Stamp With Jen

Olympic Stitching

Like many of you, I decided to start a new project for the Olympics.  I wanted to stitch on something patriotic so I chose "One Nation" by ByGone Stitches.  I changed the threads and my local shop had a beautiful piece of 40 ct. R&R 18th Century Blackbird.  The only problem?  The piece would only fit if I stitched it over one.  So, that's what I decided to do! 

One Nation, stitched on 40 ct. 18th Century Blackbird Linen, over one

I just love how the colors look on this linen and the advantage of over one on this size is only needing half a cross!  Yay!  I had a friend over for the opening ceremonies so I cooked a Portabello, Bacon and Spinach risotto and we stitched and I started this.  I had to use the magnifier on my Dazor.  It was dusty, I haven't had to use it in years...  Oh well, it's going to be pretty when I finish it! 

I had hoped to at least get the outline of the stripes done during the games but I'm finding that it's tough to stitch on something this tiny and switch between stitching and watching TV.  So, I've set it aside and my new Olympic stitching project is Ann Sandles!

Ann Sandles, stitched on 36 ct. Lakeside Vintage Meadow Rue

Ah, much better!  And, now that I have a little color in her she's proving to be so much fun to stitch!  I think she'll go pretty quickly (except for the 24 strawberries inthe border).  I don't know that I'll finish her during the games but I'll sure enjoy stitching on her! 

I'm getting ready to do some framing, my frame for Mary Roe should arrive next week and I still need to lace up my Paradise Lost plus I'm sending a few things out for their frames including Mary Ann Blackburn and Grace Bridges.  So, I decided to press everything and it is fun to see all my recent stitching piled up on the bed together.  My Mom has already offered to take some of it off my hands if I have too much!  LOL, nice try Mom!!  (In the picture below, Paradise Lost is upside down, just in case you're wondering why it looks a bit funny here.)

Grace Bridges Finish

Here she is, finished and in all her glory...

Grace Bridges sampler by Stacy Nash, stitched with the Attic conversion to silk on 36 ct. Lakeside Vintage Examplar linen

I absolutely loved stitching this sampler!  Even the house wasn't that bad, it just was a week or so of stitching and stitching and stitching to get all those bricks!

I had a comment about the brick stitch and what it is in my last post.  All I did to get this effect was to stitch little bricks, I started at the top and stitched four stitches over, went down a row and stitched four stitches back.  That way I would end up with a "brick" that is four stitches wide by two tall.  I'd jump over and stitch another brick somewhere else and eventually work my way back.  I offset the rows of bricks by a half brick (two stitches) as well.  I stitched this in little sections and the varigation in the thread makes the bricks look like slightly different colors. It took a little thought but is a nice break from the stripey look and I just love how it turned out! 

A New Start and a Weekend Away

Last weekend several friends and I took a trip up to Breckenridge, CO for a weekend away and to celebrate a birthday.  It's only a couple hour drive from home and was such a fun and relaxing getaway weekend!  With all the stress this spring and summer a girl's weekend was just what the doctor ordered!  And, the weather cooperated with us too!  Instead of being oppressively hot and sunny like it has been at home, it was cool and rainy for part of our weekend which made for perfect stitching weather! 

We drove up Friday afternoon and Theresa and I were the first to arrive.  We sat out on the deck, admired the view and had fun going through each others stash while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  Here was our view from the deck.

 
We had such fun stitching out here on the deck and later in the day listening to the thunder rumble it's way in!  I worked a little on Grace Bridges on Friday evening and again Saturday morning.  I'm getting close to a finish on this one!  Here is my current progress.

Grace Bridges, silks on 36 ct. Lakeside Vintage Examplar

Sorry for the wrinkles and the light shining on the left side of the piece.  Oh well!  The next time I show this it should be finished!  Just the window outlining and one more peacock left!  I was really hoping to get this piece done by today so I could start a new piece for the olympics.  But, it won't be done and I'm going to start an Olympic piece anyway!  That means I'll have four pieces going...

During our girls' weekend, some of us decided to start new projects.  I was going to start One Nation which is going to be my Olympic stitching project but I've had an older Barrick Designs chart kitted up and ready to go.  It's called "By My Hand" and I just love it because it has two funky deer on it, it's very cute!

 

By My Hand, silks on 40 ct. Lakeside Vintage Buttercream

I was able to get the border in and start on the inside.  Alas, I've set this aside now to work on Grace Bridges and of course will be starting One Nation for the Olympics.  Maybe I'll sneak some work on Grace to get her finished up, maybe I'll work only on One Nation and maybe this piece and Ann Sandles will get some attention too.  I don't know how those of you with a WIP rotation keep up!  LOL!  I guess you'll just have to tune in and see what gets stitched on!! 

Doing a Happy Dance, the Gold House is Done!

