End of Year Wrap-Up ... and Plans for 2013

I'm not happy with my completion rate in 2012. I had several, but all but 6 were small needlepoint stitch exercise pieces (I was working several Janet Perry exercises:  learn-a-stitch stockings, the Bargello Club,  the Stash Busting Club, Mini-Socks & Mittens, and Color Through the Ages) as well as three sets of Christmas ornaments.. I did complete the 2012 Bead Journal Project (although each piece needs to be "finished" into a wall hanging), the 2012 Color Palette Challenge and the 2012 Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013, all of which were combined into 12 individual crazy quilt blocks, and I also attempted the Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge as well (51 weeks of freehand embroidery stitch, exercises, many of which had me totally defeated!).  I finish-finished several projects in the beginning of the year as well!  My 6 entries in the county fair won 4 blue ribbons, 1 red and 1 white (and I sold one of the blue-ribbon winners!)!  

As for accountability, I participated in the WIPocalypse 2012 Project and the International Hermit & Stitch Weekends, both of which required regular accounting for my works-in-progress! 

 I am still a full-fledged, non-quilting member of the local quilt guild (and their webmaster as well!); maybe one day I will actually quilt something! And I'm the "detail angel" for the 2013 Bead Journal Project blog! So I guess I didn't do so badly after all.

I end the year with no real WIPs, which is a first for me! But… I started a new piece on December 30: an Elizabeth Almond blackwork design called "Red Thai Mandala":

I STILL  have the same four UFOs in the cupboard that I had at the beginning of the year: 

• "Angel of Love" - started before we moved to England in 1992!
• "Celestial Angel"  - started before we moved to England in 1992!
• "Map of England and Wales" - started in Saudi
• "Nature's Song" (excerpted from a larger chart) - started in Saudi

to say nothing of that ancient crewel-work pillow (I'm sure the moths have  done in the wool by now), all the top work on six or seven needlepoint pieces that all predate 1992, and a slew of piece-worked tops from quilting classes in Saudi...  And then there is my Round Robin piece from 2006 --- I still need to finish that off. 

Three BJP years, all those Janet Perry needlepoint exercises, and a slowly growing stack of "finished" cross stitch and needlepoint BAPS need framing or assembly into wall hangings or cushions or books or… : finish-finishing is my weak point, as you can see...

So 2013: 

I have re-upped with the Bead Journal Project 2013; signed up for challenges at Take a Stitch Tuesday 2013, the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013, and the 2013 WIPocalypse; as well as signed up for two short online courses: Sharon B's "Encrusted Crazy Quilting Class 2013" and "Sumptuous Surfaces Embroidery Class" as well as paid for three classes on Craftsy: A block-of-the-month class with Amy GIbson, "Free-Motion Quilting a Sampler" with Leah Day, and "Sumptious Stitching" with Carol Ann Waugh (these latter, once paid for, remain available for eternity which doesn't put a lot of deadline pressure on me…). There are the ongoing exercise pieces in Janet Perry's "Mittens & Mini-Socks" and "Color Through the Ages" classes as well.

In addition to my regular weekly progress reports, there will be specific WIPocalypse postings on the full moon of every month and special postings for TAST 2013 (Tuesdays), CQJP 2013 (monthly), and BJP 2013 (monthly). Blogging will be keeping me as busy as stitching, I fear!

This sure doesn't leave me a lot of room for starting anything "new", and that could become a problem because I've been feeling a case of start-itis coming on forever a year now...      

I didn't think I would finish it this year but...

Here is "Home Sampler", designer Michael Powell stitched on 27-ct even weave (antique White) using 32 colors (and 11 blends) of Anchor floss. Completed December 29, 2012.

I have a piece picked out for my next start --- it's a blackwork Mandala by Elizabeth Almond --- but do I want to start it in 2012 or end the year with no WIPS and save the blackwork for 2013? I suppose I could start laying out my crazy quilt block for January and my BJP piece as well. Kitting those up wouldn't constitute a WIP, would they?

Meanwhile, I'll continue to enjoy the winter white outside my windows (we got another inch yesterday and, wonder of wonders, no wind so it's sticking, not blowing around, so the trees have a little edging of white too!).

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Fifty-Two

This past week saw the first snow to fall here in over 300 days! We got about half-an-inch on Christmas Eve, two inches on Boxing Day and as much as another inch last night. It looks a winter wonderland outside!

From the front door...

And from the back door...

