stitcher. I am joined here as always by my little Pepper-ita, my little Oscar
Pepper. I tried to get her up in that chair and she was not having it so just know
she's with us. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, or had a wonderful
weekend depending on how quickly I get this up.
Here in the Bay Area, it was
ten thousand degrees. It was a rough, it's a really rough weekend. We had a
massive heat wave which broke all kinds of records and it was over 100 in
all the cities, including San Francisco. Which is unheard of.
It was HOT and we
are not prepared for that, there's not a lot of air conditioning and we're a very
pathetic group when it comes to extreme heat. So we coped... We went to the beach, we
found places with air conditioning and just camped out there. It was a rough, it was a rough week but
we all made it through.
Right, Pepper? She was not a fan, I gave her a lot of
ice pillowcases- put in the freezer and then she would lay on them. We all
made it; it was actually kind of a nice treat in one way because we went to the
beach on Saturday and typically the Pacific Ocean is a pretty chilly place,
so it's rare to get a really good warm beach day, but this was an exceptionally
hot beach day where we actually got to swim in the Pacific Ocean for any amount
of time we wanted without freezing and it was really nice to actually get to
play in the waves. Typically you would have a few people who like run in and
out, or those who have wetsuits and are surfing and no one else is really in the
water. Which is fine, because it's very...
It's very breezy and wonderful but we got to actually swim and body surf and play in the ocean and it was so much fun.
So it's like the one gift of the heatwave. However, now it's going to be like mid 70s today and all this week, so
we were back to normal it feels so nice. I'm filming this really early in the morning
because our apartment does tend to get pretty hot, we're on the third floor so
we get a lot of everyone else's heat as it rises, so I am anticipating that it
will get toasty in here even though it's not too hot today so we're doing this
really early. It is too hot for hair and makeup.
I got my iced coffee and got a lot to share with you. Like a lot, it's been a
while; it's been like a month since we last talked. I work in education, so this
is a really crazy back-to-school time of year. It's been kind of nice because my
job is really fun and challenging to be back in it and really pushed to
my limit, but in a really, just like a really good challenging way.
There are a lot of puzzles that my brain gets to work out, a lot of problems to
solve, a lot of decisions to make and it's just nice to see everything that
we've been planning and planning and planning actually happening.
But it's
very tiring, so I have not gotten a ton of stitching in this month. I have some...
Really I just haven't gotten any stitching in the last two weeks but
before that I had a good chunk and I'm hoping I'll be able to come back sooner
than a month from now, but who knows. I have a lot to share, I have a lot of WIP updates as far as... My last video we talked about kind of my WIP anxiety on
how many do I want, what do I do, and how do I work on them.
So many of you
responded with what you do and with advice and it was so helpful to help me
kind of sift through all of my ideas and thoughts and really filter it down to a
few actionable things. So we'll talk about that. I reached a few discoveries, I have three new starts to share-- one of them is
already finished. So a finish and two new starts, progress on my other two pieces.
I have a non stitching finish to share, I.
Have a lot of thrift finds to share with
you all, I have a couple books, I have a couple shout outs, probably some other
things that I'm forgetting but hopefully I'll get to them. So we just got a lot, a
lot to do. So let's jump into it. We will start I guess talking a little bit
more about WIPs.
So like I said a lot of you shared advice and just
shared what you do and why and it was just so helpful -that's my laundry timer- to read about and you know all of you really do whatever works for you; I'm
just so grateful for all of your advice because there is no right or wrong
answer, right? It's like whatever works best for you, but I didn't know
what worked best for me. But now I have made a few discoveries, so the first of
which is that I really love having at least one small project going at a time.
Because it feels so good to finish those. Duh. So that was really helpful, to really solidify that yes I want to have
something that is little.
Always something small that I can
work on to really have a project where I. Can see quick progress on things as a
nice change from like a big full-coverage monster. So that was a
helpful, helpful little thing. And the second thing I discovered is that I hate
starting things I will put it off until the end of time.
So I started three
things in one day and it was amazing! I. Just sat down,
ironed, counted, I put in the first couple lengths of thread and I have three
projects that are ready to go and ready to be worked on whenever I feel like it
without me saying 'well I don't really want to take the time to actually
start it. Because I'd noticed I was doing that a lot.. I want to work on house of cooking but...
I don't want to start it. So I started all
the things and I think that's something I will do in the future, just every two
months, three months, I don't really know what it will be; but just to set aside a
few hours to start multiple projects. It is a total game changer,
and if you are like me and don't like starting things, I totally recommend it
because now I have things that are just ready to be worked on when I feel like
it and not just sitting forever untouched. Let's see, the third thing that
I found was that I was really looking to add some structure to my stitching
because I didn't want it to be super regimented like a really strict rotation.
