Sunny Saturday in the UK

Yes I know it's kind of strange but at last the UK is seeing some sunshine - or at least this part of the West Country is!!!! Let me explain. For the last week or more it's been wall-to-wall thick grey clouds, strong winds and bucketing down rainstorms. Not nice to look out at, even worse to drive in on the freeway. However today has been sunny (although a bit breezy) and I'd almost forgotten what that blue stuff behind the clouds is - oh yeah, sky!!!! Now today my Big Sis is celebrating a family day - I would have travelled over but it's just too long a hop across the pond for a weekend!!! *grumps* Never mind, I've been stitching up a storm as well as making a lemon meringue pie for my friend Mandy who visited this morning - Big Sis isn't keen on lemon meringue pie. If I say as much myself, it was seriously YUMMM!!!!! I must say both Big Sis and Mandy are very rewarding to cook for - when Mandy arrived this morning I was elbowed aside with a cry of "You've been BAKING - wonderful!!!!!" Her (large!) slice disappeared in a wink and it never ceases to amaze me how something as simple as a homemade goody can bring such pleasure judging from her blissful smile!!! As well as entertaining this morning I've been stitching AND made a sausage casserole for the week with mashed potatoes. That along with salads should see me through the week for dinners - believe me after a day's work then half an hour's drive on the freeway I have to use to get to/from where I work I do NOT want to turn to and start cooking!!!! Apologies to those readers who travel farther to their place of work but it's all relative!!! Um . . . green melons were on sale today at the grocery store - these are pielo del sapo green skinned ones, a little like the honeydew variety but bigger and extremely YUMMM. I got two and feel very smug gazing in the fridge at the large bowl of melon chunks. As you may have gathered, good food is very important to me along with stitching!!!! Which reminds me, time for some more strawberries then back to stitching!!

A change to my blog

As you may have noticed from the post before, I've added my sis to the blog. She's a bit shy about having her own blog. She was worried she'd have a bad day, go on a major rant about her job, and get fired. I promised her I'd moderate her posts so that won't happen! (It wouldn't anyway, but now she won't worry!)

My Sis. Now, so no one gets confused here, let me explain. She's not my biological sister. She should be, though. Our theory is the stork had a bad night, and got a bit off course. She was left with a very lovely couple in England, but she was supposed to be left with MY parents. Well, done is done now. We've found each other and my folks have 'adopted' her. While we don't live in the same place, we talk and email every day. She even visits me in Michigan 3 times a year. (I know, I'm bad for not visiting her, but I don't fly.)

So, when you read our various posts, so you don't get confused, read sis' posts with a British accent, as she will post from England's west country. Read mine with a Mid-western accent from the United States. Trust me, it will all make much more sense that way!

WELCOME TO THE BLOG SIS!

Inroducing Little Sis

A very big HI *waves* I'm Sheri's little sis and she introduced (or should that be induced????!!!!) me to cross stitch a couple of years ago with a Lavender & Lace Angel project. I've done a few since then and am proud to be a model stitcher for my Big Sis but cannot boast the experience and number of projects Sheri has!! Once I'm comfy with my feet up I stitch away, little tongue sticking out the corner of my mouth and would be happy stitching all day but pesky work tends to get in the way!!!!! Of course I know it pays the bills and stuff but it would be wonderful to stitch away or cook up yummm food or just hang out with my Big Sis!!!! Today's menu features chicken stock made from scratch to be portioned out and frozen, sticky chicken wings which if I do say as much are seriously yummm and gourmet burgers with all the fixings!!! Sheri is a mean cook and her coconut chicken with salad is the best food in the world!!! Right now it's back to stitching for me - I'll post a couple of pix next time - along with some stitchy snacks and a big glass of iced coffee!!!!

A new finish

Forest Light is finally finished! She took exactly 100 days to complete (using tent stitching which is much faster than full crosses) and every spare second of my time. Now, after 5 years and 6 finished charts of over one stitching I think I've got that out of my system. (for now at least) My next project is started and I'm back to more traditional stitching of 2 x 2 and it seems nice to see those neat little squares all line up in both directions.

Update time

I know I've been neglectful of stitching updates. So, here are two of them. In the first, you can see I finally have the woman finished. It was a lot of confetti stitching, but turned out well, I think.












This one is the last pic I did. I didn't want to completely unroll the fabric on the scrolls, so you just see the current section. Just one more row of pages and she'll be finished. I can't wait to see her framed and in my living room.


On a personal note, I had some much needed time off last week. My sis came to visit and we just hung out, cooked yummy food, stitched, in short, had a girly week. Giggle, we even had a spa evening. No, no pics of us in the little spa booties on our feet, with mashed avocado and strawberry smeared all over our faces while we watched a movie, sipped pink champagne and nibbled crackers with soft goat cheese on them! I can tell you, we were visions though!!

You Never Stop Learning

I used to make my pictures for my works in progress on a scanner. Then I started stitching on a scroll rod. That was such a huge problem to take it off, and maneuver it onto the scanner that I bought a new camera to take pictures. (see how my mind works, scary, huh?)

Now I had a brand new digital camera and didn't know how to use it. I tried several settings, but the pictures were never very good. I decided to start taking a picture every night after I finished stitching to practice.

OK, now I had a bunch of pictures. Then I learned how to make a cool slideshow in photobucket, and just now have learned how to post it to my blog! (see left hand side for said slideshow).

I must say, there is a sense of accomplishment there. So, may I present the slideshow that takes my stitching to the half-way point with Forest Light. The original artwork is by Jonathan Earl Bowser.

The pictures still aren't the best, but I think they are getting better. I'm still practicing every night and will do another slideshow when I finish the next row of pages.

Back to my blog and some serious stitching again. I've been wanting to do this piece for ages. The artist is Jonathan Earl Bowser and the piece is called Forest Light.

I've been stitching on it at this point for 30 days and am almost 1/3 of the way finished. It's being stitched on 28 count Laguna fabric, 2 x 1 and using only half cross stitches. There is a lot of areas with the same color in them, so it's stitching up very fast.

That's good because the stitchers I hang out with on the internet were having a conversation a short while ago. The question was asked, "if you had unlimited money and time, what pattern would you stitch?" There were some beautiful patterns for answers, any of them I'd love to do. My ultimate pattern though was, well, extreme to say the least. There is this lady named Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts who has charted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This chart is 564 x 1114. That's 628,296 total stitches. Now, I love large projects, but this is huge, even by my standards.

I was answering the question, not intending to actually stitch the chart. I don't know what happened, but the thread took on a life of it's own and now these friends and I are planning to stitch our dream charts. I guess why not? Life is uncertain and when I'm 80 and maybe not able to stitch any longer, if I didn't at least try, I believe I'd regret it. So..... the chart is purchased. The fabric ordered. It takes over 600 skeins of floss. I'm using my master set of DMC to get it started, and now need to go through what I do have to see what I still need.

This chart will take me a good long time, but I've always loved the art on the ceiling of the chapel. I remember when National Geographic did a layout of the restoration of the art, I wore the mag out looking at the pictures. I can't wait to get to know this wonderful art, one stitch at a time.

I also, briefly toyed with the idea of charting this art myself, since I do chart historic art to stitch. I looked long and hard at Joanna's chart and truly believe it can't be improved. To that end, there is no reason to even try. I'll stitch her marvelous work. I'm starting a new blog just for the project. I'll post a link to it when I have it ready.

I hope anyone who stumbles onto this little blog will join myself and the others that will be stitching their own dream charts to keep my company in our journey.