Last stitch of 2019!

So, I can't believe it but I was able to finish my Project a Month goal for 2019 on Feeling Stitchy! (see My Year in Review here)

I fell very much behind in August, thanks to a variety of challenges, physical and emotional, but I was able to catch up in November and December. I finished up my very last project of 2019, which I started on December 20, this lovely Noel pattern by Slow Evenings on Etsy.



What a gorgeous pattern this is, and so well-designed! Read my full write-up on the pattern on Feeling Stitchy:
http://www.feelingstitchy.com/2019/12/project-month-noel-pattern-by-slow.html



I switched up the colors a tiny bit, since my fabric choice was neither light nor dark, but a medium tone in between. I chose the dark green lettering, and I think it was a good choice - I absolutely love the texture on these letters - I think what I did was a combination of split stitch and long and short, not technically either but both.



I adored this finished project - I love the way the little berry French knots pop against the linen background - I used 3 strands of floss, wrapped twice around the needle...



Isn't the texture delicious?



Lastly, I wrapped the embroidery hoop in a cute polka dot ribbon to finish it off. I was finished on Christmas Eve, just in time to give it away on Christmas Day!

A worthy project to end 2019 on, and to close out my final posts on Feeling Stitchy!

What's Next?

I'm sure I will continue to stitch and craft, but the time of focusing exclusively on embroidery and blogging about it has come to a close. I feel free to express my creativity in whatever way I choose now!



One of the things I have been enjoying SO MUCH lately is ink and pens, and as of December, Calligraphy!

Calligraphy Resources I Recommend

Beginning Calligraphy Class on Creativebug

It all started with a Creativebug class by Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls called Beginning Calligraphy. I was wowed by Maybelle's simple, gorgeous style, and her approach to teaching is so calming. I really liked her idea of embracing your "mistakes" and just taking joy in making lettering that looks handmade. It made learning so much more fulfilling!

If you must start anywhere, my advice is start with Maybelle's class!

Find the Right Tools

Sumi ink with a Nikko G nib was perfect for me - but I started out with materials that frustrated me, so I want to save you the aggravation and just say - start with these! I've filled pages and pages with practice lines and Maybelle's lovely alphabet, and every time it has been so restful.

Beginner's Modern Calligraphy Class by The Postman's Knock

Another wonderful value has been the Beginner's Modern Calligraphy course by The Postman's Knock - all through my break I slowly worked through the lessons, and her tips have been so helpful!

Free Worksheets and Drills on Kallialitheia

Another lovely free resource are these ornament drills on www.kallialitheia.com/ - her Instagram account is very inspiring!

Books: Mastering Modern Calligraphy by Molly Suber-Thorpe

For Christmas, I was gifted Mastering Modern Calligraphy by Molly Suber-Thorpe - and I spent hours going through her inspiring tips and lettering.

This book is good for someone who already has a grounding in calligraphy, so I'm saving some of this for when I've got more practice under my belt...

Books: The Gift of Calligraphy by Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls

I was also gifted The Gift of Calligraphy by Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls, and this is a GORGEOUS book!

Again and again, I come back to the Maybelle alphabet as an inspiration, here I've worked it in white ink and dark scrapbook paper...

Dinky dip set from Caracol Creative

I ordered a dinky dip set of inks from Caracol Creative - I think it was a wonderful value and has been so helpful in keeping my work area neat and tidy.





The Gold ink was just fabulous!



I spent countless hours over the break, filling pages with words I love - this has been the most fun exercise...

Free Flourishing class on Loveleigh Loops

I am currently working on a free Flourishing class called Simple to Spectacular on www.loveleighloops.com/.





Flourishing doesn't come naturally to me, so I'm enjoying learning and extending my skills...



What a fabulous time I've had! So, yes, I will still be around, working on projects that stimulate my interest, although I'm not sure how much I will blog about it. I'm so grateful for all the time you've spent with me, and I hope 2020 blesses you thoroughly with new skills and inspiration!

6 month update

Thought I'd update you again - I like the idea of these updates being all in one place, for my future reference. :) As you see above I am dipping my toes into English Paper Piecing with hexagons - something I NEVER thought I'd try - the idea of a hand-pieced quilt always seemed so intimidating!