And at the time I didn't have a lot of pieces I was working on anyway but I
liked the idea of having at least a little bit of guidance so that if I sat
down to stitch but didn't really know what I wanted to stitch I could just
look at a list pick it up and go.
So I've settled on an approach that so far is
working really well for me to choose like two or three projects and set a
really specific progress goal for those for the end of the month. So I have some
goals that I'm working towards for the end of September, I set them in the
middle of August, so six weeks - whatever. And so I'm working towards those goals
but it gives me enough flexibility that I can stitch on other things in the
meantime and once I reach those goals, I. Can either go ahead and set my next
month or just stitch on whatever I feel like and it has totally changed the way
that I stitch, which has been really really nice.
So my goals for that in
September, I'll share these pieces and well I can just share them right now. My
first goal for the end of September was to finish my Oh Whale, there we go. This
is to the beach, hands on design by Kathy Haberman. Oh whale; so cute.
My
goal is to finish this piece because it's pretty small, it's like five by
seven. And I was really excited to do it and
we've been redecorating the apartment and this has a place to go in out
bathroom so I wanted to make sure it happened. I started this as one of my
three projects and then this was the one that I kept wanting to pick up so I just
kept working on it and then it was done in like four days and it was amazing.
And look at that, ah! Oh whale. I love it so much.
I don't think these are
picking up super well on camera but these... This is like a mint green little
whale spouts, I love it. I think it's hilarious.
This is stitched in gentle arts which was my first time using gentle arts and
I really enjoyed it. I don't think it's picking up, well you can see that one a
little bit.
It gives the whales some nice splotchiness, which I think looks great.
And I really liked stitching in overdid threads and I will do that in the
future to be sure. Um, quick sidebar I. Smashed my thumb in a window yesterday, because I'm me. So if I randomly say ow,
that's why.
It doesn't look gross yet, it's getting a little bruised. It's very very
tender, so if I'm randomly shouting in pain, I promise I'm actually fine. Anyway,
I stitched this in all the called for threads in gentle arts; I stitched this
on a 32 count lugana in the color platinum, which is like a light tan color
it looked pretty close to the picture. I.
Need to learn how to center my work. Oh
well; oh whale! And then I did make a couple changes, very very small ones. This
little banner under this whale, it's got the mint doodads. I don't know;
they were supposed to being gray which is the same color as the biggest whale
and I thought that looked really clunky and strange plus where this is going in
the bathroom we have another print in there that has the same mint and the
same kind of terracotta/coral color.
So I. Wanted a little bit more mint in there
to match it and I think that looked really nice. And then this anchor was
supposed to be stitched in the same color as the border, which I I didn't
like because it didn't stand out like it could, so I just put it in
grey. So I was super proud of my color-changing abilities and I'm just
really proud of this piece.
I have a frame for it but since I did not center
it very well I had to go get a mat for it, so that's one of my goals this
weekend is to finish framing this and get it up. So hopefully I will get to it.
I was gonna do it last night but it was really hot, so I just laid on the floor
with a fan and a wet pillowcase across my person. Okay; oh that chart is going
to my mom who has a couple other others in the series and maybe once she
stitches hers I will take them and add to my collection. Okay moving on, I hope
I'm making sense because I have my iced coffee here and I have not finished my
iced coffee and that is kind of unheard of.
Excuse me; usually I drink my coffee
first thing in the morning, it's almost 9:00 I've been up for three hours and I
haven't finished my coffee. I don't know if any of this will make sense. But it's
fine; let's keep going. This one I have to take out of q snap; my next new
start was a cute little piece that I.
Received from itty bitty stitchy Brittany.
This is house of cooking, I love it so much. It's my first time stitching
anything in this like primitive style and I'm really enjoying it. This is what
I have so far. House of cooking; it's a pretty little
piece that just goes over probably about here for the rest of the house
maybe less than that.
I was working on this after work this month and I
made a really really in a really big counting error so down here there's a
couple windows and a shelf and I had those totally stitched and I was feeling
so proud of myself and I was ready to start stitching the lady who goes right
here and I realized I put my windows right up where her face is supposed to
be. So I spent a couple hours ripping out a lot of stitching and it was the first
time I've had to do that where I wasn't just ripping out some like some little
mistake that I caught right away. It was rough; so I haven't I haven't stitched
since I did that earlier this week. I'm stitching this on a piece of 32
count Belfast linen that I got at a thrift store.
