Tag-Archive for ◊ teresa wentzler ◊

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. :)

Life update (and WIPocalypse update of sorts)

Author: Measi

• Friday, June 22nd, 2012

Good goddess, life’s been busy this year. Work’s been turned upside down due to one of my managers leaving for a new opportunity. My workload has been… excessive. I’m trying to stay on top of it and keep my chin up, but I admit that I’ve moved into the burnout phase and am now mulling what I want to do going further. I know that I can’t keep up at this pace for much longer. Something needs to give, and I want to nip it before I’m forced to make it give in desperate fashion (read: take any old job to get out of here)

I realized this morning that my WIPocalypse post seems to have disappeared into the ether. I know I wrote one and had it scheduled to post on time, but I guess in the strangeness of life these days I must have forgotten that ever-important “save” button or something. I’m forgetting exactly WHAT I wanted to post now that it’s been a bit, though, so I’ll make this a quick one. After all, the next update’s only in a couple weeks, and I should have a couple of great finishes to share then!

So here we go…

I focused on my Theme-a-licious projects for May in this recap post. And back a couple posts from that, I have my most recent photo of Witches Wheel. :)

Floral Bellpull is moving right along. I may have even done a bit more than what’s here, come to think of it, but this is pretty close to where I’m now at. The peonies are developing nicely despite all of the confetti stitching. I’m using the “go by color” method with the pinks, which I know isn’t the safest way to work confetti. It helps me feel like I’m accomplishing a bit more, though, knowing that a color is “done.”

I have to admit that this square seems to be going fairly quickly. I have True Blood to thank for that – lots of reruns recently, plus the episodes from Season 4 have been On Demand, so I’ve spent some time with (thankfully) non-glittery vampires as I work. It definitely helps keep things moving.

I plan on making this a bigger focus piece during my Olympic stitching. Ideally, I’d like to have this square done, plus any backstitching to this point that still needs to be finished, all by the end of August. That way I only have the final square to focus on, and can celebrate a completion sometime in the autumn.

Walk in the Woods is almost done. So, so close. It’s one of my goal pieces to complete this month, and I think I may just get there before the end of the weekend if all goes well.

As longer-time readers of my blog might remember, this piece is the final unfinished stitching piece my mother-in-law left before passing away in 2007. I finished the other one, Garden Sampler, in 2010. I admit that Walk in the Woods is a bit off my taste. I like it, but the colors on it just don’t excite me that much, so it’s been a bit of a slog to get through this one. I did send it out for a round in the UFO RR 2011, and Kris did an amazing job pushing it forward… to the point that I don’t feel right putting only my and my MIL’s initials on the piece when it’s done. I may be tweaking the date line a little bit to fit us on there.

This photo’s as of Monday. I’ve made some more progress since then – finishing the acorn motif where my needle is in this picture, adding the leaf that’s missing between M and N, and putting in some of the missing colors on other motifs. Saturday night may be my big push on it, since Erich will be off doing stuff with the guys.

I can’t seem to find a photo of where I am with my Mira RR, which is my other focus piece for the month. Needless to say, it’s also almost done. I had to do an order for beads and Kreinik last week, and now that those are in, everything else will get wrapped up. Once Walk in the Woods is done, back to the Mira I go, also to be finished before the end of June.

Two finishes in a month. :) I can’t wait!

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: cricket collection, floral bellpull, mira rr, teresa wentzler, walk in the woods, wipocalypse | 11 Comments

Witches Wheel Update & IHSW Plans

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Lots of folks have been checking in with their Wipocalypse updates for May. Keep them coming! A few people have emailed me theirs, and I’ll be replying this weekend as I add those links to the excel sheet that I’m using to keep track of check-ins.

I’ve finished my stitching for this round on Witches Wheel. Sorry for the slightly blurry photograph – I took it on the Amtrak train home to Providence tonight, and while I shot the photo in a relatively smooth area of the trip, the tracks between Boston and Providence are a bit bumpy.

Next round I think I’ll focus on filling in at least one of the other faces. My original plan was to do a quarter of the pattern at a time, but I think it’s probably a better idea to work out from the center on this one and fill in each similar motif around the circle to ensure that everything’s balanced correctly.