I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, crafting-wise, which leaves me frequently with half-finished projects and downcast spirits. So I was shocked at how well I took to hand-sewing these hexagons - my biggest inspiration being a Creativebug class on English Paper Piecing by Liza Lucy.

She explained it so well, answering all the questions that mere diagrams in books left me bursting with, and I began!



I'll be doing a more in-depth post on this project on Feeling Stitchy, so keep an eye out for that!

6 months post-chemo

In health news, I am feeling better than ever, at my 6 month mark, post-chemo. Last week I had my first period since October 2018, which makes me so happy that my body is finally resetting itself. I wasn't liking the idea of menopause at 42, so I'm glad that everything is getting back to normal again.

Getting back to normal was a struggle, and I did have some false starts 3 months post-chemo. I had an odd series of episodes with fast, irregular heartbeats that sent me to the ER and urgent care, and ultimately to my doctor and a heart specialist. But happily, all the tests came back normal, the racing heartbeats subsided, and my doctor said that aside from a fatty liver (which I never recall having before chemo) and a vitamin D deficiency, I was doing very well.

My energy levels are finally back to normal, if not better than before! My achiness subsided as well - I've found that walking and keeping active is truly the best medicine for that. I've been working out again as of several weeks ago, so my arm mobility on my mastectomy side has really improved as well.

This is all a case of answered prayers - there were so many scary times when I doubted I would bounce back and get back to normal - I am just beyond happy at where I am right now.

Project A Month

On Feeling Stitchy I've been doing a series called Project a Month where my one goal is simply to finish 1 needlework project per month. What I've found by scheduling my time this way, is, of course, I have way more time than I ever imagined. Last month I found myself finishing 2 projects, so I'm hoping each month I'll be able to learn how to schedule my crafting time better and better.

Up above you see the massive haul of vintage needles, scissors and pins I found at the thrift store for $5. I won't be needing a needle any time soon!

I hope this post finds you all well, healthy, and inspired!

Baring all today

First of all, I want to thank all of the readers who have found me here - I know this sparsely populated personal blog will never have the same reach as the lovely multi-person blog I contribute to, Feeling Stitchy, but I am comforted and encouraged all the same by the people who take the time to read my posts here. I did a post on Feeling Stitchy to account for my frequent quietness and absence lately from the blog, you can view it here. In it, I featured a lovely pattern by Jess Wariorka on the DMC site, because I thought it was a lovely way to "unveil my scars" and bare all, so to speak, you can find the free pattern here.

The long and short of it is, I have breast cancer. This is my second time around with hormone-positive (HER2 negative) breast cancer. My first time, in 2015 was relatively easy, in comparison - I had a lumpectomy on my affected breast and since it had not spread to my lymph nodes, and was caught early, all I had to do was 6 weeks of radiation, and no chemotherapy.

In truth, it was a confusing time - I found myself feeling at times, that I had never had "real cancer" because I was constantly reassured by doctors and other cancer survivors alike, that I had the "best cancer", the most curable cancer, a slow growing cancer that was very unlikely to kill me.

I felt like a fake cancer patient, like I didn't have the right to be frightened or worried, and I did my absolute best to plow forward. I was open with my diagnosis, but that backfired on me many times, as people, confronted with the knowledge that I had cancer, had so many intense reactions, and I found myself having to comfort them, and hear their stories of grief and loss, as they inevitably mentioned people they loved who had lost their fight.

As a result, I began to choose more carefully who I would share this information with, as I didn't want to cause distress to others (and by extension, myself). That was the primary reason I chose not to share my diagnosis online - that, and my desire to remain as private as possible.

My second time around, I simply felt it was time to share my diagnosis with you, and I think the turning point came when I began doing research for wig videos on Youtube. I discovered so many brave women, sharing one of the most intense and frightening battles of their lives, with courage, humor and grace. And their bravery and honesty brought me courage. There were so many different kinds of stories, and just as many different kinds of treatments, but the common thread was their positivity and their unselfish desire to do at least one thing to help calm the fears and worries of another person who is also facing this diagnosis.

Another common thread in these videos was the theme of trusting yourself, being persistent with doctors who are not inclined to diagnose you with cancer, knowing your body, and being aware of when it changes. I experienced the same thing, and I am glad I was insistent, as it would have been easy to accept the "all clear" if I hadn't been in touch with the differences in my body. I had numerous checkups with my surgeon and oncologist, and 3 clear mammograms since my last diagnosis. I had to literally point to the lump I found, otherwise the surgeon would not have noticed anything amiss in what looked like scar tissue.

