TUSAL - June and some progress

It's TUSAL Day!

(For those not familiar, click on the word TUSAL above or the link to the right.)

Here we are on TUSAL day again.  Can you even believe we are half way through this year already?!  It is finally starting to feel like summer around here with all our notorious Midwestern humidity.  All you have to do is look at my wild mop of hair to know it's true.  LOL!  I didn't think it would ever get warm again.

Here's a look at this month's ORT pile and the ORT report below.  I see lots of blue in that pile up there from the project bag!  It was a good month.

Here are this month's contributors to the pile:

"Speak to the Earth" by Donna Kooler Designs (In Progress)
"Heaven Above" by Midsummer Night Designs (In Progress)
"Love My Stitching" by Hands on Designs (Done!)
Russellville getaway exchange piece (Done...to be revealed next month) 

Speaking of my new project bag, I'm so happy I actually got it finished this past month.  Oh yeah!  I've really been enjoying it and am really pleased with how it turned out. I can see myself using those finishing instructions again sometime! 

"Speak to the Earth" is progressing nicely as we saw in this post!  It's actually starting to look like something now that we are about half way into it.  I really love all the colors and soon I'll be stitching the animals on the bottom part.  I can hardly wait.

I decided to give "Heaven Above" some love this past week.  I hadn't worked on it much since my push to get the project bag done.  I'm going to devote more time to it this month now that I have some of the super secret gift stitching done.  I still have a tiny bit to do yet.  The Russellville getaway is coming up next month so I'd better get crackin'!

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 Progress as of 5-5-15

Progress as of 6-15-15

 

Just for giggles, I thought I'd throw in a progress update on "Heaven Above" too.  As you can see I really didn't set the world on fire but each stitch is one more closer to done.  Now the bird has a body and I really like the new purple.  The heart was fun to do too as were the two flowers.  I'm almost done with the first page!

 

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Well friends, we are caught up now.  Hope all is well in your world and you are enjoying the slower pace of summer.  Thank you for visiting with me today.

Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Speak to the Earth - progress

Saturday I got together with the Tiara Club for an all day stitch.  I hadn't worked on Speak to the Earth much last month and needed to get myself caught up so I decided that would be my project for the day.  I can't believe I haven't shown any progress on this one since March!

Progress as of 3/31/15

I had started working on it at various points last month and got stumped by the queen stitch row.  Now those that know me know I don't mind this stitch at all. It's not a nemesis to me like it is to some folks.  In reflection, I think what had me stumped was two fold.  I'm working on 40 ct. fabric and that makes these stitches super tiny plus, rather than have them touching like they typically are, these had two threads between them on the first row.  The second row snugged into the gap.  For some ridiculous reason I had a mental block on the placement.  Once I got the first one in on both rows, I was off and running again!

  Progress as of 6/7/15

As you can tell from the picture I got a bit carried away.  I know I've said it before but this one is really hard to put down once I get started on it.  I just had to see what that squirrel looked like once I got myself caught up on this month's assignment.  Which, by the way, was to stitch from the middle of the "E" down to the "W" and across to the right.

I also decided to finish framing in the blue zig-zag inner border just so I would have something to count off of for future assignments.  My peep, Marsha, gave me that idea.  I think it's going to be really helpful too.

I feel like this sampler is starting to take shape now.  Soon we will be stitching the animals at the bottom.  I can hardly wait for that!  I'm really enjoying this one.  Now that I have a significant portion stitched I can tell my fabric choice is going to make this seem dainty when it's done.  Cool!

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Well folks, that's all I have for today.  I hope you were able to put needle to linen this past weekend too.  Thanks for stopping by for a visit and thank you for your sweet comments on my last post.  You all just make my day!

Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Hands on Design Project Bag...Done!

Folks, we have a finish!  I put the last stitch in this one on Sunday.  I had gotten a good go at it last week since I was so close to a finish and stitching with the peeps last Friday gave me the push I needed to actually make it to the finish line!

But that isn't the best part!  Oh no, I actually completed it into it's bag form.  Now I can use it!!  More on that in a minute.  First, I have to tell you how I solved my dilemma about the motif I mentioned on TUSAL day.

