Perpetually Stitching

Even while on the road for hours and hours, and wherever we're traveling, I'm not entirely content unless I have something to work on. An otherwise tediously long trip by car can be almost pleasant while listening to an audiobook and stitching. During our 23-plus hour drive each way, to and from Florida, we were entertained by "Valley of the Horses," the second book in the Earth Children series written by Jean Auel, published in 1982.

While listening, my hands were busy with this embroidery piece. It's one of the latest designs by Crabapple Hill called "The Night Before Christmas." It sews into a pillowcase.

Before leaving on our trip, I prepared everything including cutting the three fabric prints for the pillowcase. For the embroidered part, I used my light box and a Sewline pencil to trace the design onto a tone-on-tone snowflake print fabric.

Thanks to my Aussie friend, Tracey, I was able to embroider the design with a lovely, hand-dyed, variegated Australian thread made by Cottage Garden Threads. Tracey mailed it to me from South Australia and in exchange I sent her my New Life Quilt pattern. A great swap, I'd say! 

The six-stranded thread is quite pretty with short color variations from cherry red to burgundy. I stitched with two strands.

I began stitching on the way to Florida, and completed it shortly after arriving. Then, was able to sew it into a pillowcase on my traveling Featherweight sewing machine.

I finished it in time to mail to Kansas City as a gift to our granddaughter, Celina, for her 13th birthday.

Later, she thanked me sincerely and reluctantly told me she isn't using the pillowcase! Because she showers at night and goes to bed with damp hair, she doesn't want to ruin it. 

How sweet is that? I guess I'm glad to know she likes it enough not to want to risk damaging it.

During the car trip from Florida back to Iowa, I completed these stitcheries.

They're part of a long-term project, "Snowmen A to Zzzz," also by Crabapple Hill. When I first started stitching these, I worked on the alpahbet letters I happened to like best. Now I'm just working my way through the alphabet. The  letter "M" is already stitched, so "N" is next. As always with UFOs, it's good to see progress. It might even be a quilt by Christmas 2012! Linda