If I didn't dislike snow so much, I'd say it was a perfect start to winter this year!

Stitching this week included the completion of TAST2012 with the Knotted Cable Chain stitch and the completion of lesson 10 (Sweden) of Janet Perry's "Color Through the Ages" series. The rest of the stitching week was spent on the backstitching for Michael Powell's "Home Sampler":

Only French knots to go and I may actually end 2012 with no WIPS! That would be different!

WIPocalypse - December 2012

The last WIPocalypse of the year and I have a little to share...

Finishes were

•     the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Arrowhead, Buttonhole Eyelet Flower, Berry Stitch, and Knotted Cable Chain stitches
•     The December Color Palette Challenge/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project block and an alternate
•     Color Through the Ages lesson 10 (Sweden)
•      Mittens & Mini- Socks - "Sea and Sky"
•     "Birds of a Feather"

I''m still stitching a Michael Powell piece called "Home Sampler" - I actually have hopes of getting this done by the end of the year!

I know we are to do a year-end wrap-up but I haven't gotten around to that yet. I will have one on New Year's Eve though... watch this space!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Fifty-One

And the last stitch for 2012 - the Knotted Cable Chain. I THOUGHT I had this one down but it sure doesn't look like the samples. For some reason, the large loop of the cable slipped down into the twisted chain. No clue what I did wrong... but after ripping it out twice, I gave up:

Here is December's page --- 

Basically, a great learning experience but I think what I mainly learned is that I'm not very good at a lot of the stitches we tried and probably won't ever be. Hand embroidery just doesn't seem to be my thing. So I'm still debating whether or not I'll sign up for TAST 2013...

Color Through the Ages, Lesson 10 is completed!

It's called "Sweden" and there were two color palette possiblities. Since I'm burned out on blue, at least for now, I went with a green version:

The threads used were DMC blanc as background, DMC 498 as the red "Accent" and various shades of light greens (DMC 369, 504, 523, 772, 955, 3813, and 3817; GAST Willow; and Stranded by the Sea 102 - Mermaid's Whisper and 212 - Reindeer Wrasse).

Still a TAST to do for 2012 and I do want to get back to that Michael Powell Home Sampler but the holidays may well get in the way...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Fifty-One

There was a TAST for this week but I haven't started it yet, and there was a Color Through the Ages piece but I haven't started it either. Instead, I worked away on the Michael Powell "Home Sampler". Did pretty well until last night when I had to rip out a one whole side of the outside border because I crossed my crosses the wrong way! AAARGH!

So here is where "Home Sampler" stands as of this minute:

Otherwise, it was tree decorating time... this one in the foyer:

And this one (all cats) in the living room:

Now to put away all the bins and boxes that held the ornaments until it's time to take them down again!

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate!

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend for December, 2012

Well, I promised that I would work on Michael Powell's "Home Sampler" and I did. Not having touched it since November 30, when it looked like this:

I think I made some good progress over the weekend, despite a spate of Christmas shopping with husband:

I doubt it will be done by the end of the year but soon after...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Fifty

Well, aside from the finishes posted earlier this week (TAST, "Birds of a Feather" and Mittens & Mini-Socks "Sea and Sky"), I have no works in progress to show you... I haven't touched the Michael Powell "Home Sampler" since November 30 so it's on the agenda for this weekend's International Hermit and Stitch Weekend! Look for photos on Monday!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Fifty

Here is my take on the berry stitch --- I made up a few "forget-me-not" type flowers in perle cotton:

"Birds of a Feather"

"Birds of a Feather" is complete! I was beginning to think it was going to drag on forever (I checked and the first stitches were put in in July!).

So here it is, a design by Yvonne Horn of Papillon Creations, puclished in "The Gift of Stitching", Issue 57, October, 2010! And with the exception of some fudging for miscounting and switching out beads from my stash for the ones called for, this is stitched as instructed... Stitched on Wichelt's Permin of Copenhagen 32 count linen ("French Lace"), which might have been a mistake since I think some of the colors would have shown better on a pure white or even an antique white, but I didn't have any 32 count large enough in those colors; bad enough that I didn't have Q-snaps long enough either! ... Finished stitched area is 16 1/3" by 9 2/3 ". 

