6+ Months Later

Skip and I ventured to south Texas at the end of January to enjoy the winter in a subtropical climate. Our plan was to start for home mid-April after the bird migration was underway but in time to enjoy spring at home.

While I was away, on February 13, Jen1 mailed me a package to my address down there. There is no mail delivery to non-business addresses there so all mail for Winter Texans goes to General Delivery at the post office. Going to the post office to check for mail is one of the fun things Skip and I do as part of our usual routine.

Into March, Jen1 asked if I had received anything from her. I had not and kept going to the post office to see if anything had been delivered. Then on March 13 we got word that because of COVID-19 we were to return home right away as our travel medical insurance would be cancelled on March 23. I was also expecting delivery of another parcel. We delayed our drive home to the Monday morning (March 16) when the post office opened to see if either of our expected missives had arrived - no luck. Then we began our 3200km odyssey home. 

Today I got a text from Jen1 that the parcel had arrived back at her place - 6 1/2 months after it had been mailed. The sticker on it said it was undeliverable. This is not the first time this has happened to mail sent to TX. I sent a sympathy card to a friend who lives outside of Houston last year and it never arrived. It returned to me a few months later.

Anyway, I went over to Jen1's this afternoon and picked up the parcel. Inside was a letter and a really nice Hands On Design pin cushion pattern, The Summer Night from her House on a Hill series.

I love these pin cushions. They're so fun to stitch and put together. Included in the package is the scrap of wool tweed fabric that will be the front lawn of The House on the Hill. There's also a chart for a little scissor fob.

Here's one I finished a couple of years ago. See how the wool piece is stitched onto the top? 

It's quite ironic because just before Jen1 texted me, I was watching a FlossTube video (Brenda and the Serial Starter), and mulling over what project I should start kitting up to stitch. The Summer Night calls for Weeks Dye Works threads. I might have one of them. I may just use DMC or Classic Colourwork equivalents as nothing is a particularly large area of colour so variegation wouldn't be that evident.

I have also completed most of the stitching on the HOD Buzz pin cushion and just need to finish the honeycomb on the top and attach the wool piece. I think I delayed because I wanted to personalize the bottom before assembling it. This is the piece that goes around the edge - with a bee hive on each side.

I really must dive into my stash and see what else I want to kit up to stitch in the near future.

'Fruit of the Vine' Needleroll

Last week at Jeanette's, Poppy gave me a belated birthday present. I was really surprised when I opened it and it was a complete kit for a beautiful needleroll.

The fabric is a lovely soft 28ct linen and there also were the 5 skeins of floss needed for the project.

I started in right away, welcoming the change from the 40ct project I'd been working on. 

I stitched the charts side by side and finished it this morning during my Monday morning chat with my Monday morning stitfchers. 

I will cut the two sides apart to finish them with a piece of flannel between them. I'm pretty sure I have the flannel in my stash from a previous sewing project. I still need to get the ribbon as well. Because a centred ribbon would cover the stitching on the outer piece, I'm going to use two thiner ribbons on each side. I also need to find a scrap of fabric to make the pin cushion that is attached to the bottom. I may make it rectangular. We'll see.

It's going to make a really beautiful needleroll. 

Stitching Al Fresco

 We had a break in the hot weather yesterday and met at Jeanette's place to spend the day stitching. She has a lovely front lawn with many mature trees. We spent most of the day sitting over 2m apart, chatting happily, almost feeling normal. We all miss being able to sit together around a table but this is an excellent substitute in this time of COVID-19.

Barb worked on knitting a second sock while Marilyn and I stitched.

Jennifer, Marion, and Jeanette worked on stitching projects.

Poppy worked on the needlepoint kit we bought last year on our birthday road trip and Shelley contemplated going back to the classroom in a few short days.

The clouds blocked the sun before noon and it actually dropped below 20C. It was nice to have a break from the stifling heat and be out in the fresh air.

We all are missing our fun road trips and making plans to visit stitching and quilting shops both near and far. If we ever get to go to the US again - if they ever get their coronavirus infection rate under control - I already have a trip sketched out to visit a new stitchery shop in Pittsford NY, a suburb of Rochester. En route, the shop in East Rochester is also worth a visit. There's also a cute quilt shop in the same plaza. No trip to upstate New York would be complete without visiting A Stitcher's Garden in Fayetteville NY and Calico Gals quilt shop in Syracuse. Although their website is not very impressive, Stitchery Row in Endicott NY is also a very well-stocked and up-to-date stitchery shop. 

