No Stitching Today, but Good News

I wasn't able to get any stitching in, but Ellie and I did pass the entrance test for Sunshine Friends Inc. . SFI does doggy visits at nursing homes, group homes and other long-term care facilities. Before Ellie and I become full members I'll have to go to the orientation meeting next week and then attend three nursing home visits under the supervision of a team leader. The first visit I will be dogless and the second two will be with Miss Pants (as she is otherwise known - which refers to attire not methods of breathing - I don't know why - it just is).

I was pretty psyched with our performance. My nerves were running a bit high because Ellie has a habit now of trying to jump up to say hi. But she was very good once her training collar went on. So she is starting to understand that there is stuff that is OK in the flat collar and stuff that is not OK in the slip collar. Yay.

I'm really looking forward to my first visit with her.

Needle Works Group

Last night the new stitching club I organized met for the first time. It was a small group for the first time, but I wasn't sitting alone so that was a victory. A few people were planning to come but couldn't make it at the last minute. I'm expecting that the next meeting will be a bit larger.

We had a nice time. The chatter was pretty interesting and I was able to make some progress on my sampler project. I haven't had a chance to get a pic of that yet. I'm really looking forward to the next meeting in a couple weeks. It's a lot easier to get to this one than the one at the shop. I'll have to poke my nose around to see if there are other stitchers in the area so we can have even more fun.

Tangles and Frogs

I spent a good portion of yesterday undoing the work I'd done the day before on the Quaker Odds January pattern. I discovered, when I started stitching the center of the piece, that I had offset the C by 1/2 of a stitch. All of the work I had done after that was shifted. The entire left side of the project had to come out and the bit I had done in the center. In addition I discovered that I had offset part of the Z, Y, X, and W, so those had to come out. :-(

Fortunately I was able to redo most of the work I had done and complete the first part of the center. Of course, with all of that frogging I now don't have enough in the first color to complete the piece. I'm trying to do this entire pattern with scrap threads, so I'll just have to poke through my collection to find something suitable for the inner snowflake. I might have some white floating around.

So this is where it's at for now:

Stitching Groups

Last Friday was the bi-monthly stitch-in at A Stitcher's Garden. I've been going for over a year now and have really enjoyed the company. I've also enjoyed seeing all of the other projects people are working on. A bonus is being able to get odds 'n' ends that I need without making an extra hour long round trip.

This past week there were a few new people. It was a rowdy bunch to say the least! I didn't get much work of my own done because my project apparently picked up the spirit of the Damned Lighthouse Project resulting in my threads constantly being tangled. I also realized that I had miscounted by one in the middle of the border and so I had to frog a good portion of my work. At least I had company while I did it.

Tomorrow will be the first meeting of the stitching group that I'm organizing. It's going to meet in my local town hall. I'm hoping there will be a number of attendees. I'm not limiting the group to cross stitch or needlepoint. I'm sure there will be a few quilters from the area. It will be good to know some more local people who are into crafts.

I've updated the WIPs slide show with all of the projects I'm currently working on. I'm hoping to bag a couple of them quickly so I can focus on the larger projects again.

NOTE: Apparently it takes about a day for the new photos in my account to show up in the associated slide show.

First 2008 Finish

I was hoping to complete this project before the end of 2007. Instead I ran out of the gold braid in the center and bought the wrong replacement color. So frustrating. Fortunately, I was able to swap the color at the store and whomp this out on 3 Jan 2008.

I really enjoyed working this piece since the meaning for each of the symbols is listed on the chart. I was able to stitch and learn.


This piece is Alchemical Romance (2006) by Ink Circles stitched on SilkWeaver's Winter Breeze 32ct cashel linen. The purple symbols were stitched in The Gentle Art's Royal Purple (0840) and the gold symbols were stitched in Kernik #4 braid color 202HL.

2007 Retrospective Slide Show

This slide show includes all of my finishes from 2007 except the one with the bad word. That one will just have to go unrecognized in the public space for now.

This was a good year for me and stitching. I joined a stitching group at my local shop, completed more projects in one year then ever before, learned some new techniques (hardanger & crochet) and was very inspired by the stitching group on livejournal.

2008 promises to be another good year. Next week the town stitching group I'm organizing will start to meet. I have a pile of great WIPs to work through and a fantastic stash to pull from. I think I'll get started on one of the WIPs now :-).

New Year, New Location

I'm starting to move my livejournal blog over to this new location. I'm planning to focus this blog on my stitching and my dogs. Most of the migration will involve dealing with my existing photos. I did complete my first finish of the year yesterday and plan to get that posted over the weekend.