A quaker Christmas met "the frog" this last week. I think I ripped out as much as I stitched so I didn't quite finish the Balsam Fir motifs (you can see the last motif in the bottom left that still needs it's interior stitched. The it's on to the red (Cupid) letters and numbers and thd gold (Old Gold) stars and angel. I ordered some fabric to go with my Unstarted Quilt Project pice for the guild. I went with yardage of solids: brown, beige and two shades of blue --- this many since I ordered online and am not sure how they will work with my half-yard lengths. So while I will stitch from stash, i will have actually increased my stash by several yards. That's OK, though, as one of the choices will probably work as the backing.
The other Black Swamp Quilter's Challenge was Row of the Month. I "shopped my stash" and found these fabrics which I had purchased when living in Saudi. I clearly liked them as I have YARDS of each of the patterned fabrics and I bought it in two colorways: Forest green on the left; deep red on the right with the yellow fabric in the front matching the red colorway. And I lucked out in that I have green, red and yellow "solids" that actually "go"! Ooops! I lost track of time this week. But besides finishing the beading on my January BJP, posted earlier this week, I stitched on "A Quaker Christmas". The Balsam Fir Crescent Colors part is a little more than 2/3 done now... I assembled the fabrics for the Black Swamp Quilt Guild "Unstarted Project" challenge and took them to the guild meeting on the 14th. here are my fabrics. Maybe I will actually make a quit with them (and some additional fabric will be needed, I'm sure) now that I joined the challenge. Not so sure about the striped on on the left --- it's more of a twill than a quilting cotton... Oh, and I picked up the "Row of the Month" challenge at the guild meeting as well. Has ambition gotten the best of me? We shall see!
Back to Basics. Well, holdover from 2009 WIPS, anyway. Here is "A Quaker Christmas"nearly 50% complete (I've only been stitching with the Balsam Fir Crescent Color so far --- there are still a red (Cupid) and gold (Very Old Gold) to do which is why you see some unusual gaps in places... Now, as for "Learn a New Technique", it's sort of preliminary but here is the paper-pieced Grandmother's fan block (5.5" square) which I intend to use as a background for my January "installment" in the 2010 Bead Journal Project. I have a pattern in mind, a series of swirls radiating from the blue corner at the bottom right, in white and blue beads. Meant to represent snow (which it is doing right this minute, in fact)... I hope they will show up on this fabric but, if they don't, it's a learning process after all.
Back at the first of the year, I defined what my goals for this year in stitchery would be:
"Over on Cross Stitch Crazy, we name the year for what we want to accomplish and this year, it's "Use what's mine (stash you already have) and start/complete a BAP (Big @$$ Project)"... "I'm interpreting "Use what's mine" as work on current WIPs and (IF I finish them all) UFOs..." So how did I do? Well, working from stash: Out of 16 completions, 9 were completions of old WIPs (and therefore my stash):
Five were small pieces started from scratch in 2009, all using stash fabric and floss:
One was a larger new start from stash:
I had one BAP (or so I defined it, because it was stitched on black, a real difficulty for me):
So I think I did pretty well --- I thinned out my UFO stash pretty significantly and only had to order one piece of fabric (for my BAP), although I did buy more fabric for three projects already kitted up for 2010 (I had nothing of the appropriate size for those three pieces). Cross-Stitch Crazy is leaning toward "Back to Basics" ... and Learn A New Technique" for 2010 and I already have some projects planned for the coming year that might well fit into that theme. A piece which was started in December, fate still not certain but this one will be a 2010 completion. This had already been kitted up two years ago so I consider it a stash piece. It is also a BAP, with six sheets of chart and 12" x 20" image size.
There are also five long-standing UFO's in my cupboard that I hope to make some progress on:
Also kitted up and candidates for stitching in 2010 is the flower alphabet from which the letter "M" was taken. I had to order fabric for this piece, as well as for the following two for which I have yet to pull floss: Ink Circles' "Sea Stars" and Ink Circles' "Garden Stars". All of these would qualify as "Back to Basics" in my eyes as they are all "just" cross stitch. For my "Learn A New Technique", I hope to do some work on some quilt UFOs and to learn beading by participating in The Bead Journal Project. And perhaps one or more of my 2010 completions will be suitable for entry in the County Fair (something I have never had courage to do before.) |
AuthorBorn in New Jersey, I grew up in Southeastern Ohio. Attended university at Bowling Green State University (B.Sci in biological science, 1964), University of Southern California (M. Sci in biological science, 1967) and University of Florida (Ph. D in zoology, 1971). Archives
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