My Tower of Floss

Mr. E spent the weekend with us. He has started crawling - everywhere - from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen. He even found the stairs today. Anyway, Hotel Man told me I had to take my stitching shelves out of the living room. I had planned on barricading the corner where the shelves are, but I guess Hotel Man is right. I should put away all of my stitching gear and only keep out projects I'm working on so Mr. E won't get into my other stuff.

It's a good thing I bought two more thread boxes before I went on vacation. On Sunday morning I sorted and wound all my threads. Here is my Tower of Floss before I took it up to the studio. The bottom box is my Cosmo floss. Boxes 2, 3 and 4 are Presencia Finca floss. Box 5 contains a few skeins of Valdani variegated thread and several over-dyed threads. Box 6 holds DMC floss. The brown box is where I put my newest threads from San Diego. The next box has my silk thread for applique. The maroon tin is my project box with small scissors, needle threader, thimble, etc. The purple box holds all of my needles.
Now I need to find a home in my studio for this tower, plus the dozen or so projects from Under The Mulberry Tree's Stitchery Club. Right now I have no idea where to put them.

I feel a major studio reorganization coming in over the next few days. Maybe I need to do some blog reading and internet searching for some new studio design ideas. How do you store all of your goodies?

Sweet P

Honey, I'm Home

Actually I've been home from San Diego since Monday afternoon. Since then I've worked two days, had the flu and slept for 33 hours and spent a couple hours with Mr. E.

We saw plenty of sunshine, watched two good days of golf and ate lots of yummy food. Unfortunately every time I wanted to take a photo, I didn't have my camera with me (insert sad face). I did get 7 hours of stitching time in on the way to San Diego, a couple hours while we there and 2 more hours on the way home. All in all, it was a great trip.

The best food we had was Bleu Cheese Chips at the Fox Sports Grill. The menu description reads "Homemade potato chips tossed in bleu cheese dressing, then topped with smoked bacon, bleu cheese crumbles, tomatoes and green onion." They were super yummy! The best part is in this past Sunday's Parade Magazine was a recipe for Hot Cumin-Scented Potato Chips with Bleu Cheese Sauce. Very similar, but enough info that I can make my own Bleu Cheese Chips for Super Bowl Sunday.

On Friday we drove from downtown San Diego to Del Mar and I was lucky enough to find three needle work shops along the way with only a minimal detour from the I-5.

My first stop was Needle Craft Cottage in Pacific Beach. I didn't know I would be driving by this store on the way to the other two shops so it was a pleasant surprise to see it. When I told the clerk I was visiting the area she immediately gave me a wonderful tour of the store, or should I say cottage? It was truly a cottage converted to a great shop full of yarn, threads and needle work kits. After some browsing I chose four threads from her clearance bin of Rainbow Gallery threads. The Angora feels as soft as it looks and I can't wait to give it a try. Gold Rush, Tiara and Treasure Braid are metallic threads. The skein of variegated over-dyed floss is from Needle Necessities.
My next stop was Needlepoint of La Jolla. Wow! This store was incredible! The owners, Carrell and Bill, were great. I asked Carrell to help me choose a palette of threads for around $30. She put in front of me a broad selection of Soy Luster Solids from the The Pure Palette. I chose yellow and red. Next she showed me Silk 'N Colors from The Thread Gatherer. Deep green and deep blue were added to the pile. A few sections down we added a purple overdyed Perle 8 from Threadworx. Then for fun I chose two more threads from Rainbow Gallery - white Neon Rays, a sparking needlepoint ribbon, and Mandarin Floss, a 100% bamboo thread.
Then, as I was paying for my threads, Bill included these 2 skeins of super soft heavy thread for free. I don't remember what he said it was, but it feels like yarn.
The last shop I visited was Needle Nook of La Jolla. The shop had many of the same threads as Needlepoint of La Jolla did, but the customer service was seriously lacking. I was in the store for nearly 15 minutes and not once did a clerk acknowledge me. Since I find it hard to leave a store without buying something I bought more Rainbow Gallery thread - Sparkly Rays in pink and orange and a skein of Caron Collection Snow, a metallic thread, in White.
I've been browsing the websites of the various thread companies and am glad to see that each of them has a section on how to best use their threads. I didn't realize how many different threads there are and how to use them properly. I can't wait to have time to play with them!

