2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty-Five

No stitching accomplished since my IHSW report... and prospects for stitching in the coming week are not good...

What did we do yesterday? Visited on of Husband's daylily hybridizer's farm in Georgetown, SC. I can share photos of that...

The display garden and the sales building:

And just a taste of some of teh varieties in their display garden:

What's coming up" More daylily gardens in NC, and a continued road trip to Virginia and West Virginia (no daylilies, thank goodness, but a visit to the Gettysburg battlefield and fireworks are on order!) before returning home ... So next wednesday may well be a stitching-free report as well!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, June 20 - 22

Various things are getting in the way of stitching in the next few weeks, but I did manage to get the outlining of blocks 10 and 11 done on Friday night for "Save the Stitches":

Here is how these new blocks fit into the sampler so far:

I also started the outline for the third Roll Your Own mandala, "Bride":

My traveling needlepoint will be coming out of limbo for the next few weeks... This is where it stood since the las trip, a cruise back in 2011:

and this is how far three strands of wool took me Sunday night (I blame the atrocious light in hotel rooms!):

Crazy Quilt Journal Block for June

Another completion! Here is my Crazy Quilt Journal Project Challenge 2014 block for the month of June:

As in the previous five months of blocks, the fabrics, trims, floss and beads are all based upon a Hoffman Challenge focus fabric. And after six months of working in the same color palette, I have learned two things: 1) I need variety to keep up my interest and 2) patterns are harder for me to incorporate into crazy quilting than solids and batiks that read as solids!   Hey, lesson learned --- that's why I participate in these challenges!

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty-Four

My June Bead Journal piece:

I reused the love bird motif form February, reworked the color and added a pair of gold vermeil number charms. I call it "Anniversary" - my husband's and my 50th, which we celebrate (if we remember!) later on this month.

Other than this ornament, I haven't stitched on anything else since completing the TAST assignment. I hope to get started on my Crazy Quilt Journal block for June today...

Take a Stitch Tuesday Stitches ## 116 and 117

These stitches are the Beaded vandyke and the Bullion Vandyke. I know I can do Vandyke. I've done it before in TAST and I did it here:

But ask me to put beads on it and it goes all wonky:

and as for bullion stitches on it (especially since I hate bullion stitches - I think my fingers are just to big and clumsy to handle all those winds around the needle), even wonkier still:

Still, I completed this assignment (with a lot of grumbling, to be sure - ever try to frog a bullion stitch?) and now have a second page of stitches for 2014:

Oh, and I got stitchy mail this weekend! Back in May, I won the random drawing for a prize on the WIPocalypse blog. This is what came in the mail yesterday! 

Ink Circle's "Blue Morpho" chart, three skeins of ThreadworX and some 28 Needles! YAY! Thanks, Melissa (AKA Measi). I love it all!

WIPocalypse 2014 - June 13, 2014

This month's question/theme is:

"Have you ever been to a stitch gathering such as a retreat or a festival? If so, tell us about it!"

Besides price, the main obstacle to my attending any stitchery retreats or festivals is the complete lack of them in our part of the US.  My attendance has been constrained by those factors.

If  you count our quilting guild's annual retreat and biannual work days,I have been to one guild retreat (and am signed up for one this year). It was a weekend event at a local retreat center... There were forty sewing stations (we brought our own machines, tools and projects), one cutting station and two pressing stations. It was crowded and, while I did complete one piece, I can't say it was either productive or instructive. Lots of freebies (most of which I have little use for) and raffles and junk food! Cost is roughly $175 for room, board and sewing space.

The work days are much more structured, one day events held at the local community center. These work days can accommodate up to 25 individuals at any one time, but people come and go throughout the day so more than 25 usually attend. Again, one brings one's own machine, tools, projects (and lunch if you plan on staying that long --- or you can order in), and there are cutting and pressing centers provided by the guild. A lot more gets done at these work days, usually in the form of charity quilts, but one can work on anything one wants. These are free...

I have been to other crafting retreats (most recent of which was the Simon-Says-Stamp Create 2104 papercrafting weekend), including one cruise to Alaska. These "retreats" include a number of  classes, taught by different "experts" in various fields. Pricey. Crowded. Noisy. And again, not many projects actually get completed.