My first thrift store cross stitch find and what I thought was going to be
my only until I went to a thrift store this week. I don't love stitching on
linen, it it makes me really nervous because some of the... Some of it is just
really uneven and it all looks totally fine once it's in place but it it makes
me super nervous to stitch. But I'm really, I'm really enjoying that I'm
excited to finish this soon.
My goal-- I. Have like a secondary goal if I finished
the whales early was to finish at least half of house of cooking so we're on to
a good start with that even with my mistake and yeah I'm just really loving that piece. So my third and final new start was this
ink circles chalkboard mandala, which I bought at a
shop in Kentucky and I really love this. It's my first time stitching on hand
dyed fabric; isn't that pretty.
I don't know how well it's picking up
but it's got a real nice, it's grey. That's all I need in life, just gray; this
is hand dyed fabrics... Hand dyed fabrics by Stephanie. And I am
obsessed; I chickened out and I just got aida because when I ordered it I hadn't
stitch than anything else and I was gonna get the call for linen I
think, but I just got aida which is fine.
So this is a 16 count aida;
there's my start. I really love this piece; I really love ink circles.
I love stitching in just one color, it is so quick and so handy. I also feel like
it is really efficient, I'm not wasting any thread and that makes me happy and I
just really love it. I've loved patterns like this that are just like a
mandala or some type of geometric print and symmetric whatever;
I haven't actually stitched anything like it before so I'm loving it.
I want
to go stitch all of all of these patterns I can find. So that is it for my
New Starts. I started those three; started the three pretty much just worked on the
whales until it was done and now I'm pretty much just working on house of
cooking; so I might pull this one out during the week because I don't super
trust my counting skills while work is so crazy.
So we'll see what I end up doing this week. Quick update on project bag
life: I love it so much and I really really want to figure out how
to make my own but I don't have a sewing machine so we'll see how that goes.
But I
really love how nice and tidy this is compared to my tote bag system which is
what I typically done just like totally fine but looks kind of sloppy and boring
in comparison. That's a problem for later. So let's move on; my second cross stitch...
I put it on the bed and she's coming to lay on top of it. Yep, new cat pillow.
My second goal for the end of September was related to my little Harry
Potter's sampler piece.
So last time you saw this I had half of Hermione and I
had half of Ron I've now finished the three of them which was, my goal was to
finish Harry. This is my new needle minder that I got from Drew of Weasley
Studios; he very kindly sent me a little Harry Potter package and he was like you
need you need a Harry Potter needle minder and I said yes I do.
So Dumbledore has been a great help on this Harry Potter piece; I love having a
real needle minder and not just a cheap magnet. I love having one that actually
matches my pattern, I totally understand why that is so adorable and appealing
and I love it. This is from Jen of delicious threads and I highly recommend
that you go check her out.
I also have complained and commented and angst over
the colors in this pattern every time I've talked about it and I'm here to
tell you officially that I am accepting the colors as charted. I'm just not.. I'm
not going to complain about them because I am clearly not going to do anything
about it, I'm just going to complain. I've yet to really make any big
substitutions and I'm just going to embrace it and
be happy with them, so you can hold me, you can hold me to that please; I
have changed a couple little things like Harry was charted to have like a
little badge here and then his scarf was just on one side and I didn't think that
he deserved a badge because, like Hermione's a prefect so she's got a
badge, Ron has his scarf that kind of covers it, maybe he has his prefect badge
I don't know.
And I was like Harry could have his Quidditch captain badge but I
didn't like it so I gave him I just gave him an off-centered scarf because I
thought that was very Harry, that he would be untidy; so I really love
love how they turned out. I have one more row of characters below
them so that's probably gonna be my goal for the end of October. I might go
ahead and start working on now if I feel like it; I think it's Hagrid,
Dumbledore, and Dobby, so I'm really loving them. This is a pattern by stitch
line on Etsy and I recommend it, it's very very cute.
Oh they're so cute, so that's Harry.
One more WIP to talk about; Okay you can't see a whole lot, let's
roll that; I don't have... Let's talk about scroll frames for a second. This is
Hogwarts, my goal for the end of September is to
finish this page, so I'm about halfway done. I really love this piece; Hogwarts
castle at night.
I love it so much; it's a lot of black and navy, so I have to
really be... I'm at a point right now where it's kind of boring no matter to stitch black and navy; so my goal is to finish this and then I think I
might put this away for a month or two. Well, let's talk about frames; this frame I
bought on Amazon about a year ago it is a goncharoff, something like that.
