Orts to the Rescue!

When I bought the Family Sampler, I bought all the supplies from 123stitch.  Not really a kit, as everything was seperate, but I bought everything they listed as needed.  I saw my first minor problem when I realized the fabric they sent was more like 30 count.  I finally made sure the whole design will fit (just barely), so I'm safe there.  The next almost catastraphe was with the Classic Colorworks overdyed floss the sent with the pattern.  The green and 2 colors of pink were sent with more than one skein, but the "Roasted Chestnut" (for the house) only had one.  And it ran out 23 (!) stitches from the end of said house.

Enter the ort jar:

Now I really don't know why I keep all my thread scraps (or why they're called orts for that matter), but I suppose it's a little neater than having scraps everywhere.  And anyone who knows me know neatness is always my first priority (sorry, can't even type that with a straight face).  Anyways, I was looking for a few scraps I could maybe hobble together to finish and found one long piece that was a little tangled. Luckily once it was straightened out it was more than enough to finish the house.  Crisis averted!  Not that having to go to the cross stitch store is really a crisis, but those overdyed threads have dyelots that are notoriously hard to match.

Which leads to the Family Sampler at 70 hours (there's a picture on my project page at 60 hours, but I figured it was getting a little boring showing the same project over and over...)

Family Sampler (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct vintage buttercream linen
started 7/8/14, 8/23/14 - 70 hours

 

It's coming along quite nicely I think, but it's definitely huge.  The flowers in the border go just past half way.  I can't even imagine what it's going to cost to frame!

Back Again

Well this was a pretty productive weekend, at least stitching-wise (one day it'll be productive cleaning and laundry-wise, but I'm not holding my breath.)  Toby went to a Beer Fest on Saturday afternoon, so it was just Marley and I for the day, which meant a lot of crafting time.  She even finished a knitting loom scarf that she's been working on FOREVER (I just need to get a picture of it).  We rounded out the day with a trip to Northampton for Local Burger (her favorite place up there) and GoBerry (which Toby doesn't like so we took advantage of the fact that he wasn't there).  It was a pretty fun day.

 I've reached 50 hours on the Family Sampler:

Family Sampler (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct vintage buttercream linen
started 7/8/14, 8/17/14 - 50 hours

The more I work on this, the more I like it.  It might actually be hard to give it away in the end.  I just need to hurry up and finish the personalization on if for my brother and SIL so I won't have a choice!

We interrupt our regulary scheduled programming...

And now for something a little different, I finished 2 sets of Christmas potholders today.  They'd actually been finished for a little while, but I just got around to sewing them up today.

Crocheted Folded Potholder (Ravelry link)

A friend from work gave me a set of these potholders when we bought our house.  My husband (who does all of the cooking and therefore uses them the most) raved about them being the best potholders ever.  Not to be outdone, I told him I could totally make them myself, and have since made 21 (!) sets (they're the perfect little gift).  The only change I made is to make them a little bigger, which he seemed to like better.  I also don't add any sort of hanging loop.  Like I think I said before, I want to make them for the ladies in my office for Christmas this year.  I would need 16 sets - there's some girls I don't know as well and wouldn't mind not giving a gift to, but I'm not sure how that would look, so I'm going to shoot for all 16.  We'll see how it goes.  I have a set in progress in my car, at work and at home, for whenever I can steal a few moments to work on them.

I'm still plugging away on the Sampler, but I'm learning I need to take a break after every couple of hours.  Even with my new stand my elbow's been bothering  me.  Just need to learn to pace myself I guess.

Bored Yet?

I almost am! Here's the Family Sampler at 40 hours...still pretty much the only thing I'm working on. The good part is that at least with a sampler design what you stitch keeps changing with all of the little motifs - keeps it interesting.

 

Family Sampler (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct vintage buttercream linen
started 7/8/14, 8/13/14 - 40 hours

And I think this proves what I've thought all along - I'm a pretty slow stitcher. I may get a lot done, but that's only because I do it so often. But I'm okay with that, I guess. We're watching Hell on Wheels again and that keeps sucking me in. We watched it once before (the first 2 seasons) and I was annoyed how season 2 ended and stopped watching. But I'm giving it another chance, and last night we got through to where we had stopped before. Luckily Toby also likes it (he'll pretty much watch whatever I want, but he reserves the right to make fun of a lot of it!)

In non-boring, more-fun news, we had a great long weekend at Hampton Beach the past weekend. We went up Saturday night after Toby got out of work and spent Sunday at the beach with his parents. The water wasn't too bad, and the three of us had a lot of fun in it (no pictures of that though, I never remember pictures at the beach).

But I DID take a lot of pictures on our whirlwind tour on Monday. Marley (and Toby and I) love to walk around some of the towns in NH, so we visited both Exeter and Portsmouth (our favorites) before ending up in Kittery for dinner.

Here's Marley and Toby in Exeter, and a crazy turtle nursery sign...

And Marley outside her favorite bookstore up there...

In Portsmouth we stopped for lunch at Popovers, which is one of our all time favorites, and of course had to have (share!) their HUGE sundae afterwards.

We also visited the Life is Good Store, the game and puzzle store, and relaxed a bit on the main square...

Finally, after a little rest back at the camper we went up to Kittery to visit the Kittery Trading Post and eat dinner at Bob's Clam Hut...

