Working on the WIP Pile

After I finished Beneath a Sunlit Sky a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make a determined effort to whittle down the size of the WIP pile.  Unfortunately, most of my WIPs seem to also be BAPs ::sigh:: but there are a few smaller ones that I can tackle for some quick gratification.

 

The first one I pulled out was the Grumpy Kitty ornament.  I believe the design is from Brooke's Books.  The snow flakes were supposed to be stitched; I wanted to add some beads to give it a little more bling, but I found the snowflake charms in my stash and used those instead.  I also found a little sparkly doo-dad to use as the bobble on his hat.

I finished Grumpy Kitty and went stash diving again, coming up with this little piece:

 It's simply called "Acorns" and the design is by Pamela Kellogg.  I bought it from a now out-of-business LNS -- the design was a freebie that they had kitted with fabric, fibers and the button.  It's stitched on 16-count Heatherfield and the fabric is a much more yellow color than it looks in the picture.  The fibers are brown perle coton and Watercolors "Fiesta" (I think).  I'm not sure why I laid this aside ages ago unless it was because the stitching seemed rather cramped.  When I pulled it out the other day and took a close look at the instructions, I discovered that it was meant to be stitched over 2 on the Heatherfield rather than over 1 as I was doing.  Wasn't going to frog, so I just kept on with the over 1.  I actually kind of like the way it turned out.  I don't know what I'll do with it, but it might make a nice scissors fob.

With the little acorn done, I went back to something I started not too long ago.  It's a Christmas rose pin cushion design that was in Needlecraft magazine (a British magazine) in 1995.  I tore that chart out of the magazine, thinking that I would like to stitch it someday...and someday finally came!  Needlecraft was one of the first British stitching magazines that I bought regularly -- it helped that I was working part-time at Barnes & Noble and could use my employee discount!  I think that it's not published any longer, but I still have a few of the older copies in my stash.



So that's my WIP report.  I'm going to go upstairs and put a few more stitches in the Christmas rose.  Hope everyone has a good week -- happy stitching!

Why Do the Good Ones Go Away?

I got an e-mail on Wednesday from "Annie's Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly"  -- a SPECIAL NOTICE about my subscription (the caps were theirs).  I'm sure there were many of you who received similar e-mails; it seems that SANQ has ceased publication.  So, this

is the last issue we'll get.  The rest of my subscription will be filled with Just Cross Stitch.  Darn, drat, and phooey.

SANQ and Piecework are the only needlework magazines I still subscribe to.  I used to -- many moons ago -- take every cross stitch magazine coming down the pike, including a couple of British ones.  Over the years, various factors caused my subscriptions to get fewer and fewer.  Some magazines ceased publication or merged with others.  In some cases, my tastes and/or the content changed and I stopped wasting my money on magazines that didn't interest me any longer.  Or I still kind of enjoyed a magazine but not enough all the time to continue spending money and trying to find space for it in my stash.  I enjoy SANQ and Piecework for different reasons.  Piecework has really interesting articles about a variety of needlework (sometimes too much knitting, in my opinion, but that's a topic for another time), but it doesn't often have projects that I would want to do.  SANQ, on the other hand, has interesting articles but it also frequently offers samplers and other projects, many of which have ended up on my "want to stitch" list.  So it's a bit of a bummer to lose it.  I confess that I was concerned that the quality of the magazine would suffer when Annie's took it over -- it really didn't -- but I didn't think they'd actually get rid of it.  Another good one goes away.

On a more positive note, we're very fortunate to live in an area where local agriculture is a big deal and there are lots of farmers' markets and stands selling local food.  There's a really nice farmers' market in Charles Town on Saturday mornings, and I made a quick trip there today.  I came home with a dozen eggs and these gorgeous tomatoes:

Then I decided I really needed some flowers for the dining table:

Aren't these beautiful?  I love the zinnias, but it was the big yellow cockscomb that grabbed my attention.  So pretty!

Football season is once again upon us and WVU plays tonight, so it's time to head upstairs and check out the game.  Happy stitching, all!

Treasures

We've been married and in this house for a little over three years, but DH and I are still clearing out boxes and sorting through "stuff" -- his, mine, and ours.  We were going through some of his stuff a few weeks ago and came across this:

His aunt gave him this several years ago.  I'm not sure how long ago it was, but she's been gone since the late 1990s, so that's a bit of a clue.  It's hand quilted, and I think it's at least partially hand pieced.  Here's a closer look at some of the blocks:

Aren't they pretty?  The fabrics have a look of the 1960s and 1970s about them.  Isn't it wonderful what kind of treasures you can find when you're looking through stuff?