To tide us over, we are doing a lot of stitching and planning about stitching. We hope to be able to meet outdoors as long as the temperatures and weather permit it.

Yard Sauce 2020

Skip planted several varieties of tomatoes this year and they're starting to ripen. He's been dusting them with food grade diotemaceous earth (basically crumbled sedimentary rock), to discourage slugs, rodents, and other critters that enjoy taking a bite and leaving the rest of the tomato on the vine. So far, his efforts have paid off.

Today I made yard sauce - a roasted tomato recipe I picked up from watching Priscilla and Chelsea on FlossTube (one of many stitching channels on YouTube). There's also a video tutorial. 

I purchased a large aluminum lasagna pan at our local Wholesale Club for under $2 and was ready to make a batch this morning.

First I drizzled olive oil on the bottom of the pan and smeared it all over the bottom and into the corners. This prevents the tomatoes from stitcking during roasting.

Then I took the stem part off the tomato and cut it into quarters and put them in the roasting pan - skins down. I covered the entire bottom of the roasting pan with the quartered tomatoes. Then I tossed in an onion sliced in wedges and several basil leaves that I chopped up a bit, and sprinkled some salt over the mixture.

Normally I would put the pan into a 425F oven for 45 minutes to an hour. Today, not wanting to heat up the kitchen with the oven, I fired up the barbecue and put the pan in there. 

After 45 minutes, at 425-ish degrees F, I checked the tomatoes. There was still a lot of juice so I left the pan in for another 10 minutes.  The tips of the tomatoes and onions were nicely toasted. Then I let it cool off. 

After my Sunday afternoon videochat with my stitching peeps, I put everything in the blender (a food processor would work, too) and put the resulting roasted tomato sauce in a couple of freezer bags, filling them halfway. I folded them and sealed them, pressing all the air out. Laying flat, they hardly take any room in the freezer and they'll keep for months there.

This first batch was thicker than last year's batches because of the extra time roasting. The extra time also carmelizes the sugars in the tomatoes, making a rich, tasty sauce. 

When we use the sauce, we'll add garlic and any herbs we like - oregano or more basil. 

Cleanup is easy. Just soak the pan and all the baked-on stuff will just wash away.

Let's Start Again, Shall We?

This week, Marilyn and I went up to her cottage for a couple of days. Both our 'bubbles' are small so we decided to include each other and spend a couple of days stitching.

The weather was great - warm in the daytime and cool at night. I slept great and we both slept in quite late both days.

Here's the view from her deck facing west:

I could feel my blood pressure going down looking out at this view. Ahhhh.

It was lots of fun. I re-started my Newcastle Bouquet last weekend so I would have it to work on at the cottage.

This is where I abandoned the first attempt.

The letters are done in cross stitch.

This is where I am with the new one. I am doing the letters in Algerian eyelets. I modified the 'K' and will do so to any other letters that don't have elements in groups of 4 stitches. 

The eyelets take FOREVER but I like the look of them much better this way.

I'm still trying to get my hands on 2 skeins of Classic Colorworks Licorice Red. I ordered them and a couple of other things from Gitta's last week but they were out of stock. I've checked several Canadian Etsy folks and everyone seems to be sold out. One other Ontario stitchery shop charges a flat rate of $9.95. That's more than the cost of the floss so I continue to search. I will probably resort to the DMC equivalent (which is given on the pattern).

Such a Rookie Mistake

 So I'm happily stitching my Newcastle Bouquet and I decide I'm going to do the outline of the border. There's some counting but I keep checking with my grid lines and all is going well. I get near the left side and something isn't quite right.

The scissors indicate the horizontal centre of the pattern. Do you see the problem?

I SOMEHOW DIDN'T START IN THE MIDDLE!!!!

I never start in the top left corner in case there's some mistake or I use too big a border around the stitching so I always start in the centre. Even my gridding was started off centre. 

This is HOURS of gridding and stitching gone to waste. I couldn't face ripping out all those threads so I went over to Kim's today and bought another piece of fabric and this time, have started in the centre.

The second thing I realized I had done differently than planned was individual cross stitches on the letters. I had planned to modify the pattern and do Algerian eyelets for the letters. I think because I didn't start with 'A', I forgot I had planned to do that so will make the correction on Newcastle Bouquet 2.0.

