Week Fifty, December 17, 2015

This week was pretty much dominated by gatherings (meet the new coach, quilt guild holiday brunch, University President's holiday reception, lunch with my two best friends) and decorating the tree. No pictures for the gatherings but here is the tree, before and after ornaments: 

Our first ever purpose-build artificial tree (we've made do the past decade with a tree meant for outside decor).

The only stitching I did was on my Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal block. I finally finished it last night. A little Christmas greenery (is it a branch of a tree with leaves or flowers? Maybe a blooming Christmas cactus? Or maybe a deconstructed holly branch?  Who knows --- it evolved) and some snow (which we haven't gotten yet in this unseasonably warm December): 

That completes both challenges for 2015, and all I need do now is assemble the quilt/wall hanging... Right --- ALL! Considering that I have two previous years' wall hangings in various stages of assembly, finishing is easier said than done! LOL

I hope you all have a happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate, and that all your days will be merry and bright!

Week Forty-Five, November 12, 2015

I can't believe it but I actually stitched this week and I'm making some progress on "Revenge"! I am on color three of twelve:

I also have a completion to report: my Crazy Quilt /Bead Journal Project block for November. LOts of leaves, falling and otherwise, seem to be what is characterizing this warmer-than-usual, but windy, November. Also, it seems to be darker this month, mainly due to longer nights, but also to overcast skies. So my block is darker than the rest of the quilt blocks have been, and has swirly winds and lots of blowing leaves...

Quilt guild meets tonight but I hope to get back into my stitching routine Friday. There is a night football game (with our big rivals) next Tuesday night and there will probably be Thanksgiving planning going on as well, but I still hope to see a lot more color in "Revenge" by next Thursday!

Week Forty, October 8, 2015

Well, I managed to “force” myself to try to live up to the goals I posted in the latest WIPocalypse: I stitched! Every night! Not sure it was really enjoyable, but I did get a good bit accomplished, despite a lot of competition from various events in out lives.

First of all, over the weekend, I planned out, gridded, and assembled the blocks for October, November and December in the Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project for 2015:

That took the whole  weekend working on my sewing machine (which still hates me!). Heck, I even managed to load a bobbin in the right color for quilting placemats! 

Then, I alternated stitching on the October block and “Roll Your Own” (“Revenge”). What resulted was a completed October block (The beading is pretty sparse --- just couldn't come up with more than scattered beads and a few lines…):

and one corner of the outline for “Revenge”  nearly complete:

Tonight is quilt guild  and this weekend a Dyan Reavley Art Journaling class, so I won’t get a lot more done until next week (I may take my traveling needlepoint along to the journaling class to work on evenings)… And next week is further complicated by a dentist appointment (always puts me off anything for the entire day — purely psychological, but…). And the following weekend starts off with two early (VERY early)  morning volunteer sessions on the phone banks for the local public radio station ( have to get up at 4 AM in order to be there at 6 AM, and that ruins the day for this night owl). Maybe my stitching mojo will get a rest and come back in November, refreshed and eager to go. Maybe…

Week Thirty-seven, September 17, 2015

I changed my stitching plans this past weekend after finishing my September 2015 Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal block:

It was meant to be autumnal, with all those purple flowers but then it occurred to me that Wisteria aren't autumn flowers so I added a few curlicues and turned them into grapes! 

I then changed course, abandoning "Roll Your Own" temporarily (I hope),  and started work on a swap for Christmas. 

In my card swap group on Facebook, we are supposed to include a "small handmade flat gift" in addition to the card. I was at a loss for an idea until the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Issue for 2015 arrived. In it was a small sparkly beaded butterfly that look like it would be just the ticket. But (and it's a big but) it was stitched in metallic braid, not my favorite thing, on plastic canvas and mounted on a butterfly binder clip! Well, I had the plastic canvas (in scraps at last but that should work) and the butterfly clip but switched out the colors to DMS floss in a totally different scheme (reds and greens instead of copper and peach). I have spent two nights on this little thing and have it only half stitched:

It needs two more wings and then it needs finishing. It will take me as much as five times the time it will take to make the card! And because of the structure, it isn't quite flat so it will need a small box so it can be mailed. Oh dear, did I go wrong here or what?

