Tag-Archive for ◊ cats on a staircase ◊

Author: Measi

• Saturday, December 31st, 2011

Thanks to a long delay on Amtrak last week, I made a good amount of progress on my oldest UFO – Cats on a Staircase. Everything in blue and the beginning of that cat tail with the hanging thread was completed this month. It’s probably my largest block of solid progress on the piece in, well, years. Next month I’ll finish the cat that’s attached to said tail and hopefully fill in the gaps between the blue and the browns, most of which will be white on white stitching.

It was good to do some stitching on this again – it really hadn’t seen my needle for about a year and a half. It’s one of the pieces I really hope to finish in 2012.

*****

That said – bring 2012 on. 2011 was quite possibly the hardest year of my life emotionally, and I will not be sorry to see this year end. Both personally and professionally, this year has been challenging and exhausting. The personal issues are ones a bit *too* personal to discuss online, but they were serious ones – ones I knew I had to deal with head on and essentially alone. A few friends do know about everything, but after a couple of missteps in confiding to friends who I thought would be supportive as the situation unfolded, I decided instead to shut down and just work through everything on my own.

The good thing on the personal front is that I know things are healing and getting better, even though from time to time, I’ll get a wash of overwhelming emotion and just need to acknowledge it, release it, and continue on. The professional issues sorted themselves out, for the most part, as the year progressed and I’m hoping that they’ll continue toease with some recent news at work. The problem is that I got smacked with both major problems within a two week span at the beginning of the year, and I truly spent the entire year in survival mode for the most part as I just tried to keep myself righted (and sane).

But yeah – I don’t want to ever relive a year like 2011. And I don’t wish anything similar on anyone.

I’ve also learned to put on a VERY convincing “things are fine” face, when no… they haven’t been. But they’re getting better.

And ultimately, I think that’s all that matters.

Happy New Year everyone – may the next one bring all of us better times.

Category: Celebrations & Holidays, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cats on a staircase, donna kooler, oldest ufo sal | 25 Comments

My Oldest UFO

Author: Measi

• Thursday, November 03rd, 2011

Evalina is hosting a cute little stitch-a-long called the “Oldest UFO SAL.” Basically, pull out your oldest unfinished piece, blog it, and then post your progress as you stitch along with others. I’m going to try to get some work on mine before it goes into the WIPocalypse pile for next year.

This is Cats on a Staircase, from Kooler Design Studio by way of Bucilla. I bought it in November or December 1999 and started it either very, very late that year or early the next year. (It’s apparently since been renamed “Curious Cats” and has been republished in a Kooler book of stockings.) The photo is of my last status on it back in February of this year.

It was bought out to mark the start of my first pet ownership. Over Thanksgiving weekend that year, my mom had purchased me my Christmas/birthday gift for the year: a four-month-old purebred Norwegian Forest Cat named Colorado.

Colley’s now 12, by the way. He’s doing well and going into his older years rather cat-ankerous and waving an imaginary cane, demanding the other cats get off his lawn (or bed, as the case may be).

I’d really like to get this thing done during his lifetime.

And I think it may be fate that it needed to wait until now to be completed – because I just noticed that the stocking has seven cats in it.

Which is exactly how many cats we now have.

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cats on a staircase, donna kooler, oldest ufo sal | 10 Comments

Thursday Thirteen: WIPocalypse planning

Author: Measi

• Thursday, June 02nd, 2011

I actually have quite a few things to post about but have just been really busy, so there may be several blog entries over the next few days. To sum up what’s in store:

It’s time for the Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long update. I had it in my calendar to post yesterday, but between the wild weather we had in New England yesterday (including confirmed tornados in western Massachusetts) and the Stanley Cup game (go Bruins!), I got a bit distracted.
Erich and I started the updating process for two more rooms in our house over the weekend- our bedroom and the bathroom. So story time about that adventure (and some helpful tips for others with old houses) will come this weekend
Updates on the round robin stitching front
Another Caturday post on Saturday. :) Any specific cat requests?
Some gardening updates
Warhammer painting updates
Monthly stitching goals – my updates and my new goals for June
Wanderlust drive musings. It’s summer, which means I start wandering back roads in New England.

I finally got the Google Friend Connect working on my blog (hooray!) so all of you Blogger folks who prefer to follow that way (honestly, I do too… Google Reader is glorious) – I’m up and running. Let me know if there are any problems. You should see it on my sidebar just above the Project: Do Me graphic link.

Today’s entry, though, is for the Thursday Thirteen. A few weeks ago, I made a semi-joking, but semi-serious post about declaring 2012 my WIP apocalypse year. (for those non-crafters, WIP stands for “Works in Progress”). I’m a chronic serial starter with my stitching. I love beginning new projects. I love the journey of stitching projects. But I’m not particularly good at finishing projects. So now I have a glut of them. I’m starting to get the itch to really get through them, too. So what started as a joke is now really going to happen. 2012 will be my project clearing year. :) Any crafty folks (regardless of what you do) who want to join me and use it as a sort of Stitch-a-Long are most welcome. I’ll set up a signup/discussion page in October.

