Archive for the Category ◊ Exchanges & Robins ◊

Author: Measi

• Sunday, November 04th, 2012

I seriously didn’t mean to go so long without updating my own progress. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve done it since July… ouch. Most of the delay is just truly due to the pregnancy chaos, but it also doesn’t help that my MacBook battery decided in the middle of the summer to start splitting itself apart (literally – the casing just started to split). I haven’t gotten around to getting a new battery (and likely won’t any time soon, with more important things to budget now), so Erich’s desktop is my home access to the internet, and it’s been a while since I had to share a computer!

So for now, I’m going to update on the pieces I can recall that have had progress since the end of July. My updates go all the way back to the Stitching Olympics, which now seem like they were years ago! I managed to work on 13 projects in August, each for a time of 2-10 hours, depending on whether I worked them at home or on my commutes.

One piece, Book of Ink Circles, sadly spent its entire time being counted and recounted, only to discover that I have some major stitching errors all over the place. I’m going to have to start over on it (ugh). So no photo updates on that one. Picture a blank canvas.

I managed one finish during the Stitching Olympics. My Mirabilia Round Robin from 2011 is now DONE! I finished her up by adding Enchanted Mermaid to the bottom center square. I intentionally flipped her profile so I now have four faces in either direction (most of the queens, and other profile Miras, seem to face toward the right, interestingly enough). Now I just need to press her and get her framed!

Mirabilia Round Robin – started February 2011 on a Silkweaver 28 ct green solo (pre-takeover). Stitched by fabulous women in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and UK. Completed August 17, 2012.

I also put some time into my Floral Bellpull from Teresa Wentzler. Not a lot – I’m confetti stitching at the moment, so it’s a slow process and I need to take breaks fairly often. This is the one TW that I’d like to complete this year. Once my ornaments are done for exchanges, I’m going to focus on this for a while. After this square, I only have one more to do… so it’s still feasible that I could get it done by the end of December.

Photo as of August 10, 2012.

Quaker Compass was a new start for me in July. I picked up the pattern at Celebrations of Needlework in May, falling in love with the model – but I felt it needed just a little more color. I’m stitching this in a lavender to green to purple Threadworx overdye, and I’ll do the alphabet letters in a solid green that matches the darkest green in the variegated floss. I’m stitching this on 36 ct Sterling from Picture This Plus. The photo is my progress as of August 10th.

I continue to be fascinated by Rosewood Manor pieces. I’m firmly in the camp that the photos on the front of the charts by this designer never, ever seem to draw my interest. But oh my gosh, the models. When you actually see these pieces completed and done on the wall, they are astonishing. Really truly. Both years at Celebrations in Nashua, I could have spent hours in the Rosewood booth. Not only are these pieces incredibly intricate, but so many of them are flipping huge – just the type of projects I tend to adore (which is a reason why I seem to never get stuff done!)

My other pretty big progress photo from the Stitching Olympics is of Pocketful of Peppermint by Blue Ribbon Designs. This piece was taught in the first class I ever took at Stitcher’s Hideaway back in October 2010, but I didn’t manage to get the actual piece started until the beginning of this year. I have one more column of squares to stitch, and then filling everything in will take virtually no time at all. I’m expecting to have this done by the end of the year – it’ll probably be my travel piece when I head to my mom’s for Thanksgiving, and it’s also a piece that – once I get the rest of the frames done (since some are in specialty stitches), I’ll be able to stitch during my train commutes.

Photo as of August 31, 2012

The rest of my photos are of progress post-Stitching Olympics. I worked on some of these pieces in August, but didn’t take timely photos… so they’re just up to date as of this past week.

Deep Blue Sea by Chatelaine continues to progress slowly but surely. I’m almost done with part two – I’m adding the red starfish (stitched over one), convinced that I truly am into self-torture by deciding to stitch this piece on dark fabric… and now with stuff over one. But it is coming along. I brought this with me to Stitcher’s Hideaway at the end of October and spent a good chunk of day one doing red stars. I obviously am not anywhere near “on time” with the releases of the mystery, since part eleven was just released on the 1st… but I honestly never expected to be. At this point, I’m hoping to have part two done by the end of the year, and I’ll be happy with that. Over one stitching is probably one of the things I struggle with the most. I do use a magnifier, but it’s just one of those things that I’m incredibly slow at.

Photo progress as of October 28, 2012. Stitched on 28 ct Phantom by Picture This Plus.

It’ll be a slow and steady project, but I’ll have all of the charts, and Deep Blue Sea will get done when it gets done. With the kiddo on the way, I’m estimating… 2015 at this point? Maybe? Needless to say, I won’t be joining the next Mystery, but that’s okay, since I can’t exactly afford another one (or another project) at this point.

Witches Wheel by Glendon Place is also crawling along a little. It was stalled only when I somehow lost ALL of the black bobbins I’d stored with the piece – or I’d have quite a bit more done. I hate it when I get broken out of the zone on a piece for something as silly as missing bobbins. I think I’ll blame my cats! In any case, the star at the top is the top of this piece, with the exception of a large circle two stitches above it that rings the entire design. I’ll add that once I’m done with everything in the center, to make sure I don’t screw up the count. My fabric always seems to photograph very yellow – but it truly is just a perfectly pumpkin orange wherever you see the yellow in the fabric.

Progress photo as of September 5, 2012. Stitched on 32 ct Solar from Picture This Plus (per design specs)

Witchy Washy is the other piece I brought with me to Stitcher’s Hideaway this year – and I spent part of the second day adding the basket. I’m just about done with it, but had to break to get the aforementioned ornaments done. I’m probably about 65% done with the piece. This is another that will likely commute with me in the upcoming months. I hope to get it done sometime in January.

