Stitchin’ Time

Alright, time for an update - What HAS Ginger been up to besides helping women have babies and trying to keep the Tri-Cities well? Maybe playing with kitties…

This is a hedgehog in Carrie’s Creations “plum” from The Workbasket. I will teach it as a Beginning Cross Stitch piece at my LNS May 8th.

And my latest addition to the WIPs, From Gay Ann Rogers, called Mystery in a Corner: (we chose our own colors. The watercolors is called Olive Grove - I like that!)

This one has been around - Hardanger I can do in my sleep, so I take it to church and to births… This will be a six foot long valance to match the “shade pretty” which see my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frazernd92/799140961/in/set-72157600373608945/

And the old WIPS… Love Song

And Quaker Christmas

Jasmine

Lovey

And TeeJay, at 10 months - He’s gonna be a BIG boy!

Aren’t I sweet? “He’s my little red head” (think Beach Boys.)

Love Song

Update:

All is well

My W. Quaker progress - others count pages, I count motifs!

Books…

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. (Movies don’t count.)

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)

6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)

7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)

9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) Plus all of the rest of the series

10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)

11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)

12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)

15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)

17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)

18. The Stand (Stephen King)

19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)

20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)

22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)

24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)

28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)

29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

31. Dune (Frank Herbert)

32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)

33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)

34. 1984 (Orwell)

35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)

38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)

39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)

40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)

42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)

44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)

45. Bible (I’ve read large sections, but not the whole thing)

46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)

48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)

49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)

51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)

52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)

54. Great Expectations (Dickens)

55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)

57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)

58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)

59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)

60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)

64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)

65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)

66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)

68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

69. Les Miserables (Hugo)

70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)

72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)

73. Shogun (James Clavell)

74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)

75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)

77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)

79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)

80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)

81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)

82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)

83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)

84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)

85. Emma (Jane Austen)

86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)

87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)

89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)

90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)

91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)

92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)

93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)

95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)

96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)

99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Nordic Star

I finished it - though I wish I had diluted the blue a touch…

Stitching along…

I am part of two SALs, both Quaker style samplers… And I have done the finishing on two pieces previously finished.

Here’s the Wiehenburg Quaker Mystery 2008: on Vintage Ivory Cashel with “hyacinth” waterlilies (Caron silk):

This is the Christmas Quaker from Bygone Stitches and using the designers recommended fabric and floss:

My Finishes:

And a work in progress - to be a boxtop - help me confirm my color choice for painting the box…

Good Intentions

Oh dear, I wanted to get all of my WIPs done this year and then I got distracted and started not one but two BAPs, both Quaker-style SALs…  And for some reason, the frogs have been out in force and I haven’t progressed much on either one.  However, I am almost finished with Toccata One!  Pictures later…

S-N-O-W

A picture is worth a thousand words. Looking out my front door at the nursing home across the street (remember, I live in the desert!) it looks like probably 4 inches at noon. The layer below this is pure ice as we had a freezing rain and sleet storm yesterday afternoon. I am going nowhere - church was canceled…

Update:  It is 6:30PM and still snowing just as hard.   I would like to take a snow day Monday.

WIP Progress Report

Well, Christmas was quiet as the gals with Dec 18, 19, 20, & 23 due dates delivered Jan 1, Dec 31, Dec 28 and Jan1 respectively. And the Jan 9th gal went on the 5th. All were well and all were over 7 and 1/2 lbs. So now I have a breather. Did all 5 heel pokes this week, a necessary trauma for all (moms, babes and the Doc)

So, now I have been stitching on my first quarter (Jan, Feb, Mar) list that consists of WIPs some of which are probably UFOs, depending upon your definition, LOL. I got fabric for the binding of the Christmas Quilt wall hanging but I haven’t touched the Huck afgan.

I did my Bride’s Tree “house” and worked on the sampler a little.

I also picked up Toccata One (Drawn Thread), which has been in the bag untouched for over 2 years.

Before:

And now:

Love Song is starting to get somewhere - this one is so overwhelming! Back in July of 2006 I started this for Charlene’s bedroom. I hope she is still using blues for colors by the time I finish it… This is what it looked like then:

Then, in the late summer and between some Christmas stitching, I got some more going. This is Thanksgiving:

And this is Christmastime, waiting for babies:

And this is today:

And this is the whole piece from the website (mine is blue, not red)

2007 Finishes and 2008 Goals

I promised a look at the finished products of the Christmas finishing fest. The two below were not done when I took the first picture. And the 4 below those were not styles that could be taken in the same picture. For the rest of 2007 see my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frazernd92/sets/72157600373608945/

My 2008 Goals include several WIPs that were all (but one) on my 2007 goals - ahem! This is really going to change. I have decided the quarter of the year in which I will work on each one - it’s the number at the far left; the big letter after designates the size of the project and the fraction is how far I am on the WIPs:

Jan,Feb,Mar
1 Toccata one wip M 4/5ths
1 Binding on the wall hanging quilt from Diane M
1 Love Song wip VL 1/10th
1 Huck Afghan wip L 1/2
1-4 Christmas Treasures (Bride’s Tree SAL) L
Apr,May,June
2 Appalachian Heritage wip L 1/7th
2 Catherine Agnes wip M 4/5ths
2 Indigo Blue Pocket wip M 4/5ths
July, Aug, Sept
3 Seasons Trees L
3 Heart of Jewels wip L 1/10th
3 Dresden Bell Pull M
3-4 Christmas Stitching
Oct, Nov, Dec
4 Options in Hardanger M
4 Quaker Seasons M
4 Hardanger Potpourri M
4 Silver Simplicity M

The Bride’s Tree SAL is going to be great. First because it is such a cool idea and second because I get to finish a seminar piece from Victoria Sampler started in Oct 2005 and not touched since I returned! If you are interested, here’s the links; the first is the home page and the second is the whole story. There is a pic of what I am going to do down lower on the homepage: http://bridestreesal.blogspot.com/

http://bridestreesal.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-this-works.html