Things & Stuff

Thanks to Front Range Stitchers blog, I learned about www.pattandleedesigns.com Wonderful designs, especially the kitties! Most designs are available as painted canvas or chart and an email placed an order in no time! I got a confirming email right back and can pay with PayPal. I'm happy!!!




Last week I dug out an Australian design I started last summer. I haven't worked on it since before Christmas. I had forgotten how much I enjoy working on this piece! I got quite a bit done, but then ran out of a Kreinik color and don't have time to get to the shop. So, this piece is put away again for a week or so. I bought the pattern in Australia last year. It is a cross stitch pattern but I am doing it in needlepoint. I substituted an overdye, Watercolors 156, for all of the black and dark blues of the background and I chose to use metallics for just about everything else. I was able to sort of match a Kreinik to most of the floss colors specified in the pattern. There are 6-8 that I couldn't match, so stuck with the specified floss. Those are mostly grays, hard to find gray metallics! The canvas is Levintine blue, but photographs much lighter, probably due to the white wall that was behind it!




Wed. we are heading up to Reno for a long weekend, so I probably won't get another post done till next week. It will be another packed few days. I will be stitching with friends one day and going to a farewell lunch/tea. Farewell to the restaurant, Belle's Tea Cottage, which is closing its doors. Belle's has been in Reno for many years and I have enjoyed quite a few pleasant lady's lunches there. DH is hoping to go skiing, we will be having several dinners with friends, and maybe even get some dancing in.

Boink Sections 10 & 11

Last night I completed two more sections of BoInk. I think the colors are good, although I might end up filling in the blank sections with off white. I'll decide later after I get some of the surrounding squares done. This is a fun project. I'm not quite going with the plan since I got a late start. I have the advantage of knowing what the whole thing looks like now, well all except one square. So it isn't a true mystery project for me. That's OK, for me this particular piece is working out much better I think than if I'd done it as each square was presented.

Minieri Stitch-of-the-Month Section 1

Today I started on the ANG Stitch-of-the-month project. I was able to complete Section 1 in a relatively short period of time. Can't tell you exactly as I got interrupted with several phone calls and lost track of the time! I have selected Needle Necessities overdyed floss #166 and used DMC floss #712 for Section 1. The overdye has rust, green & cream. I decided to use floss since I have so much of it and won't have to buy very much thread for this project! You will probably notice that there are no lines drawn on my canvas - right! My solution to the enlarging puzzle was to scan it into my charting program, make it the size I wanted, and chart the outlines. So I am stitching from the chart I made rather than drawing on the canvas.

Boink Bottom Squares

I have completed the 2 bottom squares of my Boink piece. I had to change the lower right one some so it would coordinate better with the others. And I'm hoping the "ears" on the upper right and lower left squares are less noticeable when the rest of the piece is completed!



This afternoon I plan to start ANG's Stitch of the Month piece by Tony Minieri. I am changing the design some to suit me better. I have almost decided on my color scheme, but have only narrowed the overdye down to 3! So today I'll pull the solids and make my final decisions.

Progress Reports

I have made quite a bit of progress on Jean Hilton's "Whisper", a 2002 design. It is coming along quite nicely. I have had a number of counting problems and had to frog multiple times! Part of the problem was the poor light on the cruise, and part of the problem was lack of attention! This pattern is not for the faint of heart! The instructions are not as detailed as they might be and so you have to study & decide how to proceed. After working one of each main stitch pattern, I decided to work all of the Rhodes stitches first, but leave the Mistake stitches till last. Then I worked all of the Waffles, then the Pinwheels (aren't they fun? I love to work these). Then I went back and put in the metallic cross stitches over the Waffles and outlining the Rhodes. Only then did I go back and put in all the Mistake stitches.



Progress on BOINK is moving along too. I finished ALL of the outlining (Happy Dance!). I also did all of the tiniest squares, using Threadworx overdyed floss #10341 for all of them. Next I will stitch the 2 bottom corner squares, trying to make them go with the top corners.

The CRUISE

OK, I'm back! The needlework cruise is over. The ship was the Carnival Paradise, leaving Long Beach last Monday evening. We arrived at the ship around noon and by the time we got checked in and had lunch our luggage had arrived at our rooms. Always a welcome sight! The first day is always very busy, what with unpacking, finding your way around, lifeboat drill, etc. This ship seemed smaller than others I've been on and it was harder to find your way around. There was only one deck where you could really walk the full length of the ship, outside. We stitched awhile after dinner. The room they had set aside for our stitching use had terrible light and only a few outlets, all in one end of the room, in a cupboard! But we "made do" and hoped for better light in the daytime, there were windows.




Tuesday we were in Catalina when we woke up. Some of our group went ashore first thing, but the rest of us decided to stitch in the morning and go after lunch. With the drapes open, the light was better for our stitching, although still not great! We had to take tenders from the ship. One picure above shows the tenders heading to the ship. Avalon hasn't changed much since I was there 30 years ago! It is just a tiny sleepy tourist town. We looked around the shops and made a few purchases, including some reproductions of the famous tiles that were made there years ago. I bought some notecards of the tiles which I hope to turn into a needlepoint design!
Tuesday evening was "dress up" night and the Captain's cocktail party. So we got all done up in our finery for cocktails and dinner. This night I sure missed my husband as we could have had a good time dancing!





Wednesday was Ensenada. The whole group of us headed into town right after breakfast. We took a bus from the pier as it looked to be quite a long walk. But we walked a lot anyway - lots of shops to see! Most of them are trashy tourist stuff, but there are some very nice jewelry (silver) stores and I think almost every one of us bought something! We had lunch in town, a very elegant restaurant. One of our ladies was having a birthday and the restaurant treated us all to Margaritas and a birthday dessert for Joyce! That night at dinner, back on the ship, we had champagne & birthday cake for all. Joyce certainly had a memorable birthday! After dinner we went to the show, which was a magician and a comedian. Both were pretty good.

Thursday was a full day at sea so we got quite a bit of stitching done. It was a cold overcast day, but we had had wonderful weather the previous days. So we made the most of mealtimes! And stitched in between! We had to have our luggage out for pickup by 11PM, so after dinner was spent packing for most of us. Friday was still rainy and cold, but the disembarkation went very smoothly and before we knew it we were at LAX, waiting for our flights.

All in all, it was a nice time!