Progress as of November 4, 2012. Stitched on 28 ct Manhattan Mist from Silkweaver (pre-takeover)

The final photo to share is the ornament I did for the 10th anniversary Stitcher’s Hideaway exchange at the retreat. Every retreat, there’s some sort of a handmade exchange. Back in March, it was a scissor fob. For two other Hideaways, it was a Christmas ornament. This October’s retreat was a “Spooky Retreat,” so everything was Halloween themed. I decided to stitch one of the cute designs from last year’s big green Halloween book from Just Cross Stitch. This design is by Blue Ribbon Designs. I stitched it on an unlabeled scrap of neutral linen I had in my stash… it’s either 28 or 30 count. The front is shown here. I labeled it on the back with “2012 Spooky Retreat, Mystic, CT.” I completed this the night before the exchange – on October 25th. :)

I undoubtedly missed some updates from back in August… and I’ll try to pick those up at the end of the month. For now, I’m working on three ornaments for three holiday exchanges. Two are Teresa Wentzler ornaments. I’ve just about completed the stitching on one, and the other will get started tomorrow night. The other exchange is for one of the Facebook groups I’m part of, and the ornament is stitched – I just need to put it together. I’m planning on getting all three ornaments done at the same time. At this rate, hopefully that will be next Sunday.

Since they’re for exchanges, I obviously won’t be able to share them until they’re received. My goal is to get all three sent off just before Thanksgiving, which would make them perfectly timed for my November Wipocalypse update.

It’s been a wacky few months of stitching – but as you can see, I have been busy and making some good progress, despite the challenge of the morning sickness, tons of doctor appointments, and the resulting wacky work schedule.

Happy stitching everyone!

More personal updates in an update later this week. :)

Back from Stitcher’s Hideaway / WIPocalypse check-in

Author: Measi

• Monday, March 05th, 2012

Apparently the posts I thought I had saved to publish while I was away not only didn’t publish, but I somehow didn’t save them. Boo. So much for the blogging every day this month thing. (Ah well.)

Good news: my laptop is fixed! Apparently it was the video card. The good news was that said video card was part of a lawsuit Apple had against the manufacturer, so I got the $500 part replaced for free. :) The MacBook – it lives again!

I had a lovely time at Stitcher’s Hideaway this weekend. The winter retreat is organized as an alumni retreat – basically to get together and stitch for two days. No classes, no specified project. Just bring your own stuff and stitch. Some people were stitching previous class projects, but most of the attendees brought a project (or two, or ten) to work on as we chatted, laughed, vented, and ate way, way too much food. It was great to see familiar faces. This was my fourth Stitcher’s Hideaway, so there are a lot of familiar faces now. Some of the women I’m friends with on Facebook, and that’s definitely helped make it easier to jump in and be active. Surprisingly, my social anxiety didn’t kick in much this weekend, although I was absolutely exhausted and hermitish on Sunday when I got home!

While alumni of previous Stitcher’s Hideaway retreats get first dibs for the winter retreat, any space left after January 1st is opened on a space-available basis to whomever is interested, so we had a few newbies among the group. I sat with three of them for the weekend – Janice, Marie, and Lynn, all from Connecticut, for the weekend, and we had a great time. I hope to see them either at another retreat or possibly at a casual stitchy get-together in the future.

My scissor fob for the exchange was finished JUST in time for the exchange (hooray! Finish #2 of the year!) I was frantically finishing it in my hotel room on Thursday night. I’m pleased how it came out, although somehow the fabric still is a little wonky after putting it together. If you think you’ve seen this pattern recently, you’re probably right. I grabbed it from the most recent issue of Just Cross Stitch – it’s the fob that’s part of a sewing box set. I’m hoping to do the entire set for myself later. The cord is storebought from JoAnns. The tassel is simply the ends of the cord, pulled apart into a fray. In return, I received a cute crocheted frog-shaped fob that matches the froggy drink coasters I received at October’s retreat. The body of the frog fob is a sleeve for the scissor shears. I took pictures of it and all of the insanity stash from the retreat and put them on my Flickr Account. Warning – don’t go if you are on a tight budget! I think at least three of my purchases were brand new from Nashville Market releases. Between my purchases and the generous gift bags received by everyone at the retreat, I have definitely had a wonderful weekend of stash enhancement. :) I also won a gift subscription to The Gift of Stitching, which is great – my subscription runs out later this year, so I’ll be happy to jump on for another year.

I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped, but really – when do I ever? I always misjudge how long it actually takes me to stitch things. Still, I made some nice progress on a couple of pieces. I brought four pieces to work on – Deep Blue Sea, Witchy Washy, my Mirabilia RR, and Four Seasons of Mystic. I threw a few stitches into the Mira and Witchy Washy, but nothing worth nothing into either.

I stitched most of the time on Deep Blue Sea, and finished a good chunk of the Rhodes Stitches in the center (all of the very light blue clusters) and balanced the light aqua cross stitches on the top, bottom, and two sides. I misread the chart and did the rhodes stitches in two strands instead of one. I like the coverage of the two strands, so I’m planning on doing the darker Rhodes squares in the same way, rather than frog everything. I’m planning on working on DBS again tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll have part one done soon. It’s just really, really slow. *sigh* I know I shouldn’t feel pressured with time on this one, but knowing that I’m two parts “behind” on the releases is frustrating me a bit. I know this isn’t a race, yet my brain won’t knock off being idiotic.

The other project I worked on was Jeannette Douglas’ Four Seasons of Mystic, which was the teaching piece for the October retreat. It’s not published yet – I’d expect it will show up in stores probably sometime later this year or early next. It’s a fun sampler full of different specialty stitches and different fibers. The satin stitches of the border are done in wool. Everything else so far is in various blends of silks with a small amount of metallics. I added a couple rows and swore a lot about my french knots, which I despise (I’m no happier with Colonial knots). I’ll likely be taking the blue knots out to redo, although I haven’t decided how I’ll approach it yet. The strand in progress is a basket that’s cross stitched over one. I adore this piece. There are just so many things to do that I can’t be bored. The stitches are intricate, so the bands go slowly. That purple band just above the word “Spring,” for example, are woven bars done with one strand over 3×3 threads. I needed to use my magnifier for them. Someone asked before on my blog, and I’m not sure if I ever answered – but the reason the bottom two rows are done is because I’d never done Jessica stitches before, and I wanted to get them done in the class back in October while I had Jeannette there teaching. So the trees and the Jessica on top of Jessica stars were done months ago. I finished the woven bars, Spring band, and the partial green floral band below it on Saturday afternoon.

