Unsatisfactory

Buying kits can be fraught with complications. Maybe you won't like working with the fabric. Maybe the threads are a poor quality. Maybe there is not enough fabric or thread. Maybe the pattern doesn't match the model. But I ran into a problem with Mill Hill's Kitchen Collection Bowled Over that I have never seen before. Can anyone tell me which of these threads are Dark Rose, which are Light Red, which are Dark Red, and which are Light Rose? I didn't think so. Sometimes kits have the threads in labeled bags (Bent Creek). Sometimes kits have threads that are obviously different colors (and with the number of lengths noted so that you can tell the 3 lengths of Dark Rose from the 5 lengths of Dark Red, such as Dimensions kits). Sometimes the kits even attach the threads to a numbered chart (Bothy and Michael Powell). This kit does not tell you how many lengths you should have or how to distinguish one reddish thread from another. Now there are DMC color numbers listed for the threads, but all of my DMC is back in Nevada. I hope they do match what I have when I check them under my daylight lamp.

Meanwhile I am going to continue on with the colors I can differentiate. I've stitched all the Blue, Dark Green and the Light Yellow that need to be stitched. I wanted to stitch more of this on the plane, but the reading lights were broken and most of the shades were down. I stitched just the bottom row of the Light Yellow, then put it away for a brighter day. There are also a lot of beads in these kits. I like the way that they make the pattern sparkle, but I wasn't sure if I could stitch them at all. The provided beading needle had an eye so slender that my needle threader wouldn't even go through it. And I certainly couldn't get two strands of DMC through the eye either. Luckily my John James Petite 26 needle is handling the job beautifully. John James FTW!!! (For The Win) I will be better prepared for the next three kits. After I stitch all the Medium Green (and the matching beads), I will have a large area of unbeaded Light Green to stitch on the plane. Meanwhile I will go back to stitching Postcard from Paradise.

I haven't had a lot of stitching time this week because the Guest Room has gone from an almost empty room of junk to this. We bought curtains and curtain rods, finally taking down the very faded Martha Stewart bedsheets that were thumbtacked to the window frames. We bought a new king sized bed for the Master Bedroom and moved the queen sized bedroom set into the Guest Room. I washed all the sheets and towels and generally cleaned the house more than it has ever been (even the Office and the Library).


This was all in preparation for our niece Laura to visit us from Lexington, Kentucky. We took her out to lunch/dinner at Mama's Fish House (seen in the background here) and then back to the house. She promptly crashed, as would I after traveling for 12 hours. Right now she and James are out renting her some snorkel gear while I have a bit of quiet and stitch. We will probably have an early dinner then get up at dawn to drive the road to Hana (and around the back of the island). The waterfalls are always better early in the morning.

No Television, No Internet, No Problem

Yes, we spend so little time in San Francisco that we decided not to hook up to the building’s cable television. And the DVD player broke several years ago and hasn’t been replaced. Even the wireless router is giving us problems, so it’s either read or stitch. I decided to stitch and now have 13 squares (out of 90) finished. Barbara made a suggestion of using Thread Heaven to control the knotting of the Crescent Colours threads. Of course, I have Thread Heaven . . . back in Henderson. But this gave me a great excuse to go to the Status Thimble in Burlingame. Not only did I get Thread Heaven, but you can see the first of my planned thread substitutions. Instead of the inside of the sunglasses being a muddy gray green (CC Frosted Sage), they are now a wonderful Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid shiny silver. I also have some shiny green and shiny blue that will find their way into this piece also. I love Petite Treasure Braid. Did the Thread Heaven help? Help, yes, solve the problem, NO! It still knots, but at least I haven’t had to cut any more of the knots out. The Status Thimble was having their yearly July sale (20% off everything except sale items). So a few magazines, a chart, a canvas and some threads made their way into my basket. I haven’t stitched a single Christmas ornament this year. That will soon change.

But lest you think that I did nothing but stitch, yesterday we went to the Ferry Plaza Market and tried to be good about not buying too much tasty fruit (we can’t take any of it to Hawaii). We also shopped for king sized sheets for Maui. Even though the king bedroom set we ordered last year will not be here before the end of September (first promised for April), we are going to get a king bed mattress and simple frame so that we can move the queen bed into the guest room for our niece who will be joining us in Maui on Wednesday, We also attended a galley opening for an artist who is one of James’ friends and had a tasty sushi dinner from our favorite Japanese restaurant, Main Street Sushi in Half Moon Bay. Then I went a little overboard buying bread (which we can take to Hawaii) at Whole Foods. There is not any artisan bread on Maui, so if you want sourdough, sourdough walnut, or brioche hamburger buns, you have to bring your own.

