WIP Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Hello Everyone and welcome to WIP Wednesday. First though I would like to say Happy Birthday to my dad. We are having lunch with him and Mom later today and I’m looking forward to seeing my sisters, too.

I’ve always loved this picture of my dad and me, circa 1960 or 61 when he was a student at Virginia Tech or VPI back in those days. When I was at VT, there was a parking lot where these trailers were behind the engineering buildings. Now, there are new buildings where the parking lot was. Progress?

Back to stitching. As I said in my last post, I did a lot of stitching while on vacation. I stitched in the car on the way to and from the beach, which was four days worth, then I stitched a little on the beach in the mornings before it got too hot.

The car travel project was Gathering Honey by Luminous Fiber Arts. It’s stitched on 32 ct Salted Carmel linen hand dyed by Misty. I think this is one of the prettiest colors that Misty dyes. It’s stitched with Belle Soie Teddy Bear. I started working on this when we went camping and finished on the morning we were driving home from Georgia. If you are familiar with this chart, you might notice that the walls of the bee skep are thicker. After I finished the skep and took it out of my hoop I noticed that the circle was not in the center. I found my mistake near the top of the right side where I had started stitching. I moved on to the bird while I pondered what to do next.

To fix it, I would have to take it all out or try to cut parts of it out. Even though I use a small hoop, I use the sewing method, so there would be many stitches to cut out. I decided to add the extra stitches to make it even and I found another mistake near the first one. I knew I was off by two and that’s why you could really tell the skep was off center. I thought it looked okay after adding the extra stitches, then I filled in the left side to match the right. It’s done and no one but me is going to know when I have it displayed. I now have four of the Gathering series finished and will start the Autumn one later in the summer.

My next finish at the beach was Chalk Full Bloom by Hands On Design and Priscilla Blain. I really like the daisies in the jar and like to put fresh daisies in my antique blue Mason jar. For this design, the jar was charted in red, but I wanted mine to be aqua. The ribbon was aqua and I had thought I would use the red, but then I saw someone on Instagram had changed the ribbon to yellow and I shamelessly copied her. I took out the red altogether and love how it looks. I started this one while we were camping and finished it on the last day at the beach.

While at the beach, I worked on Chalk Full Liberty a little, too. I also started this when we went camping. Since we’ve been home, I have finished all the white. The fabric for both Bloom and Liberty is 16 ct Chalkboard Aida. When I finish Liberty, I will fully finish them both.

Once I finished Gathering Honey, I started Red, She Said in the car on the last travel day. On that day, I got the letters over to F finished and the left side stripes. It’s stitched on 32 ct. Lt Mocha, which made it easy to work on in the car. I’m using the called for Colour and Cotton floss that I got as a kit with the chart from Colorado Cross Stitcher.

Once we were home, I got back into my morning stitch routine, working on Land That I Love by Teresa Kogut. I had just a little bit of the flag done when I showed this last. I finished it, then moved over to the next part of the border. I have decided that there is no way I’m going to finish it this summer, so I think I will continue to stitch it until July 4th, then switch to another morning stitch.

If you read my last post, I told you I was going to finish quilting my nephew’s quilt. Well, those plans changed. After swimming on Saturday morning, my right shoulder was bothering me a little, but I decided to quilt anyway. I got halfway through the quilt, but by that afternoon, my shoulder really hurt and I could barely lift it over my head. I’ve had this happen before and after 40 plus years of swimming, I’m sure my shoulder muscles are not pristine. It’s much better now, but I did skip a swim day, too.

Instead of sewing or quilting, I took two days to put my flosses back from several finished projects and kit up a few new cross stitch projects.

I’m going to stitch Patriotic Rose again for us. If you recall, I stitched this for my brother-in-law in March. I liked the frame I used and I found another barn wood frame at the same place, but in a 4″ x 6″ size. They were out of the 5″ x 7″. I stitched his on 32 ct, so to accommodate the frame size, I’ll be stitching this one on 36 ct, using 1 thread over 2 stitches. I’m going to use the same thread colors but will use Fiber on a Whim’s Milk and Honey. Sheri of Colorado Cross Stitcher is again going to host summer camp. For June, the task is stitch a holiday piece. I’m going to start this in June and go to camp. To find out all the details, you can view Sheri’s Flosstube.

I’ve also kitted up Seasons of the Heart – Summer by The Blue Flower. I have the charts from the 2021 issues of Punch Needle and Primitive Stitching. I’m going to be using 40 ct Lt Mocha with the called for DMCs.

To make it confusing, I also kitted up Seasons of the Heart – Summer by Brenda Gervais. I will be using 40 ct Vintage Country Mocha and I have substituted some of the floss. I’ll share what the changes are as I get started.

I think that’s it. If you’ve stuck with me this long, thank you. I hope you have a great rest of your week and start of your weekend.