That papercrafting weekend I mentioned earlier --- that is one reson I have accomplished little this month (that and an online challenge I am participating re techniques published by Tim Holtz in his compendium of Curiosities). Create 2014 was four days (two of travel and two of of exhausting "art") followed by ennui (and symptoms of a summer cold) upon return home. I did spend the rest of the month stitching on the Roll Your Own Mandala, "Reloaded" and finished that Wednesday, but there are seven more of these to go so that's not a lot of progress to report!

Since the last WIPocalypse, in addition to the "Reloaded" mandala mentioned above, I have completed the following:

• Take a Stitch Tuesday: Long Tail Chain, plain, beaded and whipped
• The Weihenburg designs Mystery Band Sampler 

A completion that is a milestone in a continuing WIP is Elizabeth Almond's "Save the Stitches" SAL, blocks 8 and 9

In progress are:

• Take a Stitch Tuesday: Beaded Vandyke and Bullion Vandyke stitches - printed out but not stitched
• Elizabeth Almond's "Save the Stitches" SAL, blocks 10 and 11, printed out but not stitched
• The Funk & Weber Finishing Class on hemstitching, printed out lessons on open work and drawn thread but no progress since last month 
• June Crazy Quilt Journal Block - block assembled but no seam treatments yet
• June Bead Journal Project atc ornament - design roughed out and beads selected

With another event (husband's attendance at the National Hemerocallis Society conference) occupying much of the latter part of this month and the early part of July, I don't hold out a lot of home for the next month's stitchery  (or papercrafting, for that matter) either!

A Completion!

"Reloaded", the second mandala in the Roll Your Own series designed by Tracey Horner, is now complete. I stitches it in the Tropical Seas color palette on Silkweaver's Iris Garden (32 ct Jobelin).

And here it is next to it's "ancestor" the original "Roll Your Own":

Only seven more to go! Next up, "Bride of RYO"! But first, I have to catch up with other pieces!

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty-Three

Little progress, slowed by a summer cold/cough.

I did get the basic block for the June Crazy Quilt Journal Project assembled, no embroidery:

And I stitched a LOT on the second Roll Your Own mandala "Reloaded", which is now less than one quarter of one color away from completion:

But... and it's a big word, that one... There are, in my project bag a) four lessons in the Funk & Weber class on finishing (hemstitching) with only part of lesson one completed (and a new class is likely to start soon...); b) two blocks in the Elizabeth Almond SAL "Save the Stitches" printed out but not a single stitch; c) the June Bead Journal Project atc-sized ornament which is kitted out and roughly sketched out but not one bead applied; and d) two stitches for the Take a Stitch Tuesday, printed out but not stitched. 

I'm drifting further and further behind, with little hope for catching up in the near future in that there is another road trip in my future which will interfere massively with stitchery (I can't carry my Ott floor lamp with me, without said lamp I can't see to stitch on 32-ct fabric, so my needlepoint travel bag, not touched for two years, will have to be resurrected for a couple of weeks!

Oh well, this is supposed to be a hobby, not a life requirement, right? And finishing things to deadlines isn't a high priority. Or so I keep telling myself!

2014 - Staying Connected, Week Twenty-Two

A non-stitching week! We left for Columbus for the Simon Says Stamp "Create 2014" event and returned on Sunday. Could't have stitched then if I wanted to --- given hotel lighting and all, and the fact that two straight days of crafting were more exhausting than you would think! I will be posting the projects started there as they are completed on my new stamping blog, Carol Stamps. 

On Monday,I was busy sorting the swag I accumulated at Create!

And yesterday, in addition to Girls' Night Out (which always interferes with stitchery - last night it was a demo by Stacey of Stacey's Stamps), our hot water heater gave up the ghost, requiring a service call late afternoon to prevent the 40-year flood in the basement! Thank goodness for service contracts but... a new water heater isn't covered under that warranty so today, the installer comes. Then we can shower, do dishes, do laundry, etc...

Of course, while I was gone, getting "inky", the next two blocks (10 and 11) of the Save a Stitch SAL arrived as did the third circular mandala in the Roll Your Own series. Add to that that I have made no further progress on my June Crazy Quilt Journal Block or my June Bead Journal ATC-sized ornament, and you can see, I'm drifting further and further away from any completions!

So, nothing stitchy to share but I can show a few pics of our garden, which switched into summer mode while we were gone. The Iris are now blooming:

as are the clematis:

and hostas are getting HUGE!:

And my veggie garden is planted:

It's hot, humid and definitely not spring anymore!