I'm sitting in the Red Carpet Club at SFO waiting for our flight to Maui. It will be good to get out of the cod, cold SF Bay Area. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Start-itis

I started out looking for something small to stitch on the planes. I decided on several Mill Hill Kitchen Collection kits, but they come with 14 count Aida and I hate Aida. So looking through my fabric drawers I picked out a white 28 count Monaco with enough fabric for four kits. While I was looking for the 28 count fabric I ran across the 36 count antique white Edinburgh and the threads that I got a couple of months ago for Blue Ribbon Designs Postcards from Paradise. I had the fabric, I had the threads, but I could not find the pattern. That led to a lot of rummaging around in various boxes. By the time I found it (and picked out some fabric for Raise the Roof's Hang Ten), there was nothing left but for me to start the pattern I had spent all that time searching for. Besides stitching this in Maui seems so appropriate. I washed and ironed the Postcards from Paradise fabric and "borrowed" the Q-snaps from Three Gables. I was ready to stitch.

I have never stitched on fabric as small as 36 count. The model was done on 40 count one strand over two threads, but I saw a model done on 36 count and thought that was small enough. I have never stitched one over two. I really wasn't sure there would be enough coverage. And the problem I was really worried about is that the threads are all from Crescent Colours. I hated, hated, hated those threads when I was stitching Raise The Roof's Warm Water Wash. But when I was buying the threads I could only find two Weeks Dye Works colors that were close enough to the Crescent Colours threads to actually substitute. I'll use DMC 3371 for CC Black Coffee. So I started stitching. I do love the colors, but for the first 20 crosses during every single cross, the thread knotted, just as it had on Warm Water Wash. I don't stitch quickly. I don't pull my threads tightly. This is just inferior thread. On the twentieth cross I spent almost 20 minutes trying to pry the knot apart before giving up in disgust and cutting out the knot. I did keep going and got two boxes and two motifs done. I just hope that I don't give up on this altogether, but it could happen. I do know that I will NEVER, EVER buy Crescent Colours threads again. If I can't find a color match, I will just go with different colors.

I do like the pattern and I do feel like a mini-finish after every motif is finished. I even enjoyed starting in the middle with K and P since my maiden name started with P, so I used KP as my initials until I was married. But I am bringing Three Gables with me as a backup project, if I decide that these Crescent Colours threads cannot be used. I leave for San Francisco in a couple of hours. I probably won't have reliable photo uploading until we get to Maui on Sunday. I hope everyone has a splendid weekend.

Christmas in July

Yes, another Bent Creek Sheep is finished. Hooray! I finished most of the cross stitch in Tempe, Arizona, at Westercon, but needed a bit of time yesterday after we drove back to Nevada to finish the french knots and the arms. The convention was fun, but small. As long as my friends from Los Angeles (and elsewhere) were there, I was happy.

We drove back at almost one in the morning on Sunday morning. The road between here and Phoenix is so boring, that we didn't really need to see the scenery. We had taken naps in the afternoon and had a George R. R. Martin audiobook to listen to, so we were set to go. There was really no traffic, so we made the trip in five rather than six hours. The best part was crossing the Hoover Dam at dawn. It was very beautiful, including the new suspension bridge that they are building. Once we were back home we crashed out for a couple of hours.

James has a gallery show this month in the San Francisco Bay Area and will be going there on Wednesday to hang the show. I will join him on Friday for the reception and on Sunday we will head over to Maui for ten days. Our niece, Laura, will be joining us on the 15th. She has never been to Hawaii. I'm just worrying about how we are going to move the queen bed to the guest room and what we are going to sleep on until our much delayed king bed set arrives via container (no, it was not in the containers in April). You can't count on any delivery times in Hawaii unless it is "on island" already.

I'll probably take Three Gables to stitch, but I will need something smaller for the plane. At this rate I may never get back to Under the Sea. There are also a few other WiPs that are almost UFOs. When I get Three Gables finished, I need to spend some time with Bothy's Cut Thru Rocket and Michael Powell's Cottage Garden I. That is if I am not seduced by some of the stash I have accumulated lately. Blue Ribbon Design's Postcards from Paradise is kitted up. I just need some appropriate fabric for Ink Circles' Beautie Spotte. I recharted those threads into Vickie Clayton silks. I also got a few Mill Hill beaded smalls in kitchen motifs. Maybe I will take one of those to Maui. And there are always sheep. Maybe I can fill the guest room walls with sheep. It's always nice to think about a new start. Have a great week everyone!

Head and Feet

This is how much I can stitch while waiting an hour and a half for an oil change for the car. There isn't that much left to do: two more snowmen and a flag. Oh, yes, and finishing those last bits of snowflakes at the bottom. I'm taking this and Three Gables to Arizona tomorrow, but I have no idea how much stitching I'll get to do.