For now, my brain is going to the projects I really, really want to finish. So for this week, here are the Thirteen Projects Riding on the Measi WIP-ocalypse Train. The links go to the Flickr photo set I have for the piece.

1. Apache Wedding Blessing – this is a gift for my friends Ivanna and Joe for their wedding, which um… happened several years ago. Thankfully Ivanna’s a fellow crafty person and understands how these projects can go into a black hole. But all the same, it’s annoying me. Right now I have this out on a round robin to give it some extra oomph, and it does actually look like it’s going to get finished before the end of 2011.

2. Witchy Washy – It’s so damn cute. I want this done and framed on the door to my laundry room.

3. Floral Bellpull – I’ve had this for years, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. I just need to focus on it.

4. Legends of the Dragons – I started this as part of a stitch-a-long in the beginning of 2010, and it just started to fall off my radar as I got into robin stitching. It’s not a particuarly big piece, and definitely doable to finish. Again – I just need to focus on it.’

5. Cats on a Staircase – Right now, this is my longest running WIP. It’s a Christmas stocking. I think I’ve had it going for ten years now.

6. Witches Wheel - I adore this piece. I have a ton of energy to work on this piece. I simply have too many commitments with the robin to stitch on it right now.

7. Walk in the Woods – This is the second of the WIPs I inherited from my late mother in law. The first I finished last year. This one will get done next year. It’s not a particularly difficult piece to stitch – but again, it’s just been a time commitment issue.

8. Astrology Sampler – for YEARS I wanted to start this piece, and when I do – I’ve barely gotten anything done. It’s not a particularly large piece. It’s just stitched on black fabric, which makes it a bit more difficult to work on.

9. Elemental Dragons – Two of the five are done (Fire and Spirit). I have three more dragons to do (Earth, Water and Air). I’ll take getting one done next year, but getting all three done so I can frame the project would be wonderful.

10. Magical Night – I sent this out on a robin in 2010, and the wonderful stitchers who worked on it made tremendous progress. It’s now about half done. I don’t expect to finish this in 2012, but I’d like to make a good dent on what’s left.

11. Egyptian Sampler – I adore this piece and the fabric I chose to stitch it on. I don’t get why I struggle so badly to stitch on it, because I absolutely love it. Hopefully in 2012 I can get into a zone and finish a good chunk of it.

12. Noah’s Ark – this is a piece I adopted from another stitcher. I haven’t done a particularly large amount of work on it since I got it, but I’d like to get some more of the animals around the border done. The problem is that they’re done in petit point, so the work is so tiny and intricate that it goes very, very slowly. My goal for 2012 on this one is to get one of the remaining side borders (left, top, right) done.

13. Book of Ink Circles – I don’t have a photo of my WIP uploaded yet, as it was a new start in May (one of my other entries for this weekend to do). It’s my first attempt at recoloring a design from someone else. It’s a fabulous piece when completed, though.

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be catching up on blogs this weekend between my own writing. :)

Stitcher’s Hideaway – Day One

Author: Measi

• Friday, February 25th, 2011

Although the stitching room’s open for a couple more hours, I had a difficult night with my hives last night… so after only four hours of sleep last night, I wanted to make sure to unwind a bit early tonight, get a good night’s sleep, and then I can be super-productive tomorrow.

Still, so far things have been a lot of fun. The winter retreat for Stitcher’s Hideaway is an alumni-focused retreat. No classes or retreat project. It’s a come as you are, bring what you want to stitch sort of affair. Lots of laugher and quite a few people who clearly have known each other for years at the retreat, which is great. There were at least two happy dances in the room today and a bunch of lovely projects being worked on around the room. Some of the ladies here are focusing on one piece. Some of us brought a few to sift through.

As I mentioned in my blog entry yesterday, I grabbed what essentially makes up my entire current rotation. Last night before bed I took status shots of all of them and made a new Flickr set of them. I’ll be updating my before and afters for everything I work on this weekend.

I’d originally planned on doing a two-hour speed rotation, but I found it easier to just split my day in half today due to my fatigue. I worked on Cats on a Staircase during the first half of the day (when I was much more tired) and Witches Wheel for the rest of the day. I may take a good look at Apache Wedding Blessing before bed tonight – I’m planning on sending it out on rotation next week, but I’m a little concerned about some of the stitch tensions that may need correction (for my own sense of embarrassment).

So here’s Cats on a Staircase before and after:

Not a ton of progress, but not bad for four sleepy hours of work.

Witches Wheel was a bit better this afternoon and early evening. The before shot shows the entire dye of the fabric, because I realized I hadn’t done a full shot of it.

The witchy hat currently looks like something piratey to me.

So tonight I’ll take a look at Apache and see whether I’m totally screwed for the UFO round robin on it. Tomorrow I WILL work on one of my Wentzlers… probably Floral Bellpull. I haven’t decided what else I’ll do, but ideally I’d like to get work on at least one other piece.

