. Just that last section of the border to do. I plan on having it fully finished by next week. Still a toss up of a pillow finish or some kind of flat finish.

I started the new Halloween small called Pumpkin Pageant by Louis Young. Isn’t that fabric beautiful? It’s Woodland Moss by Mt Aire Fabrics. I purchased it last year from an Etsy shop after Needlework Market. I wanted to use just a little bit of the corner. There is still lots of it left to stitch other things.

Here is the information about the cross stitch design. This was probably one of my mom’s cross stitch patterns that I’ve taken over the years. I’ve had it a long time. It was a freebie at the time and I did try to look up the designer, Louise Young, and found a couple of charts on eBay, but there was not much information about her. After it’s finished, if you would like to have a download of the chart, you can let me know. I don’t want to publish it without knowing it’s status.

That’s it for me today. I plan to finish both of the fall charts and keep plugging away at Scenic Farm. I also plan on starting the new Thanksgiving Saltbox from Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting. I hope you have a great rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.