I’m not sure if I’ll bring any pieces with me for my commutes for the rest of the week. The weather has been quite rainy lately and I don’t want to risk getting anything wet during my walks from the train to work. I bought the new Sookie Stackhouse novel last night, so I’ll probably just inhale that by Friday. Next week, though, I’ll bring my Mirabilia round robin with me to attempt to get the rest of the cross stitches complete.

I’ve also been working on Pocketful of Peppermint by Blue Ribbon Designs for the last few days. I’m still in the early stages on the piece, creating some of the border squares. I’d like to do all of the borders first, then fill in each individual square separately. I should have my 10 hours done with that by the end of the week.

This weekend is International Hermit and Stitch weekend. I have a full weekend planned already, so I don’t know if I’ll have much time to stitch. Whatever time I do have, I’ll put into Floral Bellpull and try to push that fifth square forward a bit.

Hope you’re having a great week!

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: blue ribbon designs, floral bellpull, glendon place, ihsw, pocketful of peppermint, teresa wentzler, witches wheel | 9 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

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

My February WIPocalypse Update…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, February 08th, 2012

Hi to everyone popping on for WIPocalypse browsing! If you read me often, the first half of this post is likely stuff you’ve seen before.

It’s been a good month since my last update. I gave up on Crazy January (and don’t plan on ever attempting it again). I returned instead to a few pieces – some of my new starts for this year, some WIPs, and one traveling pattern (which is my first finish of the year!)

All of these photos “pop” if you select them so you can see larger sizes if you choose.

Here’s my first finish of the year. This is a traveling pattern by Lizzie*Kate that’s now en route to the next person in the Stitcherhood. I pulled random colors for this. The original called-for colors are much, much softer. Blame it on watching the Winter X Games, perhaps – but I wanted to stitch BRIGHT. I’m planning on finishing this into an ornament for my tree, dated with the year and the stitcherhood on the back. I’ll make the backing out of the same fabric and whip-stitch it together, just as I do for most of my ornaments.

Floral Bellpull continues to progress well. I finished all of the cross-stitches in the Morning Glory square and started on the backstitching. That leaves me with two full squares to go before it’s done. My goal this month is to get the border for the next square stitched up so I can start filling it in during Stitcher’s Hideaway next month. This is the big focus Teresa Wentzler piece for me this year – and I’m confident I can get it done. With the glut of TW projects in my WIP/UFO pile, I won’t be starting any more anytime soon. My plan is to start weeding them out one at a time, one year at a time. If I manage to get more done, great… but I really want to get these done and on my walls!

Cowboy Cats is one of the pieces I began for Crazy January. It’s not on any timetable, and since I’m in those starting doldrums, I haven’t quite gotten a rhythm going on it yet. It’s a good commuting piece, but I had it in my bag during a seriously insane portion of last month and just didn’t move it along as I hoped. I made most of my progress on this during one evening when all of the Amtrak and MBTA trains were tied up going out of Boston last month. Three hours of hanging out on a train provides a LOT of stitching opportunity!

Deep Blue Sea continues to progress. This is probably the best color-accurate photo I’ve managed to get of the fabric. I’m still not done with part one, but I’m getting there. I managed to take this on a few commutes in and out of Boston to push it along, and I also focused on it during a stitch-in at Bush Mountain on Superbowl Sunday. I did soooo many eyelets on Sunday that I needed to take a serious break from it and work on light fabric for a while. I’d really like to get all of part one done by the end of the month. It’s definitely possible, although I’ve set it aside for now – I’ll come back to it later once I’ve progressed some of my pre-2012 WIPs! I will admit, it’s getting much easier to stitch as time goes on and I have more reference points to line things up. I did add a little “this way up” arrow to the center of the piece (which will obviously be removed at the end).

I think what I’m surprised about as this center mandala develops is just how BIG the thing is. I’m used to seeing gorgeous centers for all of the Chatelaine designs on other stitchers’ blogs, but photo size doesn’t quite give a good sense of size reference. For some reason, my brain was interpreting the photos I’ve seen as only 4 inches across or so. But no… from the top to the bottom yellow lines is just about the same length as my hand from tips of fingers to the heel of the hand. It fills up a significant chunk of space on my 11″ Q-snaps!

