WIPocalypse 2014 - December

It's that time again!  It's been a productive month with one finish and a new start.  For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a wonderful day!  I got to go back home Michigan to be with my Mom, sister, brother in law and gramma.  Was a wonderful 4 days.  Weather permitting I will get to do it again for Christmas.

The topic for the month is:  Recap your accomplishments for the year.  This is going to be fun!

You see, I'm pretty much the kind of person who gets excited by an idea and then jumps full in, plays for a while, gets bored and looks for something else to do.  I did that with knitting, crocheting, polymer clay and paper modeling - all over the course of my lifetime.  And I really never got much done.  Small things, sure, but the big stuff never got finished.  Like the 4' tall paper model Optimus Prime.  His foot still stares at me from the corner where it's hidden, but the thought of getting out the mat, x-acto knife and glue makes me shudder.

Cross stitch is something I have always come back to, but it wasn't till the last couple of months of chemo that I really got back in to it.  With a vengeance.  I pulled out "Stitching the Standard" and made a lot of progress on her.  Then I remembered the hardanger work Mom used to do and I bought a set of bookmark kits and really enjoyed that.  Then I found out about Papillon Creations and got some of their charts with specialty stitches.  And I've been hooked ever since.  It's been a good solid 2 years now and I've felt no hints of the boredom that usually pops up after about 6 months.

What all this long drawn out blather is getting to is:  I actually have finishes in 2014!

Finish # 1
The Castle Garden, by Papillon Creations.
Started 9/28/2103


Finished 5/11/2014


Finish #2
Around the World in 80 Stitches, by Papillon Creations
Started around 7/4/2013


Finished 9/7/2014


Finish #3
QS Butterfly Fae, by Heaven and Earth Designs
Started 9/28/2014


Finished 12/5/2014, taken to framer 12/6/2014


When I look back at that, I'm kind of surprised.  A lot surprised.  I guess I finally found what I love to do.

So, on to the regular part of the post.  As mentioned above, QS Butterfuly Fae is done.  Last month at this time, I was here:


On Konstantinople Hamam I was here:


And am now here:


Last night, I started on K's project, Happy Bat, by AAN, and am here:


This is being stitched on 28ct Haunted Cashel, by PTP - 1x1.  

So there you go!  Hope you've found your hobby Nirvana, too!

It's cold here!

Central Indiana is in the freezer this week.  We had our first winter weather advisory on Sunday evening and we woke on Monday morning to snow, high winds and super cold temps.  As of this morning, it's still super cold and super windy.  We're in the low to mid 20's with gusts making wind chill drop to below 0 at times. I'm glad this is my work from home week so I don't have to go out there!

I've been feeling less than enthused about the Pink Fairy Vomit than usual.  I'm working on her wing, which is taking F O R E V E R.  So I decided to heck with it and moved on to working on Konstantinople Hamam.  I was having so much fun with it, that I got finished with part 1.  I'm a bad girl.  A realy bad girl.  So last night I made a deal with  myself.  When I get the fairy wing finished, I can work on the first section of part 2 of KH.  I can live with that compromise.  However, my negative side says that will be a year from now.

So, let's see...on my last update on the fairy I was here:

And as of this morning, I'm here



On Konstantinople Hamam, when I last posted I was here:



And now I'm here:



The only thing missing from it are the crystals that go in the inner and outer corners and the center.  Also, feel free to click on the picture to see the artsy fartsy angle photos I took of it.  Cuz, you know...art.

Ok, time to get ready to go earn my paycheck so I can support this habit of textile embellishment!  Keep on stitching, ya'll!

2014 WIPocalypse - November post

Hi, and welcome to my blog about stitching and cats.  I started this as an experiment to see if I would be able to keep up with it and chronicle my stitching adventures.  So far it's regularly fallen low on the list of priorities of things to get done, but I keep plugging away at it from time to time in hopes I get better at it.  Maybe if I join some blog SALs I might be more motivated to keep up with it!

My WIP on the October full moon was QS Butterfly Fae from Heaven and Earth Designs, being stitched on 32 ct Crystal Monet linen from PTP.  I opted to omit the background, stitch the background butterflies in tent stitch and the fae's wings with 1 strand of floss and 1 strand of blending filament.  So far it's been interesting.