It was the specialty stitching and the beading that really slowed me down... Here's a close-up of one of the border corners so you can see what that entailed:

I don't know if you can see the gold and peacock blue beads easily - I know the light yellow star stitches and the gold braid couching doesn't show up at all... But there are nine specialty stitches in the border: Rhodes Squares, Ray stitches, Diamond Eyelets, Lazy Daisies, Rhodes Diamonds, Herringbone stitch, Fan stitches, Couching and backstitch in addition to the beading. In the center, there are large Queen stitched (if you consider over six threads large!), Tied Windmill stitches, Diagonal Fly stitches, and Star stitches as well as straight stitches on the birds' heads and backstitching on the feathers and paisley motifs.  A sampler more than a picture, I think.

Mittens & Mini-Socks --- Sea and Sky!

A study in how thread choice and thread color can change the look of a simple wave bargello pattern...

and 

I used DMC 4230 for the "sky" and DMC 909, 930 and 3756 for the "sea"...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Nine

This week, in addition to the TAST already posted, I concentrated on Birds of a Feather and the December color palette/crazy quilt journal/bead journal project square. Given that the color palette challenge this month didn't quite "fit" with my other eleven squares (see yesterday's post) , I decided to do an alternate, based on the block 6 grid form from the "I dropped the Button Box Quilt" and six colors that were used more than once in the previous eleven blocks... Here is that alternate:

The rest of my stitching time was dedicated to the backstitching on "Birds of a Feather". That is almost done:

although I will have to make some modifications to the backstitching on the paislies since I miscounted two of them and they are too close to the feathers to do as graphed. There are a few confetti speciality stitches in the body of the piece and a lot of beads in the border to do yet...

The latest Mittens & Mini-Socks arrived yesterday so that will take precedence over "Birds" for a few days. Drat... I had hoped to have "Birds" done this weekend but it doesn't look good...

Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project Challenges, December 2012

The Color Palette Challenge threw a curve ball this month --- mono chromatic! It doesn't FIT with all the other eleven challenges and so I'm thinking I won't count it in my Quilt Journal or Bead Journal Project Challenges. Instead, I will search out fabrics and trims used in the past eleven Color Palette Challenges and make a "composite" block that does fit...

Anyway, here is my monochromatic block, using the block 12 grid from the "I dropped the button box" crazy quilt on PinTangle:

I have to say, I really enjoyed working with this one --- it was fun getting a set of fabrics, threads, trims and beads that were of the same color --- although I did cheat a little (that checkered fabric had as much ecru in it as green and so I added ecru lace and a touch of gold in the threads, beads and buttons... (gold isn't a color, right? It's an accent! LOL).

Hmmmm, maybe, in 2013, I can do monochromatic blocks for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project challenge... I'm thinking greens, blues and maybe a touch of violet? Aaargh! What AM I thinking --- I got so sick of that color set in "Kimono - Revisited" and "Birds of a Feather" this year. So maybe this block will be a stand-alone and I'll move to the other end of the color spectrum and go with reds, oranges and yellows... Bright and cheerful and totally different!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Nine

Buttonhole Eyelet Flower... NOT something I will come back to willingly. I just don't do stitches where my hands feel like they are ten times too large for the needle and the stitches come out all wonky like this:

Besides, I can't think of a single use I would put it to...

I'm beginning to think that freehand embroidery is NOT my medium.

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Eight

I pretty much spent this past week working on the Michael Powell "Home Sampler" although I did take a day off to do Color Through the Ages, another day off to do TAST and last night off to go see New York Polyphony in concert at the university (if you like medieval music and male a capella quartets, this is a MUST SEE!). Anyway, here is where "Home" stands at this minute:

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Eight

Week 48's stitch is the Arrowhead stitch, something I had done before not knowing it had a name! Anyway, here is is, on the completed November "page" along with the open base woven picot, the checkered chain, and the Portuguese border.

WIPocalypse, November 2012

This is the "Beaver Moon" and I have made the following progress since the last full moon...

What did I do this past "moon"? 

FInishes were

•     the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Fixed base woven picot, Open base woven picot, checkered chain, and Portuguese Border Stitch
•     "Kimono - Revisited"
•     The November Color Palette Challenge/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project block
•     Color Through the Ages lessons 8 (Chinese Colors) and 9 (Mod World)
•     A Hillcroft House name badge

and quite a bit on "Birds of a Feather" ...

I've also been stitching a Michael Powell piece called "Home Sampler ( just needed something simpler, with no blue and no metallic to speak of in it! LOL):

Kitted but not stitched is Week 48 of TAST...

It's a "Mod World"!