It's got little clips that attach your fabric to the scroll bars; oh there they
are. Just these little plastic clips and I.
Really liked it it was like $50 I think.
And it's a really nice lap stand. At the time that I bought it there were a lot
of sizes available, so there were a lot of these bars and you could buy bigger
or smaller so this was kind of their medium frame but they had I think like
four or five sizes and I just thought it great I'll try this out if I like it
I'll get another size. And obviously this piece doesn't fit on here; I've
just I had rolled it up on the side to make sure that I liked having this frame
before I spend more money on it. I went back to buy longer frame and they don't
sell them on Amazon anymore and I.
Can't find them anywhere else and I
don't know if I could just find another similar piece um like it just has a
little screw I feel like I could find something that has the same size screw
or my dad is an engineer and I bet he could help me figure this out if I bring
it home. But if anyone has this frame or has any idea of what I'm talking,
about please please let me know if you know where I could find longer bars or
if you have advice for mixing brands of frames, because that would be really
great. It's pretty simple, it's just a wooden dowel with a wooden rod
and then it's got a little groove for the clips but it should be pretty simple
to hack, I'm hoping. But if anyone knows please let me know, because this clearly,
rolling it on two sides isn't not going to work for me.
So I need to switch this over
to something else. Anyway that is all of my stitching progress. Okay let's talk about the thrift store. I.
I am NOT a skilled thrift store
shopper, it is not one of my gifts. I. Really like the concept to find things
to reuse and repurpose, I love that in theory. But in reality I get really
overwhelmed really fast, so I can enjoy about the first five minutes and then my
brain just needs clutter everywhere and I just can't handle it.
So I'm
not really good at picking through that to find new potential for things.
I wish that I had a better eye for that because I like it in theory. But there is
a really cool thrift store near me that is like a creative reuse center, so they
have a lot of different a lot of typical thrift store things like frames and
mugs and jars and baskets and random normal thrift items. But then they
also have a huge section of different like craft and art supplies, so it's
a place where a lot of teachers will go if you're doing like a craft project and
you need toilet paper tubes they have them. If you need a random assortment of
Legos, they have them.
They have all kinds of things, some that are typical
craft supplies like paint brushes and half used bottles of paint, yarn, lots of
stickers, lots of pins, lots and lots and lots of things. A lot of kind of
unconventional materials like you can get... When I went in I pulled out a
bin and it was full of like plastic soap dispenser with pumps. I don't know what
you would do with that but I'd be super curious to see some artwork made with
that it's just a really cool place.
And they have a lot of cool stuff but it
is not like super well organized. I. Pulled out a bin that said buttons and
it was full of bouncy balls. So you have to really really look; they
try to sort things, they try to label things but it's a total mess.
It
also stresses me out because most things are not priced, they just kind of give
you a price up at the front, so that makes me nervous. Anyway, they have a couple sections of with knitting and textile things. Hi pepper. They have a big
section of fabric and yarn and random crafty textile things but again not
super well sorted, so I've been in the past and mostly just found knitting
stuff.
I did find one chart that came with a piece of that piece of linen and
I got that. She's very into a piece of bubble wrap down here. Anyway I've looked before,
I've not had a lot of luck; but this time I went in and I was like I might as well.
I went looking for frames but obviously, I. Might as well check out their craft
fabric-y section and I found a shelf that had a bunch of magazine holder
boxes full of crafty charts and things.
And they were on the back of the shelf,
so there was a ton of stuff in front that I had to move and a lot of them
were knitting related but a lot of them were cross stitch. And oh my goodness do
you see that I got all that at the thrift store. So I went through and it
was I mean there were I probably look through like 200 books of things there's
a lot of knitting and a lot of sewing and crocheting and quilting
things that I obviously skipped over. But there were a lot of cross-stitch; I
sorted through and kind of you know didn't get anything that was
really ugly or outdated, I tried to only pick up things that I knew that I
wanted to stitch for the had at least one small part that I wanted to stitch
or that I kind of- based on what I've seen around the cross-stitch world
online things that I knew I could probably find a home for.
None of these
were priced there were a couple that had like old stickers from their previous
lives in previous shops; there were a couple that were marked as a dollar or
fifty cents but I couldn't tell if that was from this shop or not. So I
just kind of grabbed anything that looked good and figured if they super
overpriced... Super overcharged me I would go through and filter a little bit more.
But I got like twenty some charts; I'm not going to go through everything but I
will share just a couple, a couple highlights. Zthe first one I just showed, I got a Mirabilia, this is the kiss.
