Stitches and Stash

It's been over a month since I last was here. I do have a good excuse though. I've been very much into my new duties as a new moderator on The Stitch Specialists Yahoo group. That is the group in which Abi Gurden designs SALs of her brilliant designs. That's where the Tree of Stitches comes from, and you can see where we are, as I am now caught up:

You can even see the branch in the center of the tree where the little owl will sit, and there will be a little rabbit on the ground and yet another branch on the tree. It's not too late to join in the SAL, and we do have a lot of fun. There will be yet another SAL after this, and another, and another....

And I'm slowly getting caught up with the other two SALs I've gotten into: The bird SAL is my slowest because I had a rough start (a post below explains), and I just recently got my July owl chart, which I have not yet started, but the owls don't take long at all, and they're just so cute!

And though I swore to myself I wouldn't buy any more stash, I'm always in need of hand-dyed threads and fabrics to stitch what I have in my stash, then I saw a few charts I couldn't pass up:

I also must have Little House Needleworks' new reproduction sampler, Melicent Turner's Sampler and the threads and fabric to stitch it. I don't know when I'll get to that or any of what you see here, but that's totally beside the point!

One of my fellow mods on The Stitch Specialists has the same stitching stand as I do, and she does such lovely stitching that she insprired me to drag mine out of the abyss under the basement stairs and put it together. She directed me to a link of her setup, and I asked my son-in-law, a carpenter, to come over to see what I had and the adjustments I needed to have made to get mine up-to-speed so I can adapt it to accommodate my American Dream brand scroll rods and 30" rods I just received. I have a large clamp-on magnifier coming that he's going to attach to my stand and make a new control bar across the top; also make me a 20" set of rods. I dug around and located my needle trolley and the Perfect Stitch tool I bought from the same man who built my Grip-It Legend stitching stand, from whom I can no longer get things as they're out of business. I also have a recliner attachment to my stand which I can no longer remember how to attach, and my SIL promises me that he'll take the time to figure it out for me. I bought everything I thought I would ever need from him and so glad I did now that he's out of business. I even bought their Sit-On stand that can be carried and used anywhere. And I'm so glad I have my handy son-in-law around to fill in the gaps.

So you see... I'm still stitching, but also preoccupied and very busy learning the ropes. I'll really try to be more diligent about reporting in here, as much for myself as anyone. Yes, SusieQ, I will.