Thanksgiving stitching

Enough is as a Feast - from Kreinik

This little piece from Kreinik is now one of my favorites - it wasn't intended as a Thanksgiving motto, but  it applies to so many parts of our lives, not just the dinner table :)     It's stitched with Milkpaint Silk Mori threads that were included in the tiny kit, and I used a Silk and Linen fabric in Touchstone colour from  Wichelt.  After stitching the words originally, I decided that the colours for it just weren't right and didn't show up well enough, so I changed them to ones that I think work better.  Finding a frame that would work with the muted silks and the dark fabric was a challenge, but with the artistic eye of my framer Edie on the job, I think this one succeeds.  

Winter sets in

We've had snow in the forecast on and off for the past couple of weeks, and though we didn't get the promised amount this week, there's at least some on the ground now, and the temperatures are sliding down steadily - this afternoon with the wind we'll be reaching into the range of -20 to -25 C (down to about 13 below zeroF) - but who's being exact, it's coooooooolllldddd, and I'm happy to stay inside and stitch by the fire.

It's only appropriate, then, that my finish this week is Isabelle Vautier's Vive le Vent - for those of you whose French classes didn't include singing Christmas carols every December, the song she quotes is the French version of "Jingle Bells" (same tune,  though completely different words and meaning from the American song.)      I've used  two strands of DMC 815 on a light grey cotton evenweave - the backstitching is done in one thread of the same dark red.  My plans are to finish it as a pillow using a plaid cotton as a backing.  

Now off to finish an ornament for an exchange and then decide what to work on next - likely more on a WIP, but which one to choose, there are several  ...........

Four Seasons Quaker

A week or so ago I said I'd post photos of an ongoing project - voila, here it is :)     Monasterium's Four Seasons Quaker is on my "upstairs" frame - so far I've completed the Spring section and a small part of the Summer section.  I'm using 3 Belle Soie silks and one skein of a Gloriana, on a Puritan Grey Legacy Linen in 34 count.  The colours are very different than those shown in the pattern's illustration - I've chosen to emphasize some of the unique colours that I associate with our Prairie seasons.  The Spring shade is Belle Soie's Shepherd's Pasture, a very very soft green that reminds me of those first whispered hints of the new season in the willows growing in the coulees and along the streams.  The Summer colour I've chosen is Gloriana's Baby Corn - not the bright yellow of the powerful summer suns and the canola and mustard crops,  but rather the ripening shades of the wheat and barley fields that stretch out to the horizon on the Alberta and Saskatchewan plains, and a reminder of the late summer tones of the native prairie grasses that sustained the buffalo and the antelope for so many centuries and that shelters the sage grouse,  prairie chicken, and teeming wildlife even today where the native grasslands are still preserved and thrive.

You can just see the tiny Autumn sample on the bottom rod, where I tried out the colour to see if it was going to work - I've done the  same with the Winter colour too, but it doesn't show in this photograph.  So stay tuned for progress reports, I'm enjoying stitching this immensely, but have one or two other pieces on the go at the same time - I like having a little variety!

Post and run .....

Here's what I'm stitching right now - Vive Le Vent by Isabelle Vautier, using DMC cotton thread on an evenweave cotton fabric.  Hopefully this will become a pillow in time for me to use this Christmas in our living room. 

And now off to join dh in watching a British mystery - I'll stitch at the same time :)