Lesson 9 in the "Color Through The Ages" class is all about colors from the "Mod Era" of the 1960s! This twinchie is stitched using DMC blanc, 307, 792, 906, 970, 3607, and metallic 5283 threads and was completed November 24, 2012:

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Seven

In addition to this week's TAST and last weekends IH&SW, I put in a few days stitching on Michael Powell's "Home Sampler": Otherwise it was Thanksgiving week so that meant prep time of a day, the actual day and a day of clean-up after... COuple that with a return of that tummy flu adn I wasn't really much into stitching this week. I hope to make up for that with working on "Birds of a Feather" this weekend and getting a;; the speciality stitches in that border done...

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Seven

The Portuguese Border Stitch. Kind of fun to do, and fast. I have to watch my tension, and play with curves and the like, but I think this one will become one of my preferred seam treatments! I used two kinds of threads in this piece... #5 perle in a variegated blue and Carrie's Creations (Crazy Dreams).

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend, November, 2012

As promised, I worked almost exclusively on "Birds of a Feather" and its border speciality stitches. In all 288 individual detached chain stitches (AKA Lazy Daisies):

Next step - metallic stitches in the border --- Just couldn't face that last night so I moved on to finish up a "tree" in the "Home" sampler: 

Doesn't look like a lot of progress on either piece but it was over seven hours of stitching. And over all, the stitch count for the week-long Stitchathon at Cross Stitch Crazy was 307 chain stitches and 2193 cross and half-cross stitches! Not bad considering how lousy I have felt all week!

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Six

In addition to week forty-six of Take a Stitch Tuesday (the checkered chain), I stitched on a new start this week --- a Michael Powell piece called "Home Sampler" (I had a case of startitis):

and a little on "Birds of a Feather" (Note the lazy daisy stitches on the left border and the red diamond eyelets on the rest of the border):

This weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend for November and I plan on putting more tie into "Birds..." despite my dislike of lazy daisy stitches! But I haven't been feeling well all week so, we shall see on Monday if I make any real progress on either piece.

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Six

Week 46's stitch is the Checkered, or Magic, Chain stitch. Here is mine, forming a stem for my open-based needle-woven picot stitch flower. I used GAST "Harvest Basket" and Forest Glade" as my alternating colors...

I did try to be creative and use three colors but I had tension issues, with the threads not wanting to cooperate, resulting in a hot mess on both the front and the back of the fabric,  so I ripped that out and settled for just two...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Five

In the past week, there have been a few "completions"! 

The first, and biggest, is Kimono - Revisited which is now ready for the framers! 

The second was the weekly TAST - the open base needlewoven picot stitch. 

The third was the Hillcroft House "name shield" for my husband's birthday, also ready for the framer. 

And finally, there was my block for the color palette challenge - crazy quilt journal page challenge - bead journal project challenge for November! The grid was a modified version of block 12 for the "I Dropped the Button Box" quilt at Pin Tangle. It was constructed using fabric, lace, ribbon, beads and threads from my stash, ALL of which had been used at least once on previous blocks. And as always, the signature chain stitch and row of bead trim (although this time it was gold instead of crystal) were in this block. And I finally decided that, like all traditional crazy quilts, this block needed it's spider web and spider...

I am avoiding "Birds of a Feather" --- it's that the next speciality stitch is in metallic thread, not my favorite mesium to stitch with... But I will get back to it this weekend. I HAVE to! There no other WIP to procrastinate with!

A completion...

This is a Hillcroft House design --- a name shield based on interpretation of the meaning and origins of a name:

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Five

This week it was the Open-base Needle-woven Picot stitch --- not a whole lot different in execution from the previous week's Closed-base Needle-woven Picot stitch: A wider base is all, I think. Here is mine:

Kimono Revisited is Complete!

The finished piece is 15" X 18" on 24 ct. pale blue Congress cloth (24 ct), using various ThreadWorX, DMC (cotton, rayon *and* metallic) and Carrie's Creations (Black Cherry) threads and several shades of Kreinik #8 and #12 braid. The color scheme is called "Electric Blue" with the purple is my "spin" on the original thread collection. It was a Shining Needle Society on-line class from John Waddell which started last December 1, 2011.

Now to figure out how to finish it...

