New Project

Last spring, in 2008, I posted about wanting to start Strawberry Fields Farm, a design by Victoria Sampler.

I decided to purchase the thread package from Vikki Clayton's Hand-Dyed Fibers website. Although I love her silk thread and it is a joy to stitch with, I was not happy with a few of the color conversions, and this had kept me from starting this design. It is hard for me to match colors from pictures on a website, so I finally decided to just replace the colors that I didn't like with threads from my stash. So, after a couple of missteps here and there, I have finally arrived at my own unique conversion for this design. It is mostly HDF silk, but with about 4 GAST threads as well.

So, here is my start on Strawberry Fields Farm. I stitched my first Queen Stitches on this section as well. They were not as hard as I had been led to believe, which leaves me with the uneasy feeling that perhaps I did not do them right.

Also, I also received this blog award from Lynn this week. Thank you so very much! I am supposed to list 5 different addictions, so here it goes:

1. Stitching

2. Coffee (McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts being preferred)

3. 24 (the television show with Kiefer Sutherland)

4. Internet (stitching forums and blogs; news sites as well)

5. Baking (bread, cakes, cookies, muffins...)

I'll pass this award on to the following enjoyable blogs:

Kendra at the Stitching Hour
Stephanie at Stephanie's Stitching and Musings
Cathy at No Sampler Left Behind
Debby at The Stitching Wizard
Stephanie at In Stitches

It has been a long time since my last post, and the main reason behind this is we have been experiencing internet connection problems. It seems to be intermittent. Sometimes we can connect and be on 30 minutes or so before it disconnects and freezes, but other times we can't even get it to connect at all. My husband has been working at it, downloading updates and such, and it has improved, but it is still not as it should be. I am ready to get another service provider (being as this is an addiction and all). But anyway, it stayed up long enough for me to make this post :-)

Enjoy your stitching, one and all!

Bright Colors and Strawberries

I have stitched another session, rotation I suppose you could say, on my Mary Engelbreit piece, To a Friend's House the Road is Never Long. This project has very bright primary colors, and it is always a shock to my system to go from stitching on a more muted piece, like my Dear Diary sampler to these typical Englebreit colors. I do love Mary Engelbreit's sense of color and her boldness with bright hues though. I think if I ever am blessed with a stitching room, it will be decorated a la Engelbreit. Her art always makes me smile. Here is a progress picture of this project. Next time I stitch on it, perhaps the merry skier will get some legs to ski with.

Now I am back to stitching on Dear Diary again. I really should be stitching on Petite Maisons de Campagne, but my hands just keep going back to the DD sampler. I am eager to finish Julia Flynn's section. The little sheep are so much fun to stitch. I still need to order one of the DD patterns, so a wander over to Stitching Bits and Bobs for a little shopping is on my list for today.

In March, I plan on starting Strawberry Fields Farm by Victoria Sampler. I am going to use the Vikki Clayton silk conversion which is posted on her website, with a few changes because some of the colors don't seem quite right to me. When I get it all sorted out, I'll post the conversion here on my blog. I am eager to start this project because it will be a breath of spring in my erratic rotation, and it has specialty stitches. Right now, I don't have anything going that has specialty stitches and it is enjoyable to do something besides the little x's now and then.

Until next time...