Big blog entry over here, complete with before and after photos. 
http://measi.net/measiblog/2010/02/15/stitching-olympics-progress/
Archive for ◊ February, 2010 ◊
• Monday, February 15th, 2010
Category: Misc. Musings
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• Monday, February 15th, 2010
I’m participating in Stitching Olympics competitions at two separate message boards this month. Unfortunately the attempt on Life’s a Stitch for a stretch of 5×5 square stitching is off to a slower start due to a TON of frogging, but I’ll be bringing that piece into my rotation this week.
Over on The Wagon, however, I’ve been making some great progress. The competition I’m entered in is the Rotation Relay. Basically… work a minimum of 2 hours on a piece, and move on to the next in your personal rotation. So far I’ve worked on a LOT of pieces, as you’ll see. I’ve intentionally started with pieces that hadn’t been touched since I picked up stitching again back in October.
“Before” photos are on the left (most taken on January 28th to document the challenge). “Afters” are on the right. (photos pop)
Noah’s Ark
Hours: 3
Round finished on: 7 February 2010
It may be tricky to see, but all of my work on this piece were done on the ostrich panel at bottom center. It’s all over-one stitching and most was off-white on white (ick!).
Magical Night
Hours: 2
Round finished on: 8 February 2010
I would have done more on this piece, but I’m oddly missing a LOT of colors that I could have sworn I had. As of now, I’m planning on sending this piece around for the UFO Round Robin that’s kicking off on March 15th.
Elemental Dragon: Spirit
Hours: 4
Round finished on: 15 February 2010
Hooray! This piece is now finished aside from backstitching. I’ll be tackling that the first week of March once this competition’s over to get it done.
Smoky Mountain Cats
Hours: 5
Round finished on: 13 Feb 2010
I wound up spending more time on this than expected because it was in my bag for an extra-long commute. But hey, it’s more done in a very large field of blue.
Garden Sampler
Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 11 February 2010
I’m working the piece on the left. I’ve discovered the piece on the right was simply some motif experimentation, so I’ll probably keep it for similar practice. This was a piece that I got out of Erich’s mom’s stash as we cleaned through her belongings about 18 months ago. She started it in colors that don’t match the pattern – I didn’t bother switching the green, as they’re only about a shade off from each other. I did, however, pick the flower out so I could match it to the rest of the pattern. It’s not my general stitching style, but it stitches fast – I expect I’ll enjoy it a lot.
Walk in the Woods
Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 12 February 2010
This is another piece found in Erich’s mom’s stash. Again, not my normal style, but I do plan on finishing it. It’s stitching pretty quickly. I’m missing a couple colors. I do admit that I adore the top border.
So not bad so far!
Up this week in my list:
The “Hush Hush” piece for Life’s a Stitch
Home is Where the Cat Is
Legends of the Dragons
Spring Queen
I’m seriously considering rotating somewhat like this for the rest of the year – it definitely seems to be a fun way to rotate, essentially picking up a different piece every night.
Category: Rotations & Goals, Stitching
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• Monday, February 15th, 2010
I’ve forgotten to take a picture of this over the past two months. But here is my Totally Useless SAL jar. It’s filling up, although there’s a lot of room in the jar… the threads are still sitting with a lot of “loft” between them.
A huge stitching update is coming within the next hour or so… I just need to write it up and link all of my photos.
Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching
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• Sunday, February 07th, 2010
The boys are off at BJ’s to do the every-other-month run, and I opted to stay home to get a few things done. The kitchen’s now scrubbed, so I’m taking a few minutes before tackling the bathroom. We have a few people coming over for the Super Bowl tonight. I’m pretty sure everyone’s rooting for the Saints in this household. Rooting for Indy as a Pats fan? May honestly be illegal. Plus, hey – New Orleans needs all the good vibes right now. Indy’s won one recently.
So far, it’s been a good weekend all around. I did a bunch of stitching yesterday – working through three projects on my rotation for 2 hrs each. Spring Queen continues to be the very doomed piece – I had to give it a preliminary bath already for some dirt on the stitches. I must have had a loose pencil in my backpack, and on very light yellow… yeah, instant dinge. Ick. Thankfully all came out. The piece is dry, and I can start stitching on it again next time it comes up in the rotation. I’ll get photos up when I update for the Olympics tomorrow evening.
On other news that I’ve been chomping on all week (and panicking about) – it’s probably one of the few times in my life that I was very, very happy to see my period arrive. Erich and I had a bit too much fun about 2 weeks ago, and yes – while married, no… we’re not in a situation where we really are set for kids. That night, however – well… yeah. So anyway, my brain the next day started doing some math, and then I started swearing profusely. It’s not been a good couple weeks of worry. I’m very relieved that we’re not looking at a baby in 9 months. SO GLAD.
