And Still More Finishing

I an working on finding my dining room table beneath the piles of fabric, stitched pieces, trims, and fusible interfacing.  I managed to finish two more items yesterday, bringing the total up to 12 for 2016 thus far.

I am pleased with my first oval ornament. PS Queen Bee.

But not as pleased with the stand up Easter Egg Sampler.  I'll be making some changes as I use the same basic technique for an Easter Rabbit stand up.

I am hoping to spend some time today on the rabbit stand up and running up 2016 Trick or Treat totes for the grandchildren.  I like to have things ready far in advance so as Halloween approaches I'll have plenty of time to find the right goodies and mail everything to the West Coast.  

I finally figured out how to use the automatic needle threader on the Pfaff sewing machine so changing thread color will be easier.  I really prefer my antiquated [48 years old] Dial and Sew but it's going into the repair shop for work on the tension assembly.  I've got to hope it's not quite at the DNR stage just yet.

Assessing January Goals, Setting February Goals

It's been a good start.  In addition to meeting two of my goals I started and finished three additional projects: Homespun Elegance. Birds and Bees. Samplers and Such. ABC Sampler, Mystery Sampler, French Style.  I also started and am nearly finished with Whispered by the Wind's Scherzo.

January Goals

• Complete at least five Sewing Finishes  Four complete and one nearly so.

I assembled and trimmed two Town Square ornaments: The Creamery and Sandi's Sweet Shop.

And I made a small pin pillow from Homespun Elegance's An Elegance of Owls, trimming it with some soot colored chenille.

And I turned the Samplers and Such ABC sampler into a jar lid, overlaying two different braids to trim the edges of the lid.

• 
  

• I started om A is for Acorn, making another pin pillow, though this one will be stuffed with ground walnut shells.  I have yet to decide on a trim,  I'll have to do a liile stash diving. 
• Continue work on Making Waves  NO.
• Continue work on Slow Down Sampler.  FINISHED.
• Continue work on The Jacobean Elegance Afghan  NO.

FEBRUARY GOALS

Complete at least 5 sewing or assembly finishes.

Continue work on Jacobean Elegance Afghan.

Start the next Workbasket Quaker animal.

Get back to Work on Making Waves.
Finish Scherzo.

Pulling It Together For Autumn

Autumn has always been my favorite season.  It is evident in the quantity of decorative stitching items with a Fall theme.  The number rivals my Christmas collection.  Every year, I place an ornament tree in my entry hall, set out a half dozen or so framed pieces, scatter some smalls about the place.    Here are a few photos of  my Halloween and Fall season displays.   I 'll show photos of this year's decorations next week.  I need to do some heavy cleaning before I start the holiday season.

But this year I hope to do a little more.  I have gathered together 21 of my stitched but as yet unfinished or unframed or "some assembly required" Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving pieces and plan to work myself up into a finishing frenzy.  I'll need to hit the local Michael's and A. C. Moore for some frames, craft paints, matte board and pillow forms ... as well as the local quilt shop for a light bulb for my sewing machine and some spools of thread and a few properly autumnal finishing fabrics... before I can get started     Tomorrow is a day for running errands, so I'll just add these tasks to my to-do list.  That way I'll be ready to start on all these projects over the weekend.

It's amazing just how many unfinished projects  have been languishing in the great laundry basket of finishing.  In no particular order, here are a few photos of projects that I hope to see through to a final finish this month.

Halloween Revelry by Primitive Needle From JCS Sept 2009.  I fell in love with this quirky piece as soon as I saw it.  I hope to make it into a large throw pillow.

This piece is called Hat in a Cat from The Cricket Collection.  A riff on Dr,Seuss' The Cat in the Hat.  I [lan to finish it as recommended, as a doorstop, by filling it with shredded walnut shells.

This piece, called Nevermore, references the Edgar Allen Poe poem, The Raven and comes from the same CEC leaflet mentioned above,  Every time I look at it I can hear Vincent Price intoning, "Quoth the raven, nevermore,"

This little witch is another piece that I stitched so long ago that I have no clue as to designer or design name.  I'll finish it as a small pin pillow.

Here's another unidentified older jack-o-lantern chart, probably a freebie.  It was stitched with over dyed cotton in vertical  curved rows and so dates from 2005 when I took a class at CATS on using over dyed floss most effectively.  Over dyed floss was still relatively new back then and sich a now obvious choice was a fresh idea.  O'll make it into a Trick or Treat bag for oe of my grandchildren.