More updates later this weekend – I’m saving the stash to the end, since there’s some purchases currently on hold. :)

Category: Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cats on a staircase, stitcher's hideaway, witches wheel | 4 Comments

September 2010 UFO RR – trying to decide what to send

Author: Measi

• Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Another Round Robin has just closed for signups, and now it’s time to start thinking about what I’ll send around. My photos below are about a round out of date… I seem to have misplaced my latest updates on them. But you’ll get the general idea.

I had an initial decision to send Walk in the Woods (Cross-Eyed Cricket). Now that I see everyone else offering up their UFO’s, I’ll do the same and see if there’s any preferred piece folks would like to work on.

All photos pop larger.

Here’s Walk in the Woods:
It’s on 16 or 18 ct. Aida.

I have Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Designs), which is for a friend:
On 28 ct linen – a very slippery linen.

Floral Bellpull (TW), which went around on a previous robin:
On 28 ct evenweave

Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus Designs), which is a solid sea of blue. No. Not kidding.
On 14 ct blue Aida

Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla), which is a Christmas stocking and my longest UFO piece at this point. My one hesitation on this is that I have a blatant stitching error on it – somewhere along the way, I instinctively switched my stitching direction, so it’s a tad… messy.
On 14 ct Aida

Millennium (TW), which I got from a fellow stitcher who was looking to offload some UFOs. It’s sadly stalled with me, too.
On 28 ct Evenweave

Alternatively, I could send around my restart of Spring Queen (Mirabilia), which had a rather annoying color malfunction with the fabric. That one hasn’t been restarted, but I could put two weeks of work into the gown folds before sending. It would be on either 28 or 32 ct evenweave.

Ones I won’t send…

Egyptian Sampler – because I really do want to do that one myself
Noah’s Ark – most of the remaining stitching is over-one, which I don’t want to force anyone to do
Legends of the Dragons – I’m feeling an itch to work on this again myself
Fantasy Triptych – really big piece, really expensive postage.

Any thoughts?

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching Tags: apache wedding blessing, cats on a staircase, floral bellpull, millennium, smoky mountain cats, spring queen, walk in the woods | 3 Comments

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, March 03rd, 2010

Where the HECK did February go?!?

(oh yeah… I spent them in front of the TV watching the Olympics and stitching…)

Ready for a long post? I haven’t done one of these in a LONG time. It feels good, actually.

I started this post on March 2nd, by the way, but saved it before heading to lunch and forgot about it. Since I’m still not as familiar with how WordPress will post things, I’m curious whether it will show up before or after the photo I just posted.

Anyway…

Crazy, crazy month. It flew by entirely too fast. BUT – it was productive, in many ways. I’ll talk about stitching in a sec – but I’ll start with the general life stuff.

Erich and I have *gasp* finally gone bowling. It’s a bit of an in-joke, really. I mean, we’ve been together for nine years this May, and we’d never gone bowling. We’d talked about it – and we live within a mile of three separate bowling alleys (although one’s duck pin only, so that may not count), but we’d never gone.

Our best man and his wife thankfully changed that when they invited us to the Sunday morning bowling hangout they’re doing up in Brockton. So… 9:30 on Sunday morning, we’re now hanging out with them at the lanes, bowling a few games since there’s a special to rent lanes by the hour and bowl as many games as you can. Cheap morning – gets us up and moving (and getting some slight exercise, at least!)

We’ve also decided to start doing one other night of bowling per week down by us – the lane in Cranston just down Rt. 1 from us does dollar per game nights on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after 8 p.m., which works perfectly for us. So tonight we’ll go after we eat dinner at home and bowl 4 or 5 games.

I’m still playing pretty badly – the last time I’d been bowling was at the end of high school, and 17 years and about 140 pounds more weight (yeah… seriously *hangs head in shame) have completely thrown off my approach in every way. I’m rebuilding it from basics – right now focusing on the swing itself to get my accuracy, and then I’ll add steps into it. Right now if I do a step-approach, my swing gets thrown off because of the width of my hip, and I swing my arm diagonally across my body just as I do while walking. If I do a stand and swing, I have far better accuracy.

The plan next paycheck is to buy our own bowling shoes – just a few times at the lanes will pay them off (and they’ll be ours, not the worn out rental ones that god knows who has used). I’m seriously debating buying a pair of tri-color bowling shoes… because they’re bowling shoes - it seems like it’s a requirement! I’ve honestly always thought the rental shoes at the lanes were cute in a ugly rebellious sort of way.

So… hooray for hobbies as a couple!

Other stuff… Doctor Who is back on air in the UK on Easter weekend, staring here in the States on Apr. 17th. So my weekends will now be full of geekery again. I’m nervous but excited about the new Doctor. I will miss Tennant a lot in the role, but hopefully Matt Smith is fantastic, too. Steven Moffat is amazing, so if nothing else – I know I’ll enjoy the storylines.

