Slow Stitching All week long

 I continue my obsession with cross stitch. It is helping to keep me sane during this very crazy season of life. This whole past year has been nuts, I’m sure everyone thinks and feels that. Add in the whole moving thing to that and it has been rather stressful. We now know where we are going though. Matt and Becca have bought a house suitable for all of us. But the distance and the Covid lockdowns mean that Matt is the only one who has actually seen it in person. We were hoping to get up there to see it when he does a walk through, but that isn’t going to happen now. We have seen pictures of our apartment area, but it is so difficult to tell exactly how things will work in it from the pictures. We do know that we have to get rid of some of our big bulky furniture. And we can now begin to pack more stuff away. From the pictures we’ve seen it is a gorgeous house, about 10 minutes outside of town on 18 areas of land, most of which is forested. The land backs onto Crown land, so it is highly unlikely that anything will ever be built behind it. I am looking forward to the next phase of our lives. 

Meanwhile, the stitching continues. I have finished the Canada Sampler. It is from the Victoria Sampler people. I can’t remember on whose blog I first saw the family sampler, but I am so glad she shared it. I love all of Thea’s designs. I have started another one, this time the Love Is Sampler. This one is going to take a bit of time since all the vines at the top of the piece are stitched using one thread of embroidery silk over one thread of the fabric. It’s a good thing I have magnifying glasses. I have 2 more of these samplers kitted up and ready to stitch as well, but I’m trying very hard to get one done before starting another of these big projects. 

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching

 I am so enjoying this slow stitching time. I continue to have 3 projects going. They aren’t in constant rotation since 2 of the projects are stitch along style where a small portion of the design is given weekly. The majority of my time is going into the Oh Canada Sampler designed by Victoria Samplers. I’ve made good progress on it this past week, although the satin stitch stars gave me some headaches and had to be ripped out numerous times before I got the spacing correct. Now that it is figured out the stars are going quickly. This piece just might be done by this time next week. The stars are row 13 out of 15. I have two more samplers here with fabrics and threads ready to start once this one is finished. 

My second project is also from the Victoria Sampler folks. It’s a free stitch along for a monthly calendar representation. A section of each monthly design is released weekly on Fridays.

And then there is a weekly stitch along put out by the Peppermint Purple website. Each week presents a new square or rectangle with blackwork geometric designs. These are released every Wednesday. I haven’t done this week’s yet. They are relatively quick and easy to do.

I picked up the frames for my finished pieces yesterday. I watched a youtube video on how to lace the finished stitcheries in order to get them stretched and centred onto the backing boards. Now all I need is to get the loose threads trimmed from the backs and I can get started on that. I have to finish the beading on the Family sampler before I can frame it though. Maybe I should get those beads sewn on today. Then when the the mood and the courage strike, I can get it framed.

I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching all week long

 My machine sewing supplies continue to be all packed away waiting for the move that is happening in the next couple of months. So in the meantime, I slow stitch by hand. And that is a good thing because it is soothing and relaxing. It just might get warm enough today to actually take my stitching outside into the sun..... I hope.

I have finished the Victoria Samplers Family Sampler. We went and picked out frames for it last week. I’m hoping they will be in this week and then I can get it stretched and framed so it can count as fully finished. Here’s a close up showing the finished pulled thread work at the bottom. I have never done anything like this before, so it was a bit of a challenge. But I like learning new things so it was fun too.

I’ve done some more work on the monthly sampler that Victoria Sampler is doing. The fourth part for March was released on Friday and I’m hoping to get that done today.

And then because I’ve had a couple of finishes in the past couple of weeks, I treated myself to a new start. This is also from the Victoria Sampler people. Considering I started this last Wednesday, it is going quickly. It a piece celebrating Canada. 

It has the cutest goose in the row I’m currently doing. This is row 7 out of 15 so almost halfway done this one. I am hoping that in our new place I will have a wall somewhere dedicated to this kind of needle work. 

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.