The House That Grew

In March I wrote a blog post but didn't have pictures yet, so I dawdled around...and then it was May.  Here's what happened in March...

Time marches on here at Chez Toadlily.  Pardon the old, tired March pun.  I get like that sometimes.

Lots of stitching going on this month.  I've had a few finishes, taken some (unintentional) creative license, and started a new work project.  First, the finishes:

La-D-Da - A Big Flower Sampler - This is stitched as charted on 32 count Queen Ann's Lace with GAST.

The center/blue of the flowers is Aged Pewter and the pale green of the letters is Lexington Green.  These are my two new favorite colors!  The Aged Pewter has traces of brown in it that echo the Tarnished Gold.  Amazing!  Edited to add:  I pulled back on the photo so you could see all of that luscious fabric around the edges - yum!

On a less happy note, I ran out of Tin Bucket.  Luckily I had finished the entire border, so I just frogged out the letters and started over with a new skein.  The skeins didn't exactly match, but this way it didn't matter.  I stitched the year under my initials ('12) but it looked so cluttered and goofy that I immediately ripped it out.  I LOVED stitching this project, watching the colors evolve and the design come together.  The border is simple yet stunning.  Lori, you rock! 

Bent Creek - Bee Strong Zipper - I finished this fun zipper in just a few days.

I skipped the letter charms that spell "Bee Strong."  They just didn't work for me;  you have my permission to bee whatever you want. 

For a new work project I started Home Sweet Home by La-D-Da.  (I had to have another Lori design in the works!)  I've changed it up in a BIG way.

I am stitching it on 20 count Summer Khaki over two with Watercolours.  This is not at all how it is designed, but I want a large finish similar to Bless This House.   I don't have much to show, just part of the first "E" in Sweet.  I am not sure how my color choices are going to work.  Time will tell.  ETA:  As you can see I have "SWE" now and the colors are fabulous!

I've been working on Lady Champagne by Lilybet this month.  My skein of Weeks for the main house color is a bit brighter on the fabric than I anticipated, so I've been calling her Lady Egg Yolk.  Lady Champagne's revenge was swift and sweet.  After finishing the house (except for the backstitching) and the smoky numbers I started on the tree.  I spent an entire evening trying to figure out why the tree was too short.  Everything checked out.  Repeatedly.  I whined.  A lot. 

Mark offered to look at it.  As I handed it to him he asked, "Are you sure it isn't the house?"  WHAT?  How could it be the house?  The roof came together perfectly, exactly as charted.  All of the windows matched up with the door, etc.  Be serious!  So I pulled out the picture of the design, just to see.  (Thank you Lilybet for a fantastic cover photo!  You can see individual stitches!)  Um, how did I end up with too many rows between the windows on each side?  But what about the door in the middle?  That means it is wrong too, and I stitched that when I started this project...in January of last year.

Has all of this incredible wrongness been lurking smack in the middle of this project for over a year?  Yes, sadly it has.  And no, I won't be remodeling.  It's wrong, but it looks fine.  We'll see what happens when I backstitch the wrought iron around the windows.  With luck it will still look fine!

ETA:  Here it is, all finished, and it really does look fine.  I decided to skip the metallic floss for the star and instead of French knots on the tree I used Smyrna crosses.  Lilybet designs are always fun to stitch!  So sad that they are no longer designing. 

Flash forward to May.  I've been working on Merry Christmas by Madame la Fee and I can't seem to put it down.  It is a nice mix of confetti stitching and boring borders.  I hope to tell you all about it sometime soon...with timely pictures.  Famous last words...