Happy Dance, happy dance, I'm so happy to be done with the gold house!  In reality this took me a little over a week to finish (my blog posts are off a bit this last week) and the bricks were kind of fun to do but I'm so glad that I'm done with the house and can move on to the rest of the sampler!  I hope the rest of it goes quickly, I have some Olympic stitching to get to! 

TUSAL and a Gold House Update

Here's my July TUSAL update.  You can see from the photos that I've been stitching, stitching, stitching away on that gold house with all the gold at the top.  Each month after I take my TUSAL photo I squish the threads down to the bottom and it's fun to take a close look to see where different project are.  For example, I can see where I did the Briar Rose Etui because of all the pinks and greens in that section of the jar.  I wonder if I'll be able to mark my progress through the rest of the year by the layer of gold from this gold house!

If you're interested in playing along in the TUSAL game, you can join at anytime, just click on the TUSAL post and sign yourself up! 

Speaking of gold house, here is an update on Grace Bridges.  You can see that I'm finally nearing the end of the gold house, yay!!
I'm using a "Brick Stitch" as Jean from Attic Needlework called it.  I'm using the variation in the overdyed thread to stitch little bricks.  I thought since this house is so big it might be a nice change from the stripey look that normally comes with overdyed threads.  I've been working my way through the house in sections with the bricks so there's a little less traveling of threads on the back.  I am really enjoying how this is turning out!  I'm playing catch up on my blog but this is about a week's worth of work on the house and a few more days and I hope to have the house done.  I think that the rest of the sampler will then go very quickly!!

A Much Needed Break

Wow, where to begin, it's been a busy couple weeks!  My sister and I drove home with our dogs for a week.  It was such a nice break from my crazy busy life here in Colorado but it's also nice to be home too!  Here's a picture of me, my mom and sister out on the boat with the dogs.

 
While home in Wisconsin I of course got to go to Lynn's and I spent 2 hours there, I think my family was ready to send out a search party!!  But, I had such a good time!  Jean who works there had just finished stitching Susan Rambo so we were looking at frames for that and also for my Mary Roe.  I did a little shopping for charts and then Jean and I pulled a conversion to overdyed threads for Dutch Beauty.  I guess this means that I'm going to stitch on Dutch Beauty!!  It was really fun! 

Also while I was at Lynn's we looked at other options for the gold house in Grace Bridges and found a really pretty BS Pecan Pie.  I tried that and it was the perfect blend of a light gold but still being gold enough for my taste.  Here's a picture of Grace with the new gold in the chimneys and a little in the house itself.

 
By the time I finished that much I needed a break from this sampler (and I admit that I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of that whole house) so I did something that is uncharacteristic for me and started a second project.  Here's my start on Ann Sandles. 

I'm stitching Ann on 36 count Vintage Meadow Rue and don't have much to show yet except how I zig zagged my way through the border to get all the way around.  I tend not to love borders like this so I like to get them out of the way.  My sister was nice enough to drive a big stretch on the way home so I could get the borders to meet.  Yay!  As of this writing the border outline is done but that's as far as I've gotten.  Ann is going to be a fun sampler to stitch once I get the flowers in the border done and can move on to the inside. 

Sorry for all the wrinkles in my photos!  I'm using some Belle Soie silks on Grace which I've seen run so I'm waiting to iron her until she's done but really I'm just too lazy to fire up the iron for every post.  If I had to do that I'd probably never post on this blog! 

The rest of our vacation was nice.  It was hot and humid while we were home so we couldn't spend as much time outside as we would have liked but it was nice just to spend the time together as a family.  I'll leave you with a photo of me playing ping pong with my Dad.  We had some helpers while playing, one who thought it looked like a fun game and the other who figured if there was barking going on then she should probably bark too!   :)
 

 

An Update on Miss Grace

I've been able to make a good amount of progress on Grace Bridges this week but am starting that huge house so I'm likely to slow down a bit now.  I started the roof and put some different colors in for the chimneys, one is the gold called for in the conversion and one is a brighter gold.  I'm not sure which I like best yet so I may just finish the roof and work around the house for now until I decide.  She sure is a fun sampler to stitch with many more fun motifs to come! 

If you follow my adventures with my dog Sage, you know that we've been having fun with Agility.  I'll be the first to admit that we have a long way to go before thinking about going to a trial.  But, it's such a good activity for us.  First of all, it wears Sage out both mentally and physically so she's content and good (and so I can actually get some stitching time in).  Also, it's just a lot of fun!!  So, to practice more often and improve our skills I've gotten a few pieces of equipment to practice in the backyard with.  Well, our tunnel arrived and we have had fun playing in it so far.  You'll notice that it's purple, one of my favorite colors.   Go Sage go!!  :D

Grace Learns Her ABCs

Yay!  I finished the alphabet on Grace Bridges!  Now onto more fun motifs like that awesome red peacock!  I'm loving the colors in this sampler although I'm thinking of playing around with the gold used for the house.  I'd like to keep it bright and the conversion I'm using has a bit more muted gold.  Still pretty but I might make change it to make mine a bit more vibrant. 

