A Stitchin' Finish, a Stichin' Start and a Stitchin' Trip Across the Bay

Gentle Friends, over the weekend I finally finished up Smith Sampler... 

and here's a shot of that sucker...

"Smith Sampler" by Scarlett House

8/12 - 11/16

It is stitched on 40 ct vintage something... and I used the called for silks, except, and you knew there would be an exception... I switched out the Glorianna "Woolly Bear" for Belle Soie "Espresso" and I also added a silk color, NPI Lightest Pear Grey color 671.  I added this additional pale grey because I thought the white I was using, Belle Soie "Oatmeal Scone" was far to close in color to the linen, so why not add something else...it was a fun stitch and I'm really happy with how it turned out!!

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I had a couple of thoughts as to what to stitch next, I wanted something Christmasy for sure... and finally landed on a great piece from Modern Folk Embroidery.  I really like Jacob's designs and his aesthetic...the sampler I chose is "Scandinavian Christmas Sampler.  It's a great monochromatic piece with snowflakes, deer and pine trees!!  You couldn't ask for anything more??  Here's my pitiful little start...

"Scandinavian Christmas Sampler" 

Stitched on 40 Vintage Navy Bean 

"Poinsettia" by Glorianna

Start 11/17

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Before I could make a start on my new stitch I needed to make a trip... so Saturday we headed over to Alameda and my LNS, Needle in a Haystack, for a little shopping.  I needed to make this fun trip because I didn't have enough red silk in any amount in my stash to do this piece.   I wanted to make sure that all the silk came from the same dye lot.... and I also needed to stock up on some linen...and a road trip seemed like a sensible thing...  and I took some snaps...

 ... I knew I wanted to stitch the sampler in red, and so I began by just pulling reds... and eventually landed on "Poinsettia."  It's really a bright red with little hits of dark spots... and Glorianna silks always stitch up really smoothly!!

 ... there were so many choices to look at...

 ...  and there on the right, you can see the start of my pile of linen's and my red silk and a couple of packs of JJ 28 gold petit needles, I love these needles and they are what I always use.  Cathe, the owner of NIAH, was there and so helpful as always!!!  It is such a joy to visit this shop I should make the effort to get here more often!!  I would highly recommend this store and the ladies there they are all wonderfully helpful!

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There you go sports fans, thanks again for stopping by dos top again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, still stitching away.... on "Smith"...

... it's coming along nicely now... I was really happy when I found that it was all going to line up and meet... I always worry about being off a stitch and throwing the whole piece into a tailspin... then it's trying to figure out if I can fudge that border or will I have to frog part of it...  no fudge, no frog on those borders.... woo hoo!!!

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Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle friends, so I'm still stitching away on "Smith Sampler" and here's a snaperoo...

... so I wanted to stitch out the structure of the sampler so I finished out the side borders and started in on the triple line of stitching along the bottom.   When I took the snap and then looked at that snap I saw that I had made a stitching error..... that sawtooth styled line under the tree that I just stitched blindly across needs to have a large chuck frogged out of the middle.   There is a grey manor house that sort of sits lower than that line between the trees....  oh well, stitchy mistakes happen...

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There you go sports fans, I ain't perfect and my stitching isn't either...

 ...and so life goes on...

thanks for stopping by do stop again!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, "Smith Sampler" is coming along and here's a really craptastic photo of where it stands at the moment...

... I took this on the late side and the lighting was bad so the color is waaaay off.  I was unable to get them closer to what they really look like, sorry.  But, you get the idea and am now moving along to the next section.

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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin' and a Road Trip....

Gentle Friends, still stitching away... and a fun day out on Saturday...

... Smith sampler is coming along, that branch will eventually hold a bird...

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On Saturday instead of the usual running around the City we took a road trip with some friends up to the Russian River where they are restoring a 1920's Cabin as a second home...

 ... the cabin is on Rio Nido Creek a tributary of the Russian River,  this is looking down the road towards the house...

... the Main cabin is almost done, you can see a smaller cabin above that is one of two ( the second is out of the shot) and a third was even higher up the side of the hill on the property and was pulled down.  That space will eventually be a hot tub!!  The next stage is the renovation is the two smaller cabins and an additional bathroom between them...

...inside the main cabin, the big open main room.  When they bought the cabins this one was broken up into 5 very small rooms... all those walls and the ceiling they pulled out and opened it up to make a big open space.  They also put in the skylights and replaced all the failing windows.  Very little to nothing had been done to this building or any of the other buildings for many years so there was a lot of work to do and still lots more before everything is done!!

... looking out the windows towards the canyon and creek into all the redwood trees...

... looking down the canyon and creek, which is dry this time of year...

... there are lots of redwoods and various other trees...

 ... the redwood canopy...

 ... we walked down to the Russian River, which is also very low this time of year, but some of the trees are changing color...

... we drove around some and then headed over to Duncan Mills, a very tiny town of about 85 people with some fun little stores...

 ... we hit the tea shop and I picked up some Lady Grey, which is basically an Earl Grey with the addition of lavender... I made a pot of it last night and it was very good...

 just before we packed it in we went to see the cow... you can see how dry the hills are...