Last but not least, I played a bit with Inn at Fox Run Mill today while hanging out in the jury duty pool. The top border is now at its full width. I report to jury duty again tomorrow, so I’m going to fill in the acorns that are missing, the small leaves that are missing, and then carry down from there if time permits.

It’s definitely been a productive month! And next month promises to be even better, thanks to the three-night retreat (and week of vacation!) I have coming up.

Happy stitching everyone!

Category: SALs/Challenges, WIP Progress Tags: chatelaine, cowboy cats, deep blue sea, dimensions, floral bellpull, fox run mill, little house needleworks, lizzie*kate, stitcherhood, teresa wentzler, traveling pattern, wipocalypse | 21 Comments

TUSAL and IHSW recap…

Author: Measi

• Monday, January 23rd, 2012

It’s the new moon – and it’s the first of the year, so it’s time to empty the jar and start fresh for the Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long. I’d been filling my jar for two years, so to see it this empty is a bit… weird. My orts from the last two years have been put into a baggie – I’ll spread some of them in the yard for the birds in the spring, and others I may use to stuff ornaments or something similar.

My orts this month come from a wide variety of projects. I attempted (and failed) Crazy January. I started my first Chatelaine. I did some work on a couple of my long-neglected WIPs. The pile of orts will only grow from here!

This past weekend was International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, and I decided to focus entirely on Floral Bellpull for the January rendition of IHSW. I had two goals – finish the cross stitches on the Morning Glory square, and get it entirely backstitched.

I completed goal #1 easily. I’m about half-way done with the backstitching. I forgot that the inside of the frame is backstitched, and wound up having to do it twice thanks to a quietly building knot of string that built as I went along (whoops).

In any case, I’m happy with what I got accomplished. Once Castle is done tonight, I’ll get a bit more done tonight before bedtime.

For the rest of this week, I’ll likely split my time between an adorable little Lizzie Kate that wandered into my mailbox from Jo a few days ago (great for my commute) and either Book of Ink Circles or Seasons of Mystic.

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: floral bellpull, ihsw, stitcherhood, teresa wentzler, tusal | 20 Comments

The weekend where ALL of my SALs converge

Author: Measi

• Thursday, January 19th, 2012

This weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend! Grab a project (or two… or four), curl up, get some stitching done, and share with the world.

It’s kind of like WIPocalypse, but much shorter and even more freeform. :)

BUT WAIT – It’s also Jardin January for Theme-a-licious, which means that my selection for this weekend fits all of my ongoing SALS at the same time.

I know – right? It’s epic stitching convergence time. And at the end of the weekend, it’s time for TUSAL to finish it all off.

What piece is so epic in my stash that it can fulfill all of these SAL’s? It’s none other than…

Floral Bellpull!

Yes, the ongoing WIP that has been ongoing for years, gone out on a UFO Round Robin cruise, and still remains an unfinished piece. It’s the one Teresa Wentzler I truly want to complete this year – and completing it is actually possible if I sit my butt down, get the needle going, and get to work.

While yes, it’s only Thursday, I’m getting a start on it tonight for the weekend. My goal is to finish the square you see – which is the 4th of 6 in the bellpull. I don’t have that much actual cross-stitching left to do in the square, so it’s quite possible I can get it and all of the backstitching completed by Sunday night.

*crossing fingers*

Want to join up in one of the non-WIPocalypse SALs this weekend? Click on the appropriate button below to follow to their hosts. :)

Category: SALs/Challenges, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: floral bellpull, ihsw, teresa wentzler, theme-a-licious, wipocalypse | 17 Comments

Deep breath after a long week

Author: Measi

• Sunday, January 15th, 2012

For some reason, life has been absolutely non-stop since about mid-November. I’m thankful I haven’t had any five-day work weeks since Christmas week because honestly, I desperately need the longer weekends right now purely for recovery.

This week was no different in the insanity, although it took a different twist. Erich’s job was transferred to a new hospital as of this past Monday, so both of our commute schedules have changed again. In his case, it’s much, MUCH better. He’s gone from a 1 hour and 20 minute drive to Dorchester, MA to approximately 20 minutes over to Fall River, MA – much, much more tolerable.

