Tag-Archive for ◊ raise the roof ◊

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. :)

July WIPocalypse Update…

Author: Measi

• Saturday, July 14th, 2012

So I was frantic to try to get a couple pieces done before I did my post for the month. I almost got both done – but a few missing Mill Hill Treasures are thwarting the second finish for another week. Since I’m already late for the month, might as well get it up!

June was a good month for me stitch-wise. I focused the entire month on a few pieces that were close to being finished. I underestimated the amount of stitching required for one of them, but managed to get a long time UFO done, almost finished another, and rewarded myself with a new start that I probably didn’t need – but it’s been screaming since I bought the pattern.

So… the finish first! This is Walk in the Woods by Cricket Collection. Long-time readers of my blog (or friends of mine on Facebook) might recall that this is one of two unfinished piece I found in my mother-in-law’s stash after she passed away five years ago. I vowed to finish both pieces. Garden Sampler was finished in 2010. I finished Walk in the Woods on July 6th.

It’s stitched on 18 ct Aida that’s a very, very light grey. Colors are all DMC as instructed. I freeformed the signature to include both of us. I honestly don’t know when Debbie started this, sadly, so I couldn’t include a start date. The chart was published in 1988. I’m guessing it was after the dye change in DMC, though, because I didn’t have trouble matching new bobbins to what she had originally stitched. When I found it, it only had the top border, the A, the B, and the E completed, including a counting error that even I didn’t catch.
I do have to thank Kris a lot for her help on this. Last year we were involved in a UFO round robin together, and with only one rotation round left, one of my other pieces came home. I had to scramble for something practical to send… and this was really the only thing at the time that I could come up with. She did a tremendous amount of the work to get it going again. When it’s framed, I’ll be adding her name to the description label I’ll place on the backing paper.

Very happy this one’s done. I’m hoping to get it framed and give it to my husband to hang wherever he’d like it placed.

Next up is the almost finished Mirabilia round robin from last year. With some input from fellow stitchers, I decided to swap out Venetian Opulence for Enchanted Mermaid in the bottom central square. I’m glad I did – she looks great. If you’re thinking she looks a bit different, you’re right. I flipped her backwards so she’d be facing toward the left to balance the piece 4 and 4.

I know I ordered and received all of the treasures I needed to complete the piece, but sometime in the last couple weeks, three packs of treasures went wandering and I’ve searched everywhere. So I’ll order again. I have some other beading still to do, but it will be easier and more efficient to just string everything together, so I’ll wait until those treasures come back in to finish it up. I imagine it’ll only take a couple hours at this point.

Of course, that means that the day after I finish the piece, those three packs will turn up, right? :)

Next up is Smoky Mountain Cats from Pegasus Designs (aka “the field of blue”), which also went out for a round robin last year. I thought I could finish this piece last month, but completely underestimated what was left to do. Still, I did about 10 hours on it and got a decent amount done (the super dark colors on the bottom, plus a little extra). As of right now, this is one of the three longest-running UFOs I have. It’s an easy piece to work on the train, so I may start keeping it in my work bag for the train, and just working a little at a time.

It’s one of those pieces that’s a bit frustrating. It came as a kit, and the thread quality is pretty bad. In hindsight, I could have swapped out for DMC and probably would have had this thing done by now. I think this piece is the reason I refuse to buy kits anymore.

Sooner or later, though, it will get done.

Hopefully!

The final piece I worked on in June is Witchy Washy, although I really didn’t do that much on it. I finished the witch hat and started the basket that sits on the ground underneath the clothes line. It’s may be a total of an hour of work. But still – it’s progress, and I expect this piece to be done easily this year. If it’s not done beforehand, I’ll probably bring it to Stitchers’ Hideaway in October, where the 10th anniversary retreat is themed as a Spooky Retreat to work on all things Halloween. :)

This is one of the few pieces that I know where I’m hanging it once it’s completed… the door to the laundry room, of course. :)

So that was it for June. Since I’m a bit into July, I figured I’d also share the two pieces I’ve been working on:

The Inn at Fox Run Mill by Little House Needleworks is my current “travel” piece for my commutes. I’m stitching it on 36ct Shale linen from Picture This Plus with Sullivans threads. It’s the first time I’ve worked on it since February, when it was my piece to kill time while stuck in Rhode Island’s jury duty lounge.

All week, I’ve just had this goofy “Happy Little Trees” going on in my head – in the style of Bob Ross – as I’ve been stitching those branches. No idea why it popped in my head, but apparently Bob Ross influenced my psyche more than I thought during my childhood mornings!

Finally, my start from yesterday afternoon – Quaker Compass by Rosewood Manor. This is the first Rosewood piece I’ve done, and I’m already loving how she does her designs. The charts are great and clear, and there are so many little extras in the booklet, it’s insane. I bought this in April at Celebration of Needlework after seeing the model on the wall (it’s STUNNING), but felt the need to play with color a bit. I’m working this in Threadworx #1157 on Picture This Plus 36 ct Stirling, which is a gorgeous silver with the slightest blue and green tinge to it. I know this photo’s a bit blurry… my cell phone is back on the charger. Will get a better pic up next update.

