Take a Stitch Tuesday 2013 (Inverted Feather Stitch)

Here is my version of inverted feather stitch...

Two rows in a variegated perle (#5) on linen...

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Four

What I have to show here isn't a whole lot differetn from what I reported for WIPOcalypse but there has been progress in two projects...

The inner border of "Red Thai Mandala" is now complete and that pesky hard-to-see DMC318 blackwork is finished~ YAY

And I put some buttons and beads on the February Crazy Quilt Journal PRoject block --- heart shaped ones because February, although not an "orange" month (let's face it, if I do yellow, orange and red monochromatic blocks this year, NO month is going to match it's color...), is the month for Valentine's Day!

WIPocalypse 2013 - January 26

This month's "theme" is to introduce myself, my projects, and any goals I have for the year.

Born in New Jersey, I grew up in Southeastern Ohio and attended university at Bowling Green State University (B.Sci.  in biological science, 1964), University of Southern California (M. Sci. in biological science, 1967) and University of Florida (Ph. D. in zoology, 1971). I worked in environmental consulting for a little more than a decade and then seven years as an instructor in biological science at various community colleges in California and Texas. I basically "retired" when we moved to London in 1992;  Beijing followed (1996) and then Saudi Arabia (1998), before returning to NW Ohio in 2002. I live with my husband and three Bombay cats.  I love to read (mystery, science fiction, history) although I haven't had much time for books of late, and stitch (have done crewel, currently experimenting with free embroidery and needlepoint, but blackwork and cross stitch are my main genres; I have been known to knit! and really really want to learn how to quilt). 

I have made some progress since the last WIPocolypse check-in.  I finished 

•  the Michael Powell "Home Sampler" 
•  my Bead Journal Project pieces from 2011 as a wall hanging
•  a sock and a mitten from Janet Perry's "Mittens & Mini-Socks" online class - these were called "Jewel" 
•  my January Crazy Quilt Journal Project piece
•  my January Bead Journal Project piece
•  Stitch 49 in Take a Stitch Tuesday - Knotted Feather Stitch  
•  lesson 11 in Janet Perry's "Color Through the Ages" (Art Deco)

My current WIP is "Red Thai Mandala" by Elizabeth Almond, started December 30, 2102 and at this stage of completion as of January 26:

The basic block for my February Crazy Quilt Journal Project is ready to stitch and embellish:

I know what I want to do for the February Bead Journal Project as well (a pink and white butterfly on red-and-white fabric…) but haven't decided on the fabric yet.

Other 2013 plans include:

- Finish up Janet Perry's "Color Through the Ages" online class (one lesson to go) and Janet Perry's "Mittens & Mini-Socks" online class (3 to go?)

- Start Sharon B's online classes "Encrusted Crazy Quilting Class 2013" and "Sumptuous Surfaces Embroidery Class"

- Participate in Sharon B's Take a Stitch Tuesday, the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013 and the Bead Journal Project

I want to finish up my 2010 and 2012 Bead Journal pieces and my Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 pieces as either wall hangings or books… and I signed up for at least three online-classes in quilting through Craftsy, but all of these may well be shoved to the back burner since I am also webmaster for our local quilt guild and "detail angel" for the 2013 Bead Journal Project, to say nothing of community leader for "Stitcher's Niche" in iVillage. This means I will be on the computer a lot, which will make it difficult to compete my over-all goal of "reconnecting" with my cross stitching, which was neglected in 2012 in favor of needlepoint, crazy quilting, beading and freehand embroidery!

While avoiding all that backstitch in the "Red Thai Mandala"

(funny, I usually like backstitch in blackwork but the light oclor of that gray is driving me nuts) another completion of a small piece...

It's lesson 11 in the "Color Through the Ages" twinchies by Janet Perry, and uses DMC 310, 3706, 5282 and E677. I THOUGHT I was electing a silver metallic but when I started stitching with E677, it turned into a pale pale gold. Since ripping out DMC metallic is a PITA, I decided to leave it even though it isn't really Art Deco in feel any more.

Some January Completions - a Wrap-up

First completion this month was the sock from Janet Perry's "Mittens & Mini-Socks". It's called "Jewel" and is posted here

Second was the companion mitten for "Jewel", completed January 21, 2013:

Also completed on January 21 was the January piece for Bead Journal Proejct 2013 - a beaded butterfly on snowflake fabric which I call "Snow & Ice":

Completed on January 23 was the January block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013 - a monochromatic yellow piece:

And also completed on January 23 was the Take a Stitch Tuesday #49, "Knotted Feather Stitch" which I did in variegated #5 perle on white DMC linen:

It's been a busy week and I have at least one more small piece I want to complete before January winds down. But I thought I should play catch-up with posting today!

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Three (and IH&S Weekend)

This International Hermit & stitch Weekend coincided with the Cross Stitch Crazy week-long Stitchathon ... AND weekend house guests. Still, I managed to squeeze in 2295 stitches over the week, 752 of which were on the weekend and resulted in the completion of the latests Janet Perry "Mini-Sock", Jewel, on Friday:

The "jewel" is Kreinik silver braid ((#16 braid, color 001) while the purple background is DMC 208. 209 and 2011. The instructions called for four coordinating colors for the background but I didn't have another purple that quite matched the three (purple is a hard color to match, IMO).