It is a pattern from '95; it is out of
print, but not too hard to find online. And it's really pretty,
I don't think I'm gonna stitch it myself. But I was thinking I might, oh well. I
might see if I can trade this for another pattern that's my hope.
I'll add
all of these, all these goodies I. Obviously have a few things that I want
to stitch, my mom has claimed a few things that I also wanted to be able to
share some things. I haven't figured out what that will be or how I will do it, so
stay tuned in the future for that. A.
Lot of this is old, so I don't want to
like sprinkle around and stick people with junk, like cross stitch junk that they
don't want but if it's cross-stitch junk that they do want, not that it's junk but you know what I mean. I'm not gonna send you a pattern from the 80s if you definitely
don't want to stitch that. So we'll talk about
it more in the future, but oh! I was just so excited cuz I don't have like a big
stash at all ,and now I have my own library which is very cool so this is definitely the crowning jewel of my collection, but I
did find three other recent pieces. Most of this is from the 90s a few
things from the 80s but then I found three things from this decade or at
least from the 2000.
So the first one is from my big toe cross stitch designs
and it's just a little piece that says this too shall pass.
Which comes from a Bible verse. I don't like a lot of text in my personal
decorating, so I probably won't stitch this but it's from just a few years ago.
I've never heard of this designer but I. Thought it was pretty. I also got an ink
circles piece, this is Celtic quilts corn and beans.
Nice little quick design; I
probably won't stitch that one either but I know that I can find it a good home.
And then this one I will stitch and I'm really excited about. This is Flower
Sampler Alina and this is by stickmen von der
weihenburg, which is the same designer as the lion piece that McKenna just
finished and it looks stunning and I. Really love this and might stitch
the whole piece, but might just do, you know part of it. But I figure I should
stitch some kind of sampler and this one is very pretty and was basically like 10
cents.
Oh I have to get, I have to get to my... I'll tell you at the end how much I
paid for everything. Most of this I'm not going to show you in great detail,
they're just old charts, a couple old magazines. There were a couple things
that I got home and was like why did I.
Pick you up? I had to really look for
the reason and there are a couple I kept by mistake but
like for example this this book has a bunch of these little quilt country
basket designs, I don't want to do any of that but do you see that little cat.
There's a little quilt with a cat on a shelf snoozin and that is what I'm going
to stitch and put in Oscar Pepper's snoozing spot in the hallway. I'm super
excited, so there are a lot of things like that I feel like I have a better
eye for picking out little elements that I might want to do like here is a book
that has three different samplers all of these are pretty but very dated. But I
really liked this bird so I'm gonna stitch that bird and then probably not
the rest. This is a very pretty wedding sampler, this one talks about friendship
and it's got really cute bunnies and then this one is just birds and flowers
but I just liked that bird.
So it was a pretty, it was a pretty fun time to look
through. I still need to go through them in greater detail. Let's see if there's
any other big winners. I want to make all those; Four seasons, four cats.
Oh this was another really cute one this is Carol Emer designs
hearts to God, and look at those little sheep; oh they're so cute.
So I
was thinking that might be a nice cute little baby gift for somebody. There's
like a little sampler and it says the lord is my shepherd, I shall not want it.
There's a little now I lay me down to sleep; theres a kind of book mark; there's a
bookmark that those blessed be those who read. Very cute; so I love that.
More to come in the future; I'll look through these and remember why I bought
them all. I felt very lucky to find so many
goodies, and then around the corner was another section of sewing supplies
and I saw a bin that was labeled embroidery floss and I thought, that sounds like it
was made for me.
And pulled it out and it was just like a big tangled mess...
Things were not in skeins, they were just, it was just a big mess of thread, so
hopefully they sort that out. I don't know if that means maybe they do
occasionally get actual thread in. There were lots of spools of sewing thread
there were lots and lots of cones of cotton thread and lots of yarn but no
embroidery materials.
But next to that I. Found a bin that was full of kits; I had
never seen anything like it before. So I. Got nine fully kitted things, one of them
I bought by mistake just going through and pulling out anything that was a
complete kit that looked interesting and then I sifted through and pulled out the
ones that I did not like or that were incomplete.
There were a lot of things,
there was like an embroider your own vest project that was very interesting.
And then there were a lot of like half done things not even half done. Started
things that we're missing missing parts and all mixed up. These were all you
know bagged together, but there were some that were just like here's the pattern
oh there's the chart or the fabric oh here's maybe the floss for it; it was
kind of a mess I really wanted to just organize everything in the store.
But I didn't. So I did find a couple really good little projects, again
I'm not gonna share every single thing, but I found three of these little
Lighthouse kits which were very cute.