I wasn't wild about the motif between the words "sampler" and "motif" as it was charted.  Something about it just didn't strike my fancy.  I tried to chart my initials and even another spool of thread for that spot.  As I was sitting there pondering what to do, I looked at my latest SANQ issue sitting beside me and noticed the motif between the arrows above.  Jackpot!  It fit perfectly.  I ended up putting my initials on the lower right corner so they are still on it just not in a prominent spot as I'd first envisioned.  That's the beauty of stitching, you can change anything you want because it's yours!

Design:  Love My Stitching

Designer: Hands on Design

Fabric: 28 ct. white Monaco

Floss:  DMC as charted

Started: 4/6/15

Finished: 5/31/15

Completed: 6/3/15

Here's the finished bag!  I really like these finishing fabrics.  I still can't believe I got so lucky to find the actual fabric the designer used for the outside.  In case you are interested, the outside fabric is by Riley Blake Designs' line called Polka Dot Stitches in the print called Polka Dot Doily Blue.  I lined it in a polka dot print by Mary Koval from the line called Cat in the Manor that has an aqua and white dot on red.  A perfect match!

The finished size of the bag ended up being 10.5" wide by 12.5" high.  It's a little bit bigger than the ones I've made before.  It is also padded on all sides and has a chart pocket inside that runs lengthwise across the back of the bag.  The finishing instructions are by Sew Much 2 Luv and came with the chart which I thought was really nice.  They were pretty easy to follow too.


I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Stasi from Bee Mused and Bee Stitching who inspired me to pull this chart out and actually stitch it!  I saw hers a while back and just had to do it too.  I also wanted to be able to take this with me to Russellville next month since I bought the chart there last year at retreat.  I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy using this bag!

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So there we are friends!  Thanks for stopping in today and sharing my happy dance.  As always, I appreciate your visits and kind words.  It's so fun to share my stitching with you all.


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Pennsylvania Road Trip - part 3

We got into Bedford, PA late afternoon on Saturday.  We checked into the hotel and watched the end of "The Devil Wears Prada."  It was a good movie and I wish we'd seen it from the beginning.  I'll have to do that sometime.  So anyway, we ventured out and found us some dinner at a local steak house.  After dinner we came back and settled in for the night.

Our first stop Sunday morning was Mary Koval's Quilt Shop.  All of the fabrics in the shop are designed by Mary and are antique reproductions.  We also checked out the retreat center she has upstairs.  I can see a girlfriends getaway in the future.  Oh yes I do!

Here's the prefect dot fabric I mentioned the other day!  The red matches the stitching colors and the dots have aqua in the centers!  I couldn't ask for anything better.  Now I really can't wait to finish stitching that Hands on Design!  I got the paisley because I can't resist them and you don't see good paisley that often.

After we left the quilt shop we headed over to our last stop on our grand adventure, The National Museum of the American Coverlet.  It is in Bedford too!  It is housed in an old school building.  What an incredible place. 

This is Laszlo Zongor.  He and his wife, Melinda, run the museum and he was our personal tour guide.  What a fountain of knowledge this man is!  I could have listened to him talk about coverlets all afternoon.  Simply amazing.  Here he is telling us about jacquard looms.

The first room he took us through had examples of the different styles of coverlets.  This one is woven by a French weaver who also happened to be female.  We learned that women were not allowed to own property at that time.  However this lady inherited her equipment from her father.  She is the only documented female coverlet weaver.  Her name was Sarah LaTourette.  She originally migrated from Canada to Indiana.  Oddly enough she ended up in the part of Indiana where I'm from originally.  How fun!

This one was woven by a very famous UK weaver who ended up in New York state.  You may recognize the lions in the corners.  Those are known as Harry Tyler's lions and are a dead giveaway that this is one of his coverlets.  UK weavers favored two colors, blue/white or red/white.  They favored a clean edge finish without fringe.

Next was a coverlet woven by a German coverlet weaver.  The German weavers had a fancy for multiple colors and fringe on all four sides.  This particular coverlet did not have a weaver's attribution.

The fourth one in this room was done by Nathaniel Young who was a Dutch weaver.  His coverlet had fringe on two sides.  We learned that fringe is not a hard and fast clue to origin though.  It was all about what the customer wanted to buy.  We also learned that the reason you see reversible lettering and corner blocks is for the customer's benefit so they could enjoy whichever side of the coverlet they favored since they are reversible!

