2012: A Year of Challenges - week 4

And this was a week of challenges! Not only did I manage to complete a Stash Buster piece and a Crazy quilt Journal Challenge/Bead Journal piece (the latter of which had overtones of the Color Palette Challenge!), I finished Take-a-Stitch-Tuesday - Week 4's challenge, the Cretan Stitch!

Oh, and I did a Finish It Frenzy too --- I lined the insides of the three needlepoint "cases" I have stitched from Stitch & Zip by Alice Peterson Co: Paisely Jacobean, Zen Bamboo, and Coffee Break:


Paisely Jacobean and Zen Bamboo both got green felt liners while Coffee Break got maroon (as close as I had to the brown psuedo-suede backing).

And after all that, I got in a little more stitching on "Sewing with Mama!" (the doily under the tea cup, some detail on the pin cushion and some detail on the draping behind the sewing machine --- all in cream so it isn't very distinct... and even less distinct, the detailing of the ruffles on the red-and-white pillow sham in a very pale grey brown.):

And started on the remaining Stash Buster Club piece on my table: Beach Mat Frame. Not a lot of progress here (I'm using sock yarn and it likes to catch on the raw edges of the canvas) and, given how the corner squares are turning out, I think I may rename this something other than Beach Mat...

Also, my threads and fabric for Kimono-Revisited arrived this week...

The instructor calls this the "Electric Blue" combination (based on the colors in three skeins of ThreadWorx) on blue congress cloth.  We "students" are supposed to play around with thread choices (but since stitching is supposed to start in a week, I'm not sure I will be able to accomplish much in that area. I have searched my stash and don't really "see" any threads that will work with these and am not confident enough to expand on the color range... And since there is no LNS close to me, shopping online is likely to be a blind (and pricey) experiment. with high probability of failure..).

Of course, I had forgotten exactly what I ordered from the instructor so I did order some navy DMC and equivalent Kreinik for purposes of outlining (either DMC or Kreinik, not both). You can see them here, in the lower left of this photo (Not sure why the congress cloth changed color --- same place, similar time, same flash). The ones he recommended for outlining in this colorway are the medium blues on the right:

I suppose these can be added to the mix... Any comments?