This is called Owl Row by Homespun Elegance.  One of my favorite designers, HE has a very distinctive look;  I'll finish this as an ornament.

This is another piece that I have no clue as to provenance.  When I have a moment, I'll dig out my old hand written stitching journals and try and trace it.  I think this would make an adorable trick or treat bag.

This Haunted House was probably a freebie,  It should make a nice little pin pillow,

This is a Shepherd's Bush Be Attitudes entry: Be a Witch.  This fun little piece is destined to be a Trick or Treat Bag for my granddaughter who is the princess  of pink every other day of the year.

Another Primitive Needle piece, Here Lies My Needle, will make a nice pillow for my stitching chair.

There are four designs on this one piece of linen, all destined to be pin pillows.  Tansy, Yarrow and Rue are from Pineberry Lane and the A is for Acorn piece was probably a freebie.

Pineberry Lane's Autumn on Marigold Lane should make another lovely throw pillow.

Changing the color way to Fall colors and replacing the flower motif with thrifty and saavy squirrels transformed this Earth Day sampler into a Fall sampler.  The original chart was offered as a freebie on Heartstrings blog.

This Pineberry Lane Tansy, Yarrow and Rue sampler has a harvest feel to me given the colors and the lady's rake.  I imagine she is putting the herb garden to bed for the coming winter.  I don't yet know how I want to finish this ... maybe I'll try my hand at framing if I can fid one the right size and style.

Brightneedle's Esmeralda's House is a  delight to the eye, wonderfully quirky with loads of visual puns and jokes.  Every time I post a photo, I get an e-mail asking me to sell the chart.  But since I was lucky enough to take a class with Ann Pettit, my copy is autographed and a permanent part of my collection of treasured charts.   And who knows I may use individual rooms to stitch some Halloween exchange pieces in the future.

Witches Stitch, Too is a Halloween companion piece to another  Homespun Elegance chart, The Stitcher.  I have toyed with making the two [oeces into a flippable pillow.

I used Prairie Schooler's Harvest Time leaflet as the basis of a round robin I participated  in back in 2010.  I stitched the top panel and used the acorn border from 2001 Cross Stitch Designs from Better Hoes and Gardens.  The other participants used either autumn leaves from the above mentioned chart or scenes from Prairie Schooler's Country Seasons chart.

My first Secret Needle Night, which I adapted a bit to my own tastes.  I need to finish the quilting using an acorn motif from Tom Pudding before turning it into a large shopping tote.

This is the very first piece I ever stitched with over dyed floss.  I used Needleworks on this design from an old Celebrations magazine chart.  It's so olf, it is stitched on a piece of Aida and I have been stitching on linen for three decades.








There are still a few more Halloween pieces left in the basket but those are pieces I wish to have professionally framed in 2016.  I tend to pace myself when framing since I always seem to go for  the more expensive options ... the 2015 framing projects are The English Band Sampler and TW's Autumn Faerie.

Rotation Progress

Wednesday's rotation piece was the last of my Dragon Dreams charts: The Dragon of the Summer Sky.

Wednesday morning, I kitted it up with the suggested fibers.  The fabric I am using is one of the bargain purchases made at Chris' Collections retirement sale, a 28ct Jobelan Blue Wing instead of the 28ct Zweidart Luguna in slate that was suggested.  The colors are quite close.  Happily, I had all of the Kreinik already in stash. One of the advantages of having a fairly extensive fiber and fabric stash is that kitting up is accomplished without the long wait for mail-order bits and pieces.  I do like being able to start a piece while the mood is upon me.

Of course most of my pre-work stitching hour was taken up by measuring, cutting and binding the edge of the fabric and gathering all the necessary fibers and beads from stash.  The result: was that very little actual stitching was done.  But, I was able to stitch for a portion of my lunch break and for a few hours after dinner, with this result.  Since I made this the stitcher's choice piece for the weekend, I was able to get a really flying start with nearly 1/3rd of the design complete.

Thursday's rotation piece was the Victoria Smalls Class Project from my first Stitcher's Hideaway, the Mystic Smalls.  I didn't have much more than an hour to stitch on Thursday, so the progress is minimal.  Still, it felt good to pick up this 8 year old class project.  For some reason, this photo isn't uploading and I haven't the time to figure out why or to take another shot.  I'll try again this evening after work.

