An Exciting Week - So Far

Teresa Kogut displayed her fall releases yesterday on her FlossTube channel.  Finally 'Above All' can be officially revealed.

This was the piece that took 7 weeks for the fabric, threads, and pattern to get to me from Michigan last April and May. I believe I got it finished for her by the end of June (or maybe it was July) as I knew she wanted it for her fall release and wanted to give her lots of time to get it framed and the pattern written up and ready for publishing.

She is shipping to stitchery shops this week and will then offer them for sale on her etsy shop in a while after that.

Here are some of her other new fall releases:

Then this evening, I saw something on Facebook that the sneak preview of the 2020 Winter - Christmas issue of Punch Needle and Primitive Stitcher magazine was posted on their website. I had a hunch a piece I had stitched for Teresa back in February was going to be in this issue and I was right!

I stitched this one last February while I was in Texas and had no trouble mailing it back to her in Michigan.

The magazine should be out the first week of November. A print subscription is only available in the us. Digital subscriptions are available everywhere else. 

There are 31 designs for both cross stitch and punch needle. The images are all in a slide show on the website so have a look. I've already found several of the designs I want to stitch.

To add to the excitement this week, I had a flat tire yesterday. A couple of weeks ago I noticed my tire was low. I was inspired to buy an AirHawk at Canadian Tire so I could pump my tires up anywhere. It has a chargeable battery pack as well can be operated with a long cord that connects to the cigarette lighter input. I checked the tire a couple of times after that and it seems to be holding air so I promptly forgot about getting it checked at a tire shop.

I haven't been driving much and the last time I took the car out was early last week. So yesterday I was backing out of the garage to meet my stitching friends for another outdoor get-together and the car handled really strangely. I hopped out to check on the suspect tire and sure enough, it was completely flat. I hooked up the AirHawk and the tire wouldn't hold any air.

So back into the house I went and asked to borrow Skip's car and suggested it would be great if, during my absence, he would call CAA and have them come and put the spare tire (donut) on the car. Then off I drove to the park.

When I got home, the spare was installed. THANK YOU, SKIP! YOU'RE THE BEST HUSBAND EVER! It took the CAA guy about 10 minutes to swap out the tires. They noticed that there was a finishing nail creating the leak. 

I went to the tire shop this afternoon. I asked them to have a look at the tire and see if it could be repaired or replaced. I also told them I thought the tires might be original to the 2014 car and for them to check the treads for wear.

He came back and said the tires were from 2013. Evidently that is stamped (embossed?) on them. So I quickly made the decision to replace them all and with all-weather tires. I have never had snow tires as we have spent most of the last 13 winters in the sunny south and when I'm home, I don't do that much driving anyway - especially during a pandemic. 

So tomorrow when the tires arrive at the shop, I'll get them installed and I'll be on my way, ready for somewhat snowy winter conditions.

This evening Kim did an embroidery tutorial with those of us from the Trillium Embroidery Guild who are working on the stitchery alphabet project. 

I learned how to do an Interlaced Band. It starts with a herringbone stitch. Then a contrasting thread is woven into it. 

I tried a sample on some Aida cloth to practice before trying it on the good fabric. 

My first attempt was not successful. The floss was too thin on the herringbone part and too close to the colour of the interlaced part. I also made some errors with the over/under weaving of both the herringbone and the interlacing. I tried it again with two, thicker contrasting threads and it worked!

I thought I'd better try it right away on the good piece before I forgot how to do it. I had the sparkly blue floss - DMC Etoile for the Interlaced part. The herringbone was done with white #8 perle cotton.

Success!

Our next stitch is the Jacquard stitch. I will have to decide what contrasting threads to use for that. I have the hardest time picking colours but I will soldier on.

This week has gone by so fast. It will be November before we know it - our 8th month dealing with the pandemic.