An exchange received and a B/day present sent

I was just so lucky it is totally unreal!  Vivi and I arranged an exchange to happen last Chanukkah but one way and another it never kinda happened.  So I wrote to her and suggested we turn it into a birthday exchange instead.  And she said no - how about a Purim exchange?  I said sure and then realized we only had until sort of the 20th of February to mail her mine because Purim is actually today - well from sundown yesterday until sundown today (Saturday 27/02 to Sundown 28/02). 

Fortunately for me Vivi posted her part of the exchange last Monday whilst I was kind of having a nervous breakdown and crying a lot and couldn't see straight because of all the tears, and I never cry, but between last Sunday and Wednesday night I managed to cry a whole 60 years worth of tears so I didn't manage to finish what I was sending to her until Thursday instead when I could finally see straight.  I'm not saying what all that was about because it was very personal and anyway I don't know the outcome of any of it yet.

So without further ado this is what I received in a huge box (and I mean HUGE) from Vivi who lives in Israel:

What you are seeing is a postcard from Jerusalem, a packet of Fruit tea and almost, but not quite, best of all was the very heavy box of Hamentaschen which I LOVE, so it has to be really fattening and you know what?  For once in my life I don't care!  They are truly delicous.  But the very very best thing Vivi sent was:

 The Front of the Threadkeeper

The back of the Thread-keeper.  Read what it says, the verse is amazing.

The Thread-keeper being used by moi immediately because  I LOVE IT SO MUCH and thank you so very much Vivi you are a true star.  The stitching and finishing are just totally awesome and I will do an exchange with you any day of the week.

Now as to the Birthday present.  It was Irene's birthday on Saturday and to celebrate it I sent her:

 This is the front of the Indigo Rose Needlebook that I made and sent to her

This is the back of the Needlebook.

I really enjoyed both the stitching of this and the making up of it (believe it or not).  It just came out much smaller than I thought it would but it was sweet, I think.

I also sent her:

The Dresser Drawer Kit by Shepherds Bush and I hope she liked it because it will be a lot of fun for her I think, okay I hope.  We have been procrastinating over stitching Briar Rose that we have to stitch.  I hope you had a great birthday Irene.

Well that's it for now peeps so until next time ...

Lots of Love
Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

My UFOs + a GORGEOUS Bag

Hi,

It's me again.  I know two postings in 2 days.  Well if you have read my PS you will know how my mouth got me into trouble yet again, so I won't dwell on that one.


I have decided to show you my UFOs because Chris emailed me, we have been emailing for about a year now, and asked me how many UFOs I had and I said a few and she then emailed back again and asked me how many a few were and I was going to say two or three and then I really looked for them and counted them up and there were SIX!!!  Yes you heard me right 6!  Well 6 is my lucky number but it's also part of 666 which refers to the devil so I have to decide what to do with them and here goes with number 1 of 6!

Patience by Just Nan

I'm sure I started this when it came out 11 years ago when I was really into Just Nan.  I have done maybe half of it and I am thinking of selling it on eBay because I just know deep down that I will never ever finish it.  It has been languishing upstairs for at least 10 years if not more.  So the camera is coming out and eBay here I come!

 

Cynthia's Sampler by Just Nan

 Now this one I think I started around 7 or 8 years ago or so after I had made if for our elder Daughter Sara-Jane for Chanicmas (a combination of Hanukkah & Christmas) and loved stitching it so much that I started it again.  This one I will definitely finish one of these day so it's staying where it is.

This, I am sorry to say, I stole off of somebody's Picturetrail (sorry can't remember who but then again what else is new??)  This is 20 Flowers by Just Nan and was designed for The Silver Needle for their 20th Anniversary so I think it must be around 5 years old.  I have about 20 stitched to put in this but you know me I procrastinate.  I used to not be able to make up my mind but now I just procrastinate all the time.  I will do it before I send my next lot to be finished by Deb I promise.

Catherine Agnes by Indigo Rose

Now this one I know I started around 3 years ago.  I don't have much left to do on this one either.  G-d knows why I didn't finish it.  Oh I remember why.  It was because I couldn't, and still can't, for the life of me remember how to do the Doves' Eyes that are required for the hardanger. But I will learn and finish it.   So nothing is happening to this one either.

Love Letters by Shepherds Bush

SB is definitely one of my very favorite designers.  Why didn't I finish this?  I think I started this around 3 years ago and I think I ran out of the white that was needed and I quit stitching it.  But I shall get some white AVAS and get going on this again as soon as I can, which will be after I have stitched 3 more Exchanges and my 3 pre-stitch pieces for the Jackie duPlesis classes I am attending at the end of May.

