2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Forty-Two and IHSW for October...

This past week (and this International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) were spent on catch-up projects.

I started the week - and ended the weekend -  by stitching away on the blackwork "Puppy Dog":

Most of the weekend, however, was spent on my October Bead Journal Project butterfly for October and I ALMOST finished it. Would have, too, if I hadn't run out of purple beads! Here it is so far, waiting for a bead delivery from Mill Hill, stitched on one of the Halloween fat quarters I got at quilt retreat last weekend:

If it weren't for those pesky ten or so beads, I could have claimed to be caught up! AAARGH! As it is, there is still "Roll Your Own" to start and the online classes from Janet Perry on background stitches and on stitch guides to complete as well as Take a Stitch Tuesday that can occupy my time this week while waiting for the mail!

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Forty-One

After finishing the September BJP and the October Crazy Quilt Journal blocks early in the week, I spent a day gathering together projects to take to the quilt guild retreat and then the weekend working on them and a little bit more.

Retreat was entitled "Bling It On!" and was held at Our Lady of the Pines, a retreat center run by the Sisters of Mercy in Fremont Ohio. There were forty guild members there, elbow to elbow in one of the center's meeting rooms, which you might think would not be conducive to quilting but there were a lot of pieces started and finished in this weekend, as well as two demonstrations and (for some, not for me) shopping trips to nearby quilt shops. No television and very few bars for the phone or the tablet made for a time with no interruptions, while the beautiful grounds (some 65 acres of gardens) gave one respite from sewing when needed. And luckily, the weather held!

I cleared the decks of a one project and got a couple more started. The completed project was my 2012 Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project wall hanging:

It needs a hanging sleeve and a label but, otherwise, it's off my to-do list! Woo Hoo!

Really, all if needed was batting, backing and binding as I had already pieced the top, but after some consideration, I bailed on the binding idea and simply did an envelope backing like I did for my 2011 BJP wall hanging back in January of this year!

One of the favors at lunch the first day was a kit for a very small grandmother's flower garden flower. I stitched mine together:

and after looking it over, realized it matched perfectly with a blue fabric I had brought with me as possible sashing and backing for another planned quilt. So, I decided to use the flower and some blue and chocolate fabrics to make a cover for my 2010 BJP squares, and turn the lot into a book. I hand appliqued the flower to the blue and layered it with batting and chocolate fabric to create the cover. 

I need to stitch the 12 beaded pieces to a "spine" that I can stitch to the cover and I will have something that I can display those blocks in, once it has been truly "embellished".  This is truly just a work in progress right now --- I have to search out the online reference I had discovered for making a book... and then I will get back to work on it. Meanwhile, it's on the back burner.

The other project I worked on was that "Unstarted Project" that was proposed at one of my first quilt guild meetings - a Chinese Coins lap quilt. I had already stitched a strip set at Quilt Work Day September 14,  from which I cut three 5.5" strips before I left. When I got to the retreat, I cut some 1" blue strips to edge each strip and some 5.5" chocolate to act as sashing. When sewing the first blue strip to the pieced strips, I found that one had been mis-cut which meant I had to shorten the pieced strips by 6 ". This necessitated a design change, with top and bottom borders, which I had not planned on doing. Still, by the time retreat was over, I had four pieced strips ready to assemble for  the top:

Oh, and my "Bling it On!" challenge block? It won "best use of embellishments" at retreat!

One other accomplishment (for me) this weekend: I managed to drive over an hour to a place I had never been before (*and* back) and NOT get lost! For me, who hates to drive and who can get lost in a closet, that is a minor miracle!

After arriving home Sunday afternoon, I fed three demanding cats who claimed to be starving to death, unpacked my car, and immediately fell asleep catching up on email. Later that night, I took out "Puppy Dog" and put in some time on the second page of the chart:

Now, it's laundry time, the fridge needs cleaning out an the beds need changing out, and I have to kit out the October BJP. Luckily, I won some Halloween-themed fat quarters at retreat so one of them is bound to work for my October butterfly...

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Twenty-Seven

Gosh, am I ever sick of rain! 14 out of the last 16 days its rained at east a little, leading us to the 8th wettest June in local history (but July is still behind on water, possibly because the airport met station is in one of those "scattered shower" dry spots --- it sure feels wet enough here!). You'd think that would lead to more stitching on my part but mainly, it's insomnia coupled with the inability to keep awake during the daylight hours. So I have little progress to report on this week.

