I Did It!!

My very first needle roll finish!

Little House Needleworks Roll
DMC and Crescent Colors on 30 ct WDW linen (color: Linen)
Stitched 4/10/08 - 4/14/08
Finished as Needle Roll 4/15/08

I did the finishing while watching "Tales from Avonlea" on DVD. Aunt Hetty was doing some hand embroidery in one of the episodes. I felt like we were both accomplishing a little something at the same time :)

Thank you for all your kind comments and support!

Let the Hem-Stitching Commence!

Thank you all for your comments on my last entry! Everyone felt I had acted appropriately. That is such a relief! And thank you everyone for your terrible-twos support! I'm trying to laugh about it and trying to see the world through his eyes - a little guy in a great big world whose learning that he has some control over his world. So I'm hanging in there! And there were some who reminded me that some day he will be a teenager, yikes! And one day he will be all grown up and moved away. I need to enjoy these toddler days while I still have him to crawl into my arms and say "Mommy, boo boo, kiss it." :)

In stitching news, I finished the stitching on my needle roll last night:


That was a wonderful feeling - but with it comes a great deal of anxiety. Now I have to venture into the world of hem-stitching. I'm nervous! Michele and I are in this together, though! Good luck Michele! And good luck anyone else who has any nerves about this particular finishing :) Thank you to everyone who mentioned the Focus on Finishing Needle Roll Tutorial. I am going to be following those instructions this afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this turns out!

I also got the needle roll chart I won from Michelle in the mail yesterday! It is so beautiful! Thank you so much Michelle!!

Additionally, I got an email from Rachel over at Fitness for Mommies that I won this giveaway - a tshirt! It's going to be perfect for running! DH said I need to buy a lottery ticket. I'm tickled pink because I seriously never win anything!

Thank you all for visiting and for your comments. Have a great Tuesday!

Needle Roll Update

Well I'm still chugging away on the stitching of my needle roll for the Monthly Finishing Challenge. I'm a slow stitcher and I don't make nearly enough time for stitching in a day - but I do have a toddler who is now weeks away from officially being 2 and he is taking the "terrible twos" description to heart. My sweet angel whom everyone has always described as such a happy child has become disagreeable to say the least. Everything is his these days (during the family rosary tonight, he was telling the other little children - his cousins - that they were sitting on his floor), and when asked to do something he gives you this look of defiance and proceeds to do exactly the opposite. We are dealing with tantrums over everything and tantrums over nothing. He is expressing his independence, his control, his utter disregard for all things related to authority. It makes for a very worn out mommy. But I hear it's a relatively short phase. I'm trying to think of it as a rite of passage in parenthood and keep my sense of humor about it all. He really is such a precious little gem :)

But I digress. So my stitching is slow and my stitching time is limited these days. But I have made some progress. So here's how it's going:


Sally asked about the design and Vonna guessed it was LHN or CCN (good eye Vonna!). Well I have to lay it out there. I don't have a chart for any needle rolls right now and while I did find a few online that I considered, I ultimately wasn't satisfied with any of them. So during a shower (I often do my thinking in the shower - anyone else find shower time to be good contemplative time?) I was giving my needle roll some thought. I know that there are several designers who have designs specifically for needle roll finishing. And I was wishing LHN or CCN did because I so love their designs. Realizing that most needle roll designs use bands, I decided to see if I could put something together on my own based on bits and pieces of different LHN charts I have. So that's what I did. I printed a piece of graph paper and I took little parts of LHN designs - charts that I own - and arranged them in bands for a needle roll. I'm not really sure if this is appropriate to be honest. Do I have any right to go taking parts of several designs to make a new design?? DH said to go for it. And I figure I do own the charts, and it's not like I'm going to be posting the chart I made out of them or anything. And I always intended to mention that it is comprised entirely of LHN designs. But what do you all think? Was this a bad idea? Is it bad stitching form? I'm new to this, so if it is I'm really sorry. Live and learn.

Thank you all for reading this far and thank you for your comments. I am sorry in advance if my needle roll hodge-podge is offensive to anyone.

Needle Roll - the Adventure Begins

Today I started stitching up my needle roll for the Monthly Finishing Challenge. I want to get it done ASAP so I have plenty of time left if I mess it up. I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work out. Only time will tell.

Here's a sneak peak:


Sorry about the picture quality. It was overcast today so I couldn't get good lighting. The colors are really off.

I'm still waiting for pictures from my sister of my tin finish. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures I can post soon.

In other news, I won a chart over at Michelle's blog. I never win anything so this made my day! And I got my PS "12 Days of Christmas" chart in the mail from Mary Kathryn on Tuesday afternoon. It's such a great design! I can't wait to kit it up and get started on making it into ornaments!

Needle Roll Help!

Today is the 1st of April and that means the dreaded needle roll challenge is upon us! I'm sure there are many of you out there who have no anxiety about this particular finishing at all - but frankly I'm very nervous!

This being my first adventure in needle rolling, I've decided a simple design is best in case I need to re-do it should something disastrous happen during finishing. I've found a small free pattern from The Floss Box that I'm pretty sure I will be doing. But my question is - how much extra fabric do I need to leave around the stitched design for finishing purposes? I want to get this right!

In other news, I got another crisp white envelope in the mail with the wonderful Handcrafts Online return address label in the upper right corner today :) It is my LHN Wool Needlebook and Scissor Fob chart! And Mary Kathryn included a beautiful skein of "School Yard" green from The Gentle Art because I placed my order on St. Patrick's Day. How sweet is she?!


No new development with my "Thankful" tin. I need to make a trip to the craft store and mosey around to figure something to put in it for my sister. That will have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight DH and I are going on a double date to see the Blues play (hockey). And of course that means Tivo will have to manage American Idol for us as well.