Thursday, April 26, 2018

Adventures in Dying Thread

A number of years ago, at one of the annual stitching festivals, I took a class in hand dying fabric and thread.  I have started stitching on one of my dyed fabric pieces, and I still have the other examples tucked away for future use.

My most recent experience with thread dying, however, was unplanned.  Here's my new recipe:

1) Pour some red fruit punch and put the glass on the side table.
2) Stitch some snow on a winter scene using off-white "parchment" colored thread
3) Add the thread to the side table.
4) Mix in one cat.

Here's the result:

Hand (er "paw") dyed thread using spilled fruit punch

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Christmas at Easter

We had a belated Christmas at Easter time as I finally had some finished (completely finished!) ornaments to give.  These ornaments are in memory of Mom.  Grammy was committed to (passionate about, obsessed with) the AOPi sorority.  She served as National President at one point and attended national meetings into her 90's.  That meant, perforce, that even though Mom was never really interested in AOPi on her own, she nevertheless had to be as the daughter of her mother.

I found the AOPi ornaments on line.  A company called Kangaroo Paw Designs, is licensed to design sorority and fraternity needlepoint canvasses.


Heart ornaments for my brothers
The plaid ornament is based on Mom's birthday (11/25/24).  Since AOPi's colors are red and white, that limited the plaid a bit.  If you look closely, you'll see the plaid is composed of: 1 row of shiny white, 1 row of shiny red, 2 rows of matte white, 5 rows of matte red, 2 rows of  matte white, 4 rows of matte red.
Angel ornament for Dad
The ornaments were finished by Connie Finck, a local finisher.

How Many Boards Can a Board Member Serve...

if a board member could serve boards?

I seem to keep getting busier and busier in my retirement days.  I first joined the Stewardship Committee at my church; that was before retirement.  And then I joined my Women's Circle at church, serving as lesson leader a couple of times a year.

Next came serving on the board of my condo owners association.  I knew they were having trouble attracting members, so I volunteered to serve on the board.  They led, at the second meeting I attended, to my becoming President by default.

I volunteered to be Outreach Coordinator for my online ANG Chapter, CyberPointers.  And I'm serving as Vice President for Membership for my face-to-face ANG Chapter, Blue Ribbon.

The latest, which is the most difficult piece, is serving as Vice President and Internet Vice President of my online EGA Chapter, CyberStitchers.  And when the WebMaster quit, I became Webmaster by default.  I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure things out.

Uff dah!

Of course, Miss Molly has been around to help.  I finally purchased a desk-top organizer to try to keep my various board papers organized.  Miss Molly has decided it's a great place to curl up and supervise my work.




Lest you think I don't have time to stitch, here is my latest endeavor.

Designed by Marie Driskill, Blackberry Lane Designs