Not that the biological clock isn’t still ticking, mind – but Erich and I need to take care of a couple of things right now that really, really would cause problems had we been pregnant. And I sure as hell was not thrilled with the idea of handling a pregnancy whilst this obese.
I could do without the cramps today, though. ;P
Anyway… break over. Off to get some more work done.
Category: Misc. Musings
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• Sunday, February 07th, 2010
The boys are off at BJ’s to do the every-other-month run, and I opted to stay home to get a few things done. The kitchen’s now scrubbed, so I’m taking a few minutes before tackling the bathroom. We have a few people coming over for the Super Bowl tonight. I’m pretty sure everyone’s rooting for the Saints in this household. Rooting for Indy as a Pats fan? May honestly be illegal. Plus, hey – New Orleans needs all the good vibes right now. Indy’s won one recently.
So far, it’s been a good weekend all around. I did a bunch of stitching yesterday – working through three projects on my rotation for 2 hrs each. Spring Queen continues to be the very doomed piece – I had to give it a preliminary bath already for some dirt on the stitches. I must have had a loose pencil in my backpack, and on very light yellow… yeah, instant dinge. Ick. Thankfully all came out. The piece is dry, and I can start stitching on it again next time it comes up in the rotation. I’ll get photos up when I update for the Olympics tomorrow evening.
On other news that I’ve been chomping on all week (and panicking about) – it’s probably one of the few times in my life that I was very, very happy to see my period arrive. Erich and I had a bit too much fun about 2 weeks ago, and yes – while married, no… we’re not in a situation where we really are set for kids. That night, however – well… yeah. So anyway, my brain the next day started doing some math, and then I started swearing profusely. It’s not been a good couple weeks of worry. I’m very relieved that we’re not looking at a baby in 9 months. SO GLAD.
Not that the biological clock isn’t still ticking, mind – but Erich and I need to take care of a couple of things right now that really, really would cause problems had we been pregnant. And I sure as hell was not thrilled with the idea of handling a pregnancy whilst this obese.
I could do without the cramps today, though. ;P
Anyway… break over. Off to get some more work done.
• Friday, February 05th, 2010
I’m a bit silly-punchy right now due to being on the reception desk all day, so if I really go off on a strange tangent or don’t sound quite sane (for me – be nice), that’s why.
It’s odd to know that there’s a raging snowstorm coming up the East Coast that’s going to absolutely bury some places in 20-30 inches of snow, yet in Rhode Island there isn’t even a flake in the forecast. Amazing how these systems work. I’m so used to hearing the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, DC announcement on Amtrak as if the megalopolis is this continual, reasonably small area of land that sometimes it’s easy to forget that no, it really isn’t.
In any case, my mom will be in this storm, though not in the worst of it. I’ll give her a call at some point to check in tomorrow.
My weekend should be fairly tame – I’m going to stitch all day tomorrow. Literally. Erich and Matt are off to play Dungeons & Dragons (well… a Star Wars campaign actually, but it’s tabletop roleplaying…) all day. They’ll probably leave sometime around 10 a.m., and I expect them home pretty late (10 or 11 p.m.). I’ll have the house to myself.
So stitching’s the plan – and lots of it. I’m going to be working on my Stitching Olympics rotation for The Wagon tomorrow. Unsure how many projects I’ll actually stitch. The official turnaround is at 2 hours. I am going to stick to that as best I can, but I do tend to be a slow stitcher. 2 hours may not give me a lot of progress. Still, it will be good to put stitches in a bunch of things. I have UFOs that literally have not been touched since before my wedding. I’m using the Olympic challenges to form my rotations for the rest of the year, too. I want to figure out which projects are strongly appealing right now and which projects I have a reasonable chance at finishing at some point this year. As far as I’m concerned, the more I can clean off my list, the more new projects I can start. But now I have a healthy group of projects to choose from, so no more from me until a couple others are completed, I think.
I also became the moderator for the new 2010 UFO Round Robin over on The Worldwide Round Robins board today. Susan’s a bit busy with work and other projects, and I was happy to jump in with the experience I have from years past in non-stitching exchanges. The RR’s scheduled to have its first mailing on March 15th, so if anyone’s interested in participating, pop over there, look for the 2010 UFO RR board (bottom of the page, currently) and drop me the info required. The more the merrier!