In my case, it’s a mixed bag. Technically it’s a bit of a shorter commute for me, but unlike with driving, I now have a very firm schedule as to when I need to leave the house because I’m back on the commuter train. For me it’s about 90 minutes each way to and from Boston. The train is much easier than driving, and once I get used to the train schedule, I’ll be back stitching on my commutes. This week, though, was a bit painful with the adjustment. Hopefully my brain will make the switch soon.

Wednesday was my birthday. Erich and I went out to dinner after work and had a relaxing night. I took Thursday off – I had a scheduled dentist appointment, and decided I’d just take the entire day so I could have some “me” time – I got my nails done and went milling about Thistle Needleworks over in Glastonbury, Connecticut for a couple hours. I didn’t buy much, but did pick up a couple of the colors I still needed for Deep Blue Sea. That evening, Erich and I gathered with friends for a laid-back dinner at one of the centralized hangouts we like to go to.

Yesterday morning I went to my monthly stitchy gathering at the Warwick Public Library – the Rhode Island stitchers gather there every month on the second Saturday morning. It was a quiet month – only four of us this time.

And then last night was the Patriots game – I was relieved they won. Hopefully that will quiet down the Tebow mania for a while!

+++++++++++++

I’ve been doing well on stitching this weekend – I’ve become a bit burnt out on new starts, so I’m putting my Crazy January on pause. My current projects are just screaming a bit too loudly for attention! I’ve been focusing on Deep Blue Sea so far this weekend, correcting my miscounts from my January 1st progress and pushing forward on the next two colors. Once that’s done (hopefully this afternoon), I’ll be picking up Floral Bellpull, since it’s the Wentzler I want to complete this year above all others.

Remember that WIPocalypse signups end tonight at midnight my time – so if you’re reading and waffling, jump in and join us!

Category: Birthdays/Anniversaries, Celebrations & Holidays, Erich, Family & Friends, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: chatelaine, crazy january, deep blue sea, floral bellpull, teresa wentzler, 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

My stitching has thrown a curve ball at me

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Before I go onto my news – I finally managed to get some stitching time in on my Floral Bellpull this year! I’ve joined the Love4Stitching group on Yuku, where a number of different designers have SALs scheduled on a set of standardized days every month. The 21st through 25th was Teresa Wentzler projects.

It was good to sit down with it for a few days. I’m happy with what I got done. I’ve nearly completed the actual crosses on this square. I’ll finish the backstitching before I move onto the next one. Morning Glory is the fourth of six – so I’m making good progress, and I think there will be a finish in the first quarter of next year on this one. (If I didn’t have ornaments to stitch, I might say this year!)

I’ll feel quite proud when this one is done.

Through the rest of the month there is a SAL for HAED projects. I was going to pull out my Muse of the Midnight Sun, but then something very funny happened today…

With no plans whatsoever, I was invited to go to Stitcher’s Hideaway in mid-October! I’ll be joining Lisa and her mom, Kathy, for a two-day class with Jeannette Douglas in Mystic, CT. Lisa’s sister was unfortunately unable to get the time off from work, and since all of her fees are already paid, Kathy invited me to take the spot.

I guess it was fate – I wasn’t able to afford it and had decided to hold off and save my money for the alumni retreat in March. As it stands, I probably will be commuting to the classes rather than stay at the hotel to save some money. Providence to Mystic is just under an hour, and that’s shorter than my normal commute to work (by quite a bit), so it’ll be an easy drive.

So that’s changed my stitching plans for the next few weeks by quite a bit. Rather than my HAED, I’ll be focusing in on the Mirabilia RR so I can get her mailed off before the retreat weekend. There’s also going to be a fall-themed ornament exchange at Hideaway, so I’m going to attempt to get one done.

I also did something a bit crazy on Friday afternoon and jumped into what will be my first Chatelaine stitch. I decided to join Rachel (and I imagine others who I know from stitching & blogging) in the Mystery Mandala XV starting in January called Deep Blue Sea. As I said – first Chatelaine design. It will also be the first time I’ve ever done any sort of mystery stitch, so I’m quite excited. Since it’s one of the mandalas, I know it’s going to be gorgeous. Since it’s themed to the sea, I know it will have some gorgeous blues in it, with likely greens and flashes of brights. I will not be kitting it exactly as suggested. DMC will be heavily used with perhaps a few more expensive threads as I can afford them.