My second time around I am experiencing what is called a recurrence - cancer in the same spot it was in last time, and cancer in 2 lymph nodes. I had a mastectomy on my affected breast a few weeks ago, and next month I will need to start on 6 months of chemotherapy. I won't lie, I am afraid - I have seen at least 1 person in my family go through chemo, and 1 close friend, and I am not looking forward to it. But I am confident that God, who has brought me safely to this point, will bring me safely through it.

So again, I wanted to thank you, however few you may be, the readers of my personal blog for keeping up with me over the years. Your comments and support and interest have meant so much to me. I'll chime in when I can, here or on Feeling Stitchy, do tune in there, if you haven't already.

And I just wanted to say, if you are fighting this fight, or have fought it as well, you are not alone. Sometimes, there are people like me, fighting it right alongside you, and you aren't aware of our presence. In the same way, God stands by you in your fight, although you can't always sense God's presence. My love and hope to all of you, my blog friends!

Vote embroidery for Feeling Stitchy

I had so much fun stitching up this free Vote pattern for Feeling Stitchy. It all started with Twitterfeed shutting down as of today, and me wondering how people find the blog the most.

So I crunched as many numbers as possible, but also thought it would be fun to let everyone "vote" from the particular place they were seeing the blog - Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, and Instagram.

I had 3 designs, that were all only different in terms of the fonts I used, and allowed peeps to vote. Boy, was Twitter quiet - I decided we haven't been using it as well as we could, by simply auto-posting. I'll try to be more diligent about visiting at least once a week with a more substantial presence. Facebook was also rather quiet - it could have just been the time of day. Instagram had the most votes. Honestly, I didn't even try Flickr, because it has been very quiet lately.

Stitching made me a bit nervous, as I wanted to finish on Saturday - so I woke up bright and early and lined up some coffee to get stitching the winning design. I could have added a whole lot more, but I wanted to stay true to the way I originally drew the design. I guess it was a lesson in designing, too!

This project was a lot of fun, for sure, and I followed it up by actually voting yesterday. If you haven't voted yet, please do! And if you'd like a copy of the free pattern, visit Feeling Stitchy! :)

Fun vote project on Feeling Stitchy

Let's face it, this voting season in the U.S. has been anything but fun. So I'm doing a fun vote project over on Feeling Stitchy. Vote for your favorite design, and I'll stitch it up and offer it as a free pattern on the blog this weekend. Which should give you all plenty of time to stitch up a little something in time for election day. :) What do you think?

Head on over to Feeling Stitchy and vote if you want your voice to be heard! :)

Stitching Saturday: the Magical Kingdom of Instagram

So, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and joined Instagram. It was pretty much kicking and screaming, since I'm an awful perfectionist and the idea of my barely-cleaned up cameraphone images floating around in the ether has never appealed to me.

But Feeling Stitchy needed an Instagram account to host our newest blogger, so I sucked it up and created one. :)

Could have sworn I posted my finish for the June 2012 stitchalong, but I never did! Here's my finish, finally. :) Fabulous pattern by @corvus_tristis.

A photo posted by Feeling Stitchy (@feelingstitchyish) on Mar 10, 2015 at 9:01am PDT

And then I discovered the magic of Instagram - it's kind of what Flickr was, or was trying to be, back in the day.

Since it allows photos only from your phone, there's a feeling of immediacy and candidness that isn't always on Flickr. Also, most photos look great when they're small! No need to over-preen for them.

Knowing it's just gonna be square helps if you've got little to no sense of composition, like myself. Just make it fit, and you're done!

It really helped me just get stuff posted - knowing I could snap, make it fit, fix the brightness and click go, helped me post this project that has been sitting around unphotographed for ages, because I'm such a darned perfectionist about the photos:

Guess what else I found? A finished pillow made from a lovely family tree pattern by @cozyblue. :)

A photo posted by Feeling Stitchy (@feelingstitchyish) on Mar 10, 2015 at 9:28am PDT

I think for now I won't create my own account, but it will be a great quick way to get book and review images posted for Feeling Stitchy.

How many of you are on Instagram? Love it or hate it?