a bit of whining

I haven’t got much done with my stitching lately, I keep changing projects after I’ve stitched an hour or so, I don’t seem to have any patience at all. I started a new hormonal medication for my endometriosis, it’s supposed to help to reduce the pain and other symptoms. I got my medications mixed up and accidentally haven’t taken enough of my other medicine which is for prolactinoma. ( It means I have two very tiny harmless tumours in a part of my brain ). So now I can’t concentrate at all and for some reason the muscles on both of my legs are cramping. If this doesn’t stop in a few days I will contact a doctor. I am the Queen of Side Effects, I get something weird from every new medicine I try. Once I had a painkiller that altered my sense of taste, everything tasted aboslutely horrible. My previous medicine for the prolactinoma caused terrible nightmares which were so bad I didn’t want to sleep at all. I guess I could try some excercising on my cross-trainer to see if it helps with the legs. Maybe I just sit too much. I used to run but can’t do that anymore as it hurts and it was just about the only sport I liked. Now I just sit on my computer eating ice cream and getting fat, LOL!

I managed to spend two or three hours with Fairy of Calling in Sick but there’s a lot of confetti so it looks like I didn’t do anything. I’m also irritated by the fact that the chart has a few spots with blank squares, these are on the white/grey areas. I don’t know if it’s a mistake or if these are meant to be left unstitched. I guess I could send e-mail to HAED and ask. Or I could just fill those spaces with white.

I treated myself to a new chart since I was having such a bad day:

exotic ocean fantasy

It’s a QS by Ching Chou Kuik. I love the cute little kitty and all the vibrant colours!

old and new samplers

Here’s my new treasure:

I will be sending it to the Craftmuseum of Finland to be cleaned. They won’t be able to do much though as the stains won’t leave and they are not sure it can be washed, they need to do some tests first to see that the colours don’t run. They will also prepare it for framing. I can’t wait to hear what materials are used on this one, it’s really hard for me to tell since it’s so old and worn. The museum estimated it’s from 1880-1900.

Last night I finished my Willow Trees Sampler. I didn’t have much left to stitch on this but it took me all evening because I had to do some frogging with the second tree.

about my recent purchases

I bought 2 reproduction sampler charts from The Scarlet Letter a few weeks ago and they arrived today.

This is Continental Sampler circa 1840:

The second one is The Sibmacher Sampler of 1763:

I would like to try to stitch these with silk thread but in that case I must wait some time as I’m currently unemployed, luckily it’s just temporary and most likely I will start working again in March. So the silks don’t fit my budget right now. For the fabric I was thinking either 36ct or 40ct linen.

I have been naughty and bought some stuff from ebay and from a similar finnish online auction site. I got some kits, normally I don’t buy these because they always come with aida but these were all so cheap I don’t need to feel bad about changing the fabric. I bought a little old-looking sampler from the finnish site, the seller didn’t know what it was or where it came from, I’m quite excited to get it into my hands. It has numbers and letters in red thread and it’s obviously unfinished, unfortunately there’s no dates or year on it either. But it’s a pretty little thing and didn’t cost much in my opinion.

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with stitching: I bought two recorders, a brand new Hohner soprano in pearwood and an old Mullenhauer alto also in pearwood. I used to play recorder when I was a teenager, so I will try to learn some stuff again now that I’m a grown up with more patience, LOL! I got some books to learn from too since I don’t remember much anymore and I never was more than a beginner.

what I’ve been working on

I started Wintry Walk Fae

Not much yet but I LOVE the colours and the sparkle! This is on 20ct Cork linen by Zweigart and it’s excellent! Yes you can tell it’s linen, it’s a bit uneven like linens are but it works out just fine when stitched. I just might buy this for my next project too.

Here’s The Betrothed, I think I’ve been stitching this on and off for a couple of years.

The chart is by Golden Kite and it’s based on a painting by John William Godward.

It has blends so that takes some time but otherwise it’s quite easy to do and the chart is easy to follow. I regret the choice of the fabric though, it’s 18 ct aida which I’m not so fond of stitching on anymore. The colour of the fabric is something called parchment and while it’s nice  not to have white fabric showing underneath the dark stitches, the colour is so close to some of the thread colours that sometimes I can’t see what I’m doing. But I WILL finish this someday, I have about 1/4 done now.

I think I might need to set up a rotation of some sort, I have so many wip’s. Right now I just stitch whatever I feel like stitching. First of all I should get back to my Willow Trees sampler, it’s almost done and it would be great to have one more finish for this year!

chessie and some wolves

Here’s my start on Chessie, started him a while ago but haven’t had the time to stitch more.

This is how he should look when ready:

LOL, I just love this one. My husband likes it too, he’s not usually interested in my stitching at all. I have 4 other Ash Evans charts too, it was really hard to choose which one to start.  I also have one original painting, Lollypop Wyrm. I’d add a photo but I’m not sure if I can do that without permission, so here’s a pic of the chart from the HAED site:

I had a wip which I had almost forgotten, I put it away while I was working on Holly Angel. This is Running With the Wind by Jody Bergsma:

This is how it will look:

I have stitched almost half of the first page. I’m going to spend the next week away from home on a course ( some a la carte cooking and maybe a little baking too if I’m lucky ) and I think I will take these two projects with me to have something to do in the evenings. I don’t like being away from home and I will miss my husband and our pets, so I think I need to keep myself busy!