This was another interesting thing we ran across in the museum, an inventory sampler.  I've never seen one of these in person.  It was super neat to see.  I have an old chart for one somewhere.  Hmm...might have to go stash diving!

Here's a look at the room from the first picture.  These coverlets were so well presented.  I just can't say enough nice things about this place!  If you ever get near Bedford, PA it is definitely worth a stop.  I even think the menfolk would enjoy it too.  The most amazing thing about this museum is that it is run entirely on donations from the public and most of their collection is donated too.  Now this is the type of place I like to support!  They even encourage pictures and selfies.  LOL!

After we left the museum, we stopped for a quick bite at the golden arches supper club aka McD's and got back on the road toward home.  This was a funny sight from the road.  I snapped this picture for all you coffee lovers out there.  How's that for a vat of coffee?!

We had pretty good weather the entire weekend with the exception of the way home.  We ran into some pretty intense storms.  I don't know if you can make it out but we got to see a rainbow!  I just had to stick my head out the window and try to snap a picture.  I just love rainbows!  It seemed fitting to see this one after such a wonderful weekend spent in the company of one of my dearest friends.

Well folks, there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed going to Pennsylvania with me.  We truly had the best time!  We are already planning next year's trip.  Thanks for stopping by today.


Have a great weekend!

The Inspired Stitcher

Pennsylvania Road Trip - part 2

On Saturday we got up extra early so we could check out of the hotel and get to our lecture on time.  The lecture was on "Westtown School Samplers."  I didn't realize that Westtown School is still in operation.  I also didn't realize it was a boarding school.  I did know it was Quaker so there's that.  Needless to say, I learned a lot in the lecture.  Later Linda and I decided we should have tried to find the school since we were in the area.  Next time!

After the lecture we decided to go upstairs again for one last perusal.  This booth took our breath away the first time through and we just had to go see it again.  You could tell that lots of samplers had sold since our first trip through.  The vendor was so sweet to let us take pictures.  I think he got tickled at us drooling over his inventory.

This was one of his that I especially liked.  It talks about the sea shore.  One of my very favorite places to be.  I also liked that the verse wasn't morbid like so many of the sampler verses tend to be.

This was another drool worthy item I found in another vendor's display case.  All worked in queen stitches and so very pretty.  I took this picture for one of our guild members who has a fancy for this type of thing.

After we bid the museum farewell, we hit the turnpike again and made our way down to the second "bucket list" stop for the trip, Strawberry Sampler!  This is someplace Linda has wanted to visit forever.  She's talked about it for years.  I've had the good fortune to visit a couple times already.

If you've never been, you really should go!  The girls that work there make you feel like old friends the minute you walk through the door.  And can I just talk about the models?!  Oh. My. Goodness!!!  I mean, just look at this wall!  Every wall was like this and it made you want to buy everything in sight too.

Here are the things I couldn't live without.  I have no idea what I'll do with the dot fabric but you know me and dots.  The bottom piece of fabric is for a chart that Stasi gifted me not long ago and the beads are for the Nora Corbett piece I mentioned last time.  The three charts are ones I fell in love with when the market stuff came out.

Once again we found ourselves looking for a lunch recommendation.  One of the kind ladies at the shop told us about Wawa.  Chris also mentioned it to us too.  So we got directions to the nearest one and off we went.  I had to try the local chips from the display above.  They were pretty good.

Now let me tell you about this place.  It's unlike any convenience store I've ever experienced!  Pardon the glare on the screen in the picture.  This is the computer you use to place your sandwich order.  Behind the menu sign is the food prep area.  People make your hot sandwich right there!  It's kind of like a cross between Subway, in that you can choose what you want on your sandwich, and Panera, where you can get a hot gourmet sandwich!

We picnicked in the car.  I had the turkey panini with sun dried tomato pesto.  Delish!  We also took Chris' suggestion and got a soft pretzel that was baked onsite and Linda found canoli dip for dessert.  I sure wish we had Wawa around here.  I'm definitely remembering this place next time I go east!