Tonight I'm rereading the Hugo nominated short fiction in preparation for my panel on Thursday. I have a panel on the Hugo nominated novels on Friday. Friday midnight (EDT) is the deadline for voting. At least we can vote online and aren't at the mercy of snail mail, though mailing in a ballot is still possible.

I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has made so many kind comments about my progress on Three Gables. I have had this kitted up for years and I am just so thrilled about seeing this being stitched up. I really am enjoying every stitch, even the Bark.

Good Progress!

Yes, I have stitched all the WDW Basil. But there is still more WDW Bark. Another whole skein of it. Still, most of the pattern is at least outlined. There is a broom garage at the side to finish, lots and lots of confetti leaves around the bottom and an iron fence that the bird on the left is sitting on. I'll take this pattern to Arizona, but I don't think I will get much stitched on it. I am on several panels and I promised to organize next year's Westercon's programming. So I will sit their table during the day when I am not on panels. Maybe I will finish the sheep I started on the way out. I didn't stitch at all on the flights back. Instead I finished the one Hugo nominated novel I hadn't read. I knew I wouldn't like it much, but now I have a basis to criticize it properly for my Hugo panel.

The next two days are simply a whirlwind of getting to all those things mounting up in the past week (snail mail, laundry, groceries) plus packing again for the driving trip to Arizona. At least we won't have to weigh our suitcases. We can just dump as much stuff in the car as we can. A decade ago I would be visiting AAA for maps, but now I just have the address in my iPhone and GPS will get us there. It doesn't stop there though. James has a group show in the San Francisco Bay Area next week. He is flying to SFO a week from Wednesday. I will join him on Friday for the reception and we will both fly to Maui on Sunday. There are a number of issues there: the wall, the cottage which is still not sold, and now the landscaping, which according to our property manager is looking rather sad. One thing at a time: first Phoenix, then San Francisco, then Maui. I hope everyone in the United States has a good Fourth of July weekend.

Roof, Roof!

You might have noticed a small bit of roof on the right hand side that had not been filled in. I knew there was more WDW Basil (the roof thread) used on the garage to the right side of the house, so I was waiting to get to that part before I finished the main roof. I finally got close enough to the garage to finish up the rest of the roof. Here you just see the right window and most of the door finished, but I have actually stitched all of the Basil in the chart and a lot more Bark, too. I will post a further picture tomorrow when I am back in Nevada. Right now we are going to head off to the airport to see if we can catch an earlier flight out of Cincinnati through O'Hare and back to Las Vegas. We can use all the time we can get at home before we have to drive to Phoenix on Wednesday. I am very pleased at how much I stitched on this pattern this week. I wish I had as much stitching time every week.

LNS: Sharonville, Ohio

I like going to a convention called Midwestcon in Cincinnati. It is a small convention (just over 100) without programming (a relaxacon). Many people play cards (Wizards) or talk or plan future SF conventions, but there are a small group of us who cross stitch (and more knitters all the time). On Saturday many of us head over to this charming framing and cross stitch store called Keepsakes. It is in an old house that is floor to ceiling filled with beautifully framed cross stitch. Most of it is traditional cross stitch, so there are tons (and I do mean tons) of samplers and primitives. I never manage to just look, but always find something that I just have to buy.

This is the stairway to the second floor. You have to step carefully as there are charts on the steps and in the hallway. Three rooms upstairs are filled with charts and more framed pieces and the fourth room is filled with every color of every brand of thread (and accessory) that you might want or need. Because the stitched pieces are so charming, I always see things I want that I might not have noticed by only seeing the chart. This time I was particularly taken with a chart from Raise the Roof called Charmed Sampler which lets you attach as many charms as you want. Now I can get my lovely charms out of their boxes and show them off. I also got Hooked on Tea from Handblessings, a chart I had not seen before. Since I don't drink coffee, I was glad to see something about my favorite drink. I couldn't resist a Homespun Elegance pattern called Witches Stitch, Too!!

Although I was taken by these charts, don't worry. I have been working away on Three Gables. One of the non-stitchers in the group was admiring it and thought that I was almost done. I wish I was, but there is a ton of confetti stitching at the bottom that will take a long time. Still I have stitched more this last week that I have the previous month. It's good to see one of my goals on the way to completion.

