Stitches ##126 add 127 are now online so I have to print those out and get cracking!
Stitch #125 is the Beaded Herringbone. Once I figured out how many beads to string, it worked like a charm...
Stitches ##126 add 127 are now online so I have to print those out and get cracking!
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Over the weekend, I pieced the basic block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project challenge for August and sketched out my Bead Journal Project atc/ornament for the month as well. I also got out the "Biltmore" kit and sorted and identified threads according to the DMC color chart (some were so close in color, I couldn't be sure which was which!). Then, on Sunday night, I finished up the Crazy Quilt Journal piece: I had a blood draw on Monday for my semiannual check-up, and since I was in the neighborhood, I dropped in at the orthopedics place to fill the prescription for an ankle brace that has been sitting in my to do pile since February. Here's hoping it helps that wonky ankle to heal...
Tuesday was pick-up day for our CSA and pick-up night for stitchery entries in the fair. Kind of wiped the day out. But I did manage to do the weekly TAST assignment - Stitch #124: Closed Herringbone (apologies for picture quality but I couldn't get a proper focus - that is perle cotton, not fuzzy yarn!): Stitch #122 is the Chained Bar (on the left in the photo below) while stitch #123 is the Woven Chained Bar (on the right). I really like this one --- if I didn't hate stitching with metallics, I could see the chain stitch in gold over a ribbon or even a fuzzy yarn. But I do hate stitching with metallics so I stopped with perle cotton!
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:
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!
These stitches are the Beaded Vandyke and the Bullion Vandyke. I know I can do Vandyke. I've done it before in TAST and I did it here: But ask me to put beads on it and it goes all wonky: and as for bullion stitches on it (especially since I hate bullion stitches - I think my fingers are just to big and clumsy to handle all those winds around the needle), even wonkier still: Still, I completed this assignment (with a lot of grumbling, to be sure - ever try to frog a bullion stitch?) and now have a second page of stitches for 2014: Oh, and I got stitchy mail this weekend! Back in May, I won the random drawing for a prize on the WIPocalypse blog. This is what came in the mail yesterday! Ink Circle's "Blue Morpho" chart, three skeins of ThreadworX and some 28 Needles! YAY! Thanks, Melissa (AKA Measi). I love it all!
Summer is here --- skipped spring altogether, again! We've had temps in the mid to high 80s for several days and then, just when you think you've gotten used to it, we get frost warnings for three nights in a row. This weather will be the death of me! A whole week on "Reloaded" and it really doesn't look it but... The six color is completed (I kept finding places where I forgot to finish a piece or where I had missed color five! AAARGH!) and seventh color (a very pale blue, almost the same shade as the fabric) is roughly 60% complete. This one feels VERY green compared to the original "Roll Your Own". I hope the blues will balance it out or otherwise, putting all 9 on one piece of fabric will have been a major mistake!... A completion as well --- stitches 114 and 115 (Long Tail Chain Stitch, plain, beaded and whipped) for Take a Stitch Tuesday: Other than that, I spent most of my crafting time prepping for a two day papercrafting/collage class this coming weekend. Had to get together a kit of "essential" tools just in case, which meant I had to search through my disaster of a crafting space, looking for things I KNOW I have but can't find anywhere... If it didn't mean taking tie away from stitching, I'd spend a month (at least) cleaning and organizing, but it's something I truly dread!
As I mentioned in last weeks' late report, part of why I didn't get much stitching done last week was being out of town at a scrapbook show. While I don't scrapbook, my friend does and we three "Girls' Night "Out" buddies traveled up to Novi, MI to attend "Megameet". Spent a lot of food (Novi is a pricey place), bought a few papercrafting supplies (very little there as scrapbookers are more into paper and stickers and the like than stamps and ink and such), and totally messed with my bad ankle (Walking on concrete for four+ hours isn't recommended for the healthiest of legs and my right ankle is far from healthy!). Too dim in the hotel to stitch and, besides, no way I was hauling along a magnifier as well as my regular luggage. SO I went into a brief withdrawal! Upon arrival home, husband and I headed back up to Toledo for a concert by the Toledo Symphony in Holy Rosary Cathedral. Bruckner's "Null" Symphony. Beautiful music. VERY hard pews! And no stitching Friday night either! So that meant I caught up a little on the weekend. However, Girls Night Out on Tuesday is cancelled due to illness so I should be able to get in one extra day of stitching to partially compensate for the three missed nights! Completions of works in progress included:
WIPS include the following...
Since this weekend is the May International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, I hope to finish the blackwork fill on those blocks then.
and the final mitered piece: A little wonky at one corner but I blame that on working with metric graph paper!
Part two of Lesson one was to mitre the corners of a piece of Aida and then hemstitch the "frame" down. Naturally, lesson two came out when I was just starting on this one! Typical! So I'm still not caught up... stitch: the Rope Stitch (#110) and the Zig Zag Coral Stitch (#111). The Rope Stitch is on top and the Zig Zag Coral Stitch is below... I think there may be more variations on this theme in coming weeks... Meanwhile, it's back to getting the Bead Journal Project and the Crazy Quilt Journal Project for May out of the way so I can concentrate on the Roll Your Own Mandalas again!
Below is a row of Rice Stitch varieties and some Square Box Stitches in three sizes... What is missing is the original, plain Jane Rice Stitch. As usual, I misread the tutorial... This week's stitches were the Buttonholed Cable Chain and the Alternating Buttonholed Cable Chain Stitches. Once I got into the swing of things, I found the Buttonholed Cable Chain easy to do, and I can see this as a seam treatment on a crazy quilt, simply because it looks a lot like crochet or tatting (which I cannot do!)! But I had issues with the alternating stitch --- so I tried it twice. Still had issues. The top buttonholes courses simply weren't working, perhaps because I had to work them in reverse... Giving up on Alternating Buttonholed Cable Chain Stitches, I turned to band 6 for the Wiehenburg "Mystery Band Sampler": There is a mistake in this band but I'm leaving it, simply because ripping out 3 over 2 in 32ct is a real pain, and besides, I kind of like how it looks! I wonder how many more bands there are...
Happy Spring every one! hope it has arrived where you are. |
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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