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: