Erica's Stitches

chokecherry red barn and grass green harebell blue-violet and sunflower yellow

I have now completed my first Mug Rug swap through StitchMap.  Luckily I was 95% done when I hurt my hand. I waited till almost the last minute hoping for the best.  No such luck.  I taped my hand and finished the binding with no ill effects.  Still, I'm going back to not stitching for a while longer. Cathy seemed open to anything so I took the small stack of leftovers and one oops from my last quilt and started arranging.  There were too many for one mug rug but if I left one out I had just the right amount. I liked the S shape so that's the arrangement I chose.  I was going to do more embellishing, but there wasn't room.  I was expecting more margins.  So, I kept it simple with rick rack. The one left over flying goose did have margins, so for my mug rug (I couldn't mail it, it was too small to meet the swap requirements) I went crazy. Yep, two sizes of rick-rack and ribbons.  There will probably be more when it's do...

My hand is better, but not good enough for stitching.  So, there's been no thoughts of a quiet half hour of stitching to help me get through the day.  Instead I've been spending more time tending the garden. This dwarf papyrus is totally unsuitable to a dry climate but is happy in a container of annuals.  The grape vines are full of grapes.  Last year we got 5 grapes, now have too many to count. More annuals. I'm trying mint again, in a contiainer.  Despite it's reputation for taking over, I always end up killing it.  So far it's doing a good job of taking over.  But, as it turns out, there's competion. Despite my best efforts, the wild rose is back .  If they both survive the winter there will be an epic battle for contol of the barrel.  I can't believe this is the same barrel I wrote about last spring.  All the plants have grown like crazy.  Even the chives are holding their own against the mint.  

A friend returned from a business trip to the UK and brought me back a knitting magazine.  One of the articles is "5 reasons to sort your stash". My knitting stash is small and well organized.  The magazine came with 2 small skeins of yarn, knitting needles and a pattern for a tea cozy that were promptly put in the correct place in the stash (that's how those extra balls of yarn get there). I didn't agree with all the reasons and have a few more of my own.  Mainly, with an injured hand, it's something I can do.  I have healed to the point were I have 1.5 hands instead of just one.  Better because I can work the shift key, but I still can't do everything I want to. Which brings be to the many cache's of beads around the house.  Bead kits always contain too many beads so I had beads everywhere.  I think I've found them all. All the beading needles are together.  And the beeswax and threads.  Charms and findings are sorted together. Beads...

there was a small white package in the mailbox yesterday. it's my mug rug from a stitchmap swap. eileene is an "eager beaver" and mailed this days after the assignment and weeks before the deadline.  this is the same eileene who ends emails with "hehehehe",  i never know if that's a pleasant chuckle or something more sinister ... luckily the mug rug inside was not at all sinister and very pretty ... ... with delicate pink and blue flowers ... ... a clever fabric holder ... ... and, finally, some really iridescent ribbon to play with. thank you eileene!!! perhaps you have noticed my lack of caps.  i jammed a finger on my left hand yesterday afternoon and am typing with one hand (thank goodness for spell checkers).  this is going to affect my productivity and my half of the swap may be delayed.  i hope it heals quickly.

I have stitched Colorado following the chart as close as possible.  There are 62 counties plus Denver in gold and I'm 98 days into the project.  It seems like I've been working on it forever but that's about .6 counties per day and some of those counties took a long time. So far it's been a paint by number project.  Not any more.  Now I'm going to start thinking outside the box.  I like the original design for the rest of the project, an all over pattern in ecru and "Colorado".  It's a good design, but I want to make the finished project my own (in other ways than the mistakes I've made so far). My plan:  Outline the state in a dark brown or gray and add outlines for the surrounding states.  I'll use the charted all over pattern, or a different one to color in the other states.  Each state will be a slightly different muted color.  I wasn't going to add any words.  Someone argued that others wouldn't know what it was withou...

I've been making wings and bodies for butterflies. I don't do much applique.  I prefer piecing.  But sometimes a quilt just needs some applique.  I kept telling myself throughout the whole process ... "It's only four", "It's only four" ... The butterflies are to go with the Dresden Plates which are now Dresden Fans.  I didn't want to cut them, but now they lay flat. I arranged the fans every which way and I liked this configuration the best.  I had four empty squares to fill.  I looked through quilt pattern books and books of 30's quilts to find something suitable.  Nothing pieced looked right.  When I saw a quilt with appliqued butterflies I knew I had the solution. I created the appliques using the starch and press method and machine sewed them down with a straight stitch.  I'm going to hand buttonhole over the top of that in black.  That's why I bought a whole spool of perle cotton a few weekends ago. I have a feeling th...