LNS: Lexington, Kentucky

One of the pleasant parts of our visits to my husband's family in Lexington, Kentucky, has always been shopping at The Stitch Niche. It's even better that it is not too far from my mother-in-law's house. I've always found things that I fall in love with here, including the full button kit for Three Gables that I bought many years ago. This is where I bought my first Kit & Bixby sheep. They carry an impressive amount of cross stitch patterns from every major designer and also some from small designers you may never have heard of. Several of their designs feature the University of Kentucky logo (and basketballs!) I think of them as carrying mostly traditional designs, but they did have a good selection of Monsterbubbles and other non-traditional designs. Their selection does not stop at cross stitch. They also have DMC, Rainbow Gallery and Caron threads, hardanger, needlepoint, frames, Sudberry boxes, and a ton of yarn for crochet and knitting. There is a huge backroom that has space for two simultaneous classes. If I lived here, I would certainly take several. This time I limited my purchases, but I still walked out with some gorgeous 32 count evenweave fabric in a very light grey green, a Shepard's Bush kit, and a card of glass buttons in purple and green. You could spend a day just looking through all their gorgeous fabrics. Of course they also frame cross stitch and block needle point. A women brought in a fabulous wool needlepoint pillowtop with more bullion stitches than I would ever attempt for blocking. There are also walls and walls full of finished cross stitch, especially one wall of trains. If you are ever close by, you should certainly browse and drool here.

Bark, Bark, Bark!

Since all four generations of the family were having dinner at my sister-in-laws house, I decided to take Three Gables along and just stitch on the parts needing Weeks Dye Works Bark. Not much counting and certainly no color changes. I finished the right part of the bottom gable and filled in another row in the middle. I also started on the left side of the house. After I got back from dinner I stitched the right door frame.

To treat myself (from the endless Bark), I finished the right bottom window and the door window this morning. I'd like to finish most of the bottom of the house this evening, but that might be a little ambitious. Again most of the family is going out to dinner together except for my nephew and his wife and children. They get to endure, I mean enjoy, a birthday party for a 3 year old at Chuck E. Cheese. Meanwhile we will be eating good New Orleans fish at The Ketch.

Presents FAIL!

I was overly optimistic. Although I did stitch most of the turtle, I didn't finish him. I didn't finish the border and I didn't frame the baby announcement. Technology got in the way. My husband's very old G3 MacBook has about given up the ghost. Since I use a laptop much more than he does (he edits his photography on a 30" screen), it was time for me to get an updated MacBook Pro and to give him my older MacBook Pro. Here is the old machine (on the left) being cloned into the new machine (on the right). Although I don't like the keyboard quite as well on the new machine, I do have to say that the new machine is blazingly fast and has tremendous battery life. So between working on odds and ends of the new house, tidying up the old house, and packing for our trip back east, nothing was stitched last week. I'll just have to send them the finished stitching after I get back.

Which is not to say that I have given up on stitching altogether. On the contrary, since I have no computer access at my mother-in-law's 19th century home (wired telephones, no computers or internet), I don't have much to do except stitch. I stitched this much of Bent Creek Winter Sheep on our two flights to Lexington, Kentucky. This was remarkably wonderful trip. I was worried about racing from Gate B16 to Gate B92 at Denver airport. It's about a mile and a half. But we had just started out when a great tram driver apparently saw my exhaustion (I do not do well at high altitudes) and offered both of us a tram ride to the other end of the terminal. He could only take us to B60 as the rest of the gates are down an escalator, but after riding for a mile, the quarter mile walk was a breeze. We also were upgraded to first class on both flights. I guess being a million mile traveler on United does have some status. And the best miracle of all was getting our luggage. The last three trips here all resulting in delayed (but not lost) luggage.

After a small start on Saturday, I stitched quite a lot on Sunday and got this much done. I could have trundled right through to the end, but I had to remind myself to save a bit for the trip back. I have brought Three Gables with me, so I will work on that Real Soon Now.

Yeah, I guess I really couldn't stop at that. Last night I did this much more, but really, I did stop! This morning I took out Three Gables and stitched more Bark, Bark, Bark! We have dinner at my sister-in-law's this evening; eight adults and two children (my nephew's). I'll bring Three Gables to work on while everyone is talking. This will probably be my last post until possibly Friday or Saturday. We will drive up to Sharonville, Ohio (near Cincinnati) for a convention in a hotel with internet access (FINALLY). Every time I stay at my mother-in-law's I swear that next time I will stay in a hotel instead, but I really do like her and wouldn't want to make her unhappy. I haven't had enough access to post comments from my iPhone, but I have been reading everyone's blog postings, so keep stitching everyone. I really love your projects.

Another Fish

I said I had most of the fish ready to go and I did. I just had to stitch him to the blanket and add his bottom fin. I have even made quite a bit of progress on the last applique, the turtle. Most of his lumpy satin circles are done, though there are a lot of bits and pieces that will need to be stitched down and outlined. Then the blanket stitching around the entire blanket. Luckily it is a baby blanket and not one for a king sized bed. If I'm not being too optimistic, I might have this finished by this weekend. That would give me a week to work more on Hawaiian Mandala before we leave for back east on the 20th.

I will have more free time this next week because my husband is leaving for San Francisco tonight for a week. I will miss him, but we do talk on the phone several times a day. Hooray for unlimited long distance. I hope you didn't find the last post too silly, but I do want to mention that most of the house is very tasteful and uncluttered. Just don't look in my sewing studio!