2014 - Staying Connected, Week Forty-One

In the past week, I have completed five 4.5" square crazy blocks for swapping at the guild retreat (Technique taught by Mary Lee G at guild on the 9th of October. I have yet to master working with small pieces so my scraps are a little on the large side..):

the October Crazy Quilt Journal block (I do much better using a foundation and a larger blocks size (these are 6" square finished):

and the Take a Stitch Tuesday Stitch # 134 (Fern stitch). Played a little with adding beads to the "spine" of the fern...:

I have read through lesson two in Pillowpalooza and am preparing the homework assignment for that class for posting this weekend.

I also started the color filling on "Bride" in the Roll Your Own mandala series (One color (very light blue- if you squint you can just make it out) complete and the second nearly a quarter complete)

:

the beading on my October Bead Journal Project ("Bat Bird"?):

and the quilting on my guild retreat challenge block (An attempt at stitching "in the ditch".Missed that ditch in a lot of places! Only the binding to go.):

I am a little more sleep deprived than usual, given the need to be up and ready for the washing machine repairman on Monday (a blocked drain filter) and the house cleaner today. And it won't get any better in the next few days as we have the early shifts on both Thursday and Friday at the local public radio telephone banks (need to be there at 6 AM! AAACK), and there is Legacy Weekend at the University with a football game viewed from the President's Box on Saturday (which means Saturday will be both adrenalin filled/ stressed out and off limits for stitching most of the day). So, even though this coming weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, it looks like I will only have Sunday for unimpeded stitchery. 

I think I am going to give up on trying to catch up. Trying is jst adding more stress to the mix, and stress makes me avoid stitchery in favor of just about ANYTHING else!. 

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...

The "Roll Your Own" mandala SAL

In this online SAL, organized and moderated by Tracey Horner of InkCircles, there are 9 Roll Your Own mandalas. I decided I would do them all on one piece of fabric ("Iris Garden" by Silkweaver, 32 ct Jobelin) in the "Tropical Ocean" colorway.

There were a number of preset colorways available or one could design one's own (hence the name, "Roll Your Own"). Since I'm not that comfortable with designing color schemes, I opted for one already posted. "Tropical Ocean" consists of 12 DMC threads in four color groupings: Bright Green - 3850, 3851 and 959; Teal Green - 3847, 3848 and 3849; Delft Blue - 798, 809 and 747; and Navy Blue - 823, 311 and 312, all outlined in black - DMC 310.  

Here is what the first mandala, "Roll Your Own", looks like completed. 

I've used both the fabric and similar colorways before - the fabric and a similar color range in sumptuous Surface Embroidery and a similar  colorway  in both Birds of a Feather" and "Kimono - Revisited" (all three shown in my August 2, 2013 post about the County Fair). I'm beginning to think this is my "signature colorway! 

Next up, "Bride of RYO"! But first, I think I'll take a brief break and start on the Elizabeth Almond blackwork SAL, "Save a Stitch" (and guess what, I plan on using the same colorway combination, but this time on a white ground!) Oh, and there is a Christmas tree that needs to be taken down (blushing that it is still up this late in the year) and taxes to be done...