Ahoy! and a little finish!

Well it sure is the dog days of summer - can you believe we are nearing the end of August already?? About this time of the summer I start getting crabby - I'm tired of the intense summer heat and wishing autumn was already here. Of course, here in the desert we don’t really have much of an autumn and it won’t really start getting cooler until October but a girl can dream, right?

I finished up Little House Needleworks "Captain's Inn" this weekend. I'm very happy with it. I was stitching on an old piece of 32-ct Lugana I had ....and I had trouble with it "warping" while I was stitching. I've never had that before that I can remember, it was like 2 strands of floss were too much? Anyway, I had to block it and it seems to be okay now. I'm on my way with my someday-nautical-wall-grouping!

"Captain's Inn" by Little House Needleworks

worked on 32-ct pewter Lugana

I have been busy busy busy stitching and quilting away. I’ve made good progress on my English Band Sampler – and I am feeling confident this UFO will be finished by the end of 2009. I finished the strawberry band with the queen stitch strawberries and the gold work. It looks a little warped in the photo as I had laid it over a turquoise folder to be able to see the openwork.

I also completed the satin stitching band and the band with all the eyelets and buttonhole bars. Oh how I was dreading finishing that band and had put it off - it really wasn't that bad. The faggot stitch - that is the zig-zag looking part - is the worst stitch I've ever had to do. It's hard and there is nowhere to bury your threads on the way. Now I'm working on the lacis section. I am not totally thrilled with my first couple of dove's eyes rows but........ hoping I improve as I go along.


Since finishing up Captain's Inn, I'm going to go back and work on my some of my WIPs & UFOs a bit. Beatrix Potter needs her monthly installment for August and I'm loving the way she is turning out. I've been diligent about doing my 3 motifs every month so it should be done before long. I really would like to have it done maybe next month but no promises LOL.
And..I'm toiling away on a couple of quilts. I'm doing some machine quilting on one - and I really don't enjoy it at all. I would much rather take my finished quilt tops to a longarm quilter as they do a much better job but it gets expensive so I am doing this one myself. It's coming along though slow but steady. I'm not doing a lot of fancy schmancy quilting, just the basics to outline things for the most part. I'm also getting my nine-patch quilt blocks ready. OMG, I've been trimming and trimming and trimming. I have over 200 nine-patch blocks that my quilting group exchanged - all those have to be trimmed to the same size. Then I made over 200 half-square triangle units that I am also trimming - that's over 400 blocks to be trimmed! I've been doing 20 to 30 here and there - piles on the right side are done and piles on the left still to go. I am anxious to start sewing the rows together on this to see how it looks.
Not much new stash lately....the stash budget is very slim these days. I finally picked up the last 2 Loose Feather designs that were being held for me at my LNS...and just one of the new Prairie Schooler patterns - 'Boo to You' which is really cute vintage-looking Halloween designs.
I also picked up "A Ball at Netherfield" by The Stitching Parlor. I want to include the house from this pattern in my Pride & Prejudice sampler which has been sadly neglected for a few months. Hopefully I'll get going on that again soon. There was something I wasn't happy with on it and once that happens I tend to lay a project aside so I need to just deal with it and get back on track.

Thanks for stopping by friends.....I do so love reading comments so that I don't think I'm just talking to myself! I get a lot more feedback from all of you than my hubby!