Chrys Progress & a Waif's Story

It is snowing heavily today and supposed to continue through the weekend so I'm hoping to have some serious stitching time. Getting close to finishing Chrysanthemums and that's good, because I have some ideas for new designs that I'm looking forward to translating to new patterns.

I want to tell you about a waif that showed up last month during the coldest part of our winter. One afternoon I saw some deer at our feeders looking intently and on 'alert' at something in our driveway. Terry went out to see what it was and came back with an almost frozen and nearly starved tabby cat. As starved and dehydrated as he was he wouldn't eat or drink until he'd had some serious petting, he seemed so very relieved to have found people again.

I think you can see from the look on his face that he was in trouble. After he realized he'd found a safe warm place he drank and drank and drank, he was so dehydrated, and then ate a small amount of food and curled up and slept deeply.


Now a month later, you can see that he looks so much better. He's gained weight though he still needs to gain a bit more and he's happy enough to be sunning himself on the firewood and also keep an eye out for the squirrels that live in it.
Buddy

We've named him 'Buddy' because he is so very friendly and sweet, you have to be careful when you take a step since he's always right beside you. We've looked for any notices of someone losing a cat but none have appeared. Sadly, sometimes people do dump their pets out in the country, but what counts now is his future not his past and he seems to have become a part of the Gracewood homestead.

I think Terry is going to have to do a painting of this shot.

Chrys Halfway

You would think that this would be a pretty easy piece to stitch, straight lines and all but it has been one I'm finding I'd better concentrate while I'm doing it or those lines don't go where they should, lol

I'm glad I decided to go with the lines of the screen being in varied thickness, I think it does add more interest and adding interest to a design is what it is all about. It needs to make you look just a little closer.

I'd also like to take the opportunity of announcing my husband, Terry, now has a website for his art. Hopefully, he'll have a few more pieces up soon. He gets more work done this time of year too.

I hope everyone affected by the big storm back in the eastern part of the US came through it safely. We're used to such things but it is a whole different ball game when you live in heavily populated areas!

New Design, Free for Limited Time

Easter/Resurrection Day is going to fall earlier in the calendar this year, it is going to be the end of March.

I've wanted to create a design for this holy holiday since I started designing and I'm jumping ahead of myself a bit by introducing a new pattern before the one I'm working on is done in order to give those interested the opportunity to stitch this one in time for the holiday.

Christ is Risen

I'll be stitching it on a dove grey 18 count aida cloth and will be using two varigated Caron Waterlillies floss. the center in Opal and the lillies in Creamsicle. It measures 9" x 4.5", 162 x 80 stitch count.

It is available for free to anyone requesting it until next Sunday, Feb. 10th. Then it will go up for sale after I finish the model, it is simple enough I don't think I've made any mistakes in the pattern so hopefully there won't be any corrections to be made. Just send an email to bungard.gracewood@gmail.com if you would like a free copy.

Latest Asian Screen Chrysanthemums

I had a lisp as a child, sometimes still do if I'm talking too fast and not remembering all the speech therapy lessons about where the tongue needs to be to make a 'th' versus an 's'. So it is with some trepidation that I named a pattern 'Chrysanthemums'!!LOL

But I love the flowing shapes of chrys... oh well you know, and kept 'seeing' them adorning one of the types of lovely screens from our Korean historical dramas.

Chrysanthemums


I'm glad I threw caution to the wind and went ahead with this one, it is fun to stitch though with the intricate screen you will need to check and double check the lines as they go in and around the design.

Winter continues in all its beauty on Gracewood. One of my favorite things is watching the colors of deepening winter twilights. I took a few photos of one of the peaks that catches the setting sun and as you can see the light changes from the white peak against a very blue sky, then it softens to a pink and then to a soft violet as the light is about to go out for the night.

Cold Blue

Deepening Pink

Violet Twilight

Now, back to those hard for me to pronounce flowers :)

Log Cabin Series Complete & Winter Wonderland

Finally! All four models are stitched and framed. Not too bad considering I completed the first one, Autumn, in May. Each one took an average of two months to stitch.

Chrysanthemums is taking shape on my frame and as you can see by these photos it is definitely a good time to sit and stitch!



This is looking out the south door.



Snowing hard again now and we're in the midst of another Winter Storm Warning through tomorrow. The tractor is getting a workout plowing the drive.



These are the scenes I dream of in hot August!

Log Cabin~Summer Done!

Log Cabin~Summer

The four season Log Cabin series models are stitched and I hope to have this framed and a photo of all four of them together in a few days. It will go up for sale on the website in the next day or two and Creative Poppy will be introducing Log Cabin~Spring this month and then Summer to follow.

I'm about to baste the fabric on my frame for the next design, Chrysanthemums. It just doesn't feel right if I don't have something in progress!

Snowing hard here on Gracewood, definitely stitching weather. I also have a design 'percolating' in my head for Easter and hope to introduce it soon.

Playing with Patterns

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a peaceful and blessed New Year celebration. As always, ours is a quiet one at home by the fire, and this year we've kept the woodstove going pretty regularly since it has been a cold one.

I'm close to finishing the last Log Cabin pattern, hopefully another day of football bowl games tomorrow and I'll finish it. I took some time out to begin drawing a few more designs and began playing with the Log Cabin~Winter pattern's software. Now it was fun to stitch this pattern, but I don't really see myself doing it three more times in order to make one that looks like this, lol. But with the ease of software I wanted to see what doing it four times and putting it into a log cabin quilt formation would look like.

Here are the two variations I put together. I don't expect anyone to actually stitch them, but at least you'll know what they'd look like if you did!

Log Cabin~Winter Variation 1

Variation 2

That was fun, now back to trying to finish just one Log Cabin~Summer!