My mother has claimed them; one more cape hatteras so he was all there, DMC. There was another little Lighthouse
kit that came with a plastic loop which I've never used but I thought I might try. This is the one I bought by mistake, this is where I just pulled out
all the kits and then I was going back through them and somehow I accidentally
bought this one, which is a little baby announcement. It says our baby;
this little old-fashioned couple, this is from 1982, comes with everything
including the lace.
If you would like to stitch this, leave a comment below, I
would love to find it a good home. It's pretty old, it's all wrapped up. But I'm
guessing it probably smells musty in some way; but if you want to take that
risk if you just really want this chart, leave a comment I'll just send it to
whoever comments first. Because I'm not expecting a ton of interest; let me know.
And then I also found this dimensions kit which is the magic of summer and
it's a little kite shop it says Chuck's kites.
But he's out flying, so he's closed
right now. I thought that was very cute and summery; it comes with everything. So I
probably won't stitch but I'm hoping I can find out what to do with that. Oh one other really
cool thing this was another really really old chart but it came with the
coolest frame.
So this is a little nativity scene, baby jesus. It's a very old,
very yellowed fabric and thread kit. But it comes with this really cool stable frame; so you put your piece in
glue on this and then that just sits on a shelf, isn't that cool. So I'm gonna make that.
I think I might try to find a slightly... I might try to find a different nativity
scene that will fit in this dimension and if not, I'll just stitch this. But I
thought that was so neat. Okay so in total, I got like 20 charts
I think maybe more or 22 charts or pattern books and three magazines, nine
kits.
Guess how much I paid? $10 For all of that, I was so excited. I mean I got up
there and I had a couple of the really old things on the top, not on
purpose, but she like looked at it and she looked at me and I could tell she
was like why would you... Why are you buying this and she kind of rifled
through it a little bit and she was like how about 10 bucks. Yeah that sounds
great.
So best thrift day ever, super excited. So I'll be sharing some
things in the future as I said but if you would like to stitch that little
baby leave a comment. If you would be interested in trading mirabilia's, send
me an email topknotstitcher@gmail.Com, maybe we can
talk. Oh one other thing I found which I.
Don't understand what it is but I just
grabbed it and then I forgot to decide if I wanted it and then it was just
included in the $10 so I said that's fine; I got this my vinyl weave.Ccrafters
pride; it is a 14 count 12 by 18 piece, it's tag says that it is indestructible!
With an explanation mark; easy to stitch, won't unravel, rip or shrink, washable. What do you do with this? Is this more for like needlepoint?
Can I cross stitch on it? Should I cross stitch on it? What would this be good for?
It's kind of, it's very pliable. But it's definitely plasticky; I don't
understand. I don't understand it but I.
Bought it; so if you know what I
should use this for let me know because I don't get it. I haven't looked into
this at all either so I could do my research.
Alright that is it for my thrifting. I do have one other non cross-stitch thrift to
find that I got at a different shop. I.
Stopped in to a goodwill to get forks
for our office because they have all disappeared from the kitchen. And I
stumbled across two frames that perfectly fit what I needed but haven't
yet really looked for and I want to share with you and again I channeled
McKenna and did my own framing yesterday. And I'm really really proud of these and
really just really happy to have them. My grandmother passed away in the spring and she was really incredible and amazing in all ways.
And I have a
pretty big family and we're all pretty close, so it's been a really hard year.
But she was an artist and she painted and we had, each family had a
couple of her paintings so there are a lot that I hadn't seen in many years or
ever. But we displayed them all at her, at her service and it was really cool to
get to see. And then my family also had the great idea to turn a few of them
into little prayer cards that we handed out at her funeral. And I just kept them,
trying to figure out like what was the best way to
to display them.
And I stumbled across these frames, which were perfect. And let
me just show you. So I have these two little cards that she painted. I don't
really know the stories behind any of these paintings, I know we have a photo,
well so we have this this lovely lady, these lovely flowers.
And then there's
also this one; isn't she amazing. So we have a photo of her working on an easel
with a photo of... I can't remember which one, one of these. Like a photo of something, I.
I can't remember; we have a photo of her
working on them using a picture for reference. But other than that, I don't know, I don't know the story behind these. But we made those four into prayer cards and then I found these frames which someone had hand-cut these mats which is something that I was not prepared to do yet. And they had...
So I ripped apart the
the back of the frame and taped in these cards. I'm just really, I'm really happy
with them and really happy with how they turned out and the frames were like a
dollar each which makes me happy and would make Grandmommy super happy as
well, she was very thrifty. And I just loved them. And then on the back of the
card it has a poem which is from, it's a Wendell Berry poem and she had a book on
her nightstand and it was open to this page and it is what we printed on the
prayer cards.