And last but buy no means least there is:

  

The  Threadkeeper by Hillside Sampler

This I think I started around 2 years ago (I stole the picture from Debs' finishing album I am warning you that once you get on this Album it will be a LONG time before you leave it)  and it is sitting having nothing done on it in this gorgeous bag that my friend Sandra made for me (see below for the bag because it just dawned on me that I never ever thanked Sandra publically for so here goes:

This first photo is of the whole bag and the second one is of the middle part of the bag that Sandra appliqued and stitched adding buttons as well.  It is truly beautiful and I really thank you from the bottom of my heart Sandra and so sorry I haven't done this before. 

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

Some people are just so disappointing

I was still entered into into two specific exchanges.  One was the Lizzie Kate exchange and the other one was the Blackbird Design exchange.  Well I am sorry to have to say that neither partner has had the courtesy to tell me that they had received my exchange and they were both mailed over 2 weeks ago so I have decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I am going to post the photos of them that I took before I mailed them.

 

This is the Lizzie Kate exchange that I sent.  It is called February Stamp (or something close to that) and I really enjoyed stitching it once I got to grips with it.  If I stitched the outline of that heart once I stitched it 5 or 6 times. So what I did in the end was stitch the inside of the heart and then the outside and gosh did that work better.

I did receive a pinkeep in exchange but have yet to take a photo of it.  Sorry I just keep on forgetting but I will remember soon and it's dark now so it wouldn't work properly as the photo in a previous post proves.

And this is the Blackbird Design that I stitched and finished.  I know it was supposed to finished as a heart but I really didn't have enough confidence to finish it that way.  I did use the same linen on the back of it though and pulled a thread from the linen to finish the stitching by hand to finish it off.  I thought it was fussy enough that it didn't need any bows or anything and really loved stitching and finishing this.

Joanie is the woman that hosts the Blackbird Exchange and she told me that three people, including me and her, didn't receive their exchange pieces.  She has written to the people concerned that were supposed to send them but so far has not had a reply.  Such a shame really as it puts such a sour note into an otherwise lovely experience.

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

P.S. The reason I haven't heard from Heather whom I both received my exchange from and sent the exchange is because she hasn't received it yet!  And more importantly she never received the thank you note I sent to her either - talk about the pot calling the kettle black!  I did write a thank you note to her but I guess it got lost in the ether so maybe I shouldn't have been so judgmental and just should have shown you what I had stitched and not said anything else and kept my big mouth shut!

Not only have the FROGS moved in BUT ....

I am such a crap friend it is impossible to believe.  Angela made me THE most gorgeous scissor fob to celebrate the birth of Oliver last year.  You remember Smoliver - he's my latest grandson and is the gorgeous one (and NO I do not think I'm prejudiced at all - NOT MUCH) in the posting below.  Well this scissor fob is equally gorgeous and here it is both front and back and I really love it - I mean REALLY love it.  It has been stitched and finished beautifully to say the least.

and that isn't all the work Angela put into it  because besides cross stitching an outline she also back-stitched round both the front and back so that the finish would be whipstitched.  It really is gorgeous and Angela I am really really sorry I didn't put photos of this on before now because I honestly thought I had.


Now for the FROGS which have invaded my house bigtime.  I have been prestitching the first of the four class pieces for our upcoming Jackie duPlesis classes we are having here in the U.K. and to say I am excited is putting it so mildly it just isn't true!  


Here is the photo of it before I frogged:

Sorry about the darkness of the photo but I took it last night when it was dark before I started frogging it.  It is over one and Jackie says it is on 32count fabric but I have the funniest feeling that it is on 36.  So what have I frogged.

Well to begin with I decided to start from the middle which I never normally do but this time I wanted it to be perfect so I did.  So what did I do wrong?  Well I counted fifteen threads to the right but forgot to count fifteen threads up or down so it wouldn't have been in the middle at all but slightly down.  Okay so I had only done half of the stitches of the middle box and I frogged the whole thing and then started again.


Error No. 2!  I didn't read the chart correctly now did I?  Nosireebobsky I didn't!  The box and the middle are supposed to be stitched in a light cream color and what did I stitch them in you ask?  GREEN!!!  Different symbol.  Didn't look at it right.  So now I am frogging again and when Angela came around today, after is had snowed like a blizzard for around 15 minutes and then hailed - lot of fun now and then the sun came out so first she was coming and then she wasn't, she lives around an hour away from me further north and had had this weather first so could predict exactly what was going to happen, and you know what?  It happened exactly like she said it would!  So much snow came down in 15 minutes there was a total blanket of it.

Okay back to the frogging.  She is sitting here thinking I am such a wimp for taking so long in frogging such a little bit but then she started to frog some for me and apologised and said she didn't think it was 32 count either.  So I have decided that tonight I am going to stitch something else and give myself a little frogging break.

I have to frog the middle box and the two lines either side.  I HATE FROGGING.

