No Flying Away, Stay Home

I have another finish! This is Rabbit Works, Ladybug, Ladybug. It's an old pattern--the year the designer charted on the pattern is '98--that I bought on a road trip I took with Best Pal. We went up to Syracuse so I could do research for my dissertation in the Joyce Carol Oates archive. We visited all the needlework stores we could find in the area. I picked up the pattern and WDW ladybug thread in Endicott, NY. Funny the things you remember.

I started this in 2015 for Debbie's Crazy Ultimate January Challenge. I may finish all those starts yet!

It's stitched with the called for WDW colors, though I did eliminate one ladybug that was perched on the "g" of ladybug. It was too hard to read on the chart; I think it was charted over one on an over two grid.

My Floss Came!

When we last visited I had started working on Our Souls even though I knew I would soon run out of dark pink floss. While watching Endeavour, I completed all of the light green and medium green stitching.

As you can see it took about a week but I received the replacement floss and I'm ready to complete the flowers. I still  have to figure out what to do about the initials since the original pattern didn't include an alphabet. {hard eyeroll}

This is Our Souls
by Midsummer Night Designs
stitched on a random piece of linen
with the called for Anchor floss

In the meantime, I picked up an oldie but a goodie, Ladybug Ladybug by Rabbit Works. This is stitched with WDW Ladybug and, you may recall, I had a bit of a worry when I had to do the whole piece with not very much floss. I was able to get replacement floss, but it doesn't have the sharp black that the original floss had. (It goes from red to very dark maroon.) But I'm now stitching every third (or so) letter with the original floss, and it's going swimmingly. I'm having a hard time putting it down to get back to Our Souls.

We've finished the part of Endeavour we have available in the US, and have moved on to Fortitude. Apparently we're just going to watch shows with one word titles that imply moral strengths. Any recommendations?

The Cursed Ladybug

This pattern is going to be adorable when it is done, but it's got problems.

First, it went AWOL. So I hadn't stitched on it for a while. And then when I started stitching the word ladybug (seen here) I noticed that the pattern called for one thread over two. But if you look closely at the ladybug parts I've already stitched--the insect, not the word--you can definitely tell that I started by stitching two over two.

The floss that the word is stitched in is called Ladybug by Weeks. And it's perfectly ladybug, a bright red giving way to black with a section that is most definitely both red and black together. It's a great color but it was discontinued. So I'm trying to figure out how I am going to stitch the entire alphabet around the edge with the 18 strands I have.

This definitely means I can't switch to two over two. The central bug will have to be unstitched.

So here I was on the Google box trying to find out when Ladybug was discontinued when I see these words "we will never discontinue a fiber or fabric" (emphasis original). And I thought, well that's a lie because I cannot buy Ladybug anywhere. And I clicked through to see Weeks has a whole process for your LNS to order retired colors. Now that's a pretty fine distinction, but there you have it! I'm getting on this tomorrow, when I see my LNS ladies again at the stitch-in.

May Small Check In

If you've been worried about me, you were right. No sooner did I hit publish on that last post, than my mother-in-law showed up. Don't feel sorry for me, though, she's a gem! We went looking at art and gardens and played in my garden as well...but there's plenty of time for that story, you're here for the stitching.

I'm participating in the Smalls SAL hosted by Heather at the Stitching Lotus, occasionally...

This Ewe & Eye ladybug (Slow Poke) is one of the pieces I started for Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge, on Day 12 as a matter of fact. And it was nearing completion at the end of March. And I finally got around to it.

For more information about this SAL, check out the link in the sidebar.

Days 19 and 20

Even though I had MLK Day off, I didn't get that much stitched. In addition to spending time getting my shoes off the floor in the craft room (do you sense a theme?) the dude and I went to see Imitation Game. I'm pretty sure we've now seen all the movies with two word titles that start with I.

I bought this one ages ago (you can tell by the price tag!) to stitch for my MIL whose father was a lighthouse keeper. But I think I may keep this one for our house. After all, my husband's grandfather was a lighthouse keeper.

On Tuesday, I had a hairdressing appointment and was able to devote some time to this ladybug while I was waiting. I think I bought this when Best Pal and I were on a working vacation to Syracuse in the late 90s. I was doing archival research on my dissertation, and she came with me so the woman who owned the B and B could mistake us for lesbians. (That's not why she accompanied me, but that was the result.) The innkeeper made it up to us by finding out we preferred pancakes and waffles to granola and making us hot breakfast every day. Which, when I think about it, made up for the underinsulated bathroom we had. And when I was done with my research, we drove around to all the stitching stores that we could find in my little guidebook There Must Be a Needlework Store Around Here Someplace. We found a place in Baldwinsville and another in Endicott and another place that was going out of business and I can't remember where that was exactly. (I still have that book though, dated as it is.) Anyway, if I didn't buy this chart in Endicott, I definitely bought Weeks there. I remember buying ladybug and curry. Weird how the memory works!