And for the November full moon, I'm here:



Over the weekend I was Jedi Mind Tricked in to starting my Chatelaine.  Konstantinople Hamam, stitched on 28 ct Mystic by PTP.  This one is a monster project on my 36" Millennium bars and won't be traveling to work with me.  My plan for it is to stitch it in the evenings after work, weekends and the weeks when I get to work from home.



Sorry about the craptastic photo.  I had it illuminated by my new OTT light - the one with the LED's encircling a 3x magnifier. It really shows the colors perfectly, but it overexposes the picture taken by my iPhone.  

So, topic for the month:  What are your favorite and least favorite materials to use in your stitching?
For fabric, I would have to say linen is my favorite to stitch on.  Lugana isn't bad.  I really don't like Jobelan, though.  I stitched on it once and won't do it again.  It's too slippery and mooshy for my taste.  I haven't encountered any fibers that I don't like to stitch with.  That being said, thus far I have only stitched with DMC floss and pearls, Dinky Dyes flosses and Gloriana flosses.  I really don't like DMC metallics, but Kreinik #4 and Petite Treasure braid are lovely to work with.

I think that's about it.  Stitch on and thanks for visiting!

Fairies. Oh boy...

I've been plugging away at QS Butterfly Fae and hit a snag since my last post.  My plan was to add blending filament (2:1 floss:filament) to the wings on the fairy to give them shimmer. I stitched a fairly good portion of it and started noticing that the stitches seemed to sit up higher than the ones without the filament, and they seemed to be tighter in the fabric as well.  I didn't have any nearby stitches to compare to so I decided it must be my imagination and I continued on to see how it developed.

When I stitched one of the little lines on her wing (without the filament) I realized that yes, in fact, the filament was making the stitches heavier and it caused the plain stitches to have a kind of recessed look to them.  Not quite what I was going for.

So I posted over on a couple of the HAED groups on FB and got opinions about it.  The general consensus was that I should switch to using 1 strand each of floss and filament instead.  I was worried about what it would look like and then I thought, "What would Mary Corbet do?"  So I decided to stitch the bottom part of her wing the new way and see how it turned out.

It didn't come out as I imagined it would.  But then again, I have a bad habit of not seeing the forest for the trees.  While I'm stitching, I tend to really only "see" the immediate area I'm stitching and I was a little dismayed at how much of the blending filament was visible compared to the heavier stitching on the upper wing. It also seemed to be changing the perceived color of the thread it was paired with, but I decided to continue on and stitch a bigger sample with more colors to see how it turned out. A friend looked at it and commented that the test area has a translucent look to it - you can see a little of the fabric behind the stitching, lending it a more delicate appearance. That finally snapped me out of hyper-focusing on just that tiny area and I was able to "see" the whole project again. And I really like the way it's coming out.  So, I frogged the upper wing section!

And now I'm faced with another problem.  I'm really tired of looking at all that damn pink! My fabric arrived for Happy Bat and I keep looking at it when I come home from work, so I put it away in a tub so it won't tempt me.  And then my Ink Circles charts arrived - the 2013 RYO charts - and I keep fondling them and thinking about what color combos and kinds of finishes to use on them...and there's that Mill Hill kit I have...and a couple biscornu kits...and my UFOs...and another gift to stitch after Happy Bat...and I'm really tired of looking at pink fairies...

Of course I didn't start feeling this way till I frogged all that stitching...

Perhaps it will pass...

Oh, hey!  How about a picture?

Halfway done maybe? I don't know. I'm not good at judging that. And because I have that "forest for the trees" problem, I photograph my progress on all my projects at the end of each stitching session and obsessively upload them to Flickr so I can actually see how far I get from one day to the next.

Time to go do something else and stop obsessing over pink fairies.  bleh.

I'm not dead

So it's been just about forever since my last blog entry.  I guess it's evident just how this experiment is turning out and how much I like blogging!   

Lots has been going on since my last entry.  Let's see...where to start...

