Monday, September 29, 2008

Visitors

Look who came to visit us today! They have unfortunate heads and faces, but the feathers were beautiful.
I was in the garden getting some carrots and peppers for my spaghetti sauce and these 4 guests were chirping and clicking behind me. They were amazingly unconcerned about my presence, even when I went back in the house to get my camera and take their pictures. They were not interested in the sunflower seeds I threw down but did seem to enjoy the leaves on my clematis plant on the trellis.


I was hoping Dan would get home to see them before they left and he did...promptly bursting my bubble of belief that they could sense that I was an animal lover and they would come to no harm being here near me. It was unusual behavior for wild turkys I thought, but I just enjoyed the experience of their presence.
Turns out Dan knew their story after having talked with our neighbours George and Gail yesterday. I was out for the day and he talked to everyone on the road I think while walking the dogs yesterday afternoon.
Anyway, it seems that George ran over the nest earlier this summer when he was haying. So he took the eggs home and hatched them in an incubator. I guess farmers have such things on hand. Now the young turkeys are quite at home on the farm and even follow Gail around all over the place from house to barn and where ever all the time, even to the point of annoyance.
No wonder thay were unconcerned about me...they are totally used to humans being nearby.
Oh well, when they were leaving to go back through the woods which separate our houses, I told them they were welcome back anytime and they would be safe and welcome here. They did not reply but maybe they'll be back.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

S, s and $

Ever had this happen? I just did a fair bit of counterstitching to compensate for the fact that I just put the colour for "s" when I should have stitched the colour for "$". What a pain! That was in my stained glass landscape.

Stitching on other fronts has been slow also, which explainns the lack of photos in this entry. I had every good intention of taking pictures on Wednesday when the stitchers were here working on their Jeannette Douglas stitching albums...when I forgot to take any, I intended to try for some of the WIPs of some of the Thursday stitchers...I got busy and forgot again...Friday was somewhat chaotic so there are no progress pictures of the Friday stitchers' works either...

I'll write myself a note to take some pics next week.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

WIP

Some progress pictures...Stained Glass Landscape Fairies at the Bottom of my garden...
And my current favourite...My Stitching Album by Jeanette Douglas...this my progress on page one...Mosaic Muse.
I have not completed all the rows because a group of us are doing this together at Knowledge and Needles and I just want to be a little ahead so I can warn people of possible trouble spots. Why am I doing it on black? ? ? Ask Beatrice...it is all her doing.
In spite of the 32 count black fabric, I am thoroughly enjoying this project and am already looking forward to the next page! Beatrice and I have chosen our own colours for the project and are planning to do each page in a different colour scheme...Beatrice is doing this particular page in pale greeny colours and it looks great! Others in the group have all wisely chosen much more neutral backgrounds and I will post pictures of their progress as we carry on...

Monday, September 8, 2008

Friday Stitchers

In addition to the Thursday stitchers there is a smaller group who come on Friday to stitch. Here is Katie with her finished Rosewood Manor bullpull.."Claret" done is the softest of DMC torquoise variated threads. This is Fran who has just recently re-discovered the joys of Cross stitch. She is an avid sewer and quilter and had also dabbled in cross stitch but now we are bringing her back into the cross stitch cult...oops, I mean fold.
And here I am looking tired in the dining room with the dogs.
Next blog will feature pictures of my progress on my stained glass landscape and of page one , Mosaic Muse, of Jeanette Douglas's "My stitching album" Once I got past the very small size of the stitches on 32 count fabric and got into a rhythm with the mosaic stitch, I found myself loving this, in spite of the black fabric!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

New start

I started a new project today. Kathy and I have long been talking about doing this piece from The Cross Stitcher Magazine (British) May 2005 called There are Fairies at the bottom of my garden. After much procrastinating on both our parts we have decided to begin and stitch on it on Wednesdays, or one day a week of our own choosing.
So I decided that since I am starting something new on a largish piece of fabric that setting it up on q-snaps and using my stitching stand might be a good idea... wrong. I was so far out of my stitching comfort level that I have just dismantled it all and set myself up with one of my favourite hoops.
I tried a 17 X 17 q-snap...couldn't get my arm under it...a 17 X 6 q-snap set up...too awkward, even with a meter stick to help balance it across the arms of a chair that is not my usual chair (part of the problem but not all of it), I clamped the q-snaps onto the gripit stand...not my cup of tea.
I finally reminded myself that this is what I do for fun...why am I making it difficult?
So I'll be using a hoop and will post a picture of my progress in my next post.

On another front, I have in my posession the first part of Jeanette Douglas's "My Stitching Album". I had decided that I would not use her pre-packaged thread packs and would chose my own colour(s). Easier said than done! My plan had been to do each page of the book in a different colour of Waterlilies, figuring that one varigated colour would do...well that didn't really work out...so I started playing with a DMC variated thread and adding solid DMC colours to the palette. I soon realized I was a little out of my depth with the colour choices...I am better at following directions when stitching than designing and choosing my own colour variations.

But all is not lost. Beatrice and I are both planning to do the book on black fabric and choose our own colours...so a quick call brought Beatrice over and we spent a lovely couple of hours choosing colours for all our pages. We think we have found a beautiful selection of DMC variated, solid DMC, some WDW, a few Waterlilies, some beads, and blending filament...now I can hardly wait to get started...the big decision...what colour scheme do I start with??? purples? peaches? pale greens? blues? pinks? red/oranges?, orange/grays, beiges???

About 6 or 7 of us are going to be working on the book together but only Beatrice and I are crazy enough to be doing it on black. Most of the rest of the stitchers have chosen ivory and perhaps some of them will like our colour choices as well.

If anyone out there is interested in joining us I do have a few extra of the "My Stitching album" packages in the shop, can order Jeanette's thread choices for you , or can send you a copy of ours.