It was a great time. I’m still a bit tired from it all, but it was a much needed break. Now I have through Wednesday off at home, so I’ll be splitting my time between some projects and some putterings.

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: chatelaine, deep blue sea, four seasons of mystic, jeannette douglas, scissor fob, stashing, stitcher's hideaway, wipocalypse | 13 Comments

Theme-a-licious Recap: Fangirl February

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

So… this month flew by. February was to be “Fangirl February,” where we stitched on our favorite designers. I suppose in a way, I did do this with my Wentzler and Ink Circles stitching, although I feel like I didn’t quite do what I wanted to.

Yet I really did.

Meh, I’m too hard on myself.

Anyway – I haven’t done anything else on my personal projects since my last entry on the 22nd, so the photos remain the same. I’ve focused the past week on a scissor fob for an exchange on Saturday night. The stitching is done, but I need to put it together tomorrow. That shouldn’t take me very long. I’ll post a photo of it on Sunday once I return, since by then it will be heading home with its new owner. I’m very happy with it. It was a quick stitch, very cute – and I’ll probably make another one for myself one of these days!

March’s theme is “March Madness,” in which we’ll stitch on a different project every day. Now… I probably could stitch literally on a different project every single day, but rather than go that insane, I’m scaling it down to a group of “priority” projects that I want to make progress on. I was originally going to set a schedule, but instead I think I’ll do a daily draw to see what I’ll be working on next from the following projects:

Deep Blue Sea (Chatelaine)
Floral Bellpull (Teresa Wentzler)
BoInk (Ink Circles)
My Mirabilia round robin piece from 2011 (my square)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Witchy Washy (Raise the Roof)
Why I Love New England (Sampler Needlework)
Ye Olde Coffee Shop (Little House Needleworks)
Waiting in the wings: Cats on a Staircase (Kooler Design) - if I finish one of the others above

A couple of these are very close to being done, so hopefully I can make some great progress and clear a couple off my list.

Since I’ll be stitching on a different piece every day, I’m also going to attempt to do a daily blog posting all month. We’ll see how that goes!

******

Today brought some of the first real snow we’ve received in Providence since the snowstorm just before Halloween, and it still amounts to just barely over an inch. Supposedly we’ll be getting more tomorrow – but I’ve also heard it will be mixing with rain, so who knows – it may all be gone by mid-afternoon. It’s crazy how warm and dry this winter has been. It’s definitely the warmest I can ever remember in my life. The temperature has been much more like the Bay Area in California – my mom lived in Danville and San Ramon for a number of years when I was a teenager – only without the winter rain that California gets. I’m a bit worried that this may be leading to a miserably hot summer. Hopefully not. ;P

I’m now on vacation for a full week, and SOOOOO happy for the time off. My brain has really been fried from work, and I just need a big breather. Tomorrow night I’m off to Stitcher’s Hideaway until Sunday to stitch the weekend away on whatever I feel like bringing. The winter Stitcher’s Hideaway is an alumni retreat (although first timers are welcome – alumni just get first dibs on seats), and the entire thing is open-ended stitching. No teacher, no specified projects. Just come as you are, bring whatever you want to work on, and stitch and chat. It should be a lot of fun, and I definitely am looking forward to the retreat time. I’m definitely bringing my Chatelaine – that’ll be my Friday focus project, and I’m setting a goal to finish part one this weekend. I’m also going to bring Apache Wedding Blessing, since it just needs backstitching to finish, Witchy Washy, and my Mirabilia RR (for show and tell, but I may throw stitches into the final square, too).

After the retreat, I still have a few days off to putter around the house. I have a couple of house things I’d like to get accomplished – doing a mini-purge of my clothes is one. Other than that, I plan on just resting and taking time for myself because my workload has just been crushingly insane lately, and I desperately need the downtime.

Happy Leap Day everyone!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Life, Work, and all the Rest, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: stitcher's hideaway, theme-a-licious | 10 Comments

BoInk and Floral Bellpull updates

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Just a heads up if you’re trying to reach me – my MacBook decided it wanted to throw me for a loop, and for some reason it won’t reboot. Since I have cash tied up in other commitments, I’m sharing a computer with my husband for a few weeks until I can get it fixed. So please be patient if you email me, etc – I’ll get to responses as I can from my cell phone.

As I mentioned in my TUSAL update last night – I’ve had a good month of stitching. So far this month I’ve touched four projects and made good progress on them. I posted my updates on Inn at Fox Run Mill on my WIPocalypse post earlier this month. Since then, I’ve been working steadily on Book of Ink Circles (BoInk) and Floral Bellpull.

Book of Ink Circles was honestly only supposed to be my focus for a couple of days, starting with Jury Duty on the 9th and going through that weekend. I figured I’d get a couple border lines done and be happy with it, but it just stayed in my work bag, and I’ve been plugging away at lines on it on my train commute ever since. On Friday I finally got the sense that I needed to move on, and it got one final night yesterday on the train ride home before being photographed and put away for a couple weeks. The photo to the left is the result of my work this month. I’m very pleased. I’ve managed to get roughly a third of the edging of all of the squares done, and I’m finding it much easier and faster as I progress because I have reference points for all of the squares(less double-check counting, more stitching). I’m hoping that next month I can finish the edging. Once that’s done, my progress will go much faster for a while because I’ll just be filling in the actual border before moving onto the individual square patterns.

My color scheme for BoInk is a bit of a work in progress. My goal is to have it entirely in autumn tones because I find the original just a little too gaudy for my personal tastes (even if the gaudy is probably more historically authentic), but when I pulled colors at Celebration last year, I somehow managed to pull just about the same colors as it called for. So I have a few more swap-outs to do. I’m doing the edge work in Crescent Color’s “Cinders,” so it’s all a very deep reddish-brown with occasional pops of bright red along the border.