... before we got back to the City we stopped in Novato at the A&W for lunch....  

it a really fun day!!!

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There you go sports fans thanks for stopping by do stop again!!  

Working on the next France installment...

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin' and Framing

Gentle Friends, still stitching away on Smith Sampler and here's a snap of where it is at the moment...

... I'm in the third section of this piece and am looking towards the finish already... 

I think next up will be a nice Christmassy piece...?

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I also picked up the last piece I had at the framers ...

"Sojourner" by Heart's Ease Example Workes

My take on this sampler.  It was a super piece to work on and one of the changes I did make was to swap out the called for silk color of the California Poppies which I thought was far to pale. Instead, I used a darker orange silk - "Lasagna" by Belle Soie, Classic Colorworks.  I thought it came much closer to the actual color of the poppies and since this is a California sampler I wanted it to look like the poppies I see all the time...

 ... and here's where I have it hanging ... on my sampler wall along the staircase... I shifted a couple of things and made it work.  When I thought about getting this one framed I felt it should be gold or golden color - since we are the "Golden State" and eventually it came down to two choices... so Rico picked this one and I really like his decision.  This chart was originally commissioned for the Bay Area Sampler Guild and then only as a Class Piece... now its available for purchase at quite a few shops.

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There you go sports fans - more France soon - thanks for stopping by do stop again!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle friends, just a quick update post on "Smith Sampler"...

... I finished up the fruit basket.  I was going to switch out the name Smith for something else but couldn't figure anything else to put there so just went with it as charted... it's still a really fun stitch!!

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I'm almost done with the next France post so stay tuned... 

thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

I'm Back and Here's a little Stitchin' Update

Bonjour mes Chers Amis... I got back early Sunday morning... like 12:25am after flying all day via Miami - which BTW I'll never do again!!  Direct is the way to go!!  All that aside - I've started going through my photos' - 1850+ so there'll be quite a few instalments about my trip with lots of pictures.

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Today I wanted to share a snap of where I'm at on "Smith Sampler" - not that I got very much done while hanging out in the Loire Valley or Paris...we were on the go every day and most evenings, so my stitching sort of fell to the wayside.... here's the snaperoo....

... as you can see I'm just working my way across this band and that fruit bowl is slowly but solidly stitched...it'll be a few days before this motif is finished....

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Not much else is going on, I'm still just worn out from my vacation, sore from all the walking and going, going, going... now that I'm back at work I can take a rest......

There you go sports fans, thanks again for stopping by do stop again!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitching

Gentle Friends, here's one last Post before I head out on my Fall adventure tomorrow... here's a snap...

... this is where I left off last night on Smith Sampler.  She;'s coming along nicely and will be my travel project for the next few weeks.

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There you go sports fans, thanks again for stopping by do stop again..  I may get a Post or two set to pop up while I'm away, if I get the chance today, so stay tuned.  If I don't get to it then I'll see you here the first week of October.

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitching

Gentle Friends, I've been a'stiching away on Smith Sampler and here's where it is at the moment...

... just plugging away at the central swan motif and then I'll move on the middle band with its large fruit basket.

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There you go sports fans thanks again for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, well, I'm back on track with Smith Sampler... here's a snap...

... I made the turn on the upper border and got the right-hand tree done...  the floss changes I've made at this point are with the whites in the body of the stitching.   The recommended floss is supposed to be "Oatmeal Scone" and using this colour of silk when stitched on my linen just melts and fades into the background... I didn't care for that one bit.  So, I changed the bird to "Eiffel Tower" and the "leaves" on the tree to NPI 671 "Palest Pearl Gray" and I'm really happy with the results!!  

As an aside - I am - as I stitch along - really happy with this sampler. I was reticent at the beginning when digging through my stash to find my next project and in picking this sampler.  The photograph shows it as a very pale piece... but as I stitch along I am finding the silks are quite vibrant and strong, I like it and am really glad I went with this piece!!

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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, I've made only a little progress on Smith Sampler, after two bad counting mistakes I had to go back and frog out the same 3 triangles twice.... here's a snaperoo..

... I was so mad at myself and my sloppy counting, but it happens and now I'm back on the stitch, full steam ahead!!

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There you go sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

A Little Old and a Little New Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, since I wrapped up Apostles Creed I didn't have a new stitch kitted up completely so I pulled out an older WIP to work on...

... HEiotS, is a piece that sort of languishes in my WIP basket and so I pulled her out and stitched in some of the animal and plant motifs while I was waiting on some silks I didn't have in my stash to come in...

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I decided that the next piece I was going to stitch would be a traditional sampler, I almost went Quaker, but held back and flipped to a really lovely piece from Scarlett House called...

... Smith Sampler.  Here's a snap of my very small start... and here's a snap I lifted from the internet of what this piece will eventually look like...

... it photographed much lighter than the finished piece will eventually look like... As usual, I really liked the border and think that's what originally drew me to this sampler.  I'm stitching it on 40ct linen using the called for colours in mostly the called for silks.....

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks again for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar