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.