Monday Update

It seems that all our bad weather of late has resulted in some progress on my WIP.
I'll start with my latest finish. One of my WIPocalypse goals was to stitch more ornaments this year so I'm pleased that in the past month I've finished the stitching on not one but two. The latest addition is Prairie Schooler Winter ornament found in the JCS 2006 Christmas ornament issue.

This one took me longer than expected to complete. I always underestimate how long solid stitching like this takes. I'm quite happy with this one and hope to finish it off on some red felt.

With the arrival of my floss substitute for Paradis Perdu last week, I got busy trying the new shade out and seeing if it worked. It's the pale pink colour in this photo. I think it's a much better shade than the green-yellow called for on the chart. It resembles the colour in the picture much better now and I like the looks of it better in the stitching.

I grew tired of this one fairly quickly although I can't say why. In any case, out came BBD Eveline Cunningham. I've decided that this one will be in memory of my father who was born in December like Eveline. I still have to chart his name but when I went to print out some online graph paper I discovered that our printer is getting low on ink so the charting will have to wait a bit.
I also ran into some floss issues with this one. I didn't like the GAST Avocado suggested for the leaves and instead replaced it with CC Dandelion Stem. I'd pretty well finished stitching most of the leaves when I decided I wasn't happy with things so consequently the frogs were my companions for a bit. When I took this one off of the Q snap for a pic I noticed I still have a few leaves to restitch yet. You can see the old colour on the leaves at the bottom of the pic.

                                        Before the change of floss, seen on the bottom.

The colour of floss I changed to on the upper leaves.

So what do you think? Did I make the right choice?

These pics look a little washed out and don't show the colour of the fabric all that well. I'm blaming it on the lousy lighting these days. The sun was out early this morning but has disppeared behind the clouds once more. It seems we are expecting more snow with the possibility of freezing rain again tomorrow. I just received an email that once again our Tuesday group will be cancelling in light of the latest forecast. The weather certainly hasn't been on our side lately!

I'll also be missing my Wednesday afternoon stitch due to another dental appointment. With the possibility of being cooped up again for a few days, I've accepted the invitation of a friend to accompany her to a movie tonight. I think we're going to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I see it's been nominated for an Oscar for best picture so it should be a good one!



A Mail Treat

Over the holidays I learned that I was the lucky winner of Nancy's Christmas floss giveaway at The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. This was a fabulous giveaway of 25 skeins, 20 yrds each, of Nancy's hand-dyed floss. I couldn't believe my luck when I found out I'd won! When I checked yesterday's mail, I found a package waiting for me. Could it be? Yes, it was the floss! Feast your eyes on this beauties!

Nancy is having another giveaway right now for some more of this floss so head on over and join in on the fun. While you're there, check out some of her great designs too! She is an extremely generous lady and loves to share her passion with her readers.

I wanted to show you what my middle son Daniel got me for Christmas. I have a wishlist over at 123 Stitch and Dan took it upon himself to check out my list.
He bought me this gorgeous chart and a needleminder to go with it. Dan knows I love deer which is why he picked this one and I was so thrilled with his thoughtfulness. Thanks honey!

I ran into a small roadblock on my BAP, Pardis Perdu. One of the floss used in the flowers didn't seem to match with the picture of the design. Now I know that these often aren't exactly like the picture but this one didn't even come close. The picture showed some flowers which appear to be a pale pink but the floss I had was a yellow-green colour and didn't go with the floss I'd already used in the design. Since I'd done a silk conversion of this I went back and pulled the DMC floss originally called for. Nope, no mistake on my part. It was the same colour as the silk I had been using. All I can figure is that it is a misprint in the chart. I paid another visit to Hand Dyed Fibers and chose another floss in a pale pink which will work much better. It's on its way to me now and in the meantime I'll work around that area.

I'll have another progress pic of Gobble for you on my next post. My camera battery ran out on me before I could get a photo. I'm nearing the end of this one now and hope to have it finished up by the end of the weekend.

With a finish in the wings I decided to start another small ornament for the Winter Challenge. This one is a Prairie Schooler called Winter. It's from the 2006 issue of the JCS Christmas ornaments.

This one is stitching up pretty quickly which means I can then pull out another start from my list! The weather is on my side as far as stitching goes too since we are receiving a nasty mix of sleet and freezing rain. It started early this morning and has been coming down nonstop.
Okay, so I just looked out the window and now it's turned to snow! DH has cancelled choir practice for tonight and we're going to stay put, snug as two bugs.
Welcome to all of my new followers and thank you for taking the time to drop by and check out my WIPocalypse post. I'm really enjoying this challenge too. I get to see lots of awesome stitching and meet lots of new stitching bloggers. What could be better than that?