International Hermit and Stitch Weekend December 18 - 20, 2015

Happy first day of winter!

I finally got back to stitching on "Revenge" after completing my last block for the 2015 combined Crazy Quilt Journal and Bead Journal Projects! I finished color #10 (of 12) and started #11!

Christmas holidays will be getting in the way of completing this mandala, I'm afraid, (although it does look like it would be doable otherwise): Christmas dinner and gift exchange at one brother-in-law's on Friday (which means cooking Wednesday night and shopping for food before that --- once husband has determined what we are supposed to bring!) and another brother-in-law and family coming up for Sunday evening/Monday morning (beds to make up! AAACK!). Still awaiting call from yet another in-law as to whether they will be able to come this weekend or not. And then there is the big bowl game for our alma mater on Wednesday night... I know I won't be able to resist watching it on the telly, and it's hard (nay, impossible) to stitch when football is on! SO it may be the New Year before I get any significant stitching done. 

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend 2015, November 20 - 22

This was the weekend for staying in and stitching. Football on television, snow on Sunday --- what better excuses, right?

But for some reason, I had trouble motivating and didn't stitch every day, so my progress is miniscule.

I worked at color #5 (of 12) on "Revenge", the seventh of the "Roll Your Own Mandalas". It is almost done --- I'd estimate a little less than 50% complete:

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, October 16 - 18

I plugged away at "Revenge" in Roll Your Own. And when I say plugged, I really mean fogged. That lower left corner was ripped out three times due to silly one-off miscounts. But I finally got the third page done and the outline is now half complete!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend 2015 - September 17 - 19

I actually managed to squeeze a little stitching in around university awards events this weekend... and finish up the pieces of an ornament meant for a Christmas swap. 

Here are the pieces I stitched this weekend:

and a closeup of the beading on the pieces I stitched during the week:

I tried to get a photo of the beaded butterfly body but it is so out-of-focus (my camera isn't meant for utra-closeups) that my computer wouldn't load it!. 

Anyway, here are all the pieces of the ornament, prior to assembly (the wings are to be whip-stitched together, wrong-side to wrong side over the arms of a 1/4" butterfly clip and the body is hot-glued to the clip body, covering a pair of wire antennae (which I have yet to construct):

Now back to "Roll Your Own", hoping to get at least some stitching on it done before houseguests arrive Wednesday...

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, pt. 2

It's IHSW pt. 2! As per my promise last weekend in IHSW, pt 1, I concentrated on placemats for my quilt guild. I pieced another placemat top, sandwiched and envelope-turned all three. All that remains to be done is to whip-stitch closed one side on each and quilt:

and "Cindy" the third "Spawn" of the Roll Your Own mandalas. I finished "Cindy's" outline and completed 2 of the 12 colors of filling stitches:

IHSW is good for my stitchery mojo. Now to keep up the momentum...

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, Pt. 1

IHSW was posted early this month as part 1 (I assume there will be a part 2 coming on the assigned date of August 21-23, 2015.  At any rates, I was stitching this weekend so here is what I accomplished...

A completion! "Jan" the second of the "Spawn of Roll Your Own", a series of mandalas designed by Tracy Horner, if now finished:

It was started back in the first week of April, 2015, and shouldn't have taken THIS long but other events intervened (nasty sinus infection, road trip to Florida and Georgia, etc) and I really didn't get back to it until the last weeks of July. It is in the "Tropical Ocean" colorway on "Iris Garden" dyed 32-ct Jobelin. Here is how it looks with it's "sister", Marcia, and the first three large mandalas, "Roll Your Own", "Reloaded" and "Bride of Roll Your Own":

The outline for the third "Spawn" ("Cindy") is now started to the left of "Jan" and there are three more large mandalas which will be lined up below the spawn (eventually!).

I also spent some time with my sewing machine this weekend. The quilt guild I belong to is making place mats to take along at the holidays for the local version of "Meals on Wheels". I cut and stitched two place mats and they are ready to sandwich, quilt and bind:

These place mats and "Cindy" of the Roll Your Own mandalas will be my projects to stitch on this coming weekend.

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…

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, June 19 - 21

Well, I promised myself I would NOT miss another IHSW so I did keep out my traveling needlepoint and finished the leopard spots (well --- almost; when I was taking the photo I noticed one glaring spot that was only half done!) - and actually started another color, a sort of tile red in the upper left corner:

I think I will continue to keep this out a while longer until I get my base blocks for the April and June Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project assembled and ready to stitch. Big projects like "Savs the Stitches" and "Roll Your Own Mandala" will just have to wait until I get fully back into a stitchery routine...

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - May 15 - 17, 2015

I did it! I stitched! Not a lot but I finally felt up to stitchery. The nasty cold is gone! Yay!

