If all goes according to plan, then while you are reading this post I will be beginning a cross stitching marathon. Even though I have the opportunity to cross-stitch every day, for which I am very grateful, I’ve never had the opportunity to go to a retreat. Recently, I’ve seen several posts on Facebook and Instagram, as well as several Flosstubers, regarding stitching retreats and how much fun they had. Hopefully one day soon I will be able to go to one, but in the mean time I started thinking about this idea of doing my own personal retreat. The opportunity has presented itself this weekend as my husband will be visiting with a friend from out of town and they will be attending a model train show all day on Sunday. Since, I never work on Sunday and the only housework I do is washing the sheets, it’s the perfect day for me to have a personal stitching retreat. So while you’re reading this, hopefully, I will be sitting on my porch, listening to an audiobook or watching flosstube and cross stitching away. Make sure you check out my Instagram feed, as I will surely be posting pictures throughout the day. Now let’s move onto the nitty-gritty of this past week.
What I’m Stitching
Thank the stitching angels, I have finally finished the white background section of the second quilt on my Spring Quilt pattern. I have to say that I hate DMC B5200! I don’t know what it is, but it just always seems to get dirty very fast it’s the only thread that always knots on me. But since I’ve already started this piece using that thread, then I’m going to suck it up and finish the piece, but I’m going to start exploring some alternatives for B5200. Anyway here is my progress so far:
Moving on in my rotation I am pulling out my Happily Ever After piece. As I mentioned last week, I’m determined to finish this piece on schedule in 2017. Haven’t had very many finishes this year, I’ve had a few smalls that I finished, but nothing requiring real commitment and I really would like to have this one done this year. So I am determined this month to stitch my heart out on Happily Ever After and hopefully only have the final installment in December to finish when it is released on December 1. Needless, to say this is the piece I’m going to be working on during my personal stitching retreat so here is my starting point:
What I’m Reading
This week I started reading Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco. Although, I’m still in the beginning of the book, I know I’m going to enjoy it greatly. Stalking Jack the Ripper is Kerri Maniscalco’s first novel and it is actually the first book produced by James Patterson’s new publishing house. However, that is not what attracted me to the book in the first place. It was noticing her second book in the bookstore that made me want to pause and read the first one. Anyway, Stalking Jack the Ripper is starting off to be a fabulous interweave of historical context from the time when Jack the Ripper was leaving his mark on the world and some fictional characters thrown in there with a little bit of creative licensure. I love the main character Audrey Rose; only 25% of the way in and I love that she is going against the stream for what is acceptable for women of the time and challenging society’s views on the role of women. Anyway, a book review will be coming soon; once I finish the book of course.
What I’m Watching
With Halloween being Tuesday, I wanted to get into the Halloween spirit so I started watching Supernatural. Surprisingly, I never rally watched this show before. A year or so ago, I watched the first season then got distracted.
But for Halloween I thought I’d celebrate by watching Supernatural and I chewed through the whole second season and I’m now up to the third season and still enjoying it. However, I’m not gonna beable to binge watch through all 13 seasons right now, so I’ll probably have to take a break soon.
This Week’s Highlights
Three years we have lived in North Carolina and I still can’t believe 80 degree weather in November! Thursday and Friday were absolutely beautiful and we all took full advantage of the sun and the warmth!
That’s all for now I hope you have a great week and thanks for taking the time to read my post.
Bigger On The Inside 
I have some skeins from my mom’s stash (so it’s 20+ years old) of just Blanc Neige, before it had a number, and it doesn’t misbehave that way; and I don’t remember it ever doing that. I bought some B5200 even though I had those, because a chart called for it and I wanted to compare the shades. I don’t see much color difference (and age may account for what I do see), but the new behaved as you describe, and I ended up frogging what I did and using the BN instead. I’m going to be sad when I run out of the old stuff.
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Wish I had some of that, I have some Blanc and Ecru so I might try those in the piece.
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Blanc will probably be your best bet for the 5200; Ecru is noticeably cream-colored. You might also want to look at 3865.
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Oh my gosh, I just checked my inventory on my Xstitch app and I have a skein of 3865! It’s called Winter White, thanks so much for the suggestion I think that might be a good sub in future pieces.
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I’ll throw this in the mix, too, because since I found it, I keep finding uses for it (especially now that the nearest craft shop is 5 hours away!). It’s what reminded me about 3865, and it’s the best tool for “Do I have a color on hand that will work?” I’ve ever used.
Click to access html-color-chart-0223875.pdf
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