It's been a very long while since I last worked on this project.  I haven't taken a stitch in it since February of 2013.  So, it feels fresh and new again.  I intend to spend the next months reacquainting myself with old class projects and hope, by the end of 2015, to have whittled my sidebar list down to just three or four.

I'll be taking another class with Thea Dueck in October of 2015 and I want to finish up all my previous class pieces from Victoria Sampler so that I have something appropriate to share at show and tell.  That means I'll want to finish this set of smalls, the Sturbridge Box and accompanying smalls and a Christmas  sampler.  I also have an Autumn sampler from her farm series in stash that I'd like to stitch, time permitting.  I realize this is a rather ambitious plan but I will just do as much as I can and be content with whatever progress I make.

Friday's rotation was sewing finishing.  Again, not much time was spent on stitching, so all I managed was to work a bit more on a tote using Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler as it's focal piece.  I'll post a photo of the final finish next week.

And the weekend goal of finding a life beyond the stitching chair was met by
1] visiting my mother and bringing her my annual pre-Christmas gift of a potted mini-Christmas tree.
2] sorting out some books to donate to the local public library's swap room. I'll probably ask my husband to bring them on down on his way to the Historical Society on Wednesday

As noted above, Saturday and Sunday was stitcher's choice and I worked on The Dragon of the Summer Sky.

Monday's rotation piece was The English Band Sampler: I think I am going to have to frog some of the interior of this flower.  Things aren't quite lining up.  So it's two steps forward and one step backward.

This has been a very long post, so I think I'll save Tuesday's progress photo till I've made a bit more progress.  Look for it tomorrow.  Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the sampler charts giveaway in the previous post if you haven't already done so..

Back to Friday Finishing

These are the last two machine sewing finishes I managed before my sewing machine decided it simply wasn't going to function any longer ... there's a problem with the tension that is causing the needle thread to break constantly. A separate and unidentified issue is causing needles to break every so often as well. I have replaced needles three times in as many weeks. The first is HiH's Wee Bee made up into another pin pillow filled with ground walnut shells and trimmed with chenille. The second is a BBD design, Bird in Hand, finished in the same manner except that I don't have any chenille in an appropriate color. I'll have to do a little internet shopping to see what's available. A number of vendors are expanding their chenille lines so I am hopeful that I'll find a rose color or, at the very least, an ivory/eggshell color.

For the rest of the weekend, all finishes will have to involve hand-sewing ... unless, of course, my back-up machine is functional. But I seem to recall that it needs a trip to the repair shop as well. I may just break down and buy a new machine though I heartily dislike the thought of learning a new machine. These others have been old friends for 25 and 41 years respectively.

Mid-Week Musings

It's time to start planning the weekend finishing. I never did get to the Homespun Elegance pin cushions last weekend and I have been avoiding the four Prairie Schooler Seasons of ... pillows for a very long time though they have been on the goals list each month for the better part of this year. None of these finishes appears to be particularly difficult, just fiddly and time-consuming. So I believe the time has come to get to it. I have gathered the materials and tools necessary for these projects and laid them out on the dining room table. Finally, with them staring me in the face like this, perhaps, I may be guilted into finishing them this weekend. One other project I have laid out for the weekend is a series of owl finishes that I first saw on Erynne's blog. She is no longer blogging actively, at least, not under the same blog name. I miss her voice ... the voice of a very gifted young designer of cross-stitch and an able writer.

Some Finishing, Some Stitching

9:30 am: I rather like this notion of devoting my three day weekends primarily to finishing. Today, I am seven projects closer to the bottom of the finishing basket than I was on Friday. And some of those pieces have been in the "finishing" basket for years. The Strawberry Emery dates from 2006, the Silver Needle piece from 2008 and the Time for Tea from Lord Knows When [I can't seem to find the blog entry for TfT's cross stitch finish]. Of course, the finishing basket still appears very full but once I start working on the Christmas pillows that will change. Four nine inch pillow forms take up an awful lot of space. My sewing/assembly finishes are rapidly overtaking my cross-stitch finishes. Currently, I have completed 29 cross-stitch projects and 27 sewing/assembly projects this year. But since it is back to stitching today, I thought I'd get a bit more work done on Quaker Sampler. More stitching, mind you, than on an ordinary Monday since I am having trouble with my sugar numbers this morning. The glucometer has not been my friend these past few days ... far too honest about Halloween indulgences and a Dunkin' Donuts breakfast on Saturday. In any case, at 516, I need to run my exercise tape, take a slightly increased dosage [as per the doctor's instructions] of my main medication, drink a lot of water and eat protein only today. It is not recommended that I drive till I get the numbers down to 250 or below and then continue the regimen until I am back in my usual 120 range. But I can sew and stitch. So maybe I will get a bit more finishing in today after all. And a motif done on the Quaker Sampler as well!