I had a helper when I was trying to take this picture.  He's always got to help me if I'm not paying attention to him.  :)

I'm sure you've now heard about all the devastation from the wildfires in Colorado and this week there was a new one visible from my place.  Not to worry, we're not in any danger here from this one and of this writing it's nearly contained.  Here's a photo of how it looked not long after it started.  Actually, when it first started the smoke came directly toward my neighborhood and then the winds shifted and blew it more north which is when I took this picture.  So, we've been smelling a bit like a campfire but that's a small inconvenience compared to the devastation others have experienced this fire season.  Hopefully we'll get some rain soon! 

And, last weekend Sage and I attended Paws In the Park, an event that benefitted the Longmont Humane Society.  It was Hot.  102 or right around there.  But we had fun!  We performed our Flash Mob demo with our ACES class and then lounged in the shade and then did two demos with the Zoom Room team.  Zoom Room is where Sage and I learned agility and really caught the bug.  If you're interested in trying agility this is the place to have fun doing it!  I didn't get a picture of our flash mob demo but here are a few pics of us doing agility, courtesy of Marnie at Zoom Room.  :)  First, here's the team, Sage and I are second from the left and she's wearing something called a cool coat that really helps keep her comfortable in the heat! 

Next up, my favorite action shot of the day!  She really ran fast on that grass!

And lastly, Sage and I have a lot of fun together, can you tell?

 

Grace Bridges Start and June TUSAL

This past weekend I decided on a new start.  There are so many beautiful samplers in my stash waiting to be stitched so it was a hard choice but I finally picked Grace Bridges by Stacy Nash as my next start.  It was nice to have a weekend that wasn't chock full of plans for once so I was able to get the vine in and the alphabet started before the work week began.  The alphabet hs gone fairly quickly and last night I stayed up past my bedtime to get the dividing line in.  I knew that I'd dread picking it back up if I didn't!  I have one more alphabet and Grace's name and then I get to the fun part of this sampler with the peacocks, flowers and that cool gold house!  I am using the conversion to silk threads put together by Attic Needlework and am stitching this on 36 ct. Lakeside Vintage Examplar.  I don't think I realized how big this was going to be but I love the sampler and it's going to look great in my bedroom when it's finished! 

I'm also a couple days late on the June TUSAL so here's my jar snuggled in with the dog and cat treats (I love these treat jars)!  Sorry for the poor snap of the TUSAL jar itself but you get the idea.  Each month after I take the picture I push the threads down farther in the jar.  I figured I'd need to do this to get a full year in one jar but it's not really a great way to show progress because I suspect that it looks the same each month.  Oh well. 

We're six months into the TUSAL challenge but it's not too late to join in, go to Daffycat's blog to get the scoop and join in! 

Mary Ann Blackburn Start and a Peacock Finish!

This week I have a teeny little start on Mary Ann Blackburn by Blackbird Designs to show you.  I have the most lovely piece of 40 count R&R Sheep's Straw linen that I'm stitching it on.  It's nicely aged and overdyed and to make it a bit more splotchy I spritzed it with water.  OK, that was an accident but I like the way it turned out and am loving these colors on it!  I'm stitching it with the called for Gentle Arts Sampler Threads by the way and even though I haven't gotten very far yet I think this one will go quickly!  I initially wasn't sure about the rooster/peacock that is in the center of the sampler (on top in my photo) but in the end I'm very glad that I stitched it as charted.  I did think about swapping it out for one of the peacocks in Grace Bridges or the one in the Peacock Pinkeep but decided to leave it as is and am happy I did.  Of course, now I am jonesing to start Grace Bridges.  Good thing I have that all kitted and ready to go as she may be next!  :)

I must be on a peacock kick because I also started and finished the Blackbird Designs Peacock Pinkeep in the last week.  I also did the bonus needlebook chart while I was at it.  If you're not familiar with this piece, the peacock pictured in the upper right of this picture is the top and the band at the bottom wraps around to form the sides of the pinkeep.  When it's all done it will look like a drum.  Normally I would crop this photo but as I was taking these pictures I had the pieces laid out on the couch to get a decent snap and the kitty was looking for attention, that's her foot peeking in the very bottom of the photo so I had to leave it in.  :)

I purchased this chart, the pattern and the Belle Soie when I was at Attic Needlework back in January and it's been in my bag to stitch every since.  Now she's stitched and will go off in the mail to my finisher this week.  I can't wait to get her back and display her! 

This week I dog-sat for my second favorite dog in the world and I happened to pick up a new piece of training equipment over the holiday weekend.  I was working "off contacts" with both dogs and had them each on an end.  Maverick sat down as I took this but I thought it was a cute photo and thought I'd share a bit of what I do in my free time when I'm not stitching.  You can see more about my adventures with Sage over at my dog blog.  Enjoy!