Week Forty-One, October 15, 2015

Last Thursday was taken up by quilt guild and the  this past weekend was pretty much taken up with paper crafting classes in Michigan, but I did take my travel bag with me and stitched a little on "Palm Tree Elegance" on Friday evening, which was last touched in June when we were in Atlanta!The leopard spot border now has it's second color half done!

Then, Monday and Tuesday were taken up by catching up on sleep, visiting the dentist, the optometrist, the grocery store and the gas station and I didn't get around to more stitching until Wednesday night (last night) when I put in a couple of hours on the Roll Your Own mandala outline for "Revenge". I now  have the entire bottom outline at least placed, if not fully stitched:

So how will this coming week work out? Well, I have a papercrafting challenge to prepare, but that should only take a few hours. But today and tomorrow are pretty much marred by very early rising (4:45) so we could make the 6 AM starts of the first two days of the public radio fund-raiser... That in itself doesn't mean much until one realizes that I come home exhausted and crash, sleeping at least four more hours of the day away and waking, feeling groggy. Whether or not I will be able to focus on stitchery those two nights is doubtful.

On the other hand, this week is Stitchathon week for the Cross Stitch Crazy gang, and the weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend for October. These are always always stimuli for my stitchery.

Hope springs eternal, as they say, but I hope I will have a completed out line 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-nine, October 1, 2015

The best laid plans and all that. I posted for WIPocalypse and had plans to stitch for three straight nights on "Roll Your Own". Well, on Monday, I started and ended up ripping out a lot of stitches, fudging a few more and fighting knots and tangles on the back of my fabric. It ot so frustrating that I only stitched three strands before giving up, and that frustration lasted for the next two nights. Not a lot accomplished (although I am into the third page of six, the first two pages were only partial pages so I'm not even halfway done with the outline...):

and at this rate, this BAP may last well into 2016!

And what is more, my ambition to begin assembly of the base blocks for my October, November and December Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project also went by the wayside (need to clean up my work space so I have room to assemble), as did quilting those guild holiday challenge placemats (Need to change bobbin thread --- NOT my favorite activity on the machine which hates me!).  My stitching mojo is just plain NOT on residence...

WIPocalypse 2015 - September

Harvest Moon, Super Moon, Blood Moon, Total eclipse of the Moon! And all celebrating the death of my pizza stone (the stone cracked from side to side, to paraphrase the Scottish Play!) and my birthday! What an event. 

And now it's time to report in for WIPocalypse, where the topic of the moon is "Where do you buy most of your stitching supplies?"

Sadly, online, when I do buy, as we have no local needlework shop and the big box stores aren't very good about keeping what stock they do have up to date. 

I have a fairly large stash of DMC and Anchor which I "shop". so, lately,  I haven't bought much except for the odd skein of DMC when I find I have none of the right color (This shortage, by the way, is becoming more and more frequent.). I try to shop the DMC store online if possible for threads.

I do subscribe to a number of magazines and a few online sites, and, in the rare event that a pattern appeals to me (most, sadly, do not - altogether too twee for my taste), I will use them as my chart source. I rarely buy kits anymore if I can help it as I'm no fan of being shorted on threads or fabric (which has happened all too often in the past) and I try to avoid AIDA  (which most kits come with) at all costs.

As for fabric, I've been shopping my stash, although I am running low on the larger cuts and evenweaves so may have to splurge out in 2016. 

When I do buy charts, fabric and/or specialty threads, my shop of choice  is Needle in a Haystack in Alameda, CA (a treasure trove of goodies and a staff without equal! If they don't have it, they will try and find it, and I can't fault them for their service or their quality.).

So, last WIPocalypse, I set the following goals:

• September block for the Crazy Quilt Journal/ Bead Journal Projects (the block is assembled --- embellishment with stitchery and beads is all (yeah, all!) that is required = DONE

• Start on "Rematch of Roll Your Own", trying to get at least the outline completed and placement of "Revenge" and "Return" established. = Placement DONE

• and "Revenge" outline underway. Here is what it looks like now:
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I did divert from my goals, however, to complete a plastic canvas ornament which will be

part of a card/gift swap next month, and that meant I didn't stitch much at all on my two

BAPs.

So I will reset those goals, modify them somewhat, and add a few more for next month! My goals will be (not necessarily in the order listed):

• finish outline of "Revenge"
• put some stitches into "Save the Stitches" blackwork
• Design and prepare the base blocks for the Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project for October, November and December
• Complete the October blocks for the Crazy Quilt/Bead Journal Project
•  Quilt three placemats for the quilt guild holiday project

All this assumes that a weekend away at a papercrafting class and two football games (both mid-week night games) don't chase away my still rather fragile stitching mojo!

Week Thirty-eight, September 24, 2015

After finishing that butterfly clip on Monday evenig, I didn't stitch a single stitch. We have house guests, and tonight is preview night at public television for "Indian Summers",  so I doubt I will get around to stitching anything at all until the weekend... which will lead up to WIPocalypse September. I'll post again then...

Meanwhile, happy autumn to all in the Northern Hemisphere!

A Completion

An ornament completion… Designer - Charlette’s Collections; from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Issue, 2015, On plastic canvas, using DMC floss, Mill Hill Beads, Beading Wire and one 1/4” butterfly paperclip.

And never again! Never again will I try a finish like this one. Agreed, it’s unusual, and interesting and all but trying to whip stitch such small pieces together around the arms of a butterfly clip, with the thread catching on everything from the edges of the plastic canvas to the beads on the wings, is not something for  my klutzy fingers to attempt. If all the swearing done when working on this little insect attaches itself to the insect itself, then there is some very bad karma associated with this soon-to-be- gifted ornament.

Oh well, perhaps the end result is worth the effort to the recipient, assuming it survives the mailing….

Here is a step by step of it’s assembly and how it looks in various views.

Wings on the clip, top view,side view and with clip arms straight out:

Body and antennae made of beading wire (finally got an in-focus photo that my computer would accept!):

Body and antenna after wire stitched to bottom of body:

Completed butterfly from top, from bottom and with clip arms straight out after body is attached (supposed to be glued but none of my glues held so I sewed it on!):

 

Maybe the substitution of DMC for braid wasn't the best idea for coverage, especially for the whip stitching around the edges but I didn't have any braid of the colors I wanted and, besides, I hate stitching with it so it would have been an even more unpleasant stitching experience!

This ornament/"small flat gift" took six nights of stitching, from start to finish. The card, which is the main focus of the swap, will likely take me only half a day! Somehow, I think I overthought this whole swap thing!

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...