Time to go home soon, so I’m going to start tidying up around here before heading to the boat. (I drove to Hingham and took the ferry today)
Happy Friday!
Category: Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching
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• Monday, February 01st, 2010
I’m participating in The Wagon’s Rotation Relay for the Stitching Olympics, so my rotation this month is a very odd one for me.
The relay guidelines are to work two hours on each piece, then move on. I’ve decided to include ALL of my current WIPS and UFOs in my rotation for the month, and I’ll see where it goes from there. I’m going to do this in a screaming order. I’ll return to my normal style of rotating in March.
Project list:
Spring Queen (Mirabilia) – currently stitching
Home is Where the Cat Is (Dimensions)
Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla)
Elemental Dragons: Spirit (DD)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Egyptian Sampler (TW)
Floral Bellpull (TW)
Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
Legends of the Dragons (TW, DD, BS)
Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus Designs)
Fantasy Triptych (TW)
Magical Night (TW)
Noah’s Ark (TW)
Millennium (TW)
Walk in the Woods (Cricket Collection)
Garden Samplers (Prairie Schooler)
I think it will be a good way for me to really take a look at what I want to do for a rotation, too. I have plenty of projects kitted up now, and there’s a nice mix of diversity in them. Hopefully that will help me progress on things – particularly those TW patterns which I love, but can’t always focus on stitching.
—
So onto my January goals…
1) Work on many new starts as I wish for guilt-free January YES – I started three projects.
2) Finish kitting any projects I’d like to start in 2010 YES. I may have overlooked a thread here or there, but I can start on any of the pieces I wanted to kit.
3) Sort any old WIP photos and redo my progress pages online ALMOST- everything’s been photographed, and I’ve updated my main page, but I still need to build the individual progress pages.
4) Have an uninterrupted 6 hours of stitching time YES – had a wonderful one two weeks ago.
5) Figure out which piece I’d like to send around for the UFO RR that will hopefully kick up over on the TWWRR board. YES – have this solved too.
So yes, a very productive month. I’m pleased.
So for February, my goals are:
1) Rotate through all of my WIPs and UFOs at least once
2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is
3) Finish Spirit
4) Put together the individual progress pages on my website
5) Finalize my rotation that will start in March
6) Remember to photograph the TUSAL this month.
Off to get some work done. I’ll post thoughts on individual projects this week.
Category: Misc. Musings
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• Monday, February 01st, 2010
I’m participating in The Wagon’s Rotation Relay for the Stitching Olympics, so my rotation this month is a very odd one for me.
The relay guidelines are to work two hours on each piece, then move on. I’ve decided to include ALL of my current WIPS and UFOs in my rotation for the month, and I’ll see where it goes from there. I’m going to do this in a screaming order. I’ll return to my normal style of rotating in March.
Project list:
Spring Queen (Mirabilia) – currently stitching
Home is Where the Cat Is (Dimensions)
Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla)
Elemental Dragons: Spirit (DD)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Egyptian Sampler (TW)
Floral Bellpull (TW)
Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
Legends of the Dragons (TW, DD, BS)
Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus Designs)
Fantasy Triptych (TW)
Magical Night (TW)
Noah’s Ark (TW)
Millennium (TW)
Walk in the Woods (Cricket Collection)
Garden Samplers (Prairie Schooler)
I think it will be a good way for me to really take a look at what I want to do for a rotation, too. I have plenty of projects kitted up now, and there’s a nice mix of diversity in them. Hopefully that will help me progress on things – particularly those TW patterns which I love, but can’t always focus on stitching.
—
So onto my January goals…
1) Work on many new starts as I wish for guilt-free January YES – I started three projects.
2) Finish kitting any projects I’d like to start in 2010 YES. I may have overlooked a thread here or there, but I can start on any of the pieces I wanted to kit.
3) Sort any old WIP photos and redo my progress pages online ALMOST- everything’s been photographed, and I’ve updated my main page, but I still need to build the individual progress pages.
4) Have an uninterrupted 6 hours of stitching time YES – had a wonderful one two weeks ago.
5) Figure out which piece I’d like to send around for the UFO RR that will hopefully kick up over on the TWWRR board. YES – have this solved too.
So yes, a very productive month. I’m pleased.
So for February, my goals are:
1) Rotate through all of my WIPs and UFOs at least once
2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is
3) Finish Spirit
4) Put together the individual progress pages on my website
5) Finalize my rotation that will start in March
6) Remember to photograph the TUSAL this month.
Off to get some work done. I’ll post thoughts on individual projects this week.
Category: Blog Organization, Rotations & Goals, Stitching
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