Another busy weekend here at Chez Harper! Tomorrow (Friday Night) there is a reception (business attire - AAACK!) at the University, recognizing members of the "President's Club" of donors (of which we are an accidental member, having given a small amount annually since we graduated over 50 years ago!). 

Saturday, there is another reception, this one casual, for members of  the 1910 Society, the Carillon Society and The Leadership Circle (we are part of the first two: 1910 and Carillon), followed by the University football game v Memphis (tickets in the President's Box, so if it rains, which it is likely to, we will at least be warm and dry!).

Real philanthropists, aren't we? And all because we started donating $100 a year to a scholarship fund back in 1966!

On Wednesday, the 23rd, we have more houseguests --- passing through on their way to Detroit.

There is also an invitation to the preview of "Indian Summers" at the local public television station on Thursday, the 24th, but that kind of program isn't really husband's cuppa so I think we are passing on that.

Anyway, with all that happening, I suspect I will be lucky if I get that butterfly done! And then it's on to assembling the last three base blocks for the Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project, quilting the three placemats for the guild holiday project, and pulling "Roll Your Own" back out of the WIP pile and finishing those outlines...

Week Thirty-two, August 13, 2014

Another completion! The August Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal block:

It's not really very imaginative, but as I said, August is always a problem for me as nothing much ever seems to happen to me in August (that I want to journal about in beads, at least!). And it means I'm caught up with Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project for this year! Woo Hoo. 

I also stitched on the fifth motif ("Jan") from the "Roll Your Own Mandala" series and seven (out of 12) colors are now filled in (finally got to the blues --- I was beginning to worry that it would be all green!):

Husband has a garden tour today and I have quilt guild tonight so no stitching this evening. But I have lots of plans for the weekend! 

Week Thirty-one, August 6, 2014

A completion, and ALMOST on schedule, finally! The July Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project block was finished on August 1! 

Because it is July, it HAD to commemorate July 4, even though we didn't go to a fireworks display or parade this year. However, we could see fireworks from our house --- some farmer apparently got permission set off  a really good aerial show! So... the batik stars, the (VERY PALE) white-on-white stripes and the scattered star-shaped buttons are meant to be a patriotic reference!

Meanwhile, I played with lazy daisy flowers using beads on one seam treatment, beaded a stem stitch on an adjacent seam, and added beads to the strip of lace on a third.. 

That means I had to get cracking on August, and this is how far I got...

I don't really know how to embellish this to make it relevant to me in August. There is the fair, but I'm not entering (that sinus infection really put me off my game and I don't have anything to enter and there is no other reason to go, IMO). I'm no fan of the National Tractor Pulling Championships!  And I have no kids to send back to school (hard to believe it starts August 24!). There's always the garden, I suppose... August is, as always, a puzzlement...

As for other works in progress, they weren't touched.

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, July 17 - 19, 2015

I had great hopes for this weekend, but they were derailed by two wonderful movies on Saturday and horrendous heat/humidity all weekend. However, I did finally complete my June Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project for July. It’s supposed to be a representation of our three week road trip to Florida, Atlanta, North Carolina and West Virginia, visiting friends and indulging in daylily gardens. Silver charms represent each stat along a navy blue-and-white whipped chainstitch highway. Crystals mark the daylily conference in Atlanta and the visit to the Sight Different Nursery in North Carolina. while two fly stitch palm trees decorate Florida, I couldn’t come up with a motif to “celebrate” three days of car trouble in West Virginia, however…

Week Twenty-Six, July 2, 2015

I would have posted this on time for a change, but I had an eye appointment adn he dilated my eys which meant I couldn't focus well enough to read what I was typing! So, rather than burden you with ten times my normal typo count, I delayed until today when I could see again!

A pretty productive week, if I do say so myself.