After our lunch we got back on the road to head to the next stop on the road trip, Bedford, PA. Once again this has gotten long so I'll leave you here for now and we'll resume the recap next time.

Still more to come,

The Inspired Stitcher

Pennsylvania Road Trip

I'm back as promised to tell you all about the grand adventure I took last weekend.  First some back story.  My peep, Linda has wanted to visit the Penn Dry Goods Market for several years now and for one reason or another it never panned out.  This year luck would have it that my calendar was clear so we started making plans!

We left out on Thursday with a couple "friends" in tow. Yep, Senior Frog and his new buddy, Penelope "Penny" Skunk came along for the ride.  That frog is one well traveled dude.  We got into the hotel early evening then set out to find some dinner.  After dinner we went to scope out where we were going the next morning for our first lecture on "A Morass of Berlin Wool Work: The Pennsylvania Dutch Enthusiasm for Berlin Wool Embroidery, 1830-1900." 

Friday morning we got there early so we perused the vendors on the first floor and checked out the gift shop.  Here's what I couldn't live without.

I couldn't resist the faux iron fence.  I plan to put it around my feather tree display at Christmas time.  The calendar may be out of date but the pictures in it are fabulous.  All the pieces pictured in it are in the Schwenkfelder's collection. I really liked the card and the book mark too.

Then there was Mad Sampler Books.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Did I lose my mind there!  I ended up making three trips to this booth.  Yep, I sure did!  The first trip yielded the Scottish wool for needlbook pages, the needle minder and the needle keep.

The second trip was for the Quaker Pinballs book after seeing some uber expensive pinballs upstairs in the other vendors section (more on that in a bit).  I decided I could make my own and the vendor who had them was nice enough to tip me off that this book was downstairs so down I went.

I hadn't even left the booth when the third trip happened.  My peep, Linda spied the SAN book and knew the first edition was hard to come by so she bought one.  Paige, the bookseller, said she had a second copy so I scooped it up while I had the chance.  Score!

One of the highlights of the event was running into Chris from Tot Hill Farm Stitches.  I almost literally ran into her too.  LOL!  I had taken the goodies above to the car before the lecture and recognized her outside on the sidewalk.  It was so delightful to run into Chris.  It was as if we've known each other forever.  How completely cool is that?!  We got to experience both days' lectures together too. I hope we have another opportunity to get together sometime.

After our lecture we ventured upstairs to see the other vendors.  We both loved the name of this vendor, Cat Lady Antiques.  Cute!  One of our peeps, Evie is a huge cat lover.  We couldn't resist snapping this picture for her.

Some of you may know that I collect strawberries, particularly strawberry pincushions.  Check out this huge one!  Needless to say I couldn't afford to buy this one but I'm glad I got a picture.  Funny story about a strawberry, I had purchased one in the gift shop earlier only to find later that evening it had never made it into my bag.  When I went back the next day for it the clerks had found it on the floor and sold it.  Thankfully they refunded my money.  It was a little disappointing but at least they made it right.

Here are the antique pinballs I mentioned.  Check out the prices on these, $725, $850, $1,100 and $1,300!  W-O-W!  Now you know why I decided I'd just make my own and now you understand why I was so thankful that vendor gave me the tip about the book downstairs.  They sure were pretty though. The blue one is queen stitches and the two on the right are knitted.

 

We did find a vendor who's things were within our price range.  This is what I picked up.  

I already have a brass bullet etui and fell in love with this silver one.  I actually think it may be aluminum or maybe tin.  It was the tiny petit point that sold me on it.  I have no idea its age.  I suspect it's not that old since the thread is wound on a plastic center.  Isn't it sweet?

After we checked out the three upstairs rooms full of museum quality vendors, we decided to hop on the turnpike and venture down to Bristol, PA to visit Ye Olde Cross Stitchery.  The last time I was in the area I had wanted to stop here but we ran out of time.  We got the impression this shop does more online business than walk-ins.  Still it was nice to visit a shop we hadn't been to before.

Of course I found a few things I couldn't live without too.  The beads and the red sparkle braid are for a Nora Corbett piece I want to start soon.  I rarely see banding locally so I picked up a small piece of that too.  I have no idea what I'll do with it but I'm sure I'll eventually figure something out.  The purple floss is a replacement for one I'm using on "Heaven Above."