Floral Bellpull is progressing a little slower than I hoped, purely due to me having to pull out the leaves – twice – on the border for square #5. The chart’s to blame on this one, to be honest. The colors are backward of what they really should be. On the chart, the satin stitches that build the leaves in the borders are indicated by grey lines, but not in a logical sense. The lighter grey lines were used to indicate the darker greens, and vice versa. My brain of course sees darker lines = darker colors, and that’s what’s been stitched… for four of six squares. I’m not picking out every border, especially over something that’s completely arbitrary in the scheme of things. Once I figured out what the heck I’d been doing, it was easy to correct to what had been done in the squares before it and get the darker set of leaves done. Tonight I’ll curl up and finish the lighter leaves, the purple flowers, and hopefully the vines. And then I’ll have reached my goal on Floral Bellpull for the month.

I still have backstitching to do on square #4, and on inspection as I moved the piece on my scroll bars, there’s still a little to do on square #3, too. I’m planning on bringing it to Stitcher’s Hideaway with me next weekend. It’s a perfect opportunity to do the backstitching and chat away, making the whole thing less painful, and hey… I’ll get a mini-finish out of the weekend!

The new project for me for my commutes this week is the scissor fob I’m doing for the exchange at Hideaway. I think I may be making my fob a little bigger than most (it’s going to end up around 3 x 3 inches, give or take a little), but I also have the habit of misplacing my scissors, so I’d find a larger fob to be more practical. I found a lovely tonal bluework piece in one of my magazines that reminds me of our Spode dishes a bit. It’s a bit more generic in style, so I think it’s more appropriate and hopefully easier to appeal to the recipient for the blind yankee swap style draw (take a number, pick a bag in number order) we’re having for the exchange.

I’ll post the finished project late next weekend once the exchange is over (and once the piece is stitched!)

Happy stitching all!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: boink, exchanges, floral bellpull, ink circles, stitcher's hideaway, teresa wentzler | 9 Comments

Look who arrived home this weekend!

Author: Measi

• Monday, December 12th, 2011

I didn’t expect to see a package from Annette until today at the earliest, but to my surprise when I went onto our mud porch on Sunday afternoon… there she was! It turned out way better than I ever expected, thanks to the seven wonderful women who stitched on her.

That last square (and space in the center) is for me to finish up. Originally Venetian Opulence was charted for the set, but I’m having some second thoughts and waffling toward possibly stitching Enchanted Mermaid… and possibly flipping her so she’s facing left. I’ll be pondering which one I’ll actually place there over the next couple weeks. I don’t plan on getting started on my square until Yule and Christmas chaos are over.

I can’t wait to have everything finished so I can get it framed and up on the wall!

It may have been my first Mirabilia round robin, but it will definitely not be my last. Sometime 2013 onward, I may just have to jump in one of these again!

*~~*~~*~~*

It’s time for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend (aka IHSW), which fellow stitchers may be seeing on blogs over the next week. Stress-free stitching on whatever you choose for the weekend. I will be pulling out whatever project screams loudest at me to curl up with on Sunday afternoon. The SAL is open to all – so if you’re looking for an excuse to relax and be crafty during the holiday chaos, click on over to Joysze’s blog and sign up!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: ihsw, mira rr, mirabilia | 13 Comments

Mirabilia Round Robin – Rachel’s piece

Author: Measi

• Saturday, December 10th, 2011

My final stitches for others’ pieces are now done! I’ve defeated the round robin overload, and it feels sooo good to have everything done and sent home to their owners. I loved stitching on the robins – don’t get me wrong – but I’m definitely ready for a break. WIPocalypse stitching, here I come!

Rachel themed her piece to the Mirabilia pixies and let each stitcher decide which pixie to put where. Being the last stitcher, there was only the one square remaining, but I still had a choice as to which pixie to actually stitch. The pixies I have in my personal stash had already been stitched, so I was grateful that Rachel included excerpts of patterns to use. My options were Pansy and Lilly. Since I’d just stitched Lilly last round for Melinda, I decided to try Pansy. Green and purple together? YES PLEASE.

She was a very fun stitch. I may have to complete the full piece at some point because I absolutely love purple and green together (I have since high school), and it’s so refreshing to stitch a piece in bright colors. There’s LOTS of bling on her – between three Kreinik colors in this square and a whole mess of beads, particularly around her head, she’s incredibly sparkly. I found it amusing that I’m the only stitcher to do one of the front-facing pixies, too.
This was one of the more well-traveled pieces, too. I’ve generally brought them with me on commutes and for lunch-break stitching. Because of the large beads from previous stitchers, I had to place Rachel’s piece on scroll bars rather than work in my normal Q-snaps, so it wasn’t as portable. She instead went with me to Cape Cod over Thanksgiving weekend and over to Westerly, R.I. for our Rhode Island Stitchers meet up last weekend.

Photos don’t quite do justice for this one. The sparkle-blue fabric was perfect for the piece. Everyone had stitched beautifully. It all just came together perfectly. It will be absolutely stunning when she gets this framed and on the wall. (The photo will pop bigger if you click on it – it’s linked to my Flickr account).

I just got to fill in the final square – and so not only did I finish my own square, I had a complete piece finish as well! Woo hoo!

So yes, it feels great to be finished. Although I didn’t get much of my own stitching done this year, I know I did a ton of actual stitching and made tremendous progress on a bunch of pieces – including the Mira RR. I do love robin stitching. I’m definitely looking forward to putting that energy into my own pieces next year, however.

Annette has sent off my Mira RR piece, and I will have one final square to finish for it. It’s coming home with Venetian Opulence left to do. I admit, though, that now that I’ve looked at some of the other Mirabilia pieces, I may swap that out for a different profile. I’m debating swapping for Enchanted Mermaid, who’s sitting in the same pose. Any thoughts on that switch? I like both of them. I’m just trying to figure out which one would look better with the Queens that are already stitched, and I’m thinking Enchanted Mermaid’s hairstyle may match a little bit better.

Regardless, I’ll have a bit of time to decide (and I have both pieces in my stash). I doubt I’ll be able to finish that final square until after Yule and Christmas craziness. It may be my first finish of 2012.