Castle Garden is framed and delivered to the intended gift recipients, however it isn't hung up yet.  They are agonizing over where to put it and making sure that it will be perfectly centered on the wall and all that good stuff.  Here's the most recent pic of it - it's still in it's plastic wrap:


I couldn't be happier with the results!  If any of you live near Indianapolis, you should check out The Frame Shop.  Don does excellent framing of needlework.  Very well worth the price.

So, next up - I got Around the World in 80 Stitches done.  It's currently being framed and is intended as a gift for my Mom.


AtWi80S was so darn fun!  I'm definitely going to stitch her again someday, next time without the cutwork, just for giggles.  I really went outside my comfort zone when I picked out the frame for it.  My initial thought was to go with a green frame, but the shades just weren't right.  Then Chuck laid out a couple of orangey frames and there was one that my eye just kept getting drawn to.  So I decided to go with it.  It will be either really awesome or really horrible lol 



So, that brings me up to my latest WIP - which is a gift for my "niece".  I affectionately refer to it as Pink Fairy Vomit.  You see, fairies are not my cup of tea, unless they are the ones from the Dresden Files series of books.  Those fairies will give you nightmares.  And they hate being called fairies. And I really don't care for pink.

Anyway, it's called QS Butterfly Fae, original artwork by Nadia Tate, charted by Heaven and Earth Designs.  I got her started on September 28.  She's being stitched on 36 ct Crystal Monet from Picture this Plus, 2 over 2.  I'm not stitching the background on it, so the fabric takes it's place.  The background butterflies are stitched in tent stitch with 2 strands, to make them look fainter than the foreground elements.  And I'm adding blending filament (Kreinik 032) to the fairy's wings to give them shimmer.  My progress as of last night:

Three of the butterflies are done, but they are rolled over the bars of the scroll frame.  To be revealed at a later date!

After she's done, I will be working on Happy Bat by AAN.  It will be stitched on PTP Haunted - to be gifted to K, my housemate.  After that will be Mini Purple Iris (another HAED) stitched on PTP Lunar (removing the background of the design) and gifted to my "step" niece.  After that, I should be getting back to my rotation.  Which is really funny.  Because I was supposed to get back to rotation after Happy Bat.

The 'mates and I did an epic vacation in September.  We departed on Sept. 11 and flew to Boston where we toured the USS Constitution (AMAZING!!) and then wandered around for a while.  The following morning we boarded our cruise ship, Dawn (Norwegian Cruise Line), and embarked on our sail to Quebec.  We had ports of call in Portland, Maine, Halifax, Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, Gaspe and Saguenay then we disembarked in Quebec City and spent 3 days there.  Then took the train to Montreal and spent a couple days there before going home.  I didn't want to come home, and I've decided that my summer residence will be in Quebec City and my winter residence will be in Vancouver.  It's good to dream, right? I'm still going through all my vacation photos - digital cameras do not encourage one to be careful taking good photos.  So I ended up with well over 6000 pics to weed through.  Eventually I will have them culled and posted and then I will share.

Ok - enough naval gazing on my part!  Hope all is well with you - keep stitching!

Bulletin Board of Doom!

My cork bulletin board arrived last week.  And I was dismayed.  You see, I have this problem with seeing measurements but not really visualizing them.  So, Amazon had some boards listed of various sizes and I imagined them holding CG and figured they were way too small.  Then I found one that is 4' x 3' and I thought that should work perfectly!

When it arrived and I saw just how big it really is and then listened to G and K teasing me about needing to build an addition on to the house just to store the darn thing...Dismay.

CG is less than 30" square with margins for framing.

Yes.  I need adult supervision.  And a measuring tape.

So, to console myself I decided that the cork board can be used for multiple projects that need to be blocked!  But when I ran this one by my mom she asked me how many projects I anticipate blocking all at the same time...

Consolation - gone.

Now I have the ginormous Bulletin Board of Doom and Blocking happily stretching CG while it leans against my closet door in my bedroom.

Speaking of blocking...It's hard to do.  I think I don't like it lol.  Of course, it could be argued that my choice to use quilting pins was not the smartest way to go about it.  Push pins are probably the way to go.  I are dumb.  In any event, I'm not convinced it will change the condition of the linen in any appreciable way.  Would work better if I could have dampened the fabric.  But alas...silk threads.  So pretty, so impractical.

On the stitching front, AtW is coming along nicely.  I've got parts 8 and 9 finished and am over halfway done with part 10.  

Part 8 is really a 2 part section:








Part 9 was fun, although the Bokhara Couching was a pain in the butt.






So that's where things stand with projects so far.

Moving on

So, I've ironed the snot out of CG and have it hanging on a pants hanger in my room.  It's still got some wrinkles on it, so I'm going to try dry blocking it.  My cork bulletin board should arrive today so tomorrow I'm going to try pinning it nice and tight and see how things go.

Meanwhile, I have started stitching again on Around the World in 80 Stitches.  I just finished Part 7.  This section consisted of two-sided triangular Turkish stitch, Maltese Cross and Lefkhara Lace.  The Maltese Cross was really fun to work up, and I really enjoyed doing the whipped backstitch on the Lefkhara Lace section.  Yeah - I'd never done whipped backstitch before!  I might just go back and whip the light green backstitches to make them stand out more.  

Anyway, here's Part 7 completed


And here's the entire design thus far

Aaaaaand she's.....

Done!

She needs some more ironing.  I can't use high heat with steam because of the silk threads, so I've got it hung in the bathroom for now, in hopes that humidity from showers will help the fabric relax and flatten a little.  I'm also going to get a cork board tomorrow and try to dry block it. Hopefully between that and the stretching at the framer it will come out will with no wrinkles or puckers.  Depending on when the shop opens I might be able to get it in before next weekend.

I've dug out the next project to get finished - Around the World in 80 Stitches.

Onward!

Soooooo close!

This is all that's left to be stitched. Then to get the rest of the beads on. 

I'm hoping to have her ready for the framer this weekend!

Sometimes it's best not to know...

I was putting all my stitchy stuff away for the night and getting ready to hit the sack when I heard maniacal giggling coming from G's room.  I went to investigate. I wish I hadn't. 

She was giggling at this:

In the home stretch!

I've got the western fence done and have started stitching the 1st of the triangular gardens - which is actually the last one to be stitched.  Still ahead the western end of the north fence, finish beading and then off to the framer.  Maybe another week and a half?  Maybe?

I'm Weak

Ok, I'm supposed to be vacuuming.  But I just had to find good pics of the Star Wars cat toys.  
so here you go

Yoda and Chewbacca

Storm Trooper and Darth Vader

Are they not totally cool?

Update

I've been stitching as much as possible since the last post - which hasn't been as much as I'd like.  Life/work has had a bad habit of interfering with my progress of late.  Stupid job!

Been working with a new hire - letting him listen to my calls and explaining my troubleshooting process to him.  Plus this last week had all the joys of disconnects in it.  It's amazing how upset people get when we disconnect their services after not receiving payments for 60 days.  Sheesh.

When I left off with the last stitching session, I had nearly finished the south half of the western gate.  I was on a long troubleshoot at work (yes, there's the shameful secret - I stitch at work!) and my thread broke in the middle of one of the blackwork motifs.  Note to self:  use shorter lengths of thread.

I came home from work earlier in the week and found evidence of new cat toys in the house.  My roomies found Star Wars themed mouse toys!  So Cool!  I wish I had gotten pics of them before they got mauled - they just look nasty now and I will spare you visual evidence.  Phoenix (aka Pee Pee Bandit) Has decided that she likes to carry Chewbacca mouse around in the night.  And then hop up on the bed with me, and drop it by my face so I will throw it down the hall for her to chase.  We need to work on her timing.  Goblin's favorite is Darth Mouse.  And unfortunately the Storm Trooper mouse has displeased all of the kitties and is continually being bounced down the basement stairs.  I have given up trying to convince them that Storm Troopers are just as cool as Vader and Chewie.  Come to think of it...Jedi mouse has disappeared.  He must have displeased them, too.  Such is life.

Off to do chores and maybe stitch.

Latest Progress Pic

Not too much longer now.  Especially if I can avoid miscounting.

Damn!

So, I'm stitching along yesterday - southern fence done - and I'm adding in the 2nd to last set of small urns and congratulating myself on good progress...

and then...

...

I notice...

...that I can't count to 4.  And everything I stitched has to be frogged.  What a world!!!

