Two Delightful Days with Tony M

We had two lovely days of Canvas Embellishment classes with Tony Minieri. I was working on another of my Ponza canvases, and Linda was working on two outrageous tassel canvases. It is always fun to see what our friends are working on as well. Tony starts each session by going through each person's canvas, & describing the threads & stitches he's selected, & why he did so. As my friend Susan said, this is one of the best parts of the class. Tony's creative mind, & the depth of his knowledge about threads, stitches & embellishments is outrageous. He says that he thinks about the level of stitcher you say you are, and then pushes the envelope just a little bit more--& then a little bit more! And that is so true.

Everyone has a great time in class, and Tony is just so patient!! We are like a bunch of little kids--"Tony, can you check this?" "Tony, can you just show me...?" "Tony, I need a some help here." And he never gets frustrated. Amazing.

Here are some photos from some of the work our classmates are doing. Linda & I will show you more detail about our canvases in the near future.

Denise

Progress on Stirha and Precious Jake

I have just finished the face of Stirha and had to post a picture for all of you to see. Amy did the most amazing job graphing out her face. I think this is the best face yet. I love the way her nose looks. She really looks like a witch. I am so sorry that I stitched Stirha's mouth though. She has been nagging me about spending too much time with Jake and not enough time on her. She wants her hair and dress done ASAP.
Jake is just the most precious little man. I was blessed to have him with us for four days since Jen lost her power during the horrible storm last weekend and had to come and stay with us. What a blessing that was. I got to really bond with my little man. He is so funny and smart. He is very much like his mother. When Jen was an infant she was very alert and would look directly at you, Jake does the same. He looks directly at you when you talk to him. He now weighs 8 pounds and 2 ounces and only wakes up once during the night at around 3:30 for a feeding and then does not get up again until 6:30 - 7. Not too bad for an eleven day old baby. Enough bragging about Jake - Stirha is yelling again and I better try to make her happy.
Linda

Settling in again

The resumption of electrical power is a wonderful thing. I never thought I would be happy to do laundry, but in fact I was. I was even happy to use my treadmill this morning. There are still lots of areas without power--about 25000 in Westchester County--but things are starting to stabilize. Thank God.

Jennifer, Jake & hubby have returned home. Linda was missing the Little Man before he even left...

We are taking a canvas embellishment class with Tony Minieri this Sunday & Monday at our LNS, Stitch by Stitch. I am actually very excited about this, although my excitement has been drowned by the rain. Linda is working on some interesting tassels, and I am working on another Ponza canvas.

We will post some photos soon of our class.

Denise

Update....

Denise has power. Jennifer & family do not. More tomorrow. Denise

Don't ask

Linda & I are shot. You may have heard that a huge storm hit the northeast this past weekend, and Westchester County got hit H-A-R-D. I have had no power since Saturday, Linda has had intermittent & alternating problems with phone & cable service. Jennifer, Jake & Jen's husband also had no power, so they are staying at Linda's. We stayed at home at night until last night, when the temperature at home hit 50; Frank, the cats & I packed up & thank God, our friends Linda & Paul put all of us up.

Jen may have power back already. I was told by Con Ed I would have power by midnight tonite. Fortunately, it's my office, so the cats came to work today, as when Frank went home this AM, it was still 50 & no power.

There has been no stitching for days by either Linda or I. No wonder I'm depressed.

On the other hand, this was on the front page of our local newspaper (you have to hightlight it & copy the link)

www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103150363.

Don't mess with me, Con Ed.

Denise

Jake's First Day Home

I would like to thank everyone for all their well wishes for my grandbaby. Jake is a bundle of joy. I cannot get enough of him. So far he has been very good but tonight at home will be the real test. He weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces and is 20 1/2 inches. He is Nana's Little Man.

Here are some pictures of his room. Jennifer make all his bedding and we coordinated everything to match it. Jen did the room in green and cream. The room is very relaxing and hopefully Jake will feel relaxed in it.

Have not gotten much stitching done. Have Stirha's hat and cape done. Hope to work on her tonight.

Linda

It's a BOY!!!!

Here he is!!

He's literally minutes old here....adorable, right? Can't wait to start stitching for him. He was born today 3/9/10, at around 7:30 PM.

No name yet, as we didn't know what he was until he arrived. Mom had a long labor, but the doctor said she hung in there really well. Linda was in the waiting room all day, & I cut out of the office a little early to be with Linda. Linda is estatically exhausted. Jennifer looks terrific here, doesn't she?

I got to hold him....oh, so cute! I spoke Italian to him right away, as I was speaking to him in Italian in utero all along. He likes speaking Italian. Smart boy!

I'm sure Linda will have more to tell you, but I was authorized to give this post & photos to all of you.

Proud Aunt Denise

And Another Santa Comes Home

And this lovely Princess & Me Santa came home today! I came up with the idea of the feet, isn't it cute the way they made feet from beads?

I am continuing with Ponza as well as the fish belt, which I will tell you more about later.

Still no baby. Thank God the Baby Mama is calm, because the rest of us are not.

Denise

Stitching Santa's Here! & Update on Blog List

Is he not just the cutest thing?!

Ruth Schmuff from Bedecked & Beadazzled sent me an email the other day, letting me know he was on his way...I was so excited! Like so many of Ruth's stitch guides, he's filled with bling & all sorts of tricks. Can you see his glasses and the scissors?

I had a great time stitching him....and he will make a perfect partner for the other squatty Santa, the Santa with Cats.

Still busily stitching away on Ponza. There's a lot done, but the rocks are challenging. I can't seem to get the right colors, & I have about 25 different threads I'm mixing up, in all sorts of thread types, to get the right effect. I am trying to have the rocks look like rocks, & therefore not look alike. I will try to get to a point this weekend where I have enough progress to show you.

And we continue to await Linda's grandbaby......

Denise

UPDATED:

Jane of Chilly Hollow reports on her blog, a problem we are having here on our blog as well. That is, we can't get our blog list to properly link to Ruth Schmuff's blog. When you click on the link, you will get the "not found" error. So, like Jane, we are providing the link here, and urge you to jump on over: Ruth always has special things to see!

Oh, and, blogger refuses to allow me to move my pictures around any more, AND it won't let me paste a link, I have to type it all out. So here goes:

www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com




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Finished Little Witch

Just dropped the little witch off at our LNS for finishing. I did her hair last night. Have been waiting for the DMC memory thread to come in. I picked up the thread yesterday and immediately had to try it on the hair. I found it very easy to work with. Securing the thread in the back was not that easy. I am sure that there is a very simple way to do it without have a bulk of thread in the back but I could not figure one out. I twisted the threads together in the back to get them secured but it was very bulky. To make the hair I used a laying tool to wrap the memory thread around. I did not use a laying tool that was thinner at the tip and gradually got thicker. I found that I was not getting the effect I wanted using that type of laying tool. I used a laying tool that was perfectly straight. I used an awl to make a hole where I wanted to start the hair and then one where I wanted the curl to end. I anchored each curl and couched each curl before moving on to the next one. The thread was not difficult to use and was a lot of fun to work with. It takes a couple of tries to get the tension you want but once you get it is very simple to work with.

Linda