I'm going to read it. I. Tremble with gratitude for
my children and their children who take pleasure in one another.
At our dinners together the dead enter and pass among us in living love
and in memory and so the young are taught. It's so pretty.
So thank you for
sharing that moment with me; now I just have to figure out where to hang those
because I want to hang them in every room. So I gotta figure that out. We're good; I feel like I should just end it here but I have a few more things I want to share with you, so we're
gonna keep going. I'm not crying- it is okay to cry but I'm not crying
right now.
Here we go. I have a couple, oh I have a couple shoutouts that I skipped
over so let's do those. I mentioned this earlier that Drew Weasley of Weasley
Studios sent me a needle minder. He sent me the cutest Harry Potter package, it
was a total surprise.
I came home and my roommate was like you got a weird package and I was
like what does that mean. She was like I don't know who it's from and I was like I do! It's a present! So it was so much fun; it came on a day,
it came like after-- I had a new team of people starting and it came their first
day, so I had been in really intense trainings and was in super facilitator
mode and I was really exhausted and fried. And I came home and I had this
amazing package, so it was like perfect timing and it made me so happy.
And it had my little needle minder, it had a couple little Harry Potter charts
in it and then also because drew is thoughtful and smart and maybe he put
this together on on his own, but if not then Drew, let me tell you. He sent me, he sent me a floss box, because I.
Had just talked about how this was my
first one and he was I don't need this one so I thought I
would share it. Which again was perfect because I've run out of room and
needed one but it also made me so happy because I'm very into zero waste and
cross- stitch is not a super zero waste friendly hobby. There's a lot of plastic
involved and there's a lot like you've got to buy things in order to.. Well you don't have to buy things, you can not buy all brand new things, you can thrift and find
things to reuse.
But you know it's not a minimalist hobby as much as I
tried to let it be, so it made me really happy that I had run out of room in my
floss organization and would have had to go
buy a new box but Drew spent me his and I got to reuse something instead of
buying it new. So thank you so much Drew, it is already it helped me even
just having that one visual cue of like, oh I'm reusing this. It has helped me just
to be a little bit more mindful of what I have and making sure that I am, if I
have something I don't need or don't use or won't need all of, that I'm finding
another purpose for it or a new home for it. Something I've been thinking about a
lot, how do I manage my stash well in that sense.
So thank you, and if
you don't watch Drew and Phil please go do that because they're amazing and
Drew's doing the Raven Queen and he's he's doing a conversion and it's
amazing. He's changing like everything in it and it looks it looks so stunning, so
go check out what he's up to. Let's see, next up I had another shout
out. Atomic Stitches, who I discovered thanks
to Michelle Bendy Stitchy,she is adorable and amazing and she's been
making videos for a while but she's like super under the radar and I feel like we
all need to change that because she's super talented.
She's doing a Renaissance
mermaid, I think that's what it's called; she's doing a really beautiful
mermaid and it is like her tail is silk and shiny and
amazing and it is stunning. She just did a WIP parade video , what she called the
shortest WIP parade I think she's got like five or six projects. Which I really
appreciated because I feel like it fits with a lot of us, right like we're not
all super... Not prolific because we are prolific stitchers, we're amazing
stitchers! But you know, you don't have to have 30 WIPs to do a parade; and
I really like that.
But she's doing the save the stitches piece in teal and
cream and it is gorgeous and I want to go and steal it from her and hang it up
with my teal quilt. I won't do that. But go check her out because it's
beautiful. I think if I can remember who else I was going to talk about...
I cannot
so I'll just stop there for shoutouts. We're not stopping entirely; I have a
couple books to share but don't go anywhere because the first couple are
cross-stitch books. I read a lot, I do not read a lot of this cozy mystery genre
that exists all over; I do have a couple that I got at a library book sale,
that have cats so this is a whisker of trouble. I haven't actually read it, I
started it and didn't finish; I don't read a lot of these but they're very fun,
very quick, very cozy and cheesy and silly, but a fun mystery.
Because I
usually get bored when I read like real mystery novels, not that these aren't real but anyway this like cozy mystery thing, they have like a whole craft
sub-genre. There's a scrapbook mystery series, there's obviously knitting I've seen before, there's sewing, there's quilting
ones, there's stamping ones. Any craft you can think of, there's probably
a mystery series for it. So did you know that there's a cross-stitch mystery
series? So much fun; so I stumbled across this on Amazon, it came up in my suggested books and I tried to find them in the
bookstore near me and couldn't so I.