And what I stitched was necessary... an embroidered quilt block for a memory quilt for a dear friend who passed away a few weeks ago from a particularly nasty cancer. Her favorite color was purple and she was very fond of daffodils so I tried my best to satisfy both. 

Although my flowers are the right color, they aren't daffs but I hope they suffice.

Stitched on MCG Textiles 32 ct Pewter linen using DMC floss, based on a design from Mary Corbett's Stitched Sampler Alphabet...

I was going to work on crazy quilt/bead journal blocks but I couldn't find my crazy quilt stencils! AAACK! Nothing like a fruitless search for a tool to put me off a project. I have two sets, but, having searched all the likely locations (and several unlikely ones), I have concluded that both have gone walkabout! So I ordered a third set, a sure guarantee that the other two will show their shiny little template selves as soon as the new ones arrive!

But at least I can focus on needlework now, so the coming months should be a little more rewarding than the last six weeks!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - March 20 - 22

I had all sorts of plans for this weekend but they were disrupted when my routine was highjacked by a dinner engagement with husband's daylily friends from Columbus. That meant a 2 hour drive to, and another 2 hour drive from --- we haven't driven that far for dinner since we lived in car-centric Northern California! And it pretty much wiped out Sunday evening!

So all I managed ot stitch this weekend was a part of Block 12 in "Save the Stitches" - five of seven fill patterns, but without color:

Sadly, if I had just managed those last two patterns *and* the color, I would be half-way through this piece! Oh well, here's hoping I "recover" from this setback and get stitching in force this week!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - December 19 - 21

What with holiday prep, the 18th challenge for the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge, and the fleeting nature of my stitching mojo, I didn't get much stitching in this weekend, although I did at least get my November Bead Journal Project piece started. Here's Snowy, the Owl, with a leaf theme:

He's roughly 1/3 complete and it should be able to get him done before Christmas is I plug away at him. Then it will be on to the Christmasy Owl and the year will be complete!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - October 17 - 19

As I expected, two very early mornings on Thursday and Friday, working the phone banks for fundraising at the local public radio station, and a football game Saturday afternoon, pretty much wiped out my weekend stitching. Basically, all the time for stitching was Sunday when I:

finished binding the challenge block for the  quilt guild retreat this coming weekend:

and got three-quarters of the way through the background on my October Bead Journal Project:

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, September 19 - 21

I really didn't expect to have anything to report on this weekend since we were expecting 7 house guests this weekend but, at the last minute, after a mad rush Saturday morning inflating air mattresses and sorting sleeping situations, we got a phone call saying they weren't coming until NEXT weekend! Down side --- all that panic for nothing. AND a possible addition of two more to the guest list. Up side --- seven sleeping arrangements sorted, the guest rooms are clean and ready, and I had time to stitch! YAY!

First item of the weekend: my September Bead Journal Project atc/ornament! My Snowy Owl made an appearance again, this time, as a fan of the falcons who are my alma mater's mascots and who were sighted flying over the stadium just before the football team pulled off a victory over a major "Power Five" team (Sadly, they couldn't repeat over another team from the same "Power Five" league this past weekend, but that's another story)!  Snowy knew a prerequisite of being a fan was team colors but all he had was an old, white1920's style tennis sweater with a band of orange and brown around the collar. Freddie and Frieda (the school's falcons) couldn't help but observe that he looked slightly out of place and time, but admired him for his attempt:

Once Snowy was assembled and laid aside until his next appearance in BJP, I turned to the Roll Your Own mandalas. I worked on the outline for "Bride" and, despite alternating frogging entire lengths of floss with stitching, did manage to complete page one and arrive at a 25% completion of the outline:

I plan to plod on with "Bride" this week, until the guests really do arrive. Perhaps I can get it ready for the color...

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - August 15 - 17

The weekend was dominated by a BBQ at our house for 12 of husband's high school classmates and their others. The purpose was to inaugurate the planning for the class's 55th year-since-graduation reunion. My assignment was to acquire the meats and condiments (that took most of Friday, further complicated because the grocery store and parking lot were JAMMED with tractor pull contestants all shopping for their beer and camping supplies; in case you aren't aware - and odds are, you weren't, as I certainly wasn't until we moved here - our little university town is home to the National Tractor Pull every August!). Saturday was devoted to the annual daylily sale so husband was fully occupied up until arrival of the guests so I had to clear at least two public rooms in the house for food storage (we NEVER seem to have refrigerator storage for one of these pot luck things) and indoor room for a Plan B in case it rained (there was forecast a 20% chance...). By the time they left at about 7 PM Saturday night, I wasn't in a stitching mood.

Sunday, I spent a few hours in the morning and afternoon cutting fabric for two quilt blocks (one the required submittal to the guild which I have been putting off for years  

and the other the guild challenge block for the annual retreat.