Work’s been busy – quite a bit of overtime lately. Some parts of it are still annoying as hell, but meh, that’s work. I have a job and for the most part, I enjoy it. I work for a good company. The things I do in my job are enjoyable, and most of the people I work with are, too.

Oh… and since I’m in New England, I saw no snow in February. No. Really. All of that crap that dumped on the Mid-Atlantic? Never saw it. We had a decent amount of rain, but that’s all. The first storm that gave Washington almost 30 inches or whatever? The weather forecasters up here actually apologized on air for their bad forecasts because they wound up being absolute duds. Everyone called off school and declared snow emergencies, and we barely got anything that day. Boston even offered to reimburse fines and towing fees for cars that had parked on the street – THAT was how badly off they were!

Stitching Stuff

I’ll get my final Stitching Olympics photos up late this week once I know what our weekend schedule is. The final tally, however – 10 projects worked. I managed to put stitches into all but two of my UFO projects (which I define as anything that has sat untouched for 6 months or more), plus a couple WIPs, plus started a piece for an exchange for the Life’s A Stitch board called “Hush Hush.” That’s due to be mailed out on the 15th, so I’ll be focusing on that piece until it’s done and ready to go.

Two projects are now within a couple hours of finishing – Home is Where the Cat Is (finally!) and Elemental Dragon:Spirit. Both essentially have maybe 90 minutes to two hours of backstitching each. They’re both on my radar for March.

So I’m very pleased… even if my goal list for February went extremely askew:

For February, my goals were

1) Rotate through all of my WIPs and UFOs at least once No. I was a few projects short. But I DID get through 10 projects last month, so I’m very happy with the progress I made.
2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is So close – I just ran out of time at the end of the month. I’m 4 hours away from finishing, max.
3) Finish Spirit All but the backstitching. So I’m about 90 minuts max on this one from finishing.
4) Put together the individual progress pages on my website One of these months, maybe I’ll get to this. But it hasn’t happened for 3 now. So… yeah. I’ll just focus on some stitching and call a mulligan on this.
5) Finalize my rotation that will start in March Yep.
6) Remember to photograph the TUSAL this month. OMG I finished one of my goals this month!

Seriously though, I’m pleased with what I did this month, even if it didn’t match the goals.

For March, I want to…

1) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is
2) Finish Spirit
3) Get my Hush Hush exchange out on time
4) Get my UFO RR mailing out on time
5) Rotate through my new rotation once by the end of March

Rotation for this month will be:

Hush Hush project (finish and mail by 3/15)
Cats on a Staircase (for Yoyo’s Christmas SAL)
Elemental Dragons: Spirit (will finish)
Egyptian Sampler
Apache Wedding Blessing
Home is Where the Cat is (will finish)
Legends of the Dragons (for the TW board SAL)
UFO Round Robin – Round #1

Ah yes… the UFO Round Robin. I’m seriously excited. Our first mailing date is on March 15th, and it’s looking like it’ll be a fantastic robin. Lots of diverse projects that are going around. We’re stitching as one group of eight, and the robin will take nearly a year before it’s over.

And I’m modding this shindig. Heh. I never thought experience with modding friendship book and slam swaps would come in handy!

I’m sending my Magical Night piece, which I adopted from (I believe) Annette back in 2005 or 2006. Due to the proximity to my wedding, it didn’t get the work hours I’d hoped it would. And since I have a glut of Teresa Wentzler pieces (being insane as I am), I decided sending one of them around was probably the best choice. This one’s probably the least far along – so sending it for a robin will give it a very nice push.

Here’s where it currently stands:

Like I said… it’s not far along. But next year, hopefully it will return with a nice amount of forward progress!

Until next time…

- Mel.

Category: Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Rotations & Goals, Stitching Tags: apache wedding blessing, cats on a staircase, egyptian sampler, elemental dragons, exchanges, home is where the cat is, Round Robins, teresa wentzler | Leave a Comment

Project Planning for 2010

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, December 09th, 2009

With December speeding by, I’m trying to get a sense of the things I’ll be doing project-wise next year. I’d like to get a general plan together before Christmas hits, purely for that part of me that’s a type-A personality.

In my previous entry, I listed the random Stich-a-Longs I’ve joined in some form. Today I put together a full list of my cross stitch patterns (excluding magazines, which are mostly there for reference & round robin ideas). I honestly didn’t think I had quite THAT many pieces in my stash… eep!

So now I’m planning my “attack” on all of it. Obviously I can’t do it all next year. I couldn’t do all of it in 10 years. But I definitely want to make a good push at it, and it all depends on the method of my rotation plan.

Based on past experience, a firm hourly or goal-oriented rotation just doesn’t work for me. Nor does stitching pieces in a particular order. One thing that does work is designating a theme for a slot (a designer, a piece size, or a focus slot, for example). So I’m going to be doing a modified blend of a screaming, hourly, and goal rotation.. if that makes sense.

