Oh to be by the Ocean, now that Fall is here

I belong to a group called the Tangle, stitchers of all sorts and ages who get together once a month to stitch and also to show off our stitching. We discussed the twelve steps stitchers might use, but we got to the first one, "We admit we have a problem regarding acquisition of stash", and decided there was no problem there, except for the problem of where to store it all.

Anyway, the Tangle met at Ocean City, and oh did we have fun. I finished two projects, the Jane Nicholas piece and also my Arch-Chancellor's Hat piece. Here is the photo of the Jane Nicholas piece. I think it turned out very well indeed.

This is the first piece of stumpwork where I have done the detached petals and leaves, and I really leapt in at the deep end with this one, as I had five flower petals, four dragonfly wings, three raspberries and two leaves to stitch and cut out. Oh, yeah, there was no partridge and no pear tree, but that might make a cute piece to do in stumpwork, along with the other eleven days of christmas.  I was a bit nervous about cutting out the petals and leaves, but I figured I had done the dragonfly wings, so I went ahead and snipped, but I did take them up to the room and did them in total silence. I think it turned out very well indeed. I am thinking of making an etui (that is a little sewing box that has a lid that you remove and the box kind of falls open like a flower) and putting this piece on the lid.

I also put the last ornamentation on the Arch-Chancellor's Hat, and also wrote in and backstitched the quote from Terry Pratchett's book "Sourcery", "When it comes to Glittering Objects, Wizards have all the Taste and Self-Control of a Deranged Magpie". I also did my initials in a signature that I came up with years ago, which I thought was very cool also. I sign a lot of my pieces this way.

So the only thing left is to get it framed and choose just the right place to hang it. I had a lot of fun with this piece, and if anyone finds this and wants to make their own version, just ask in the comment section and I'll give some pointers--although, really, I just cut out a hat shaped piece of red velvet that I had stored all balled up so that it would get lots of wrinkles in, and started adding shiny and sparkly stuff to it. Actually, I am thinking of doing another hat, this time from black velvet, and making it a flapper's cloche or something of the sort. But first, I have a plumeria flower to design and stitch. Although, maybe the plumeria would look nice on a black velvet cloche... hmmm...

Along with stitching at Ocean City, we also did treks to a shop a couple blocks down the boardwalk that is called Salty Yarns, where I got some new fabric for cross stitching, a couple of kits to stitch up, and the turtle bead on the hat, If you look closely at the picture, you may also notice a small shell just under the blue tassel, it is a shell I picked up on the beach and added as a memento of the trip. I got a couple of chances to sit on the beach and watch the waves as well, which is amazingly calming to the nerves.

THE Magpie