Weekend Progress Report: November 6, 2012

Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie: I have been progressing nicely on block 2 of this piece.

Sewing and Assembly Finishes: I devoted this weekend to finishing up four floss tags [see yesterday's post for photo], a Blackbird Designs Quaker Medallion strawberry emery from the JCS 2006 Christmas Ornament issueusing some recently acquired upholstery fabric samples for the leaves, a small padded wall hanging entitled Time for Tea [a free chart that I stitched so long ago that the designer's name does not immediately spring to mind] using some of that lovely hand-dyed chenille from R & R Reproductions in the color Smoke and a pin pillowmade from a Silver Needle free chart proclaiming that "I love to shop at The Silver Neede" trimmed in more of the chenille, this time in the color Cinnamon. I have one more piece prepped for a pin pillow finish but I am rather tired of sewing so I may be putting that off till next Friday. It is very pleasant indeed to see cross-stitched pieces finally transformed into usable stitching accessories or decorative items for the home. And, who knows, I someday may be able to reclaim the laundry basket that contains all my "to-be-finished" projects for its original purpose: carrying laundry up and down the stairs of my two story townhouse! I plan on working on my Workbasket Quaker Sampler for the remainder of the day. Perhaps I'll make enough progress to make a photo worthwhile tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo

November is National Blog Posting Month. Can I manage to post one blog entry every day for a month? I am certainly verbose enough. The question is whether I am disciplined enough to post daily. I know that the posts at the beginning of the month were wildly off-topic for this stitching blog. Though I sometimes post about my professional life [especially as it impacts stitching time], I rarely post about my personal feelings. For those who were thrown off stride by the atypical posts, I can only say that though I am very good at compartmentalizing my life ... and I don't know whether that is a good or a bad thing ... sometimes even I can't keep everything in tidy little boxes tied up in pretty color-coded ribbons. But for now at least, it is back to stitching and stitching related topics. I spent a good part of Thursday morning prepping some of my floss tags for assembly. I prepped the remaining two Friday morning at the beginning of my three day weekend. And I tackled the actual assembly today. Or more specifically, I tackled trying to decipher the directions on my new toy, a Crop-a-Dile, so that I could pre-punch the holes for the grommets. I don't know what it is with me and directions for crafting accessories. My mind just doesn't work in the same fashion as the authors of those ever so clear, ever so detailed instructional leaflets. I took me ages to figure out how to use of my cording drill properly. I simply don't understand even the simplest machines/mechanical theories. This is where I really need my engineer son ... how dare he move to the West Coast just because the Navy told him to? Oddly enough, the Crop-a Dile was a cinch to use. It'll take a bit more practice to get the knack of lining things up precisely. But my first four attempts at Floss tags didn't turn out too badly. They are all Prairie Schooler promo cards: a house on a soft spring day, another house in a summer thunderstorm, a barn on a crisp autumn day and a cabin in a winter snowfall. Next, I'll be working on an emery strawberry, the two Homespun Elegance pedestal pin cushions I'd like to finish up and two more small pin pillow finishes. Maybe I'll have some more finish photos to show tomorrow. Now that I have three day weekends when I can really spread out my crafting stuff on the dining room table and just leave it there for the duration, I am determined to work on finishing as many of the small stitching accessories and/or the seasonal decor pieces I have on hand. The possibilities are pretty broad: ornaments, pillows, stand-ups, cubes or self-framed. I do have several heirloom quality pieces that I will need to send to a professional framer and soon, if I am to have them back in time for Christmas giving. All I want to have left in the "finishing" basket for 2012 are pieces I am accumulating for quilts or wall hangings.

A variety of ornaments

I have done the sewing/assembly finish on a few Thanksgiving ornaments stitched earlier this year. Both the Pilgrim Boy and Girl and the Give Thanks ornnaments are from Better Homes and Gardens 1001 Cross Stitch Motifs and are trimmed with inexpensive craft seed beads and backed with scraps of really lovely fabric left over from a quilting class. These are probably my most economical projects so far this year.