Finally here is what it WILL look like when it's finished:

 

 

Update on the above piece:  I decided to finish frogging tonight and I'm sure Angela doesn't know but when she was frogging this afternoon she inadvertently cut a thread so I have to start the piece again.  I'm really not that bothered to be honest because I had frogged on that piece so much that the fabric was beginning to look weird to say the least!  I have written to Jackie to ask her what make, color and count it was so I can replace it.  No biggie honest it isn't,though to hear me earlier you would have thought something dreadful had happened! And at the same time Stacy (dd 2) was cutting the dog's nails and I was having 10,000 conniptions over this too!  And she cut one too short and my poor little dog was bleeding!

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

A Quilt for Smoliver

Who or what is Smoliver I hear you ask.  Well Smoliver is a combination of Oliver's Hebrew name and English name and my son James, Smoliver's Daddy, has started calling him that and it has just stuck.  Would you like to see an up-to-date photo of him?  Well here is one just in case you need to see it:

And here is his quilt.  Now I was going to hand quilt this and then changed my mind because although the front would have looked awesome (at least I think it would have) the back would have looked dreadful and you will see why when you look at the back.  Because what I was going to do was hand stitch the outline of the words, vines, trees, moon, stars and the animals but somehow I don't think  it would have worked:

 

The Front of it with Grandpa holding it for me

The back of it

Here are some close-up photos of it:

The Top of the Front

The bottom of the Front

Some of the back

(this was taken with the quilt laying on my couch)

Can you see what I mean by the back looking awful?  Well in my humble opinion it would have.  So instead of my hand-stitching it all I had it quilted by a professional who knew what she was doing. I used a lady called Ferret (it is a nickname and I never asked her why) and I would highly recommend her if you want your quilt to be as beautifully quilted as Oliver's was.  She is truly amazing and if you enlarge the photos by clicking on them Ferret used thread that changed color and the swirls are just gorgeous and Ferret is one amazing quilter!

I started to hand-stitch the edging which was the only thing she left for me to do but unless I am using linen which has holes in it I have decided that my hand-stitching sucks so I frogged it and used my sewing machine and only hand-stitched the corners.

This was a panel which is cot (crib) size and I purchased everything she needed except for the cotton (thread) to stitch it with.  Danielle and James were delighted when I took it to them this evening and to be honest the only thing I did was the edging.  Bad bad Grandma!  Maybe I should stitch him a Birth Sampler when I get some time. 

Until next time then...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

I was so excited this morning I just could have ...

SPIT!!!  No not really but my excitement level was really high, and I mean HIGH!  I don't know if you remember but some time back I won a box and purse from Susan.  Well this very large box arrived this morning and to say I couldn't open it fast enough was way beyond how excited I was.  So open it I did and out of it popped (okay it didn't pop I took it out of the large box)......

 all of this.  Okay it wasn't all together in one place because some of it was in a great zip bag.  I am going to show you it all separately so you can see it up close and personal and I loved it all so much and Susan was overly generous.  She said she felt bad because I had waited so long for it all but I really really would have been more than satisfied with what she had promised in the first place - in fact I would have been really happy with just ....

... this which is the box and the Garden Pleasures is stitched on top and Susan stained the box and at the bottom of it she put the most gorgeous paper on it.  I has pride of place on my window cill.

Next is the purse which is just gorgeous both inside and out and here it is:

This is the front of it and here is the inside

which has been stitched and made by Susan who is a wonderful finisher.  But I have not finished .... not by a long shot I haven't .... next

Susan stitched this in black as yet another giveaway and had this one on her website at the same time and emailed me and said that she hoped I liked pink.  Like pink you say!  I LOVE pink with a vengeance.  In fact my living room has been pinked out!  And this is not all she says.  Yes there is more and here it is ....

Susan stitched me this totally gorgeous scissor fob which I really love to pieces.  It is beautifully stitched and finished and okay it isn't pink but it is RED and I love that too - no not for my living room silly but for stitching!  And she finished it just like a C.A. Wells piece and although I went to two of her classes I have no idea how to finish like she taught.  And that is not all because along with the Scissor Fob she sent these too ....

Yes you are seeing correct. Susan mailed me another pair of my favorite scissors and I have never owned a Swan pair before and I love the fact that they are in a silver color because I am not that keen on gold to be honest - anything gold I call Jewish Renaissance (I can say this because I'm Jewish and I HATE gold colored things) AND two skeins of Waterlilles which were just my colors and tape measure and some mints.

and this is the rest:

This shows the back of the scissor fob that I love and a Clover Cutting thing which I didn't have until now.  Talk about spoiled!  Boy oh boy did Susan ever spoil me.  Just wait until I get my own back on you girl.  I can't thank you enough is was just too too much but I did love it all enormously!  THANK YOU SO MUCH SUSAN!
So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt