2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty-One

Summer is here --- skipped spring altogether, again! We've had temps in the mid to high 80s for several days and then, just when you think you've gotten used to it, we get frost warnings for three nights in a row. This weather will be the death of me!

A whole week on "Reloaded" and it really doesn't look it but... 

The six color is completed (I kept finding places where I forgot to finish a piece or where I had missed color five! AAARGH!) and seventh color (a very pale blue, almost the same shade as the fabric) is roughly 60% complete.

This one feels VERY green compared to the original "Roll Your Own". I hope the blues will balance it out or otherwise, putting all 9 on one piece of fabric will have been a major mistake!...

A completion as well --- stitches 114 and 115 (Long Tail Chain Stitch, plain, beaded and whipped) for Take a Stitch Tuesday:

Other than that, I spent most of my crafting time prepping for a two day papercrafting/collage class this coming weekend. Had to get together a kit of "essential" tools just in case, which meant I had to search through my disaster of a crafting space, looking for things I KNOW I have but can't find anywhere... If it didn't mean taking tie away from stitching, I'd spend a month (at least) cleaning and organizing, but it's something I truly dread!

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty

With this past week being both a WIPocalypse and International Hermit and Stitch check-in week, you'd think I'd not have a lot to report today. And you'd be right! Apart from the finishes reported for these two milestones, all I've managed to do is get a few more stitches in the the Roll Your Own mandala "Reloaded":

Still plugging away on the fifth color...

The third lesson for the finishing class from Funk & Weber is now online and I'm still on lesson 1! What I get for all these online classes is never being caught up, I guess...

So, since there isn't much stitching to show today, I thought I'd post a little eye candy from my husband's garden: tree peonies and Allium!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, May 16 - 18

Blocks 8 and 9 of the Elizabeth Almond blackwork SAL, "Save the Stitches" are now completed (except for beads, of course)!

While I had allocated IHSW for the blackwork piece, I also fit in a couple of other tasks as well. I started on the second part of lesson 1 of the Funk & Weber finishing class on hemstitching, by prepping a 12 x 12 piece of Aida for folding the hem with mitered corners and then hemstitching.

If I actually get stitching done on this, I will only be two classes behind in that class! 

I also got in a completion! The last band in the Wiehenburg Designs Mystery Band Sampler was stitched last night!

All it needs is a pressing and a trip to the framer!

So, all in all, a pretty productive weekend!

WIPocalypse - May 14, 2014

The question for this full moon was: "What designs or themes do you really wish you could find?  What do you think is missing among stitching designs?" 

Well, I have to say I'm a rather eclectic stitcher and can usually find something to stitch without looking too long or hard (heck, my stash of charts, magazines and books is large enough to net a fair number of $$$ in a garage sale should I ever get around to setting one up). I can't offhand think of anything I can't find... I'm more of the "there's way too much 'cute' out there for my taste" kind of stitcher. So I guess if this question was phrased in another way, I'd suggest trimming down the the selection of smalls, the too cutes, the child-suitable offerings in favor of some designs that had some challenge, some speciality stitches, some beading...

Since the last WIPocalpyse, I have completed the following:

• Take a Stitch Tuesday: Rice Stitch (varieties), Square Box Stitch,  Rope stitch , ZigZag Coral Stitch, Feathered Chain Stitch and Beaded Feathered Chain Stitch.
• May Bead Journal Project atc ornament - Goldfinch Owl"
• May Crazy Quilt Journal block

Completions that are milestones in some continuing WIPS:

• Wiehenburg Mystery Band Sampler bands 10 and 11
• "Save the Stitches" SAL blocks 6 and 7 

In progress are: 

• the Roll Your Own Mandala "Reloaded" 
• "Save the Stitches" outlines for blocks 8 and 9
• The Funk & Weber Finishing class on hemstitching

In addition to the above in-progress WIPS, expected this month are more Take-a-Sitch Tuesday stitches and the last band on the Weihneburg Mystery Band Sampler. So I continue to move from small compltion to small completion while the BAPs barely get touched! Will I never get caught up?