And, on April 28th, I finally got around to ordering the Kreinik silk mori for the Cross and Satin stitched Cornucopia ornament I had wanted to stitch in April. While waiting for the silks to arrive, I decided to stitch the central medallion of the Thanksgiving chart in Prairie Schooler's Harvest Time leaflet ... over one on the same 28ct Glasgow linen I am using for my Bride's Tree SAL ornaments ... using GAST and WDW overdyed cottons instead of the suggested DMC. Once I have finished these two ornaments I will have two turkey ornaments and two cornucopia ornaments, which should be more than enough of those motifs.

As to my remaining monthly Thanksgiving ornaments: I already have a few pumpkin [not jack-o-lantern] ornaments that will work on both the Halloween and the Thanksgiving tree bringing my total of completed ornaments up to seven, or nine once the above-mentioned cornucopia and turkey are stitched. A pumpkin pie ornament might make a nice addition if I kind find a properly sized chart. And, I am still looking for some very particular charts which probably exist only in my imagination. I'd really like to find some Indians and Pilgrims that aren't the usual cartoonish, child-friendly charts ... I'd prefer something with a touch more dignity and elegance or in a folk-art or primitive style. I have searched a variety of likely sites including 123stitch, Homespun Elegance, Prairie Schooler, Whispered by the Wind and Mystic Stitch without finding exactly what I want though there were a few charts that did have a variety of motifs that might prove useful. One that seems best suited to my purposes is Cross-Eyed Cricket's Thanksgiving Circle which features a male and female Pilgrim, a male Indian and some autumn trees. I'll be purchasing this as soon as I receive an expected payment for postage costs in the infamous Mom's Stash Giveaway ... it's coming in the form of a 123stitch gift certificate. Then there's Be Thankful by Imaginating, which has a central motif that might work if lifted out as an ornament. An Expression of Gratitude by Blue Ribbon Designs is another chart with a useful central motif. But these don't exactly thrill me and will be purchased only as a last resort if I come up short of the dozen or so ornaments I will need to fill my table top tree. I do have a beautiful chart of a native American maiden in the traditional dress of the Northeastern woodland tribes [carrying a basket of squash and corn] but even stitched over one on a high count fabric, it would be too large for an ornament ... and way too much work for an ornament as well. I might consider making it as a stand-up to place beside my wrought iron ornament tree when I decorate for Thanksgiving.

And I finished this quick little Quaker Rabbit [a free chart from aury's blog] for the April installment of the Bride's Tree ornament SAL. This is stitched on the same 28ct Glasgow linen [color: raw linen] as all the others in my series for the SAL ... and finished in the same style as the others, as well: a fringed pillow ornament with hemp hanger. I used GAST overdyed cottons Maple Syrup, Cinnamon and Oatmeal for the Rabbit & the border and a lovely Caron Waterlily for the lettuce. I made a few minor adjustments to the chart: rounding off the Quaker motif in the bottom right corner to make it look more like a head of lettuce, replacing the outlined tail with an echo of the central Quaker motif, and, finally, creating a Quaker style border to give my little pillow ornament a bit more definition. I am very pleased with this little guy ... and am most grateful to the fellow bloggers who led me to this complimentary chart ... sparing me the necessity of buying one of a possible five a Prairie Schooler charts with designs I could have adapted. While I love PS, I am never averse to saving a dollar or two.

It never ceases to amaze me but the simpler the design, the more frogging I seem to do ... an arrogant lack of concentration being the cause, no doubt. Or is it that the ostensibly simple charts have an insidious way of deceiving the eye, causing it to skip like a vintage needle on an old and scratchy phonograph record, falling into the wrong groove entirely? In this case, I had to frog nearly a third of the outline due to the fact that I skipped two stitches along the back of the rabbit causing his front legs to end two rows lower than his back legs. Since this would have seriously hindered his mobility, not to mention destroying his symmetry, I though it best to frog and re-stitch. He looks much handsomer now. It seems a happy coincidence that I stitched this little guy during the same week I decided to re-read Watership Downs. A small example of serendipity.

Since I will be starting another Quaker free chart from Aury's blog later this week, I consider myself well and truly caught up with this SAL and hope to remain so. The chart features a Bird in a Nest, suitable for the May ornament representing Security or Confidence in the Home.