The letter elements are in clusters of 4 stitches so would adapt easily to Algerian eyelets.

The fabric I'm using is Wichelt Sandstone 40ct and very closely matches the called-for colour of the flower. I picked a lighter colour and it is still a pretty close match so I definitely will outline the white flowers with backstitching.

I felt like such a dope but I guess dumb mistakes happen to the best of us.

I've started gridding my new fabric - starting in the centre of the fabric this time and will start stitching tonight.

While at Kim's I stocked up on some of my favourite needles (#26 Bohin) and bought this pattern.

I have an inkling I may already have it but now I have it for sure. I have some of the called-for hand-dyed threads and will use DMC equivalents for the ones that I'm missing.

Speaking of DMC threads, I found a nifty tool online for substituting other colours of DMC threads. Basically you enter the colour you're missing in the 'Thread Code' box, ignore the next algorithm window and several other DMC colour numbers are suggested on the right.

In this screenshot, I'm looking for a substitute for 601 and 6 other DMC colours are suggested. 

This is definitely a tool I'll find to be very useful.

Pandemic Stitching Freebies

I stumbled across this lovely stitchery website and found a free Be Well pattern that had a couple of specialty threads. Wanting to take a bit of a break from Newcastle Bouquet, I started Be Well last night.

It wasn't until I stitched it that I noticed a teeny weeny 'be well' between the pink and blue 'flowers'. If I stitch it again, I'll make the letters more prominent.

I still need to finish the bees' wings and insert the date. Somehow I got one thread out between the two 4-stitch pieces of 'grass' at the bottom and the 1 over 1 date won't fit properly between them. I'm going to frog one of the patches and move it over one thread to accommodate the date properly.

The Drawn Thread also has a lovely Be Well freebie, again, with a couple of specialty threads.

Mi Maleta Lila posted a freebie on her blog called 'Bees Stay Home'

Here's another from Little Stitch Girl.

And from Factura Designs. (these show the chart so I'm only providing the link)

And from Lizzie Kate.

And from Cottage Garden Samplings.

There are lots more. Just go to a search engine and enter 'be well cross stitch freebies' and lots will come up. They're easily adapted to ornaments or personalized. Some could be box or jar lids or pictures in their own right.

Have fun and stitch on!

A Glimpse of Things to Come

Last week I watched Teresa Kogut's FlossTube episode. She talked about a trip to Ohio that she had taken the previous week in order to appear at a stitchery shop in Vermilion OH called Clare's Stitching Post. She was there from 1pm to 4pm on Friday, July 24. If we weren't barred from going to the US during the pandemic, Skip and I most certainly would have traveled there to meet her.

She then ventured to Findlay OH to the Craft Gallery where she got the two new samplers framed and ready for release in the fall.

Because she showed this photo on her FlossTube at 17:15, I think it's OK for me to show a screen shot here. He's holding Above All, the one I stitched for Teresa.

I'll wait 'til she releases it before I show a good, detailed photo of it. As you can see from the photo, it isn't really big - 179 stitches x 178 stitches. I don't remember if it was 35ct or 40 ct fabric. The motifs weren't huge and were fun to stitch. It looks like Teresa was successful stitching the little row of stitches on one of the urns that I missed.

On my own stitching, I've been working on Newcastle Bouquet. It's on 40ct Sandstone linen with one thread over 2. For stitching while I'm videochatting with my stitching friends, I outline something that just has to be filled in (like the leaves) so I don't have to count a lot at the risk of making mistakes. My grid lines are very helpful and are easy to snip and pull out after working in a particular area. I'm missing the hand-dyed floss (Classic Colorworks 228 Licorice Red) for the other half of the red bird (cardinal?) and one skein of the darker green (WDW Bark). Looking online someone was going to charge me almost $10 for shipping within Canada! I am now having to decide if I'll just use the DMC substitute 347 - very dark salmon.

I also need to substitute for one of the flower colours as it's too close to the fabric colour. Either that, or used the called-for colour and just backstitch around it to make it 'pop'.

I have also set myself a goal to FFO (fully finish) one stitched project per week. I have several rolled up in stitchery rolls and all the finishing materials here so there's no good excuse for not tackling some.

We've finally had a break in the heatwave and I was able to sit outside on the deck (under an umbrella) this morning for my stitching videochat this morning. The temperature was perfect and the natural light is great for stitching on 40ct.