Quicky post of CG progress

Been a busy week doing not much of anything.  Funny how we can get wrapped doing nothing.

Anyway - here's what I've stitched since last weekend.  Getting close!

Thoughts on starting/ending threads

So, I got a bit more done today.  Darn iPhone takes pics at weird angles.

I was pondering the horrendous mess that is the back of my stitching, and grumbling about having to flip my work over to start and finish threads so often with this mess, when I recalled some articles I had read over at Needle'nthread and decided to give them a try.  Then remembered something about pinhead stitches, googled it and found this.  I decided to give these techniques a whirl and see how it went.

Welp, I think they are right fine!  In the pic above, see the little black dash, kind of middle-right?  That's Mary Corbett's method of taking little back stitches, and I used it to end my black thread.  I placed them right in the center threads of where I'll be stitching a line of straight black cross stitches.  I used it elsewhere in the black gate, and you can't even see it.  The pinhead stitches I used extensively in the trellis to the left.  I discovered that I can't just ham fist my way through them, particularly when ending a thread because it will deform the cross under which they are stitched.  Finesse.  Finesse is the way to go.  For the ray stitches and eyelets I used a combo of the tacking stitches to start and pinhead to finish under the nearest cross stitch.  These turned out fine because they are stitched with 1 strand.  I wouldn't try it with 2 strands.  Also, rather than leaving a tail at the back when starting the pinhead I brought the thread back up in the middle and snipped it off.  No more flipping the work!  Woot!  And that section of stitching is far more tidy than I've ever seen on my work before.  It's fun to try new things!

The holes up there in the fabric were the result of me being silly with my laying tool, which has proven to be ridiculously handy for widening holes for the eyelets.  

Triangular Garden #4 is done

Today's goal met!  I got the Triangular garden #4 done

and completed the rhodes border.  Now to complete the bottom gate and fence

Working on Triangular Garden 4

Here's the latest progress shot on CG.  The small urns and grottos are done and I've started the 4th triangular garden.  I think I will be able to get that done today and get started on the rhodes border.

Meet Smudge

She likes to hang out there beside my desk when I work from home.  And she contributes to my stitching with cat hair. 

Octagonal Garden 4 Complete

I got the last octagonal garden done last night.  Yeah!

I'm looking forward to getting this project done so I can finally get back to my other projects.

Speaking of other projects - I left off yesterday with my run down of WIPs and UFOs.  The WIPs are all listed out, but I don't really have any UFOs, I guess.  Unless I count Stitching the Standard as a UFO, since I started it years ago.  But once I get CG done, StS will be back in the rotation.  So, I dunno.

Patterns in the "basket" to get started - way too many.  At first I was going to list them, but then decided it was pointless and I would feel like a failure lol.  Though I do have a little project list that I have prioritized and I'm going to try to keep to that as much as possible.  

So, let's talk about details on the CG project.
She's being stitched on 36 count white chocolate linen.  The chart calls for some DMC colors (white, black, 610, 3046, 3045 and 3371).  Beyond those, you get to pick - I'm using Dinky Dyes silk floss.  
  Dark Green:  189 Evergreen
  Medium Green:  162 Pindi
  Pale Green:  195 Mulga
  Floral Color 1:  143 Lost Gold
  Floral Color 2:  83 Peach Melba
  Floral Color 3:  146 Mingenew
  Floral Color 4:  134 Shark Bay
  Floral Color 5:  144 Aussie Dawn
  Floral Color 6:  199 Choco-Cherry
  Floral Color 7:  54 Ningaloo
  Floral Color 8:  82 Whitsundays
  Metallic Thread*
  Bead 1:  Bead Treasures CZ174 Silver lined red from Hobby Lobby
  Bead 2:  Bead Treasures CZ182 Purple/Aqua from Hobby Lobby

* Metallic Thread and issues with it
When I first started the project, I bought all the threads locally.  I was I hot mess about wanting to get it started and I knew I hated working with DMC metallics but that's pretty much the only thing I could find locally.  I had never stitched with RG Petite Treasure Braid before so I didn't even know what the thread looks like much less how it would work with my project.  Plus I would have to special order it.  Not great for instant start.  So I trotted down to Hobby Lobby to see what they had.