Off to update the WIPocalypse signup list. For those who have been asking – nope, it’s not too late to sign up. I don’t expect to close signups at all, but if they are to close, it will likely be sometime well into 2012. So if you’re waffling on whether you’ll participate, no worries – but just jump in and join us anyway!

I’m going to be writing out cards tomorrow, so this will be my last call for anyone who wants one – link to give me your address is in my left sidebar!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching Tags: card exchanges, mira rr, mirabilia, wipocalypse | 11 Comments

Ornament Stitching

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, December 07th, 2011

Rahenna posted receipt of my exchange package before I posted mine the other day. I’d planned on posting another entry on my blog, but then completely blanked it out amidst the Bruins hockey mania that has been this week.

I stitched Teresa Wentzler’s Peacock Tapestry ornament for Rahenna. Rather than pulling apart all of my TW projects to kit this one out (which I know I could have done, since the list looked like some of the standard TW blends I’m familiar with), I decided instead to pull from the wandering bobbins I had down in the living room in my hat box turned sewing box. I’m happy with how it turned out. I don’t think I could recreate it exactly if I tried – I didn’t write down the colors as I stitched them. I think the only color from the original pattern is the gold boxes that form the foundation shape of the piece!

I made both the hanging cord and the tassel from DMC. The cord is a 4-part braid which I learned ages ago as a hair-braiding technique. I’d never tried it with floss before, but I love how it came out. When I’m not in the mood to deal with twisting cord, it may become my go-to choice.

I have to admit – TW freebie ornament designs are absolutely fantastic. They stitch up surprisingly quick. They look absolutely amazing. I could stitch them again and again with just color tweaks and never get bored.

I forgot to photograph the rest of Rahenna’s gifty pack, but she has it on her blog. I included copies of two patterns that I thought were adorable: Everyone Brings Joy from Waxing Moon Designs (which is so blissfully snarky, I think it’s a required stitch for anyone), and a new holiday Gingerbread House design from Country Cottage Needleworks that was at the LNS when I went shopping the other week. I also included several overdyed flosses that caught my eye – no rhyme or reason to the selection (although at first I noticed I was picking out an extraordinary amount of purples… maybe that’s telling me something!) The card you see in her photo is of a street in Beacon Hill here in Boston, which is one of my favorite places in the city due to how oldey-worldey it looks (right down to the never-turned-off gas street lamps).

I’m in the very final hours of finishing up the Mirabilia Round Robin – about 20 more stitches, some backstitching and beads. And mine is coming home very soon… I can’t wait to share it when it does. I’ve already seen a photo of it – and OH MY GODS is it fabulous.

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching Tags: ornaments, teresa wentzler | 12 Comments

UFO Round Robins come home

Author: Measi

• Saturday, December 03rd, 2011

I realized this afternoon on my way back from a lovely morning with stitchy friends that I never posted the final robin status for my pieces that went out for the 2011 UFO Round Robin. I was waiting for the 2nd piece to arrive to make the post, and then November overwhelmed me.

Summing up before photos – I could not have been happier with the progress that happened… because OH MY GOODNESS they’ve progressed. As in… both pieces are honestly near or in the final stretches.

The 2011 UFO RR was a short one – six rounds. It took longer than expected due to the Canadian postal strike this summer (which seems like ages ago…).

I wound up sending two projects out over those six rounds because Linda, who had Apache Wedding Blessing in round 5, was able to get virtually everything done on it. There are a few tension corrections I want to make, so I requested some of the backstitching in that area not be done yet. Aside from that repair work, it’s all done!

Here’s how it looked when I sent it out in March:

And here’s how it looks now:

I’m so excited to have this nearly done and to be able to give it to my friend Ivanna! (she knows it’s coming eventually… she picked the piece for me to stitch).

When Linda asked me if she could hold onto Apache for a couple extra weeks to wrap it up, I had to come up with a piece for Kris to stitch for a round. I had plenty of pieces, but almost everything was huge Wentzler insanity. I decided instead to send along Walk in the Woods, which is a piece my late Mother in Law started. She passed away before she could finish it. It’s probably the easiest of the pieces I had sitting around, so seemed like a good one to send.

Here’s how it went out:

And here’s how it came back (yes… that’s all Kris!):

I’m seriously in awe at how much she got done in one round!

The spacing of the top border is a bit off – Kris noticed it (I admit… I hadn’t) when she was stitching. She asked if she should take it out, but as those, plus the A, B, E and I were the only stitches my MIL had actually done on the piece, I didn’t want to remove any of them. So yes – the count will be a bit off on it. But on this one, I think it was too important not to mess with.

So to all of the wonderful women who worked on both of these pieces – thank you! I’m so excited that these will be among the first I finish next year. :)

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: apache wedding blessing, cricket collection, donna kooler, ufo rr, walk in the woods | 13 Comments

Ooh, exchanges!

Author: Measi

• Friday, December 02nd, 2011

A few weeks ago, Rahenna asked on her blog if anyone would be interested in doing an ornament exchange for the holidays. She and I share some similar stitching tastes, and I knew I’d adore anything she came up with – so I jumped right in. I had two different ornaments that I immediately had in mind to stitch for her. The one that screamed loudest was oddly NOT my initial choice, but wound up being the far better one. I’m quite pleased with how mine turned out, and I’ll share it as soon as she confirms receiving it.

Rahenna was Miss Speedy Stitcher because she was prepping to write in NaNoWriMo this year (which I get, as I attempted it for five years… it takes over your life for a month). I was much slower – unexpectedly so – as my volume at work was so insane the last week of October and first week of November that I didn’t dig out from the pile of early month projects until literally the day before Thanksgiving. My evenings all month were essentially spent staring exhaustedly at a wall because it’s all I was capable of doing.

Meanwhile, Rahenna’s package arrived. I decided that I would not open it until I completed and mailed to her. I needed to be good. It taunted me in all of its padded manilla glory.

Once my ornament was sent off this past Monday, I was quick to get to that envelope to see what was inside.