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Four

This week, I caught up on the pale blue fan stitches in the border for "Birds of a Feather":

Completed the latest assignments of Color Trough the Ages and TAST 2012, picked fabrics for the November Color Palette Challenge:

and started on the last 13 sections of "Kimono - Revisited" (got three sections done in three hours!):

I also went shopping for a new project (a class online called "Stupendous Stitching") but failed miserably in my quest for basic supplies (Michaels has filled the store with Christmas "stuff" and nothing crafty can be found!). In addition, I signed up for next year's Crazy Quilt Journal Challenge (although I probably won't make it part of the Bead Journal Project this time), am seriously considering TAST 2013, and am talking with the administrators of the Bead Journal Project about being a "detail angel" next year... I also have a name shield project waiting for me from Stitcher's Village and a whole lot of pieces planned for next year's fair. Needless to say, even though I am caught up, I am digging that hole even deeper in terms of simultaneous projects! Oh my... will I ever get back to cross stitch?

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Four

This week's stitch was a fixed-base needle-woven picot stitch:

and here is the "page" for October which includes the Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border,  Buttonhole Wheel Cup and the Fixed-base Needle-woven Picot:

Color Through the Ages - Chinese Colors

I was having a mental block on color choices for this one --- the examples shown in the instructions didn't resonate with me, somehow, perhaps because of all the Chinese "stuff" we accumulated in Beijing, a lot of which was on white backgrounds and even more of which was almost monochromatic But I started checking out the embroidery pieces we acquired while there and decided to use two of them as my guide for color choice.

First is a Q'ing Dynasty embroidery collar for a child. It was done in colored silk, in satin stitch with a few beads, on various colors of felt. Here is a picture of a segment of that collar showing the embroidery on concentric rings of green and black felt and with beads connecting the rings. MOST of the color you see here is satin stitch in single strands of silk:

Then I pulled a "modern" piece, an embroidered zodiac horse (I'm a water horse in the Chinese zodiac which is why I bought it), done on an even weave in silk, again, in satin stitch (Apologies for the glare off the glass):

In both pieces, notice the dulled down blue, red and green, the bright orange, the pinkish white and the bright yellow. Notice a distinct lack of white (the modern piece has pure white around the eye of the horse but what appears to be white in the collar is really more of a pinkish white, almost a variegated thread). So that's what I aimed for in my thread choices, minimizing yellow because, in Chinese tradition, yellow was reserved for the emperor, and using a gold braid for the cloisonné-like outlining. My color choices were DMC cotton in 725, 798, 970, 3347, 3770 and 3831 and Kreinik #4 braid in 002HL:

So another Color Through the Ages completed...

WIPocalypse - October's Hunter's Moon, 2012

What did I do this past "moon"? 

Well, there were 

• the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border, and the Buttonhole Wheel Cup.

• The October Stash Buster from Janet Perry (the very last one)

• The October Mittens & Mini-Socks from Janet Perry --- both a mitten and a sock 

• the October parts for "Kimono - Revisited":

• The October Color Palette Challenge/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project block 

• and quite a bit on "Birds of a Feather"...

I do have a "Color Through the Ages" to kit up but otherwise, it's been all "Birds of a Feather"!

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Three

A lot of time spent this week, avoiding the banging on the roof (the roofers are done; today it's the gutter people)and trying to get posts through to a forum that had suddenly gotten fractious and wasn't behaving nicely. So, except for TAST, all I managed was a lot of backstitching on "Birds of a Feather" (all the border blocks are stitched now --- only beading left for them) and started on speciality stitches in the border, proper (a green Rhodes Square completed and just a start on a pale blue fan stitch (see upper right):

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Three

This week's stitch is the buttonhole wheel cup. I tried it twice with two strands of GAST and the second step kept distorting the buttonhole wheel and the buttonhole stitch didn't "stand up" but rather formed a web inside the rim (see the picture on the left) so I switched to perle which managed to hold it's shape better:

The perle cotton "cup" is done with three rows of weaving and it looks sort of like an empty barnacle shell at an angle:

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend, October 19 - 21, 2012

I put in roughly 9 hours of stitching over the three days of ISHW and finished all the corner squares in the border of "Birds of a Feather" and started on the backstitching (the top right and right center blocks are all backstitched now)...  not that you can really see a difference between here:

and what I had reported on Saturday... or in this ridiculously small picture.

There were 12 detatched lazy daisies in each border block, as well as a couched grid-work held down by upright cross stitches in the center of each. In addition, I found several sections of gold braid cross-stitch I had missed out first time around in the rectangular blocks on the sides...

Overall, a good finish for the Cross Stitch Crazy Weeklong Stitchalong (3799 stitches in all, through the week) and ISHW.