Joy, Joy, Joy - It's Here!

Having a long weekend to sit and stitch a little more was just fabulous.  It was a full weekend with family and friends. And lots and lots of stitching!  It was nice to have time to enjoy church, dinner with my mom and our hubbies, and a little more time than usual for spending time with grandson and hubbie, and still having time to accomplish some stitching.

When I arrived home on Thursday, still no kit, so I jumped on Slava.  I stitched another section, except for the beads, of course, and it is looking better and better.  I just love pieces like this because it really helps me think about stitches for painted canvases.  It helps me think more about colors and design in a pure artistic sense and reminds me of basics that I learned so many years ago.  Here's my progress on Slava, before the weekend, and after.  There is a little less spaghetti is hanging off the canvas!  Wooo hooo!!

We picked up our 14 month old grandson on Friday afternoon, so the stitching was put up for a while.  We dyed Easter eggs, played with plastic eggs, and really enjoyed the day with little Brayden.  He is such an incredible joy to have around.  He is learning so much so quickly, and you really have to be careful of your actions, facial expressions,well, just everything, or he will repeat every little thing.  It's nice to have someone to keep us in line! The best thing is you just can't help but sit and smile at every thing he does.  I know I'm biased, but he is just so beautiful and smart.  It's so wonderful to see the world through his eyes.  It makes the world a better place.

After he went home on Saturday, I came home to find a special package from Lubbock.  Yeah, it's finally here!!  I received my first nutcracker in the Cracked Up series by Kelly Clark with stitches and threads by the folks at PFOS in Lubbock.  I did my usual thing and changed a couple of threads and am still contemplating changing a couple of stitches and one more thread.  Here's how things looked when I opened it, and how much progress I made on Saturday and some on Sunday after church and before afternoon  dinner. 

So love these little guys!  Must get new stretcher bars; but couldn't resist getting started.  Really can't believe I didn't have the right size stretcher bars!  I did change the blue green Neon Rays (N35) out one of the other Neon Rays (N85) in the kit that was more of an avocado green and put in a yellowish Neon Rays + (NP10) that has a iridescent fleck that comes off as really greenish for the avocado green.  My color sense just could not put the blue green with yellow green.  It's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  Not that anything can't be done for the sake of art, but my color sense is just more formal - probably a throwback from my college days - in other words, I'm just not so "with it." One thread and one bead were on order, so couldn't finish the background.  I may change the mosaic thread in the background as well.  Just not sure yet.  Please note, there is nothing wrong with the selection of the stitch guide writer, and I mean no offense by not following to the "T" each choice, but for me, needlepoint is personal and there is nothing wrong with making it personal.  After all, it is going to live in my house with me looking at it all the time, so you might as well be perfectly happy with it.  I'm never offended when someone changes something I write.  Sometimes, I even like it better! 

I took this picture on the fireplace hearth and notice that I can see the fireplace screen angled across the back of the blank canvas (oops!).  It makes it a little difficult to see what is stitched and what isn't.  I finished the face, hat (except the top bead and the border of beads at the bottom), the first step of the background, and the striped side of shirt and pants, and epaulets, which I padded a little to get them to stand out a little more.  I can see these guys as stand ups lined up with all of my other nutcrackers on the stair ledge at Christmas!  I can't wait to see how many I can get done this year to add to the collection!  Hope to finish him up this coming weekend.  We will not have so much going on this weekend, so fingers are crossed.  Hope to make a little more progress on Slava as well.  It's so much fun to have the stitching bug again.  I needed the break to enjoy the time with my grandson and to get used to having an infant in the house again.  I didn't really miss stitching at the time because I'd been so busy, but it is so good to be back at it again!

Hope you have joyful time stitching - and taking time out to enjoy family and friends!!