WOW! That was fast!

I came home today to a wonderful surprise--an envelope from Gay Ann with all 5 of the patterns I ordered during e-Week!  I knew she had shipped 2 of them based on the tracking information, but it was a surprise to find the other 3 in the same package. Happy dance time for me!

I'm not sure, and why I ordered kits from the Annex!

As I continue working on the Florentine Ornament I'm not sure about the center Scotch stitch color.  It's not the color called for on the chart--7022--because the shop didn't have that color.  Plus, the other 70xx colors looked nothing like the photo on the chart.  Why would they?  I found out later that Caron has changed the numbering system on their Impressions thread and 7022 is now 8022.  I picked a color that looked close to the color in the photo, but now I'm wondering if it's just not really the right shade.  The shade is something in the 51xx range, a dark gray-green.   I think today I may run by my LNS and see if they have something in that 8022 range, just to satisfy myself.

I'm waiting for my eWeek charts and my Annex kits to arrive.  I like ordering the kits from the Annex after Gay Ann's sale.  At least I know that I have the correct supplies!  I would do all my shopping at my LNS but no one there ever seems to have time to help me and since the shop is quite a bit out of the way and has limited hours--well, it just makes shopping with Kate even more attractive!

Here's a photo of my Florentine ornament--as it looks right now.   Any opinions about the center color?

Where has the time gone?

Who knows?  And why waste even a moment worrying about it?  What matters now is that I'm back, and I don't plan on vanishing again.

Looking at all of the lovely offerings from Gay Ann for this year's E-Week sale awakened something deep inside, so yesterday I had to make a trip to my LNS to kit up one of the many GAR designs I have.

I pulled the chart for "First Florentine Ornament" out of my stash and kitted it up.  I got started as soon as I got home from work yesterday.  This was my attempt at Scotch stitch and I'm very happy with my results.  I finished the entire Scotch stitch center last night, and then early (way too early!) this morning I put in the Krenik braid overstitch.



Later this morning I started adding the navy Krenik border around the Scotch stitch.  I should be able to finish this border tonight.



I ordered a few things from E-Week.  I'm looking forward to adding Whitework Heart of the Raj, Chain of Hearts, Periwinkle and Pearls Heart, and Spirit of Christmas Heart to my stash.  Tomorrow I'll have to check out Kate's Annex to see what supply packets she'll be offering.

Hearts...beautiful, lovely, HEARTS!

It's here--Gay Ann's once-a-year heart sale! For one week only she's offering 7 different hearts for sale on her website.

They are all beautiful, but I'm partial to the HOME heart, and the set of 3 Pink Roses hearts.

Even if you're not planning on ordering anything right now, do go check them out. Her designs are always a joy to look at.

Bummer...

I finally get back to stitching after all of the Christmas hustle and bustle. There I was, settled down last night in my stitching place, ready to stitch and listen to the GOP debate. As I finish up one of the borders around the inside lozenge on my Blue Sparkle Angel I look back at the instructions so that I know what to do next and I see...SOIE D'ALGER...oh, no...I don't have any....

When I had my darling husband kit up the 4 angel ornaments for me way back in December of 2009 my LNS didn't have the Soie d'Alger I needed. So much time had passed between the time I had him kit her up and now that I had forgotten about the problem.

So now I'm on hold until I can get to the LNS next week to pick up a skein. Good thing I have so many other projects hanging around here needing to be stitched!

Emerald Angel kit arrived!

Once Gay Ann's E-Week ended, Kate opened up the Annex, selling supply kits for most of the designs offered during E-Week.

I ordered the supply kit for Emerald Angel, and the beading kit. They arrived last week:

I'm very happy with what I received. Kate did a lovely job packaging everything, both for presentation and for shipping. I'm glad that I made the decision to order the kits from her!

It was new-start week last week for me! Because Green Sparkle Angel is complete (except for the beading) it was time to prep a new piece of congress cloth, mount it on the stretcher bars, and start a new project!

I pulled Blue Sparkle Angel out of the Gay Ann chart box and started stitching. For most of the week I stuck to my 15-minutes-a-day plan, but once the weekend arrived (and I finished a cross stitch ornament) I devoted all my stitching time to my Angel.

So this photo shows quite a bit more progress than I would normally make in a week, and yet it doesn't reflect the progress I would have hoped to make given all the time I spent on it. For some reason the silver braid and I didn't get along well--I must have stitched-and-ripped, stitched-and-ripped, stitched-and-ripped each one of those sections a few times before getting the count correct. I don't know why I had so much trouble, but at least most of the sections are in now. The last two shouldn't be as much trouble since there's no counting to be done!

Here's a close-up of the border so that you can get a better idea of what it looks like:

I'll be back to the 15-minutes-a-day plan this week. But hopefully I'll have a good deal of progress to show when I return.

Could it be possible to finish this one before the end of the month--which is only 9 days away? I'm going to try!

Happy stitching, everyone. And a happy Thanksgiving, too.