And promptly created a catalanche in my house when I opened her envelope the other night and gave out a squeal. Cats. Running. Everywhere.

Rahenna chose to stitch one of the Byzantine ornaments designed by Teresa Wentzler. These have been among my “must do” list for a while. In fact, I had them originally on my own to-do list for 2011, but the round robins nixed that idea pretty quickly.

Isn’t it gorgeous? She finished it as a slightly padded flat envelope, backed with purple fabric that matches the deepest purple you see in the photo. Now I really want to get the Yule tree up so I have somewhere proper to display it!

The squeal, I must confess, was equally for Cirque des Cercles. I’ve coveted this pattern for a while now, but absolutely could not justify buying it with all of the projects I have in progress right now.

Rahenna evilly apologized for being an enabler in a note attached to it. Somehow I don’t think she’s quite genuine with that apology… which I completely understand. :)

So yeah… this may be putting some changes into that Crazy January list already. (Somehow I knew I would be…)

Also enclosed were two cute holiday patterns by designers I’m not familiar with – December Greeting by Creative Moments and Country Santa by Angel Stitchin. I’ll definitely be adding those to the late 2011 stitching once I’m back in the holiday mood – both look like great, quicker pieces that I can finish and display.

So Rahenna – thank you, m’dear! All are quite excitedly received!

Category: Chrismahanyulkwanzakah, Exchanges & Robins, Stitching | 4 Comments

November Goals…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, November 02nd, 2011

October absolutely flew by – I honestly don’t remember where it went, but I know I was insanely busy. I’m surprised I got any stitching done, let alone what I actually did accomplish!

For October, I wanted to…

Finish Mira RR Round & mail off on time - Done!
Autumn-themed ornie for Stitcher’s Hideaway exchange - Did not completely finish. Stitching’s done, but it’ll be staying with me due to falling behind.
Stitch TWCOE ornie - Nope. And with Terri’s health problems, I have a feeling this won’t happen this year. (she needs to get better soon!)
Stitch personal exchange ornies - Yes! Progress continues….
Decide upon family ornies for November - All but two are decided.
Enjoy Stitcher’s Hideaway – Most definitely yes!

For November, I want to…

Complete Rachel’s Mira RR and mail by the end of the month (woo hoo!)
Complete and mail personal exchange ornaments
Stitch three family ornaments (not necessarily finish them, though)
Check through WIPocalypse pieces to make sure they still remain kitted correctly
Get the check-in spreadsheet together for the WIPocalypse

It’s going to be a fun month of stitching cute little holiday smalls, although I’ll sadly not be able to share a whole lot of photos on them until they’re received. I’ll see about rooting through my WIPs for next year, perhaps.

We’re up to nearly 150 people for the WIPocalypse, by the way – that’s absolutely farking insane! At the end of the month I’ll be popping by blogs to check in with everyone and say hi. I have a long weekend at Cape Cod coming up just after Thanksgiving with friends. Those who have read my blog for a while are familiar with this one – it used to be all about playing tons of multiplayer video games. Now people have gotten married, have kids, have houses, and all of those weird adultish things we never figured we’d ever achieve that require fiscal responsibility, so no one really has the money to blow on a new computer every year like we did before. So it’s morphed into a “come as you are, hang out, drink, eat, and catch up” sort of weekends. I’m looking forward to it.

Speaking of house stuff… some frustration on my husband and my front. We’re among the folks who set a limit for what we could afford in a house (and monthly mortgage payment). We stuck to it and bought a house we could afford. We’ve lived here six years and have never missed a payment. BUT… because of the economy and the housing market, we’re now nearly $100,000 underwater on our mortgage… AND… we discovered that despite our original loan being either Fannie or Freddie backed (we can’t recall which), but then sold to our state housing mortgage company, we have no ability to access the new underwater refinancing plans that are very possibly going into effect soon. Our mortgage holder will NOT refinance and only does loan modifications, but because they’re not beholden to a federal backer, they aren’t offering at the low rates… “because they don’t have to.” they will run a loan mod, but for a percentage that’s higher than our current mortgage rate.

(sigh)

Don’t get us wrong – we can afford our mortgage. We have a fixed rate that isn’t bad at all in the historical scheme of things. But we could save a lot of money if we could just refinance now that the rates are well over a point lower than what we’re paying – and, I dont’ know, use the money to do some much-needed efficiency upgrades so we could save even *more* money, particularly in our energy costs since we’re on oil heat? It would be nice.

It’s so frustrating. We’ve payed off a fifth of our loan, yet we still have no equity in our house due to the market. Of course, if I say anything about being underwater and wanting to refinance on any message boards, the first thing people assume is that we’re defaulting on our loan or that we were stupid and took too high a loan.

And I know that we’re not the only people in this situation.

Ugh.

Sorry for the vent.

Category: Exchanges & Robins, House, Rotations & Goals, Stitching, Venting Tags: wipocalypse | 10 Comments

TUSAL and some stitching updates…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Our newest kitty, Jack, decided to pose this evening with my TUSAL jar. He looks oddly adult in this photo, but don’t be fooled – he’s all of about 15 weeks old now and still very much a kitten!

He was helping this evening by preventing me from reading my stitching pattern. I suppose it’s better than his preferred spot – right on top of my laptop keyboard!

My TUSAL jar this month was filled with a lot of round robin stitching and Halloween ornament stitching, plus just a bit of silk and wool floss from my retreat project that I discussed in my previous entry.

This is the “square” I did for Melinda’s Mirabilia Round Robin. I decided to do Lilly since I have so many of them in my yard. It seemed fitting. Melinda chose to do snowflakes/stars for her outlines rather than traditional boxes. It’s a striking robin piece – very different and unique and very pretty. I love the fabric she chose. I did joke as I was stitching that somehow I picked the one fairy that happened to have wings in the same base shade as the fabric (DMC 3042, for those curious). Thankfully the outlining popped the color out!