And that just about sums up our little mini vacation. On Tuesday we mostly just relaxed and did most of Marley's school supply shopping. A lot of stuff crammed into a couple days, but I think everyone had fun. I think it surprised Marley how many pictures I took (I'm notoriously bad at this) and she asked her father "Why is mom taking so many pictures? Is one of us dying or something?" That just cracked me right up.

I didn't really stitch at all over the weekend, but crocheted instead. I find that's much easier to do "on the go". I had the bright idea that I would crochet potholders for all of the girls at work. This seemed like a brilliant idea at the beginning of the year, but I haven't gotten to far on the 16 (!) sets I need to make. But I figure I work much better under pressure anyways. A couple of years ago I made them for EVERYONE for Christmas, including Toby's extended family and somehow got them done. They were a big hit, so I think the girls here will like them as well. Between those and the Family Sampler, I think I'll be quite busy!

Family Sampler (still!)

So I'm still slogging away at the same piece. I've decided I'm really not cut out for one-at-a-time stitching, I'm starting to get a little antsy with it. But I'm really trying to stick with it and have reached 30 hours:

Family Sampler (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct vintage buttercream linen

started 7/8/14, 8/8/14 - 30 hours

At least it's easy stitching, if not a little boring.  But I think it will definitly be worth it in the end.  You can see that I'm back to using my Needlework System 4 stand.  I had a problem with the original q-snap piece (it wasn't rotating correctly on one side).  After how long it took to get the stand originally I was a little miffed that I had to deal with it again, but I contacted the manufacturer directly and it couldn't have been easier.  They sent out a replacemet piece (postage paid) and will send UPS to pick up the defective piece (again, postage paid by them).  I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked out.  This piece rotates perfectly.  The whole thing is just a bit wobbly sometimes, but I think that might just be the nature of the beast.  I still haven't perfected stitching with both hands and revert back to one-handed.  20+  years is a hard habit to break!

Even though I'm not stitching anything else from my rotation, I do cheat on the sampler a bit from time to time (like when I'm at Angie's or my mom's...or any time I just don't feel like turning the timer on).  My other project at the moment is another Little House Needleworks design, Louise and Henry.  I figured this is what happens when knitting and stitching combine - cross stitch sheep! (I actually have another sheep piece that I really need to get to the framer.)

Louise and Henry (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct. chestnut linen

started 7/26/14

This one doesn't look like all that much yet (those are sheep legs just needing a body!)  but I should get quite a bit done over our long weekend in NH since FS is just too big to bring anywhere.  I plan on stopping by the XS store up there as well at some point, which could prove a little dangerous.  There's a Lizzie*Kate kit I really want to get and I'm definitely hooked on these Little House Needlework designs...

Family Sampler

So I've decided to concentrate on the Little House Needleworks Family Sampler that I'm making for my brother and SIL for Christmas. I realized Christmas isn't that far away (in crafting terms) so I'd better get moving. Plus this thing seems huge! Not difficult though, so that's good. Seeing as Janelle isn't my actual sister-in-law, I'm kind of hoping this might end up a wedding present instead. We'll have to see about that...

Family Sampler (c) Little House Needleworks

32 ct vintage buttercream linen

started 7/8/14, 8/5/14 - 20 hours

I've hit a couple of minor snags already. The square in the upper left corner is supposed to have an "R" in it, but the "R" in the large alphabet included with the chart looks weird to me. Kind of cartoony, and nothing like the other letters. So I think I'll have to figure out another "R" to use, which shouldn't be too hard. And the other thing really isn't a snag as much as just an annoyance. The leaves on the vine next to the square are supposed to alternate between a DMC floss and a Classic Colorworks overdyed floss. But in real life there's hardly any difference between the two colors. I think this is either due to the fact that the floss is dyed differently between when the pattern first came out and when I got around to making it, or it's just the photography. I run into this a lot when picking fabric colors. Usually whatever the background looks like on the pattern isn't anywhere close to what the fabric actually looks like. (Case in point, this fabric is actually light yellow - not whatever it looks like in the phone above.)  But as for the leaves, I didn't really notice the (lack of) difference until I had stitched more than I'd want to frog, so it is what it is. I don't think anyone else would even notice.

I guess there's really 3 snags - I bought this fabric with the pattern from 123stitch, as it was what was called for. It's supposed to be 32 count, but I think it's really more like 30 count. It doesn't sound like it should make that much of a difference, but the chart barely fits on this piece of fabric. Hopefully it won't be an issue when I go to frame it!

In other news, the PMC has come and gone, and it was really a much different experience this year. It poured!! I don't know if I've ever been that wet. But as I was standing there (absolutely soaked) cheering in the riders as they hit the finish line in Bourne, it really put the whole thing in perspective. Usually the weekend is a lot of work and very tiring, but mostly fun. This year was not quite as fun - too cold and wet. But I figure it was not as bad as actually riding 192 miles, and absolutely nothing compared to what people like my boss Tom are going through in their fight with cancer. So I sucked it up and cheered my little heart out. Toby was grilling this year (bbq chicken) and really enjoyed it. It was the first year he felt he was really productive (and nothing to do with the fact that the grills were pretty close to the free beer tent, I'm sure!) We'll definitely do it again next year (it'll be my 5th year, his 4th), but I really hope it's sunny!