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.

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-Two

It WAS a week of challenges; not all in the stitching camp however!

This is the week our roof is being torn off and replaced so of course, it's raining,. Not heavily but enough to keep the roofers away. Of the five work days this week 9adn it was supposed to be DONE yesterday) they only got in two work days and I'd guess the house is one-third done,if that much. The hassle, besides the noise (and scaring teh cats but more on that later) is that the dumpster for the torn off rubbish is in our driveway and since they were supposed to be done yesterday and I didn't need the car all week, my car is trapped in there. Looks like next week will be interesting as I have my weekly Girls' Night Out meet-up *and* a hair cut scheduled...

As for scared cats --- the housecleaner did the attic guest suite last Wednesday and left the door to it open (we never do as the cats love to sleep in there and there's nothing worse than trying to get black cat fur off of a duvet cover!). But what with the noise from the roofers, apparently the cats found the room irresistable. Thursday night, my husband, in his infinite wisdom, closed the door to that room. Friday, the littlest cat (Kathy) who is mouthy at the best of times, was particularly in our faces. No amount of food or petting pacified her. As dinner approached, I realized I hadn't seen the other two (Faith and Dominic) all day and Dominic, at least, is always at the dinner table, looking for love... A mad search of all the house. No cats. Was little miss Mouthy telling us they were missing? She sure was, but not very effectively --- we found them eventually, locked in the attic bedroom suite. Looks like it's the dry cleaners for us, to have that duvet laundered...

The third challenge was motivation to stitch this week. TAST Week 42 was done promptly for a change but I didn't get back to stitching until Thursday and Friday when I finally put in two more speciality stitches on "Birds of a Feather". Can you tell? A blue fan stitch and a gold diamond eyelet stitch in all the border "boxes"...

This weekend is International Hermit and Stitch weekend for October, so I should get in a few more border stitches before the "stitch-in" is over!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-Two

Week forty-two's stitch was the Italian Knotted Loop border stitch. Here is my attempt, five ways!

Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 - Week Forty-One

This week, the stitch was the Knotted Loop Stitch and while it wasn't that difficult to do, I couldn't get to it until last night (lots of late nights - Girls Night Out on Tuesday, Quilt Guild on Friday - and early mornings - volunteering on the NPR phone bank Thursday and Friday - means I didn't get all that much sleep and so wasn't competent to decipher the instructions!) Here is my attempt, the first failed (the fish on hte left really turned into mirrored blanket stitch) and the actual stitch on the right:

It's a shame the fish didn't work out as I really saw fish bones in this stitch if the arms were varied in length. Oh well... maybe I'll take it out someday and redo it!

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty-One

I haven't touched "Birds of a Feather" in over two weeks, and TAST - week 41 is barely in progress. It's been a busy week off the needle and all I have accomplished, really, is completion of a Mitten & Mini-Sock. But I can share the latest update on "Kimono-Revisited" which I caught up on October 8:

Some Bargello Completions

Two finishes for the Janet Perry Mittens & Mini-Socks bargello class... Autumn Trees, completed October 10, 2012, using all variegated threads (except for the tree trunk): Threads used - DMC 3031 for trunks; DMC 4126 for cuff;  for tree leaves, DMC 51, 61, and 4075 4130; WDW Kudzu (2200), Cornbread (2222), Marigold (2225), Carrot (2226),  and Fiesta (4131); San Man Threads Autumn Leaves (049) and Hot Stuff (058); and GAST Bittersweet, Forest Glade, Fudge Ripple, and Pumpkin Patch (4402). Variegated threads are hard to predict when in teh skein which colors will end up where so there are a few trees that sort of merge together... And the mitten for the same assignment, completed October 11, 2012: Threads used - DMC 3031 for trunks; DMC 4126 for cuff; and for tree leaves: DMC 51, 61, and 4075 4130; WDW   Kudzu (2200), Marigold (2225), and   Autumn Leaves (2234); San Man Threads Autumn Leaves (049); and GAST Bittersweet, Forest Glade, and Fudge Ripple. Because of the shape and overall size of the mitten, it used fewer colors. This pattern reminds me strongly of the one I did last back in November, 2011, in the 2011 Bargello Club:  White for the "stems make it looks like a lot of pastel lollipops! And the lollipops are oval instead of round... and in rayon threads instead of cottons!

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty

A day without internet, thanks to a gardening husband and his sharp little spade adn a very close encounter with the internet cable! But I have to give him credit --- after finding out from customer service that it wouldn't be until monday after 5 PM that someone could get out here to repair it, he talked to the dealer downtown and they had someone out last night instead! So only one day without. Bad enough!

However, every bad event has a good side. I stitched instead of hovering around this laptop for three hours --- which meant I got a LOT done this week!

In addition to the day of Rhodes Squares on "Birds of a Feather" and TAST 2102 Week 40, I did a fabric toss for the color palette challenge and kitted up the last Stash Buster Club project! Then, yesterday, in all that freed up time, I stitched the Stash Buster, called "Diamond Scraps", using my different shades of brown and dark yellow from my scrap bag:

Then, once this was done, I attacked my Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project challenges with some gusto. The colors weren't exactly my cuppa but all but one had been used in previous blocks, and I managed to arrange them in a grid (block 12) from Pin Tangle's "I Dropped the Button Box" crazy quilt. I set about adding my signature chain stitch swirl and a strand of crystal beads in addition to some ribbon, a piece of lace, and a small jewelry finding. Not a lot of embroidery on this one --- just didn't have the mental energy to tackle complex seam treatments so some of the seams aren't touched at all. I MIGHT come back later and try to embellish further, but I figured that I was at that point where attempting to add more just would mess it up.

The October sections of "Kimono - Revisited" are in now so I think I may spend the weekend trying out my new rayon thread straightening device and working on that. I'll report back on what I think of the device (it came highly recommended by one of the Shining Needle Society gurus so I expect it will do wonders for my love/hate relationship with rayon threads!).

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Week 40

The stitch is/was the Beaded Hebedo Edge and while it started out logically, I ended up melting down last night when trying to actually do the Hebedo part of the stitch. Not a hardanger person here and I simply couldn't picture what I was doing. MANY thanks to Sharon B who answered my very loud call for help and guided me, with three generous emails and a link, to what I THINK may be a completion. Couldn't get a picture close enough to show the detail but...

Once a single line was completed, I bailed. The thread I was using (two strands of GAST "Aged Pewter") simply didn't like this stitch either (possibly part of my problem --- it kept curling, knotting, separating, blocking my view, etc. especially after picking it out, over and over and over --- believe me, you do NOT want to have to pick this stitch out if it goes wrong on you!) and after my struggles, I considered myself lucky to get this far! Didn't even try to come up with a design possibility for it. I think I can do it now, but odds are, I will only use it for straight line seam treatments, if at all.

The other thing I did yesterday was select my fabrics for the color palette challenge:

Only one fabric new to the blocks --- the purple/pink one on the far right. All others have been used at least once in my blocks for the other color palette challenges...

ever notice, in crazy quilting, everyone else uses patterns and fabrics with texture and the like, and I seem to end up with solids --- maybe the odd batik? My stash is really limited and I don't seem to do pattern in fabric much! SO I have to resort of laces, ribbons, threads, beads and the like to spruce up my blocks. Still, my blocks look awfully simple compared wit those displayed over at the Crazy Quilt Journal challenge! The ladies who post there are really an inspiration to me to try harder in this form of needlework...