This ornament is Witchy Kitty by Brittercup Designs from this year’s Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue. I’d intended it as an exchange piece at Stitcher’s Hideaway this past weekend, but just didn’t have the time to finish it up. So I’m going to finish it this weekend for myself. I did not use the charted colors – I pulled a mix of colors/brands from my stash that I thought would work. There’s Sullivans, DMC, WDW, and Crescent Colors in this mix.

Thanks for stopping by!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: brittercup designs, mira rr, ornaments, tusal | 8 Comments

Spinning, spinning…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

I have had an insane week due to a headcold, an unrelated doctor’s appointment, and errands…. and it hasn’t ended yet, so this will be a relatively quick post…

I forgot to do an ISHW post on Monday (whoops). I was off from work for a doctor’s appointment and just completely blanked on updating my stitching. I still don’t have photos to to share, but it was a good weekend. I was productive and got most of what I’d hoped to accomplish done. I’ll upload photos of my progress on Sunday – because by then I’ll have both pieces done and will be happy to share.

I spent most of Saturday working on Melinda’s Mirabilia RR piece. If you’ve been tracking the pieces in this robin, hers has the unique star outlines for each “square.” It’s very unique and looks very, very cool. I decided to do Lilly for my contribution (since I have tons in my yard, it seemed a bit more personal). After Saturday, I’m now nearly done. I have some outlining to do and beads to add. I’ll finish that up on Sunday so I can mail it on to Rachel Monday morning (on time… woo!)

The other piece I’m working on – in a bit of a frenzy – is an autumn themed ornament for Stitcher’s Hideaway that starts on Friday. The ornament exchange is on Saturday night, so I think I’ll be good to complete it in time. I’m doing the Brittercup “Witchy Kitty” design from this year’s Just Cross Stitch Halloween ornie issue. It’s a fast stitch. I’m about half done with the cross stitches now. I’m hoping I can wrap up the crosses by the end of tonight, and then get it put together tomorrow night. We’ll see. I’m going to cut it close.

On Sunday morning I met up with a few of my local stitchers for a stitch ‘n bitch at Christine’s house in Westerly. Her place is gorgeous! I’d never been to Westerly before – the downtown area is very cute and typical New England-ey. The five of us chatted away as we worked. My cold meds from the night before were playing games with my head and I forgot how to start off my ornament outlines (I was working full crosses instead of just doing a running backstitch outline… whoops!). By the time I got home, I decided that I wasn’t happy with how the size was turning out. On 30 count, the ornament was HUGE – about 4.5 inches across! I started over on 36 count fabric I had lying around the house, and I’m very, very glad I did.

So now I’m heading toward Friday – which means Stitcher’s Hideaway! Jeannette Douglas will be our teacher for a very cute piece called “Four Seasons of Mystic” (appropriate, as the retreat is in Mystic, CT). Lots of new fibers and specialty stitches for me to become familiar with in this piece, so I’m looking forward to it!

Unlike my last two retreats in Mystic, I’ll be commuting this time. Lisa and her mom graciously invited me to take her sister’s spot due to scheduling conflicts, but I don’t have the cash to drop on a hotel room and I’m such a horrid sleeper that I really can’t share a room when I’m out of my normal routine. It works out well anyway, since I’m still on the backside of this head cold. Having my own bed to sleep in this weekend will definitely be a good thing. Plus… the commute to Mystic for the retreat is honestly much shorter than my normal commute from Providence to Boston every day. Door to door, I should get to the hotel in Mystic in just about an hour (vs. the two hours each way Erich and I do). Lisa and her Mom said they’re getting me a key to the room so I have a place to drop my stuff, relax during class breaks, use a more private bathroom, etc, which is very kind of them!

So hopefully I’ll have an ornament completed for the exchange this weekend. It’s an optional thing, so if I don’t, not a big deal. I’ll just swoon over everyone else’s picks. It should be a great weekend. Sue’s a lovely hostess and the retreat is just a blast. I’ll recap on Sunday when I’m home and “recovering.” Despite being nearly broke, I’m sure to come home with a bunch of lovely new stash because Sue is insane with goody bags and door prizes. I’ll share them on Sunday!

One more quick thing – upon advice and chatting with some stitchers, I’ve decided to do a message board on Yuku for the hangout spot for the Wipocalypse. If you’d like to chat with your fellow SAL stitchers just pop over to http://wipocalypse.yuku.com and join in!

See you on Sunday with a boatload of pictures!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: brittercup designs, get togethers, ihsw, mira rr, mirabilia, ornaments, stitcher's hideaway | 6 Comments

Round Robin updates – my pieces :)

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Susan was kind enough to post images of her square completion for my Mira RR piece that’s circulating, so I thought I’d share. For those who’ve recently joined me (a whole lot of new folks recently… hi there!), I selected Mirabilia’s Queens as my piece’s theme. We’re now done with five rounds, with two more mailing rounds to go, and then she’ll be home!

Here’s how she looks after five rounds (photos linked from Susan’s webshots album):

Top Row: Winter, Autumn, and Royal Holiday
Center Row: Freedom & Summer
Bottom Row: TBD on placement, but will be Spring, Peace, and Venetian Opulence

Susan added Royal Holiday:

I selected specific queens to be stitched on mine, but left the squares as open-choice, with the exception of the center row (where extra width was required due to their hair).

I cannot wait to get her home!!

Along with the Mira RR insanity lately, another robin quietly made its way home to me on Friday – arriving home nearly one year to the day since I sent it out on its worldwide journey. Smoky Mountain Cats is back home with a tremendous amount of work on her. I’ll be tossing it into my rotation starting next month in hopes of a finish before the end of the year. I’d love to get it wrapped up, since it’s my second-oldest WIP/UFO (started sometime in 2000 or 2001).

Here’s how it left…

And here’s how it looks now!

It’s also another case of my camera doing some interesting color tricks, as this is actually a light blue fabric (because there wasn’t enough blue on it already!). Interesting that it’s photographing white.

I’d like to thank all of the wonderful women who helped push this blue monster along for me!