Anyway, this is my progress since last night. Thanks to the heat and the Game of Thrones marathon on HBO, I stitched most of the day today. :) My plan is to do all of the stitching except the sampler letters in the Threadworx. I’m going to match the greens in the thread to solid DMC shades (one lighter, one darker) to do the letters, since the green is the least apparent color in my particular batch.

This is my first quaker piece, and I think I’m already hooked!

So that’s it for me for WIPocalypse updates. Happy stitching everyone!

Category: Finishes, SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cricket collection, fox run mill, little house needleworks, mira rr, mirabilia, pegasus designs, quaker compass, raise the roof, rosewood manor, smoky mountain cats, walk in the woods, wipocalypse, witchy washy | 13 Comments

My May WIPocalypse Update

Author: Measi

• Sunday, May 06th, 2012

If you’re looking to check in with your WIPocalypse updates, here’s the correct post.

Due to some insanity, I missed my update entirely for April, so my progress is actually two months’ worth of work. I’ve made some good progress on a few different pieces and have finished one WIP. I’m starting to really see some progress in my stitching this year, and that’s making me feel quite happy with what’s going on.

The two pieces that really needed their own posts for updates were my finish – Ye Olde Coffee House by Little House Needleworks and progress on Deep Blue Sea by Chatelaine.

I’ve also done some work on other pieces that don’t need quite as much story telling, but have progressed nicely.

Witchy Washy (Raise the Roof) is coming along nicely. I’m using the original overdyes called for in the pattern, and I’m stitching this on an older piece of Manhattan Mist from Silkweaver. I’ll be working (and hopefully finishing!) this piece in June, but it’s taking a rest for a few weeks. As it stands, it’s probably about 60% done. The hat is the final thing that’s sittig on the clothes line to stitch. Two trees, a couple objects on the “ground” and the Witchy Washy title, and this one’s done. My witchy hat needleminder will NOT be staying on it, despite looking like it should remain on the piece! This is a fun little piece – I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to stitch because I do enjoy stitching on it and absolutely love it. For some reason, it just makes me a bit tired, too. Almost like it’s an intense piece for me, without any real reason that it should be.

Witches Wheel (Glendon Place) is my current commute piece. I grabbed it to take to Celebration of Needlework since it’s one of those easy to transport pieces – only one color of floss needed. It also turned out to be a great identifier for people looking for me. I imagine I was likely the only person there stitching on tie-dyed orange fabric! I spent the first couple days fixing a miscount that I’d needed to frog out – thankfully it was caught early because this piece definitely depends on everything matching up correctly. Unlike so many pieces, I really couldn’t fudge a miscount here. So it was fixed by taking out the central spokes on the left side (both diagonals and the horizontal) and moving them out a square. And then I stitched the two cats on the left. For this week’s commute, I’m going to add the fourth cat, and then I’ll see if I’m still in the mood to keep adding to it. This is one of the pieces I’d like to finish this year, so I don’t plan on putting it aside for too long.

Floral Bellpull is my Teresa Wentzler focus for the year. I’m now on square five of six, and it’s going well. It looks like my stitches are a bit scattered in this square, but this is how I tend to stitch Wentzlers – I try to carry a color as far as I can go to use up my currently needled floss, starting with larger blocks of color so I have something to neatly anchor the confetti stitches onto. Other stitchers who have done this piece may realize that I made a couple of errors. I accidently started the wrong square here – instead of Pansy, which is labeled as Square 5 on the pattern, I grabbed Peony… so my last two squares are going to be in reverse order. It’s not a big deal, as all of the squares are the same size. But I did a bit of an eyeroll when I realized what I’d done.

I also have my standard “Measi makes a mistake in the piece that she’s just going to leave because virtually none of her projects are completely perfect” stitch. Unintentional again – but it’s one of those stitches that just won’t matter in the long run. Can you find it here?

My final piece to update is my Mirabilia Round Robin from last year. I’m stitching the bottom block and will add my name to the bottom of the center block when finished. I’m stitching Enchanted Mermaid, flipped 180 degrees so she’s facing left instead of the originally charted right. It’s a trivial thing, but I just felt that having four faces going left and four facing right may balance the piece a bit better. Whether or not it does, I don’t know… but it was something I just felt I needed to do. I don’t expect this to take me that long to complete. Once I finish that cat on Witches Wheel, I’ll be taking my Mira RR with me on the train until the stitching’s done. I’d hoped to have her done last month. So this month, I’m determined!

Funny that this update wound up being the four pieces that I am gunning to finish this year, but I suppose that’s just how the stitching ended up this month. Hopefully May will be another good month of progress.

Category: Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: floral bellpull, glendon place, mira rr, mirabilia, raise the roof, teresa wentzler, wipocalypse, witches wheel, witchy washy | 15 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. :)

Find Me On

WIPocalypse 2013

Who am I?

Email

Challenges & SAL’s

Memberships

Recent Posts

Archives

Pages

Dragons

Meta

Tag-Archive for ◊ raise the roof ◊