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!
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I have lots of things I could have stitched on this weekend, most pressing of which were "Save the Stitches (I'm WAY behind in outlining and have over 10 blocks to fill in) and RYO "Bride" (Stuck on color four). And the Bead Journal piece for November is kitted but not started. But... the John Clayton "Golfer - Fairway" was ALMOST done and calling my name --- only his trousers and the backstitching were left as of Thursday night, so... Now he's done (except for the framing) and I can move on! Sunday night, I finished up color four in the RYO mandala "Bride": That leaves the BJP piece for November and Save the Stitches. Do you think I'll have much stitching time with family coming for Thanksgiving (not only do I need to cook but the dining room table is buried under jigsaw puzzles and financial records!) and a football game on the weekend!?
As I expected, to 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:
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...
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.
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!
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!):
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! 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...
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: |
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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