Stitching continues on the top panel of Cici's Sewing Casket. This is such a lovely project and I'm hoping that Cynthia will design a set of smalls for the casket. I'm over halfway done with the top panel and will surely post a pic when it's done.

I've also been slowly reproducing the marking samplers in my personal collection and posting them as freebies on my site. Recently I won, via 4 different auctions, 4 samplers from the same family....4 sisters. I'm in the process of charting them for my model stitcher to start. Expect those after the new year.

Let's see on the design front, I finished designing the companion piece to Time Well Spent. TWS is a multi-stitch band sampler that will be released at the Nashville show in 2010. The threads and linen are here for the companion piece and I'll start stitching the model after the new year.

So, things are bit boring right now. But that will soon change as my sons are coming for the Christmas holiday and the whole family will vacation in Bali for 4 days.

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm going to share my WSW with you. WSW is "Wallace Sampler Woes"!!! I was moving right along with that challenging piece, making great progress. Then I hit a major brick wall.

Darlene has you doing the outline for the tent stitch areas in backstitch and then filling in the ares with the tent stitch. Kind of coloring within the lines. I did ALL of the instructed backstitching for one box and then started filling in the tent stitches.......and I HATED it!!!

No two ways about it, I hated how it looked. Now, I have to frog all of that backstitching. A chore I don't care to do right now. :-(

So, I pulled back out The Drawn Threads "Cici's Sewing Casket". I have one panel already stitched and finished the second panel this week. Today, I'll be starting on the third panel, the top. Cynthia has some lovely whitework in the top panel that I'm looking forward to and as always her directions are just the best to follow.

Well week seven is in the bag and I'm beyond excited with this posting. The rest of my metallic threads arrived and I was able to finish three more blocks! This piece continues to be a major challenge, but one I'm still enjoying.

Well, here I am. Week six is in the bag and I've reached the other end of the sampler. I've also gotten word that the rest of my metallic threads are in the mail. So, next week just may see another block or maybe two blocks finished.

Close up of the second completed block. This "background" stitch as it's called in the chart instructions was really a challenge for me. I do love the finished look.

First up is Leona, the third release in the "Flourish" series. She's stitched on 36 count Magnolia linen from Lakeside Linens using two colors of Gloriana silk threads.

Second is Dido, the fourth and last release in the "Flourish" series. She's stitched on 36 count Magnolia linen from Lakeside Linens using two colors of Gloriana silk thread.

The third release is Midnight in the Garden. This sampler is stitched on 36 count Vintage Butter Cream from Lakeside Linens using 4 colors of Hand Dyed Fibers.

Yes, it's that time of the week again. :-) I'm still waiting for the last two metallic threads to arrive. Hopefully it won't be much longer.

Well week four in the bag and some decent progress was made. :-) I received two of the four metallic threads so got to add a bit of sparkle this week. The piece continues to be a challenge, but one I'm enjoying very much. The really hard stitching is still ahead of me.

I had a stitcher ask last week if the piece was stitched entirely in queen stitch? Right now it feels like it is. But there is a lot of tent stitches and a fair amount of chain stitches still to come.