I found a pack of metallics there in which resided a spool of a kind of flat thread that was shot through with all kinds of colors on it.  I suspect it was intended as a blending filament.  I really liked the look of it on the spool and decided to buy it.  They also have another brand of thread, by Artiste, and there was quite a selection of metallics.  They felt an awful lot like the DMC metallics but I thought perhaps maybe possibly Artiste might stitch up better than DMC.  So I bought a couple of selections of color.

I stitched the center part of the design using the filament metallic and it had an interesting effect, but I wasn't enthused about it.  I didn't hate it.  I didn't love it.  And it's a PITA to stitch with.  So I decided to try the Artiste brand, specifically the color called Kaleidoscope.  It's also a kind of variegated thread.  I like the look of it, but OMG, it's a bloody nightmare to stitch with!  But I stuck with it.

Then, later down the road I happened to notice a LNS carries a small selection of Petite Treasure Braid, and they had a color that was somewhat similar to the Kaleidoscope.  PB51 Brown.  So I bought some and decided to try it on the fleur de lis finials on the blackwork gates.  And I love love love it!  And it's a lot easier to stitch with, too!

I'm lazy though, so I decided not to frog the other metallics.  I don't mind the effect.  

In the end, I think the design would have been better stitched with solid colors rather than with variegated.  I don't love the look of it, but I definitely don't hate either.  And it's fun to watch the colors change on the more varied threads.  Perhaps that kind of thread would be better on a 28 count fabric instead, where the stitches are a bit bigger.  It's definitely a learning experience, and a valuable one at that.

Run down of my current WIPs and UFOs

So, here I am just getting started on this little blogging escapade, and we'll see just how well this goes.  

The purpose of my blog is mainly to document my stitching progress on various assorted items.  With the added spice of blurbs about my cats (of which there are 5), life in central Indiana, life in tech support, life in general.  But mostly about stitching.

So, let's get to that, shall we?

WIPs

The Castle Garden

My primary focus has been on The Castle Garden, by Papillon Designs.  I started it with the intent of giving it to some very good friends who helped me get through my cancer treatments during the winter of 2012/2013.  Chemo.  Bleh!  BTW, I didn't die - in case you were wondering.  Ha!  I started CG near the end of September of 2013, it's finished size will be 22"x22" on 32 count linen, stitched over 2.  Later, if I feel like it, I will list out what threads I'm using.  Here's the link to my Flickr set.  But for instant gratification, here's a pic of my latest progress.

Well, ok, it's not my latest progress.  I have gotten some of the octagonal garden in the lower left corner done.  But for all intents and purposes, it's more or less that.  I'm hoping that I will have her done in about a month, then off to the framer.  

Also, I'm not a great photographer.  My little Nikon Coolpix L110 is flakey.  Which translates to:  Amy doesn't know what she's doing!  I do some photos with my iPhone or iPad, but they sometimes have weird angles to them.  

Around the World in 80 Stitches

This one isn't actively being worked, but it isn't technically a UFO either.  What's the difference?  I dunno.  My mood, I guess?  But CG has been my total focus.  Normally I stitch in a rotation (LOL, I crack myself up) and this is in the rotation.  It's the current SAL by Papillon Creations and it's a boat load of fun!  It was/is my first foray in to specialty stitches and I was hooked.  Now just plain old cross stitch seems boring.  Here's the link to my Flickr set. And here's instant gratification - a pic of where I left off.

Treasure Quest

You were expecting another Papillon Creations weren't you?  Psych!  This one is a HAED and I've only got 1 page done on it.  It's my tent stitch experiment.  Here's Flickr, and here's latest progress photo.

Stitching the Standard

This one is by Golden Kite.  I started it...well...hmm.   A Long time ago.  sometime before March, 2008 LOL  meh.  Ignore the cut stitches in the upper left corner near the castle tower.  I haven't gotten around to fixing it.  There's no rush, much to stitch yet and it intimidates me.  Here's the Flickr set and here's the most recent progress pic.

So that's all the WIP's for now.  Once CG is done, I'll be starting a Chatelaine and another HAED (a QS for my "neice").

I think this post has gotten a bit large and it's nearly time to go to work.  So, I'll come back later with UFO's.