It's a chilly, drizzly evening, and I plan to spend time tonight working on the last border of Open Heart. It's all backstitch with one color, then I have to add the beads and it will be finished! The sampler doesn't have a date anywhere, though, so I might add a tiny one at the bottom center between the bands and the first border. I don't know if I will be able to finish it this weekend, but it should be soon. Cat's Sajou is on it's way from Australia, and should be here soon! I need to stitch on the one I have and get it send on.

I did finish the Stitching Chair Necessaire! I am so pleased with how it turned out.

I'm really wanting to start another smalls project now. I have several in my stash I can choose from. I want to finish up Open Heart first before starting something else.

I also have a picture of the Immigrant sampler to share. This was a really nice project with lots of variation in stitches to keep my interest.

I had ordered some silks from Vikki Clayton last week and they arrived on Wednesday. Some are a conversion for the Trinity Sampler by Eileen Bennett (stash). The others are a lot of the greens and blues to fill in on the Berlin Woolwork and maybe the Mary Beale Advent Sampler project. I'd love to get this one into my stash for a future stitch.

I have a few plants on the front porch ready to go out to the yard, but it's been raining for 3 days. It's supposed to be a lovely weekend, so maybe I'll get them set in. Things are really beginning to come out now, but the roses all took the late freeze very hard. Maybe harder than any of the other things in the yard. I hope they survived - but they may need some extra care and not have many blooms this year. The oak tree has finally put out tiny leaves! Even the ferns are coming back. This has been a strange year for garden weather so far.

Most of my weekend stitching was in connection with the Stitching Chair Necessaire. I've almost completed the finishing work! This will be the first 'smalls' project I have ever done. I need to hemstitch the backing on the main piece and work up a closure for the needlebook to complete the piece. Now that I've done one smalls project, I won't be so reluctant to do more of them in between my big projects.

After I finish this up I want to get back to Open Heart. It shouldn't take more than a week or two to finish if I get some good stitching time in. I'm not sure which project I will rotate to after that.

I think I'll probably get some garden work in this week, it's finally warming up. This coming weekend we may finally reach the 70s again! That will be most welcome. I'm sure some of the perennials need some extra pruning after the recent freezes. And I do have a couple of things to plant in the yard already! I love spring, when it's warm.

I sit here on a dreary April day, looking out the window at the birds coming to my feeders and wishing it would warm up so I can do some yard clean up. There have been snow showers this morning. It's April! It should be warm and sunny! Where is spring?

I have been working exclusively on DT's Open Heart since I finished the Immigrant Sampler last week. I still need to hemstitch that one and mount it. I'm really leaning toward trying the float mount but I've never done that before and it's a bit intimidating. I'm sure I can come up with my own method of doing it, though. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Open Heart is coming along well! I have three more bands to stitch and then I can start the borders around it. I really enjoy the DT pieces. They have a lot of varied stitches in them and for me they are a quick stitch! I do so many LARGE projects that they seem small by comparison.

I might work on the finishing for the Stitching Chair Necessaire today, though, for a change of pace. I've had it stitched for probably a year and it's just waiting for me to finish up. I have no excuses other than just putting it off. It really should be finished and displayed.

In the mail this week I got the complete kit for Old Glory by Shepherd's Bush. A fellow stitcher offered it up for a drawing and I was the lucky winner! I love patriotic pieces anyway, so this one fits right in. I'd love to stitch O Beautiful someday also. I have a couple of other patriotic finishes and could eventually make a nice grouping out of them.

I hope to jazz up this blog template as I learn more about the workings of it all. I have some ideas but will have to learn the implementation side of things first.