Oh well, here is "Midnight Garden" as it was on Friday:

And I did get BJP two butterflies kitted out - the late June one in purple:

and July's in red and white stars:

The July Crazy Quilt Journal Project block is underway --- with stitchery and beading started simultaneously:

I started kitting out the Roll Your Own Mandala charts, only to find that I didn't have a piece of fabric large enough to do them all on one piece and I need a lot more fabric if I want to do all seven of them individually but have them match. Also, I don't have enough thread to do seven right now (man, they call for a lot of DMC!). SO I have my shopping list made out and will visit the local Hobby Lobby to see if I can satisfy thread and fabric requirements. Otherwise, it's online to order something VERY pricey...

Husband insisted on getting two of my framed pieces tweaked (both had some lint caught on the sittches!) so that was done Friday and now I have to get around to filling out the application form for the fair and get it in before the deadline Saturday.

2013 - Reconnect to My Stitchery, Week Twenty-Six

I don't know where this week went! I KNOW I stitched but I don't have a lot to show for it. I seem to have gotten sidetracked into reading and sleeping late (because I can't get to sleep until late.) Oh, and the local HOA Girls' Night Out on Thursday didn't free up much stitching time either...

Oh well, I did get in one completion --- the "pink" quilt block for the special "Pink" category for the fair:

It's not as encrusted as I would have liked but I was stumped as to what to put on it. I have some pink (and green) buttons and beads but they looked too heavy for what I was aiming for so I left it rather simple. What I get for using such a bold print, I guess... it sort of set the scene and I couldn't match it with buttons or beads. Hope it qualifies...

I also got back to stitching on "Midnight Garden":

Borders are set and I'm starting on the backstitching and blackwork in the inner borders now, with the parts that are in black... Doesn't loom like much but it's like confetti stitching in those inner borders. I'm hoping to get started on the blue this week.

I'm so far behind on other pieces, though. The basic block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013 is made up but now it needs embellishment.  I have yet to kit out a June butterfly for Bead Journal Project and it's already July (which means two in one month! AAARGH!). The sashing hasn't been touched on my 2012 color palatte/CQJ/BJP wall hanging. I have two "Roll Your Own" mandalas to select a color scheme for and kit out, to say nothing of the Sharon B weekly TAST (which starts up again this week after a week's hiatus) and background stitch guide. Oh yes, and in one month, there will be the "Messy Beading" Purple Daisy for L. Perin coming! I really need to get my stitching mojo back!

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Forty

A day without internet, thanks to a gardening husband and his sharp little spade adn a very close encounter with the internet cable! But I have to give him credit --- after finding out from customer service that it wouldn't be until monday after 5 PM that someone could get out here to repair it, he talked to the dealer downtown and they had someone out last night instead! So only one day without. Bad enough!

However, every bad event has a good side. I stitched instead of hovering around this laptop for three hours --- which meant I got a LOT done this week!

In addition to the day of Rhodes Squares on "Birds of a Feather" and TAST 2102 Week 40, I did a fabric toss for the color palette challenge and kitted up the last Stash Buster Club project! Then, yesterday, in all that freed up time, I stitched the Stash Buster, called "Diamond Scraps", using my different shades of brown and dark yellow from my scrap bag:

Then, once this was done, I attacked my Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project challenges with some gusto. The colors weren't exactly my cuppa but all but one had been used in previous blocks, and I managed to arrange them in a grid (block 12) from Pin Tangle's "I Dropped the Button Box" crazy quilt. I set about adding my signature chain stitch swirl and a strand of crystal beads in addition to some ribbon, a piece of lace, and a small jewelry finding. Not a lot of embroidery on this one --- just didn't have the mental energy to tackle complex seam treatments so some of the seams aren't touched at all. I MIGHT come back later and try to embellish further, but I figured that I was at that point where attempting to add more just would mess it up.

The October sections of "Kimono - Revisited" are in now so I think I may spend the weekend trying out my new rayon thread straightening device and working on that. I'll report back on what I think of the device (it came highly recommended by one of the Shining Needle Society gurus so I expect it will do wonders for my love/hate relationship with rayon threads!).

2012 - A Year of Challenges - Week Thirty-Seven

This weekend is International Hermit & Stitch Weekend for September and I am stitching on "Birds of a Feather", which is here right now:

So, in order to have the weekend clear for "Birds", I decided to finish as many of the outstanding small projects as I could. I did finish TAST week 37; I pieced the basic block for the Seotember color palette/crazy quilt journal/bead journal project piece; the Mittens & Mini-Socks for September (San Francisco Fog), and the September Stash Buster (Scrap Stars):

No progress on "Kimono - Revisited" though...