I actually managed to assemble the challenge block:

In the evening, I tackled the background on the August Bead Journal Project atc/ornament --- and got half-way there:

Other than a card for the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge and a start on a basic card, purpose yet undetermined, I didn't get a lot accomplished in crafting this weekend.

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, July 18 - 20.

The quilt guild "Christmas in July" brunch (rescheduled form the snowed-out annual December brunch) pretty much messed up Saturday as an all-day stitching day. In addition, Saturday was the day that the 7th Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge was issued and I really HAD to look into my supplies to see if I had the necessary stash to work with, to say nothing of an idea to work from. Still. I did manage to catch up a little on my stitchery "obligations"...

Usually, I try to stitch on the Elizabeth Almond "Save the Stitches" SAL, where I am about two months behind, but I am also behind on Take a Stitch Tuesday (four stitches worth) and the July Bead Journal Project atc/ornament. SO this weekend, I tried to spread my time among the three projects...

So, on Friday, I started on TAST. The stitches to be stitched are/were:

#118 - Beaded Buttonhole Stitch

#119 - Woven Trellis Stitch

##120 - 121 - Double Herringbone (top)  and Twisted Lattice (bottom) Stitches

I also did some seam treatments on my partially assembled 6 blocks for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project Challenge - a large lazy daisy on the intersection of the four pink corners of blocks on the left (I also repaired the lazy daisy that had come free in the same location) and an extension of the yellow stem stitch and French Knot flowers on the green, blue and yellow intersection on the right. 

I decided against adding anything to the teal pieces on the far right.

On Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, I started the beading on my July Bead Journal Project atc/ornament. As you can see, my every-other-month Snowy Owl is wrapping himself in patriotic colors for July:

Sunday night was dedicated to the Elizabeth Almond "Save the Stitches" SAL, where I managed to complete the outlines for blocks 12 and 13 (Now I have blocks 11 - 14 to stitch with blackwork fill stitches!):

Not as productive a weekend as I had hoped (it felt more like a rotation than dedicated stitchery and I'm finding I'm not as productive on rotations), but, overall, not a bad IHSW!

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!):

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!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, April 18 - 20

My plan was to dedicate my weekend to stitching on "Save the Stitches", the blackwork sampler SAL from Elizabeth Almond. And on Friday, I made a good start, getting blocks 6 and 7 outlined and started the fill stitches on block 6.

However, I got sidetracked on Saturday, ending up watching a double feature with my husband: "Philomena" and "Last Vegas" ---both good films in their own right although, to be true, a strange mix. However, after watching the serious and somewhat sad "Philomena", I opted for something a little lighter in "Last Vegas". I would watch ANYTHING with Dame Judy Dench in it and "Philomena lived up to my expectations. AS for "Las Vegas", while the stars weren't actors on "my" must watch list, it was a fun film, reminiscent of the chemistry between aging male actors that I remember from "Space Cowboys" (a film which had three of my "must watch" actors!).

Two films, however, meant no time to stitch Saturday night. 

Being as Sunday was Easter and husband had brought home an enormous ham, I knew that most of the afternoon would be occupied with cooking. That left only Sunday evening with any extensive stitching time, so I didn't get as far with "Save the Stitches" as I had hoped. Here it is - blocks 1-5 completed, outlines for 6 and 7 and fill stitches in about half of block 6...

Since Band 10 of the Wiehenburg "Mystery Band Sampler" arrived online on the weekend, I am still behind on my smalls and my BAP (the 9 Roll Your Own mandalas) is still untouched...

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend - March 21 - 22 - 23

I dedicated this weekend to more stitching on the "Save the Stitches" blackwork SAL from Elizabeth Almond. It looked like this on the Friday morning:

And when Sunday was over, it looked like this (nothing I do makes the color look right... the top is too yellow and the bottom too gray! It's supposed to be antique white):

Blocks 1 through 5 are done and outlines for parts of six are as well!

Here are some close-ups of Blocks four and five:

2014 International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, January 17 - 19

I didn't really "hermit and stitch" much this weekend. Having finished "Ladybug & Daisy" on Friday, and finding my project bag empty of WIPs, it took a whole day before I could gin up the courage (yes, I said courage --- a blank piece of fabric is as intimidating to me as a blank piece of paper is to some authors!) to start a new project. I finally settled on the "Roll Your Own" Mandalas from Tracy Horner at InkCircles, which have been kitted up since October. There are nine of them, six larger and three smaller, and I plan to do them all in the Tropical Ocean color scheme on one piece of overdyed 32 count Lugana. I put in two hours on the outline for the first ("Roll Your Own" ) and got roughly one-eighth of it done:

The outline is the tough part, I think, since it HAS to be counted correctly. I'm going slow because it is 32 count and because I do not want to do any frogging! I suspect two hour stretches are the best I will be able to do until the outlines are finished so I will need to come up with another piece to work on in between (besides Crazy Quilt Block Project and Bead Journal Project Challenges, that is).