The rule is that I can stitch these pieces in any order. This will allow me to be flexible for when Round Robins come in and such. I must put a minimum of 5 hours on any one piece before I can move onto another piece. I may stay on a project for as long as I’m feeling in a groove on it – progress in any form is a good thing! I must stitch on every piece in the rotation before making any adjustments, such as included pieces, slot themes, starts, etc.

Right now, I’m thinking about this as my beginning rotation for 2010. I expect to have a decent amount of time for stitching this winter.

TW SAL: Floral Bellpull
Small/Commute: Home is Where the Cat Is (will finish this round)
Small/Commute #2: Elemental Dragons: Spirit
Backstich Focus: Egyptian Sampler
Christmas SAL: Cats on a Staircase
TW/DD/BS SAL: Legends of the Dragons (new start for 2010)
Free Slot: For Round Robin
Open Choice: Apache Wedding Blessing
Open Choice: Astrology Sampler

I’m crazy, aren’t I?

Category: Blog Organization, Rotations & Goals, Stitching Tags: apache wedding blessing, cats on a staircase, egyptian sampler, elemental dragons, home is where the cat is, Round Robins, teresa wentzler | 2 Comments

TUSAL and Stitching Updates

Author: Measi

• Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

This week has been absolutely insane at work, and I just haven’t had time to update my blog again… eep! I have a trip to Plymouth last weekend to talk about, too – but I have photos to upload for that first.

I’ve made tremendous progress on my stitching this month – I’m very happy! I’ve now moved another place in my rotation. Cats on a Staircase is done for this round, thanks to a very good week of pushing forward. As of October 17th, here’s where I am:

I’d have gotten much further, but discovered AFTER completing the bottom stripes of green stitches that I’d reversed the key code in my head… so a-frogging I went, pulling out five hours of work. *sigh* But it’s corrected, and I’m continuing to move. Next round I plan to add the cat that’s on top on that red box (his butt outline is visible next to the boxes) and continue along the bottom of the stocking.

Next, my progress on Elemental Dragon: Spirit, by Dragon Dreams. This one’s a quick stitch, and I imagine I’ll have it done in the next week or so. I’m using it as my commute piece – with three hours of stitching per day available on the train, this can get a lot of attention! Here’s where I was as of Oct. 17th… I’ve since moved further along on it:

Even though I had it in my rotation, I’m just going to keep working on it until it’s done. *shrug*

Next, I started Erich’s Star Wars sampler last weekend. This is from a pattern I found at another blogger’s site (need to find my credit for it… it’s buried somewhere here). It’s not my own design, although I did sketch this out on graph paper myself, so any variances from the original would be my own. Here’s my first night progress on it, on Oct. 18th:

This is another quick-stitch. I’ll do some more work on it this weekend during the Patriot’s game on Sunday, I think.

And finally, my first update on my Totally Useless SAL (aka TUSAL). I had to get a container for this that was cat-safe before I could take a photo. IKEA to the rescue!

Part of my stitching this month has been to clean out my floss storage containers – I’ve traditionally tossed all of my orts in there as I go. So yeah, it’s a bit fuller than I expected.

So that’s it for stitching updates. Other updates to come tomorrow night!

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: cats on a staircase, elemental dragons, star wars sampler, tusal | Leave a Comment

Chilly Morning

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

One year ago today at about this time (factoring in time differences), I was in England and just arriving into Stratford-upon-Avon. A few hours from now (then) I’d be curled up in awesome front-center balcony seats to watch David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in Hamlet.

Man, how time flies. I still remember most of our vacation last year as if it were yesterday. Since it’s as good a time as any, I’m going to type all of my travel entries into my blog over the next couple weeks. Might as well relive it through my own words.

So a few little things to ramble about this morning. The bad thing of the week is that our furnace is being pissy and won’t kick on. Erich called our oil company (who does a service contract for us), and they were able to come out right away. The service guy found a nozzle that sprays oil into the burner was all gunked up and replaced it for us. Matt then ran the furnace for about an hour, and it was doing fine.

Then last night, it decided not to kick again. So with a low of 35 degrees last night, we had no heat. It was a very painful morning to be walking on wood floorboards today.

Erich’s calling the company back today to see what the next avenue is. We are due for a standard cleaning – maybe that will help the problem. The good thing about it is that we do have hot water. And the furnace definitely is able to kick over, per Matt’s test yesterday. Something’s just getting gunked up along the line. Hopefully it’s just that the filter needs to be replaced so badly that it’s not catching stuff.

The other good thing – it’s October, and not January.

So hopefully that little problem will be solved soon.

King Richard’s was a lot of fun on Sunday. Weather was perfect – sunny, but somewhat cool. That always makes wearing full period dress a bit easier due to the layers. I forgot to take pictures (d’oh!), but one of the folks in our group did… so hopefully I can get a copy from her. The faire was absolutely PACKED on Sunday. I’ve never seen it so busy. So people either are doing better financially around here, or they just saved up any of their spending money to go to the faire. It’s not a cheap day by any means.