It’s midnight, so I need to get to bed. TUSAL tomorrow!

Category: Family & Friends, Stitching, WIP Progress Tags: chatelaine, floral bellpull, haed, stitcher's hideaway, teresa wentzler | 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. :)

March TUSAL & Thursday Thirteen

Author: Measi

• Thursday, March 03rd, 2011

My TUSAL jar is getting very colorful, thanks to a lot of retreat stitching last week at Stitcher’s Hideaway. Over 20 hours of stitching in two days alone! But actually, February was another successful stitching month. I managed nearly 90 hours again! Considering the issues that I’ve been wrestling with, that’s exceptionally good. I’m quite pleased with myself.

February’s orts came from several projects, which comprise my Thursday Thirteen this week.

Witches Wheel (Glendon Place)
Witchy Washy (Raise the Roof)
Noah’s Ark – Frog’s piece for the 2010 UFO Round Robin
Apache Wedding Blessing (Donna Kooler)- my piece for the upcoming 2011 UFO Round Robin
Muse of the Midnight Sun (HAED)
Noah’s Ark (Teresa Wentzler) – not the same piece as Frog’s!
Cats on a Staircase stocking (Bucilla/Donna Kooler)
Floral Bellpull (Teresa Wentzler)
Mom’s ornament from January – my orts were stashed in the bobbin box
Annette’s piece for the Mirabilia Round Robin
DMC labels for a number of different projects that I’m kitting up
Orts cleaned out from my sewing box
Orts cleaned out of my purse (hee)

For the non-stitchers reading this thread – what’s an ort? It stands for Old Ratty Thread, and usually is the excess tails from stitching once you don’t have enough thread left and need to bind it off. But it also can be threads that wind up getting picked out by mistake or threads that just look frayed or nasty.

And hey – fellow stitchers – check out my blogoversary giveaway (the next post down)!

Thanks for stopping by!

Category: Memes, SALs/Challenges, Stitching, Thursday 13 Tags: apache wedding blessing, donna kooler, noah's ark, teresa wentzler, tusal | 7 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

Busy, busy…

Author: Measi

• Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Haven’t posted in a couple weeks even though I’ve been meaning to. Nothing’s wrong – I’m just busy with a bunch of little things now that the new year has started.

Another birthday has come and gone – I’m 35. Oddly, this one does feel different, although I’m not quite sure how to describe it.

Work’s fine. The pace has been uneven, but that’s to be expected in the new year. I’m still stressed about the things that normally stress me, but overall… work’s just fine.

I started on some fanfic early in the month, but I’ve been distracted by all of the other stuff going on in my life. Erich has some gaming dates with the guys in the next few weeks, though – so I may reserve some of my time to just tinker. No idea where it will lead. I’m not putting any expectations on myself other than to scribble some scenes and see if anything takes me anywhere. I’m debating posting draft scenes under a friends’ lock on LiveJournal for feedback… any thoughts?

I’ve been doing a decent amount of stitching, too. As part of “Guilt Free January” over on The Wagon, I’ve started two pieces so far this month: Legends of the Dragons and Astrology Sampler. I’ll post pics this weekend on them. I’ve debated starting one more piece for Guilt Free January to throw some variety into my rotations the rest of this year… I’m mulling over starting Spring Queen by Mirabilia or Witchy Washy by Raise the Roof. Not sure yet… but I probably will get something else underway in the next week or so.

I haven’t, to my surprise, been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Erich tossed the Guild Leader tag on me earlier this month, and I need to start doing something to salvage the guild in some way. Not sure what yet – it will be a casual setup, but I need to get on the polls I took earlier this month.

That’s it for now – new work just came in, so I need to get offline.

Category: Birthdays/Anniversaries, Celebrations & Holidays, Fandom, Fanfic, Geeky Stuff, Life, Work, and all the Rest, Misc. Musings, Stitching, WIP Progress, World of Warcrack, Writing Tags: astrology sampler, legends of the dragons, teresa wentzler, witches stitches | Leave a Comment

Find Me On

WIPocalypse 2013

Who am I?

Email

Challenges & SAL’s

Memberships

Recent Posts

Archives

Pages

Dragons

Meta

Tag-Archive for ◊ teresa wentzler ◊