January in April

Hi, stitching friends!

Spring in Idaho is like a moody teenager. One day it's 72 degrees and almost all my neighbors are outside in tank tops and shorts, walking the dog or weeding flowerbeds. And the next day we have a high of 59, strong winds and overnight frost warnings. At least we haven't had snow again. We have had snow as late as June.

Speaking of chilly weather, my post today, "January in April," was inspired by my blogging muse, Carol at Stitching Dreams. Hers was the first stitching blog I ever read, and her post from way back in February 2010 (<--- link) inspired me to get my hands on this chart: Waxing Moon Designs' "Monthly Sampler Series: January."

Isn't it lovely? I love the whimsical sentiment, the variegations in the blues, the "pop" of the red house and how it adds the perfect splash of vibrant color.

I stitched it on 36-count country French mocha linen, mostly using the called-for colors. I substituted Colour & Cotton "To All a Good Night" (from the 2018 Christmas mystery box) and Colour & Cotton "Dark Indigo" for Weeks' "Deep Sea," and I used DMC B5200 in place of Week's "Whitewash."

I plan to write more about Colour & Cotton in a later post, so watch this space. By the way, thanks, Arlene, for the recommendation!

I love January (it's my birth month) and I love blue, so I couldn't wait to stitch this. I did have good intentions, starting it back in January. But I used so much of the "To All a Good Night" thread in the top band and the side borders that I didn't have enough left to finish the bottom band. I wasn't sure what to do since this was a limited-edition thread and I couldn't get more. So I put January away and started working on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow.

Earlier this month, inspiration hit me. I looked through my collection of Colour & Cotton threads and found "Dark Indigo." While it's not exactly the same as "To All a Good Night," it's pretty darn close, and honestly, now that I've finished this, I cannot tell a difference between the top and bottom bands. Can you?

To frame January, I painted a thrift-store frame that I got for $4.99 with three coats of white chalk paint. (Thrift-store frames are usually priced less, but this one had a signed and numbered art print in it, which I will donate back.) I mounted the stitching on foam core, and because the frame was a little wider than it needed to be, I added crocheted white lace to the sides. I think it's dainty and complements the dainty swirls in the frame. What do you think?

Another bonus to using this frame was that it had professional mounting hardware on the back. I was able to salvage and reuse that. Yay!

My mom bought me the Logan Dual-Drive Elite Point Driver for my birthday, so I used it as well. (I'm linking to this on Amazon because I really like it. I'm not getting money to convince you to buy it! Sometimes readers ask where I found something so I wanted to make it easy to find.)

What's a point driver, you ask? Well, you know those little metal bendy-tabs on the back of your framed pieces that hold everything (the glass, mats, photo or stitched piece) in place and keep them from falling out of the back of the frame? Those are points. A point driver is a tool that looks like a staple gun, and it shoots the points into the back of the frame. If you recycle a lot of thrift-store frames, a point driver is helpful. It also comes in handy when the points on your existing frames break off. This happens to me when I use one frame and swap out different stitched pieces, such as monthly series. Those little bendy points eventually wear out and break off.

Thanks for stopping by! I was so excited when I finished this today that I couldn't wait to show you. I will post again soon, when RJ and Mary reveal our progress on our Summer Schoolhouse SAL. Until then, be well, sweet friends. I hope your weather is a little more even-tempered than ours!

I Love January!

Happy New Year!

I hear again and again that people don't like January. I think for a lot of people, the holiday bustle is over, the credit card bills are in our mailboxes, and the dreary winter weather sets in. But I LOVE January. I put the Christmas decorations away, vacuum and dust and make the house fresh and new again, and I settle in with some cocoa and some good DVDs and spend some great time stitching.

Good weather helps, though. Last year at this time, we were buried in record amounts of snow, so much so that I couldn't get out of my driveway, much less down the street. Our little city was so overwhelmed that the plows only cleared the main roads, and our residential streets were left unplowed. This winter, so far, has been quite the opposite. The last few days have been in the mid-forties. My dog, Scout, has spent most of the day so far lying out in the grass enjoying the sun.

Oh, and did I mention... January is my birthday month? I do not have a birthDAY. I have a month. You can blame my husband for that. He finds little ways to spoil me all the time, but more so in January. I have always loved having a January birthday because if there is something special I really wanted for Christmas and didn't get, I still have an opportunity just a month later.

I apologize for not posting again sooner. Wow... it's been a whole month. You have been on my mind, though, all of you who took time to post such nice comments. My current cancer treatment, an oral chemotherapy drug, has a yucky side effect called "hand and foot syndrome." The extra chemo ends up in my hands and feet, and if I expose them to really hot water (washing dishes, bathing) or if I walk a lot, the capillaries burst, releasing that chemo into my skin. The result is really dry, peeling, cracking skin. So, my fingertips have had little "fish hooks" next to my nails, which, oh baby, makes cross stitching SO. MUCH. FUN.

Not.

The thread catches on one of those little fish-hook-like pieces of dry skin, and before I realize it, the needle has become unthreaded or the thread is tangled or knotted. Joy.

Thankfully, Bath and Body Works had a huge clearance sale, and I loaded up on a bunch of shea butter body creams. I've been pampering these hands and feet, and it has made a difference.

Enough about that. On to the stitching!

"Cottage of the Month January" by Country Cottage Needleworks, stitched on 32-count lambswool linen with DMC, Classic Colorworks and Weeks Dye Works threads.

I have so much to show you, but only one project framed and ready. It's my January cottage by Country Cottage Needleworks. I love that little snowman! I finished this while visiting my mother-in-law at her ranch in central Idaho. I didn't have my Ott-Lite with me (love that lamp), so I was struggling with low light and fish-hook, dry fingers. Those little French knots on the snowman really threw me. Between the thread tangling and the knots looking terrible, I ended up taking them out twice, and I finally had to move into the bathroom, where the light was better, and finish making those little knots while sitting on the toilet! Haha...

I hope your January brings you lots of time to work on projects! I have loved getting to know you through your wonderful comments and emails. If you have a blog, please tell me in your comments. I read all of the comments, and I would love to get to know you better.

Happy 2018!