Here's a comparison.  The one on the left is the new one and the one on the right is the one I already had.  It's interesting to me that the new one is from the old company and the one on the right is from the new one.  I understand that over-dyes vary from batch to batch too.  Anywho, I feel like the new one is more the same intensity as the rest of my floss and won't feel as heavy as the one I started out using.

Before we left the shop we asked for a recommendation for lunch.  We ended up here at the Golden Eagle Diner.  We don't have diners where we live so this was quite an experience!  Their menu was practically as big as the phone book.  So many choices it was hard to decide what to get!

This was the first thing we saw when we walked inside.  A huge pastry counter!  It was like there was a bakery in there with the restaurant.  Is this a normal thing for a diner?!  Holy smokes!

Even though we were stuffed from our sandwiches, we couldn't resist a the canoli.  We each took one of those with us to go for later consumption in the hotel.  And, yes, they were as good as they looked too.  Yum!

After lunch we made our way back to the hotel.  We decided we still had time to go back to the museum to check out the exhibits.  When we got there we decided to look around the first floor vendors again.  This time I had to pickup this homemade lucet from Liberty Linens.  It's made of the nicest maple and is super smooth.  It feels good in the hand.  It even came with the skein of floss and instructions.  I have a small collection of lucets after taking Sherri Jones' class.  Since it was getting close to closing time, we changed our plans and decided to check out the exhibits the next day.

On our way back to the hotel, we remembered we'd seen this roadside honey vendor.  She was still open so we stopped.  We each tried a couple samples before choosing our jar.  This is the sweetest honey ever.  The kind we got is a bit crystallized so it's spreadable.  Can't wait to try it on some biscuits.

Well folks on that sweet note I'm going to stop here for today.  There's more to come!  Stay tuned!


More next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

TUSAL - May

It's TUSAL Day!

(For those not familiar, click on the word TUSAL above or the link to the right.)

 

Hello stitchy friends.  Here we are at TUSAL day again.  I know I'm a day late but I have a good excuse.  More on that later.  LOL!  It feels like we just did a check in the other day.  Then again, I'm still amazed we are nearing the end of May too.  This year is speeding by us.  My granny used to say the years fly by the older you get.  I used to think that was just old people talk but now I believe it!  Does that make me one of the old people?  Hmm...oh, never mind.

 

Okay, enough of the silliness.  Here's a look at the ORT pile for the month.  The box above was made by my peep, Linda and gifted to me when she was my Secret Stitcher in 2011.  It's one of my favorite things.

 

Here's the list of this month's contributors:

"Speak to the Earth" by Donna Kooler Designs (In Progress)
"Heaven Above" by Midsummer Night Designs (In Progress)
"Love My Stitching" by Hands on Designs (In Progress)

Yep, it's a pretty boring list...isn't it?  Nothing much new to report this month.  I've been plugging away on all three.  "Heaven Above" has the most noticeable progress but you saw that already in my last post.

"Speak to the Earth" is coming along.  I'm toying with the idea of changing the queen stitches on this month's assignment.  Mine just don't look that good.  I don't mind doing them but they just don't suit me on this one.  We'll see how that shakes out.  

 

"Love My Stitching" is getting ever closer to being finished.  I'm a little more than half way there.  I'm thinking I want to change one of the motifs to my initials.  I need to chart that out to see if it will fit.  I was also lucky enough to find the perfect dot fabric for the lining this past weekend.  Now I really want to speed this one along so I can do the finishing and actually use it!

 

You may be wondering where I found that fabric?  My peep, Linda and I took a road trip last weekend to Pennsylvania to the Penn Dry Goods Market.  I found the fabric at a quilt shop in Bedford on the way home.  I plan to do a full report once I sort out my pictures.

 

One of the many trip highlights was getting to meet Chris of Tot Hill Farm Stitches while I was at the market.  It was just so fun to actually meet one of my blog friends in person.  Chris is just as sweet in person as she is on her blog.  Waves to Chris!

 

Hope your week is off to a good start.  Thanks for stopping by today.

More soon,

The Inspired Stitcher