FUTZ FUTZ FUTZ

It's that time of year....I seem to futz about like a 300-pound hummingbird with nothing specific to keep me focused on any one thing. It's not warm enough to have Spring Fever just yet (or is it?), so I'm chalking this one up to Olympic Withdrawal Syndrome.

Here are a few updates on some pieces that I've played with recently:
Ahhh, Laura J. Perin's Lily of the Valley collage. This one really is so much fun to stitch, and now that the borders are finished it goes very very quickly. I have a silk LOV flower to attach in the middle (a' la Daisy Collage), so I'm anxious to get moving on this one. I wanted to do ten of these this year. Looks like I might be a little behind with that particular goal (she says while rolling her eyes and dripping with sarcasm).

Next up is the Cirque de Fleur class from Orna Willis. I received the next lesson, but have not yet completed it. I feel like I'm in school again and am late studying for mid-terms. Better get a move on with this if I want to keep up with the group. One of the things I love about classes like this is the opportunity to play with fibers that I've never used before. I discovered that I kinda' like Trebizond but that Neon Rays just doesn't blow my skirt up. At all:

I pulled The Drawn Thread's Spring Arbor because I loved the color of the linen. Sadly, I didn't write anything down when I purchased this a ga-jillion years ago, so I have no idea what the linen actually could be, but methinks it will be fun to work with:

This is the piece that I will probably play with tonight and for the rest of the week. It's a brand spanking new design from Needle Delights Originals called Rainforest Crunch. It's on 18ct. mono canvas and uses Watercoulours in fabulous colors in some fun specialty stitches. Who couldn't love this one?

I finished everything but the lettering on Shepherd's Bush My Land. I just can't decide if I want to do the lettering all around the outer edge as charted, or if I want to wait for some clever stitcher to provide an alternative. Aunt Chrissy thinks I should wait and finish it up later. What do you think? (A small sample of the chart lettering is at the bottom of the piece.):

And finally, we come to a piece from the Needlepointers magazine. (This is a publication that you receive when you're a member of the American Needlepoint Guild.) Ro Pace designed a tribute to Jean Hilton called Top of the Hill. Although this was charted for canvas, I decided to try it on congress cloth, and I switched out the colors. I never knew Jean Hilton and have not yet worked on anything she designed, but I think this is just lovely. The first Jessicas (the round stitches) are a little rough, but once I got the hang of them I really did enjoy doing them. I'm going to stitch the design four times in a big block:

That's the report for today! Happy Tuesday!