What I've Been Up To...UPDATED

Some more floss dyeing...
I went ahead and dyed the rest of that "garage sale" floss last week. I did not keep track of color numbers and I didn't get a photo before but the outcome is luscious!






I just love how these turn out and it is so much FUN!!! I would encourage you to try this. See my earlier post with link.

I am now going to do this more methodically. I am going to do like 6 of each of a few colors at a time so I can keep track of the befores and afters. I think I have plenty of pinks/reds for now and plan on doing some blues and greens next.


Progress on my recent start...
I am loving BBD's "Awake the Dawning Day". However, I must admit I almost quit while working the letters. I was getting a little bored. As soon as I started with the flower pot and worked up, adding new colors, it came to life. I love the colors and these pictures won't do it justice.




A little shopping...
Last Tuesday, I went along with my friend, Joan, on a little field trip. We drive to Osage, Iowa, (approx. 2 hours SW) to meet WendyJo, (who drove approx. 3 hours NW). I wasn't able to go last time Joan met up with her so I was excited to go this time. It was a small little town but right on Main St. was a large cross stitch store and a quilt store. And in between was a pub and grille that was very good. We spent about 4 hours there between the 3 establishments and had a great time. It was very nice to meet WendyJo in person. I wasn't smart enough to bring my camera and have been waiting for the others to post so I could "borrow" theirs but they haven't done so yet. You will have to watch their blogs for a picture. We plan on meeting again at possibly some different venues. Thank you Joan and WendyJo for a lovely day!

UPDATE: Here is a picture of us in the quilting store!



Over the weekend I ran to a local quilt store to pick up a pattern I had ordered and ran into a couple of other treasures I had to have. One of which was this...


Isn't she cute! Being it was Easter, I had to have it. Besides, they only had 1 left so I think it was meant to be.


I think that's about it for now. Thanks for visiting and I appreciate all of the wonderful comments.

Happy Stitching :)

JillMN

Shopping From Your Stash

After finishing my Hello Spring, I decided to work some more of my project for our retreat in August. We are stitching With My Needle's "My Needle's Worke Box". I finished my 5th square but really wanted to keep working on it. Soooo, since I hadn't decided what to work on next, I decided to do all the stitching with the perle cotton, which is mostly 4-sided and back stitched borders. I kept going even still and now I only have the cross stitching to do on the top square. I will be happy when this is done. I can't remember if we are finishing these at retreat or not. It is so time consuming to do this kind of thing at retreat and we really love to just stitch.

I now needed to decide what to work on next...
Once again, I had to "browse" through my stash as I was looking for a Birds of a Feather pattern that I knew I had. I still haven't found the pattern I was looking for but I came across 7 BBD patterns that I didn't realize I had. You see, I keep all of my BBD patterns together in a large pouch and these 7 were not in there. I was on the old Loose Feathers automatic so I have quite a few...and alot of them with fabric and some (as I found out) even with the fibers. When I found a BBD pattern with the fabric AND the fibers, it was a no brainer. This is what I will stitch next.


I do love the colors in this one, especially my 2 favorite...purple and green! It's not too big so it should be fairly quick.


Another thing I did this weekend was I overdyed some floss. While surfing the net, I came across, Primitives by the Light of the Moon, that showed how she did it. It seemed fairly easy and since I had everything that was needed, I figured I would give it a shot.

My friend Viki, the garage sale queen, had given me a big floss of assorted floss some time ago so I went through this and picked 3 colors that had multiple skeins.



I used DMC #435, #891 and #434. I followed her directions using the Tan dye. Here is how they looked after dyeing and dried.



The #434 doesn't show too much color change as it was probably too dark for tan to do anything. But I love the others. I undid the skeins and wound them.

#434...


#891...


#435...


This was very fun and I really love the results...especially the red! I will be doing this again for sure. When I get some more dye, I am going to go ahead and do the rest of the bag.


I think that's all I have for now. Happy Stitching :)

JillMN