Ordered them on Amazon and they
were like $4 this is the quick and the thread by Amanda Lee. Do you see that dog? That's Wally; so this is a story of a girl from San Francisco who moves to a
little town in Oregon and opens an embroidery shop and it's amazing.
She moves with her Irish Wolfhound who's name is like Angus or something, but I
totally just called him Wally as I was reading because that's Wally. It's really
really fun they're solving a mystery, a couple mysteries, a couple murders and
talking about cross-stitch the whole way through so she's like has classes and teaching the
whole town to stitch and she talks about a lot of different types of
embroidery. She talks about a lot of different you know industry things.
There
were maybe two parts where I was like, no that's wrong, no that's not how that
works. But for the most part it seems pretty accurate other than she
stitches.. Seems to stitch all the time. Like all she does at work is either look
for clues or she stitches; I don't know how she
keeps her shop open.
And she seems to stitch super fast, but I can forgive that.
It's really really fun, I highly recommend it.
I loved it and wasn't gonna... There are ten books in the series, I wasn't going
to immediately read the next book in the series... But then I did. So the next one is
called stitch me deadly and there's Wally.
Another murder, another mystery and she's out to solve it. And of course, there's a love triangle; and of course,
her best friend owns the shop next door and so there's best friend drama. It is
just the most delightful delightful little series and I highly highly
recommend them. McKenna if you are interested in reading this
and checking out Wally please let me know and I would love to send this to
you.
Otherwise I'll be sending it out in some future sprinkly stitchy package to
someone, but McKenna I will give you dibs on this because it is a true delight. She
doesn't talk about the dog like a whole lot other than you know
she's like taking care of him and they go to the beach and he's really sweet
and great but I wish he was more of a character; but he does make
lots of appearances and it's very very cute. So let me know; one other book, a
non-stitchy book so if you're not interested then thanks for watching and
have a wonderful wonderful stitching time. But I decided that I needed a
back-to-school treat to myself and there was an anniversary..
A 20th anniversary
this summer. The 20th anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone and they did a very wonderful thing, they created anniversary
editions and they're very beautiful and I decided that I needed one obviously.
So they're not, I can't find them anywhere for sale here so I looked on
Amazon and they were all like $25 plus shipping and I was like I love Harry but
I'm not paying $25 for a paperback or hardback. But then I happened to find
the one that was eight dollars on prime and so I got Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone Slytherin. It's gorgeous; it's green, look at the ends! It's green! On the back, bloody baron; inside
there's like slytherin specific bonus content so it's go the history of the
house and famous slytherins, things like that.
I was really excited to buy this one because first of all it's gorgeous,
they're all gorgeous but green is beautiful. But my cat is a slytherine, so
this is her book; it's so pretty. But here's the thing, once this arrived I was like oh it's stunning and
my goal is to have a Harry Potter library but what if these go away
because it's an anniversary edition so I. Got myself on Book Depository and I
bought the whole set; I bought eight copies of the Philosopher's Stone because
there's one for each house in paperback and there's one for each house in
hardback and the hardback ones are black with like a green embossed or whatever
color embossed and then like striped end not end pages, but edges.
So I bought two
sets. So I now own in California, I. Own one copy of the Deathly Hallows,
I own this copy of the Philosopher's Stone and I am soon to own a total of
nine copies of the Philosopher's Stone. So as I've been rereading the series in
reverse, I'll get to philosopher's stone and have to pick which one copy to
read.
But then I was like what if for nine months I just read one of them
until I read them all? You might say that's a little ridiculous, I think it
sounds great. So we'll see, we'll see how that goes; I'm
super excited, it was a really nice like back-to-school treat to myself. I have to
exercise a lot of self-control to not go out and just buy all possible Harry
Potter books, because that's not my approach. But I felt like it was
justified in this case, so I'm so happy.
If you're interested I'm now reading the
half-blood Prince and it is really cool to read after having just finished
Deathly Hallows because there's you know especially half-blood Prince is setting
up a lot of the final battle you know final culmination. Hi meow meow. So it was really really cool to like
read about Snape doing secret-y things but I already know the things that he's
gonna do and why. But here I get, oh it was very cool; definitely recommend it if
you are looking to reread the series.
She's sliding back; we were gonna say
goodbye, it didn't work. I hope you have a wonderful week, a wonderful month and get lots of stitching done. I hope you have good luck at thrift stores if you go, I
hope you have good luck at bookstores if you go. Thank you so much for hanging out
with me through this rather long long video and I'll see you next time.
Bye!.
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