Stitching updates…

I did do quite a bit of stitching this weekend on Cats on a Staircase - only to discover I did all of it in the wrong color, and it’s not something I can work around. Grrrrr. So a-frogging I’m now going. Five hours of work, all being picked out.

I’ve also been doing some stitching on my evening commute on Spirit Dragon. She’s coming along nicely – I may have her done in a week or so of train stitching! I’ll post update photos either tonight or tomorrow, I think.

Still fighting my cough – I’m now on three weeks and it’s incredibly annoying. The cold is not helping it at all. Nor did Faire dust. Since I don’t have any signs of infection, I’m hesitant to go in to the doctor on it, though. Past experiences have been a waste of my time – they just tell me to drink fluids and be careful about over-exertion and wait for it to run its course. So… that’s what I’ve been doing this time anyway. It’s not a particularly bad cough, as far as my experiences go. It’s dry, and I’m averaging a single violent coughing fit every day that makes me sick to my stomach. But compared to what I normally go through? Not even close to worrisome. It’s just annoying.

Not to mention that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the GP I went to this year. I’m going to keep my appointment with him next year since it may have just been a bad first-impression, but he didn’t seem particularly interested in the concerns I brought with me on my physical. He wanted to focus entirely on my weight… which yes, is an important issue – but so are my concerns about my dermatographia and digestion problems. Grrr…

We’ll see.

So that’s my thoughts in a nutshell today… more later once I get some projects cleaned off my desk.

Category: Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching Tags: cats on a staircase, elemental dragons, king richard's faire | Leave a Comment

Hooray – long weekends!

Author: Measi

• Saturday, October 10th, 2009

My office is closed for Columbus Day, so I get to settle into a three day weekend – a much needed three day weekend. I’m still coughing from the cold I got during my vacation week, but it definitely is improving. Hopefully I can get a couple of the things done around the house that have been lingering the last few weeks.

Stitching has been progressing well – I’d forgotten how much I missed it! Egyptian Sampler is now done for this round (per my last entry). My Elemental Dragons by Dragon Dreams are my “traveling” piece – they’re nice and small, so easy to bring on the commute train with me. I finished Fire back in 2005. I’m now working Spirit. Here’s where I started this round on Oct. 6th:

It’s not the greatest photo, as it was taken with my cell phone. (the color on color doesn’t help, either). I’ve already made some significant progress down the right wing.

This afternoon I’m going to start my rotation on Cats on a Staircase. I’m somewhat meh about the project, honestly… but since I am on my initial round, I figure I might as well put a few stitches in to see how I feel about it. It’s currently here:

Since it’s the piece up in my rotation, I’m going to use it as my piece for the October SAL via Facebook’s Cross Stitch SAL group. They pick a weekend once per month for a mass-SAL. This month there are about 150 people “attending.”

On non-stitching news…

We’re heading to King Richard’s Faire tomorrow for our yearly visit. We didn’t go last year, since we did the “real” faire – going to England and Wales for two weeks. (I seriously can’t believe Monday marks a year since we were there… time flies!) My garb is all set – although I’d lost one of my corset strings. *sigh* The corset has kind of funky fat shoelace style strings in a deep navy blue. I’m going to ask the vendor that sold them if she has any replacements tomorrow. In the meantime, I picked up the wide laces for hockey boots to lace it up. Doesn’t quite match the look, but it’s the lace up my back, so I’ll just hide it under my shawl. If the vendor doesn’t have any more in that color, then I’ll have a year to track something down. Worst comes to worst? I get white laces and hand-dye them myself.

I’ll have pics up of that on Monday, I imagine. I’m looking forward to the Faire, but we’re going as part of a loosely large group… and there’s now a lot of kids. As one of the only women left in the collective group who doesn’t have kids, and as someone who’s probably not having kids (a long story that I’m not quite ready to go into), it’s a painful thing to be around them. I imagine I’ll be trying to head off and wander on my own as much as possible. It’s really the only thing that’s dampening my excitement about tomorrow. But it should still be a fun day.

That’s about it – I need to go handle Colley, who’s been meowing non-stop for attention now for 30 minutes. *sigh* More later as I have pictures and news.

Category: Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, Rotations & Goals, Stitching Tags: cats on a staircase, elemental dragons, king richard's faire | 2 Comments

Stitching Updates

Author: Measi

• Sunday, March 19th, 2006

I can’t believe it’s halfway through March already… this year is going entirely too fast. *sigh*

Not a lot of news on my end, honestly. Just the same-old, same-old. But I have done some stitching lately. Here’s the progress photos:

Spirit Dragon by Dragon Dreams– this is the second in the elemental series that I’m working on. It’s not much so far, but I’ve been stitching this during my downtime on flightpaths in World of Warcraft. The stitches completed are an orb that the dragon is holding.

Cats on a Staircase by Bucilla – I’ve been working the green garland on the left section of the piece. March happened to be “green” month for the Unfinished Objects stitching board I belong to… and this was the most prominent piece with green for me to work on.