In addition to assembling two blocks for the Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project:

 

I stitched and completed the blocks for April:

and May (which was started way back in late April, originally intended to be April, but which morphed into May on May 21:

I also stitched quite a bit of "Palm Tree Elegance", completing the dark brown leopard spots and getting roughly 1/3 of the terra cotta background in the border complete:

Hoping to catch up with the Crazy Quilt and Bead Journal pieces in the next week or two and get "Save the Stitches" and "Roll Your Own Mandala" out again. Meanwhile, my productivity was so low this year, I don't have anything to enter in the fair. Maybe just as well... it's pretty pricey to get things framed and to enter, only to hope to break even on entry fees. And winning just isn't enough to get me excited about entering. Maybe I'll change my mind next year but meanwhile, I'm just stitching for me!

Week Nine, March 5, 2015

Well, finally stitching again, and it seems that one of the primary causes of my losing my stitching mojo (the lack of stitching time availalble on our cruise to the South Pacific, not the nasty cold I caught coming home) is still in my mind. Notice the color scheme of Tropical Seas which seems to carry throughout this week's completions!

"Bride", the third mandala in the Roll Your Own series designed by Tracey Horner, is now complete!

I stitched it in the Tropical Seas color palette on Silkweaver's Iris Garden (32 ct Jobelin), next to it's predecessors, "Roll Your Own" and "Reloaded":

Now, onto the next installment, "Spawn"!

I also stitched on my January Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project piece:

It represents our two week cruise in French Polynesia, where the blue of the sky and water and the colorful tropical reef fish were the major influence on my life in January.... So I tried to portray a Polynesian atoll in beads and stitchery. I did the seaweeds in floss (although there was very little in the way of living seaweed in the lagoons where we were, there were a lot on the ocean sides of reefs) and the corals in seed beads. Mother of pearl buttons became the fish (we saw similar fish when there) and a strip of ivory gimp, studded with white, blue and turquoise seed beads represent the horizon (waves crashing over the reef, or the raised surface of a motu - aka one of the islands of raised reef which make up the atoll which surrounds a lagoon and separates it from the ocean proper). 

Next up, March. And some stitching on "Save the Stitches" and maybe even start the outline for one of the "Spawn". We shall see.

Weeks Seven and Eight, February 19 through 26, 2015

While week 7 was yet another week with no stitching. I did make it to quilt guild and found out why I will NEVER EVER submit one of my quilts (assuming I ever complete one) for judging! There may be no "quilt police" but there sure are rules and rules and MORE rules!, most of which I NEVER come close to following! But otherwise, it's tax season, we are changing accountants, and I was buried in receipts and the like. I got the package to the accountant on Tuesday , the 17th ((although there was a late arrival 1099-B which was delivered on Monday, the 23rd) and now I await the final verdict. Keep your fingers crossed! 

The rest of my crafting time in Week Seven was spent on papercrafting: a card for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (Paradise), challenge, and tags (three, count 'em, THREE) for the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge #22! All are shown on my stamping blog... 

In Week 8, I did get back to stitchery, thanks to International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. I pulled out the crazy quilt block I had prepped for the January edition of the 2015 Crazy Quilt Journal Project, and changed direction straightaway! It is now the February block, and will also serve as my 2015 Bead Journal Project piece as well.

On Monday, I pulled fabric and planned out my January bock and on Wednesday, I assembled the basic block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project and the Bead Journal Project. I selected beads and threads and am ready to stitch:

In the evenings, I also pulled out some stitching!!! I got out "Bride" of the roll Your Own Mandala series, last touched  in early January, and finished up color #8 (of 12 total):

While I may not have my mojo back entirely, it looks like stitchery is now back on track and I hope to make good progress in the coming week!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, February 20 - 22, 2015

I finally dug out some stitchery over the weekend and put in several hours embroidering and beading a crazy quilt block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2015. I had originally intended the base block to be for January but, it took a turn and I made it into my February block (January will be started as soon as I acquire some foundation fabric!). Since it is reasonably heavily beaded, I also want to make this my Bead Journal Project entry for February. ( I was undecided on whether or not to do BJP this year, given time constraints, but decided that I would return to my dual entries like the ones I stitched in 2012. Might as well kill two birds with one stone and I do miss the beading!).