This weekend Mr. E is coming to visit so I don't know how much stitching time I'll get in.

I am way behind on reading and commenting on blogs and hope to get a little caught up on them soon.

Sweet P

A Book Tour and A Silly Face

Let me take you on a book tour of my new book, "Sweet P's Stitchery Journal".
Here is the currently dull cover. I'll be making a fabric cover for it in another week or two.

There are four floss sections. One for each brand of floss I currently have in my collection: Cosmo, DMC, Finca and Kreinik. Each list is a complete list of the colors in the collection and a check box for me to record the floss I already have.

There is a section for my growing yarn collection. These pages are set up to record the type of yarn, the size of the ball of yarn, where I bought it, what project(s) I think may work for the yarn and a comments section.

There is a section for yarn projects. These pages have the same info as the yarn inventory pages, but are designed to record yarn projects I want to make and what I need to make them.

There is also a page for my inventory of crochet hooks and Tunisian crochet hooks and finally several lined pages for notes.

I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to divide the sections. I thought I had colored card stock to use. Then I had an AHA! moment and realized I have a big box of scrapbook paper. So I chose several of them and cut them to size.

I made the book to bring with me when shopping or traveling so I don't buy duplicate yarn or thread. Or to look for yarn or floss for projects I want to make. After I printed it I brought it to Staples and had them add a sturdy back and cover and bind it. For a few hours of my time and $4 to Staples I have a custom stitchery journal to bring with me. Not bad, huh?

Mr. E is learning what a camera does. Today while taking photos of my book I asked him to show me a silly face. This is what he showed me:

Happy Stitching! Tomorrow I am flying to San Diego to meet my Hotel Man for a long weekend. I can't wait for a few days away.

Sweet P

Journals, Crocheting and Valentine's Day

I had a wonderful weekend (my weekend of Monday and Tuesday). It snowed both days. I love getting to stay inside when it storms.

Monday morning I straightened up my studio and spent some time sorting through my bookcase. In the process I found six . . . count them six journals. I have a "thing" for journals. I love them. I collect them. I have plans to make a few more. I never seem to fill one before I start another one. These are my creative journals (I have another collection of personal journals). The tulip one in the top left is used for quilt and sewing project planning. The one in the top middle holds graph paper and is used for charting blocks. The one in the top right is the newest one of the bunch and holds notes on crocheting projects. The bottom three are still empty. Maybe someday they will be filled. Do you collect journals? How do you keep your creative notes?
I received the last of my Christmas book purchases yesterday. I skimmed it last night. The process looks a little challenging, but fun. I can't wait to spend a few afternoons playing with the patterns.
I'm still crocheting my Paradores Scarf. I have all three panels done, now I need to block them before putting them together.

In the meantime, I saw Leanne's Be My Valentine cross stitch pattern and decided I should stitch it. I'm using Finca and Cosmo floss and having fun working the pattern.
Mr. E is now crawling . . . the world will never be the same. Mommy is already learning babies find everything she missed when cleaning the floors!

What are you up today?

Sweet P

Yarn and Giggles

Well, Miss P's dive into floss was quickly changed when I received my Naturally Caron newsletter on Monday afternoon. The highlight of the newsletter was this gorgeous Paradores Infinity Scarf. I have a stash of Spa Yarn and couldn't resist starting this scarf.
I finished the first panel this morning. I'm using blue, sunshine and coral. The blue is the top panel, sunshine in the middle and coral on the bottom. I'm hoping to finish it before I fly to San Diego the end of this month. The panels work up quickly so I should be able to meet that goal.

Mr. E and DIL spent the day here yesterday.
Mr. E pulled himself to a standing position for me. How cool is that?

Even better . . . last night he decided to have a big giggle fest at bath time. DIL was quick enough to grab the flip video and get some of those giggles. I can't resist sharing them!

My weekend is over and I'm back to work later today. I can't wait for next Sunday when my weekend starts again.

Happy Stitching!
Sweet P