The Castle by Teresa Wentzler – Almost. Done. Finally. But with a mishap. The reason the piece is so wrinkly is because I had to wash it early. After ten years of handling, storage, moving, and porting this around, last week I had my first accident with it as I spilled a good amount of diet coke on it. Thankfully it came out quickly with just a short cold water soak. I should have the cross stitches done on this by the end of this coming week, if all goes well.

More photos in a couple days. I’m getting prepped on a new computer at home, so I need to get some stuff oriented first.

~ Mel.

Category: Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: castle, cats on a staircase, elemental dragons, stitching | Leave a Comment

A plethora of stitching stuff…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, July 28th, 2005

Yay! I found my uploading cable for the camera. This is a good thing. So lots of updates tonight…

First off, I have two weeks of Stitchers Blog Questions to answer… for some reason, I’m not getting the questions in my mailbox, despite being set up for individual mail on the group. Gotta love free email sites. *sigh*

Anyway… July 20, ’05: Have you ever done a color conversion? If so, what did you think about your results and would you do it again? If not, would you like to try
someday? I have not yet done one, but definitely want to. Being a bit isolated in my stitching hobby until this year, I didn’t realize it really was possible to do them. But then I saw variants of The Castle by Teresa Wentzler, and absolutely loved them. While I doubt I’ll get around to it for many years, I’d love to do a conversion copy of The Castle someday on a dark fabric. At some point, I’ll definitely be trying it on some project.

July 27, ’05: What is your most unique/interesting stitching quirk? (This could be
something concerning the way you stitch, how you organize your stash, etc.) Since I really have nothing to compare it to, I’m not quite sure what my most unique quirk is. I suppose in the age of q-snaps and scroll frames, my preference for old-fashioned hoop stitching, perhaps? Or maybe the fact that I almost always stitch patterns upside down, and then flip them right-side up to backstitch (out of instinct). I don’t have a real method to my organization yet, given that we’ve only been in the house for a month. Perhaps I should readdress this question come December or so.

Okay… thus endeth the questions for this week… now onto photos of my last rotation, which lasted from March 1st until the end of May… and then I had a “floating” session on The Castle, which lasted all of June.

Egyptian Sampler restart after one rotation. The linen looks a lot better (and more authentic) than my original start. I’ll be working on this again come next week. Stitching on extremely uneven linen is tricky, but this piece is going to be worth it when complete!

The Castle after my normal rotation in April, but before the June floating focus. I’m now working on the rocks at the bottom. They dragged on this rotation.

The Castle after the floating focus in June… which included a 10-hour backstitching stretch, plus a lot of little color fill-ins in the rocks. The rocks didn’t seem quite as bad this time… but I didn’t have a lot of stitching time, either. The rock line is now down to the spine of the dragon tail in a few spots. I’ll be completing the rest of the rocks above the dragon tail in my next rotation round.

Cats on a Staircase after work in May. The stairs are the trickiest part, since it’s stitching white-on-white. I’ve been having a ton of problems with miscounts on this piece, and spent a good portion of the last round frogging stitches that I did four years ago. *sigh* Thankfully it didn’t destroy the whole piece, but it wasn’t fun.

Smoky Mountain Cats after work in May. Stitching this project is easy– it’s large swaths of the same color. However, the thread is craptacular and keeps breaking. And unfortunately no DMC options were given with the kit. So this might wind up being one of those frustration pieces due to the materials.

That’s the last rotation round. I started my new rotation on July 15th, and decided to get a couple small pieces into the rotation so I could perhaps see a finish sometime this year. It’s a bit disheartening to be in July of these rotations without a complete project to show for it… particularly since I technically haven’t had a finish since 1996 (eep!).

So this rotation, I’m doing this:

1) NEW: Elemental Dragons- Fire (Dragon Dreams)
2) Egyptian Sampler (Teresa Wentzler)
3) Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla)
4) NEW: Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
5) The Castle (Teresa Wentzler)
6) Home is Where the Cat Is (Leisure Arts)
7) NEW: Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design Studio)

The last piece is a wedding present for my friend (and sorority sister), Ivanna. It won’t be done by her October wedding date… but I’m going to be working as fast as I can on it so she can hopefully have it sometime next spring.

The Elemental Dragons are a freebie set of patterns on Dragon Dreams’ homepage (located under samples). I decided to work on the Fire dragon first, but have kitted all five. To my delight, it has stitched up extremely fast. This is eight hours of stitching, as of the end of my commute time tonight:

All of the cross-stitches are done. I’m now doing the backstitching, and should have my first finish by the end of the weekend. (yay!) I’m stitching this on Silkweaver’s 28ct. Golden Promise cashel linen. The rest of the dragons will also be on 28 ct. fabric… some evenweave, some linen, but all are Silkweaver.

Onto the next rotation!

Category: SBQ's, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: castle, cats on a staircase, egyptian sampler, elemental dragons, smoky mountain, teresa wentzler | Leave a Comment

Mid-rotation Stitching Update

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, May 10th, 2005

I’m having a very difficult, emotional day today and really don’t want to talk about it because I’ll start crying again. So instead, I’m going to post craft pictures and talk about something that doesn’t involve chewing me out because I don’t think in the same mindset as males do.