With my piece arriving home, the 2010 UFO RR is completely finished. It was another successful robin with tons of progress for everyone… and for the most part I think everyone had a fun time. :)

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: mira rr, mirabilia, pegasus designs, smoky mountain cats, ufo rr | 21 Comments

September IHSW recap

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

The frogs subsided on the Mira RR (thank you everyone for the sympathy!) and I managed to get my square done this weekend. It took up the majority of my stitching time, but it’s done and mailed, and I feel quite relieved.

My square is the smaller square one on the left that’s completely filled in, plus the small blob of dark green in the large rectangle next to it. It really is a wonderful piece – I’m a huge fan of purple and green together for some reason, so the color combos in this one are perfect.

For Saturday afternoon, my friend Tricia came down from the North Shore in Massachusetts to stitch the day away, have fun with Jack, and just spend some time together. We hadn’t seen a lot of each other in quite a few months due to a variety of scheduling issues, so it was great to see her. I’m planning to head up her way in the next three to four weeks, depending on both of our schedules. She and her husband bought their first house earlier this year, so I’m excited to see it and their brood of pets (none of which I’ve met).

I spent my time on Witches Wheel and made a small but steady amount of progress. It took me a little time to get back into the rhythm of how this piece stitches. I’ll be keeping it in my commute bag for lunchtime stitching for the rest of the week. Despite being a bigger piece, it’s really an ideal one to travel because I have no color changes to worry about! I’d like to get the witch hat completed this week, and hopefully one of the smaller motifs near the top of the hat.

It’s weird how this piece photographs. On my screen, at least, the fabric looks exceptionally yellow with red dye, but in reality it’s very, VERY orange with deeper orange. I’m using the PTP “Solar” in 32 ct. that the pattern calls for (how could you not?).

So it was a good hermit weekend. It felt great to work on my own project!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: glendon place, ihsw, mira rr, mirabilia, witches wheel | 12 Comments

Oh god, the frogs…

Author: Measi

• Friday, September 16th, 2011

I’m kind of hiding from posting stitching updates this week because I’ve been cursed with a serious infestation of frogs on the Mirabilia Round Robin this round.

I’m working on Sophia’s gorgeous piece that you can see to the left. The square I chose is the remaining small one on the left, and I expected to carry over some of the colors into the larger square, since it’s bigger than the 2,500 stitch average that was decided upon for the robin. Should be easy, right?

Yeah – apparently not for me this round.

The problems started when I discovered that I had just put in 200 stitches in the wrong color on Monday (the day before the robin was due to be mailed). I was off by one number in DMC, but because it’s a gently shaded piece and (most importantly) it’s not mine, it needed to be corrected. So out came the stitches. Correct color was threaded, and off I went to redo the rows.

Until I got to the bottom of my square – and things didn’t line up right.

I’d skipped two rows – and of course, they were back up near the middle. So out came the stitches again.

Try #3 – fine. Good. Done. Moving on to the next color to be added.

Where I very quickly discover that another color (another approximately 150 stitches) I’d put in was off horizontally by one flipping column.

*groan*

Out they came, too.

Everything is now fixed, but I’m now also four days overdue to send this thing – and if there’s one thing I really, really hate – it’s being late to send off for robins. I mean yes, I was good and immediately contacted the robin moderator and Rachel, who I send to, to let them know I’d be late. But I didn’t expect to be this late.

Given all of the frogging I’ve done, if I catch any other errors, I think I’ll just frog the stitches and call it a day and just send on. I may just have serious bad mojo with the piece, which is a shame because it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Anyway, tonight I’m making my final push on it – it may just be one of those rounds, but I will do my best to complete that flipping square.

The next round has arrived, and that’s the hint that regardless – I need get my butt moving and just call uncle if it’s not working.

On the other end of robin stitching, last week I mailed off Rachel’s cute little piece for the 2011 UFO robin. It’s now heading into its last round, but Blu, who received her completed piece home last round, decided not to send out a second piece for a single stitching round – so I’m done with the robin other than modding duties.

Here’s how Rachel’s piece left me. I worked on the dress, filling in a good portion near the upper end of the skirt, the waistline, and those blue and purple stitches trailing upward. I have several Little League World Series games to thank for the stitching progress, as my hometown of Billings, Montana made it all the way to the U.S. Championship game before finally being eliminated. The boys were great, the games were fantastic, and they were very good for my stitching mojo!

So Rachel’s piece is off to Blu for a final round of stitching. It’s had some lovely progress on it for this robin!

I also received word from Linda (another participant in the robin) that she could finish off my piece if she could hold it a few more days – I said absolutely since it’s one of my oldest UFOs, and decided upon a second piece to send to Kris for the final round.

I decided to send off my late mother-in-law’s Walk in the Woods, which I would love to finish in her memory someday, and the extra push would be greatly appreciated. It’s one of two pieces that were left in-progress when she passed away. I finished the other, Garden Sampler, last year.

It was essentially this or one of my eleventy-billion (well, feels like it anyway) Wentzlers that I have in progress, but since I haven’t worked on them in quite a while, I wasn’t keen on going through and checking all of the colors and making sure I haven’t lost anything.

Walk in the Woods is a much more practical robin piece. And the border at the top may be one of my favorites that I’ve come across. Those Johnny Jump-Ups are just gorgeous in person. My MIL really did do a lovely job with them.

***

So this weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. Once Sophia’s Mirabilia is done and mailed, I’m going to settle in to some of my own stitching for a few days and take a breather before going into Melinda’s Mira (which is another absolutely gorgeous one – I’ll post photos once I start). I’d hoped to jump into the Love4Stitching SALs this month, but Mirabilia is up this weekend, and I do think I need to back away a bit from the designs to refocus.

Since I was delayed on the RR, I think I’ll work on Witches Wheel (Glendon Place). This is pretty accurate to where I left off on it. I don’t recall touching it since Stitcher’s Hideaway in February (when I really was getting overloaded with robins).

It’s screaming at me a bit – so I should indulge, right?

Happy stitching, all!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cross-eyed cricket, glendon place, ihsw, mira rr, mirabilia, ufo rr, walk in the woods, witches wheel | 10 Comments

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