There is still the mitten to do --- I only have a few of the silver stitches in at present.

 In addition, I put more beads into my January Bead Journal Project butterfly ('m calling it "Snow & Ice" because of the ridiculously cold weather we are having right now, even if it hasn't snowed much to speak of year  this January...); 

All that remains to be done is the antenna (a few stem stitches in silver and a couple of larger beads...) and it will be finished as well!

At the beginning of the week, I also stitched on "Red Thai Mandala" and got a bit more of the border stitched:

I have neglected my Crazy Quilt Journal Project piece which I really have to get moving on as the month is almost over! Also, I need to start my BJP "finish-finish" this week and Take a Stitch Tuesday will be starting up again tomorrow as well. 

Hmmm, doesn't sound like I lightened my stitching commitments at all, does it?

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Two

I didn't get as much done as I had hoped this week --- mix in a damaged rotator cuff (i'm on massive doses of ibuprofen in the hopes that it will allow it to heal without further intervention) , Girls Night Out on Tuesday, quilt guild on Thursday, and a crafting weekend with my friend Mary, there was little time for stitching. It won't be much better this coming week either since we have house guests all weekend and two of hubby's dinners (one Master Gardener's recognition and one Hosta and Daylily Society); I expect I'll be to tired to stitch...

Anyway --- no progress on my Crazy Quilt Challenge block, but I got a little more of the outlining done on the Bead Journal Project block:

a VERY little progress on the border of  "Red Thai Mandala":

and only a  few stitches put into Januarys "Mitten * Mini-sock" (no photo to show for it - not worth the effort given the amount of stitches shown!). 

But I did complete the BJP 2011 wall hanging!

Here is the back:

tied with clear buttons (which of course, don't show up in this photo), a hanging sleeve and a label (no fabric pen decided it was too old to write so it's not at all clear, but it is only basted on and it will only take a new pen and all will be copacetic).

"Kimono-Revisited" took a road trip Thursday night to quilt guild "show-and-tell" and even though it isn't a quilt, per se, it did go over reasonably well. The fact that I actually had something to show was as much as a shock to the membership as the fact that I showed off a needlepoint project! 

This week is a stitchathon week at Cross Stitch Crazy so I expect I will work more on "Thai Red Mandala" than anything else, but I do want to plan out how to "finish-finish" BJP 2010 (A book, perhaps - I have a clue as to how to do that now) and 2012 (another quilt top/wall hanging?).

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week One

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week One

Over on Cross Stitch Crazy , it seems the theme for 2013 will be "reconnecting" and reconnecting with my cross stitchery is really in my goals for 2013. In addition, I want to get some finishing done, to bring down the size of that stack of stitchery which is stitched but otherwise put away...

So this week, I set about tackling these and other goals!

First of all, I assembled the basic block from my Crazy Quilt Journal Challenge 2013 piece. Monochromatic --- this block being all yellow with touched of white and gold when it's finished. The grid for the basic block is block 1 from Sharon B's "I dropped the Button Box" quilt...

Next was starting my January piece for the Bead Journal Project 2013. Since I am doing encrusted beading again, this will take a longer than last year's BJP but it will be closer to the real meaning of BJP, I think... January will be a (roughly) 3" x 3" white and pale blue butterfly on a dark blue snowy background. I have the felt template stitched down with some of the light blue beads. At the corner is the pattern I intend to follow (more or less) for this month's butterfly, which is based on one of five free butterfly symmetry outlines:

Speaking of BJP, I have three years of BJP pieces which require "finish-finishing". BJP 2010 is already in "pages" for which I now need to devise a book. BJP 2011 and BJP 2012, however, were, until recently, simply stacks of beaded fabric, awaiting inspiration. I finally decided that I should take my desire to get more comfortable with my sewing machine seriously and at least finish BJP 2011 as a wall hanging. After much sewing and ripping and sewing and ripping, I finally got all 12 blocks together although, as usual, my attempts at making sashing line up failed miserably (although this is much better than the original three attempts!); since it's only for myself, however, I decided that I wouldn't try again to make that bottom row line up. 

This awaits batting large enough I but I think the fabric shown here will make a suitable backing (to be honest, I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this, let alone why I bought so much of it, but it should make a suitable backing fabric).  I have no intention of fussing with a binding at present so I think I will make this an envelope-turn finish... And since the beading is so heavy and quilting around the motifs is impossible, at least for me at this time, this will be tied when finished.

Finally, I stitched on the Elizabeth Almond "Red Thai Mandala" which was published in The Gift of Stitching:

I'm well into the middle border and have made a tentative start at the blackwork outer border. According to the write-up in TGOS, this was inspired by two different temples in Thailand, with the floral motif representing the lotus flower and the four "pointed" motifs in the center square the wat temple towers...

So, despite a few interruptions for family functions and a wonky right shoulder which seems to have decided to malfunction, I did manage to stitch quite a bit this first week of 2013. Here's hoping I keep up the pace.