*sigh*

Anyway… onto my work over the past two months or so… my rotation’s been going much slower due to the house purchase, but I have managed to get through three spots on my rotation since early March…

(I had trouble with the camera and fabric here– hopefully I can fix it in Photoshop later…)

Egyptian Sampler, restarted. I put about 20 hours into this to catch it back up to roughly where it was before I realized my fabric size fuckup back in January. The new fabric is 28 count antique tea-dyed *unevenweave* linen from a great little stitch shop in Plymouth, Mass. It was a bit tricky at first to start stitching since the squares are slightly uneven, but I’m liking how the uneven stitches give it even more of an authentic “ancient” look.

This will, by the way, look like this when it’s done.

The Castle, after another 10 hour rotation. I’m working on the bottom, developing the rocky cliff below the castle. It’s not the greatest photo, but taking a full picture of the work at this point is much better than focusing just on the rocks at the bottom, which are a bit of a mottled brown, grey, and green mess. My prior updates are here.

In a couple weeks, I’ll do another backstitching rotation on this. During that, I’ll finish outlining the dragon’s head, anything left on the castle, and the small wing.

If all goes well, I’m still hoping to have this finished by the end of the summer. But the house restorations will really determine that.

I just finished my rotation on this tonight, working through hours of white on white stitching (UGH!). I’ve had to make some corrections for miscounts, but so far I’m going to be okay. I’m not sure where my head was when I started this pattern because there have been miscounts all over. This rotation wound up being a lot of ripping old stitches… but I did make a good deal of progress over last time.

Anyway.. there are my stitching updates. Hopefully I’ll have another set before the end of the month to share. After that, stuff needs to get packed up for a good portion of June…

Category: Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: castle, cats on a staircase, egyptian sampler, teresa wentzler | Leave a Comment

February Stitching Recap

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, March 02nd, 2005

Taking another thing off my to-do list. Whee!

I got a lot of stitching done last month. I’m very happy with my progress on things. Although I have a lot left to do on all of the projects, I feel like they’re moving forward and aren’t in a permanent UFO (Unfinished Object) pile.

My largest project (and the one screaming for me to complete it) is The Castle. Lots of work done on this in the past month. At least 20 hours worth, between stitches and backstitches. As of last night, it looks like this:

For reference, last month’s image is here.

I’m happy with how it’s going. The top half of the pattern is now nearly done– I need to finish the backstitching and do the smaller wing (where the green lines stick out of the image on the right). Then I can focus on getting the bottom half of the pattern done, which is a lot of rocks tumbling over one another. I’ve started outlining them on the bottom right.

At the rate I’m going, I might actually finish this by the end of the summer. Hopefully earlier, but I always underestimate my backstitching time… so I’ll say estimate of August at this point.

My next project that had updates is Cats on a Staircase, which eventually will look like the stocking that it is. Yesterday’s photo:

(My previous reference is here. And yes– that Himi cat is sitting on a stair of white stitches… ugh, they’re evil to do!)

It’s moving along. I really struggled with my counting on this one in February, and didn’t get nearly as far as I’d hoped because I kept miscounting the same area over and over on the Himi cat. And it’s still off a bit– the orange cat’s tail is supposed to be connected to the bannister rung next to it. Thankfully I don’t have to pick out stitches to do the correction. The tail won’t screw up the rest of the pattern, as it’s free-standing on the fabric. I’ll make the adjustments and counting marks for the next things over from it next round.

Egyptian Sampler has no update. I bought new fabric to start it over. It’s actual stringy linen now– so before I take pictures or take a breath near it, I need to get the edges serge-stitched at my moms. Otherwise it’s going to disintegrate in front of me. But it’s going to look AMAZING when it’s on this fabric.

I started Smokey Mountain Cats this month, too. Didn’t put a lot of time into it, since I’ve been fixated on The Castle. But it has about five hours or so on it so far…

This is my lazy piece. It’s a large piece– overall, it’s larger than The Castle will be, especially since it’s a solid rectangular block of stitches. But there’s NO backstitching on it, other than the eyes of the cats. There’s blending threads, but nowhere near to the extent of a Teresa Wentzler design. Lots of very wide swaths of blue stitching. Forms come out of the project very quickly. The deepest blue is a set of ears. The right hand edge of stitches *is* the right hand edge of the design. So I’ll be working through everything I have outlined by the hoop before I move on… and do this in blocks. It’s a relaxation piece with no big “must finish” timelines. I’m stitching on it to take a mental break from The Castle and Egyptian Sampler, which are very attention-demanding for details.

And I’m amazingly done with my rotation. I’m taking a break until Saturday, when we’re in PA… and then will get back to it after I stitch the edges of my fabrics.

Yay craftiness!

Category: Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: castle, cats on a staircase, smoky mountain cats | Leave a Comment

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