Since I missed blogging over all the holidays at the end of last year I thought I’d wish you a Happy Groundhog Day this past Monday, but that didn’t happen either. My plans were to do that as well as share a little project that Victoria stitched and call it a “Make it Monday” thingy. But, the day came and went, and I didn’t get around to it. So, here’s her little project and we’ll call it a Work in Progress (because it doesn’t have a backing or hanging tabs yet) in order to qualify for the linky party of the same name, but I haven’t a clue as to how to link to others who show off their works in progress on Wednesday so this will just be between us. One of these days I’ll get better at this technology stuff and we can link up all over the place.
The Mittens Were Hung by Blueberry Backroads
Weekend before last, Victoria went to a dance competition up in Nashville. She didn’t compete herself but went to watch her friends compete and play cheerleader for them. She also ended up buckling shoes, zipping dresses, going for coffee, and mending holes in garments. She said she didn’t know how they could have managed without her. I’m sure they would have, but I’m equally sure it was nice to have someone that young and energetic to do the running, especially since some of the dancers did multiple dances over the three day event. I think she said one of the instructors who took his students to compete ended up doing over 100 dances! I could have misunderstood but think about doing half that many dances. It’ll make your feet hurt out of sympathy if nothing else.
Anyhow, before she left she asked me to put something together for her to work on. She already had the November Li’l Woolies turkey to finish up but knew that wouldn’t be enough. I think she took some crochet as well. She wanted something small and something that she could stitch. I had already printed the snowman onto Transfer Eze so al I had to do was add the borders, stitch in the ditch between the white background and inner border so it would stay attached to the batting that she HAS to stitch through. Yes, she will only stitch through batting. She won’t just use a petticoat behind her stitchery like normal folks. It has to be batting because she doesn’t want to have to fool with a hoop. Needless to say, she does beautiful work and has stitches so tiny that over the years folks have been fooled into thinking that the project was done on a machine rather than by hand. The plus of doing it through the batting is that the piece looks like it’s been quilted without having to actually quilt around or through the stitchery. I hate it when folks stitch over their handwork in an effort to quilt their project. I know. To each his own, but it makes no sense to me to take the time to hand stitch a piece and then machine stitch over top of the stitches, oftentimes distorting the design.
I tried counting her stitches, she does backstitching by the way, to see how many she had per inch. On one side of the snowman it looked like she had 13 stitches per inch, but I was measuring on a curve. Her stitches were so tiny and so close together on the red brim of the hat and the green edge of the scarf, that it was almost impossible to see where the stitches started and ended. It was like they are one smooth continuous line. But, with determination, and the aid of my reading glasses, I finally decided that it looked like she had 14 or 15 stitches per inch. I could say she’s so good because she’s extremely nearsighted, however, in all honesty I think it’s because she had some good teachers as she was growing up and soaked up all their tips and tricks.
Li’l Woolies – November by The Wooden Bear
She did get the turkey finished but not in Nashville because she ran out of floss. That she finished this past weekend. Miss Martha was our blanket stitch person, but when she retired at the beginning of last year Victoria had to take over and finish the samples for Li’l Woolies. She didn’t really care for blanket stitch, but I think she did a great job in Miss Martha’s stead. Even Miss Martha complimented her work when she was here this past Saturday. Since Miss Martha is picky it was high praise indeed coming from her.
Now that Miss Martha is back part of Saturday, the two of them will no doubt be sitting down for some serious stitching together just as they did when Victoria was much younger. There never seemed to be a generation gap between the two of them when they were stitching together. Miss Martha might be old enough to be her grandmother, but you’d think there were two teenagers sitting together chatting and laughing when they put their needles to fabric. It’s a very comfortable togetherness.
Hooked on Quilting 