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Nineteen

As I mentioned in last weeks' late report, part of why I didn't get much stitching done last week was being out of town at a scrapbook show. While I don't scrapbook, my friend does and we three "Girls' Night "Out" buddies traveled up to Novi, MI to attend "Megameet". Spent a lot of food (Novi is a pricey place), bought a few papercrafting supplies (very little there as scrapbookers are more into paper and stickers and the like than stamps and ink and such), and totally messed with my bad ankle (Walking on concrete for four+ hours isn't recommended for the healthiest of legs and my right ankle is far from healthy!). Too dim in the hotel to stitch and, besides, no way I was hauling along a magnifier as well as my regular luggage. SO I went into a brief withdrawal!

Upon arrival home, husband and I headed back up to Toledo for a concert by the Toledo Symphony in Holy Rosary Cathedral. Bruckner's "Null" Symphony. Beautiful music. VERY hard pews! And no stitching Friday night either!

So that meant I caught up a little on the weekend. However, Girls Night Out  on Tuesday is cancelled due to illness so I should be able to get in one extra day of stitching to partially compensate for the three missed nights! 

Completions of works in progress included:

• Gold Finch Owl:

• Band 10 in the Wiehenburg Mystery Band Sampler:

• May Crazy Quilt Journal block. I thought my block was done Saturday but when I looked at the photo, I could see I missed two seams I had marked so... back to the drawing board Monday, where I finished up those truant seams:

• Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches 112 (Feathered Chain) and 112 (Beaded Feathered Chain):

WIPS include the following...

I put in an evening of stitching on Monday night, doing the outlines for blocks 9 and 10 of "Save the Stitches":

Since this weekend is the May International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, I hope to finish the blackwork fill on those blocks then.

Tuesday night, I finished up the third color in the Roll Your Own mandala "Reloaded" and got roughly 1/4 of the fourth color done:

Meanwhile, I started in lesson 1 (mitered corners and hemstitching Aida) for the Fun & Weber class on finishing I am registered for. Here is the mitering corners lesson using graph paper... the graph paper diagram (using some of Saudi Arabian stash of dressmakers graph paper!):

and the final mitered piece: 

A little wonky at one corner but I blame that on working with metric graph paper!

Part two of Lesson one was to mitre the corners of a piece of Aida and then hemstitch the "frame" down. Naturally, lesson two came out when I was just starting on this one! Typical! So I'm still not caught up...

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Eighteen - three days late!2014 - Staying Connected, Week Eighteen - three days late!

Having a morning commitment on Wednesday (clean house before the cleaner comes and husband,s monthly high school class breakfast), coupled with leaving for Novi, MI for a scrapbooking show (I don't scrapbook by my friend does) that afternoon, I never had a chance to post my weekly report. SO here it is, three days late, but nothing has been accomplished since then anyway, so it's not that much of a cheat.

I spent most of the week working on my Bead Journal piece for May. It's another owl, or maybe the same owl as for January. This snowy owl has overstayed his welcome as the snow has melted and his white feathers stand out against the newly greening landscape. Having missed the return trip to Canada, he, in his some what addled state, decided he could disguise himself with the colors of the flowers in the front yard. 

So he smeared pollen on his feathers and attached yellow petals where he could. Blends right in! Trouble is, these flowers aren't a permanent feature of the landscape and he was starting to panic. What would happen to him when they wilted and shriveled? And then he saw some birds in our garden! They were almost the same colors he was now! 

He found a string of black beads. Maybe, if he wove them through his  wing feathers, or made a little skull cap with them, he could pass for an overlarge member of their very large flock and spend the summer here. After all, there are plenty of mice to eat and they wouldn't think that he was eating their food (they eat those disgusting seeds!), and he would save on the energy needed to migrate this fall!

That's it! He'll be a goldfinch!

He's almost done but needs backing and a hanger...

My May Crazy Quilt Journal project block is 

assembled and ready for seam treatments:

And I started the penultimate band of the Mystery Band Sampler:

Blocks 8 and 9 for "Save the Stitches" are in my project bag and the "Reloaded" Roll Your Own mandala hasn't been touched since the end of April.  The Funk & Weber Finshing class on Hemstitching started last week as well and I have two assignments to do in that class...

I have a lot of stitching to do in the next few days to catch up!

Take a Stitch Tuesday - stitches 110 and 111

This pair of stitches are variations on the coral stitch: the Rope Stitch (#110) and the Zig Zag Coral Stitch (#111). The Rope Stitch is on top and the Zig Zag Coral Stitch is below...

I think there may be more variations on this theme in coming weeks... Meanwhile, it's back to getting the Bead Journal Project and the Crazy Quilt Journal Project for May out of the way so I can concentrate on the Roll Your Own Mandalas again!