Tag-Archive for ◊ ufo rr ◊

Author: Measi

• Saturday, December 03rd, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

And here’s how it looks now:

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

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

Here’s how it went out:

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

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

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

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

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

Round Robin updates – my pieces :)

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

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

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

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

Susan added Royal Holiday:

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

I cannot wait to get her home!!

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

Here’s how it left…

And here’s how it looks now!

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

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

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

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

Oh god, the frogs…

Author: Measi

• Friday, September 16th, 2011

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

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

Yeah – apparently not for me this round.

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

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

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

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

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

*groan*

Out they came, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

Happy stitching, all!

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

IHSW Progress: The end of the 2010 UFO RR

Author: Measi

• Monday, August 22nd, 2011

I had a good weekend of stitching for the August edition of International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. My original plan was to finish my hours on both the 2010 and 2011 UFO Round Robins. Unfortunately some miscounting limited me to only one piece – I wound up with a slight case of the frogs. But I’m pleased. I finished my hours for the 2010 robin on time and got it mailed back home to Catherine. It feels great to have one of the three robins done and off my list!

For those unfamiliar with the piece, this is Angel of Spring by Lavender & Lace. I focused my hours on filling in the front of her gown – there were some odd gaps in the stitching, so I smoothed everything out and put both of the bright blue shadow folds into the front of her gown.

So on it goes home to Arizona.

The 2011 UFO Robin is also coming to a close soon. Originally I would have had one more round, but Blu, who I’ve sent to for that robin, received her piece back home last round all finished except for some beads, and she didn’t have another piece she really could send off for a round. So I’m wrapping up early! I’ve started my hours on Rachel’s piece already and should have no problem getting them finished by this weekend, when I can have it mailed off to Blu a full week before the mailing deadline.

And that will knock off my stitching obligations for two of three robins in a single week.

Seriously – I won’t know what to do with myself with all of this free time! I might… (gasp) actually make progress on my own pieces.

And Joysee, since I know you’ll be stopping by… yes, fifty people can still be hermiting. Doctor Who covered that a couple years ago:

Hermits United! (if the Imbed doesn’t show up)

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching Tags: ihsw, lavendar & lace, ufo rr | 12 Comments

Mirabilia RR – Round Four

Author: Measi

• Monday, August 08th, 2011

Several people are telling me I was way too critical about my stitching on Andie’s piece. What else is new, eh? I’m my own worst critic. But thank you to everyone who tried to get me to relax. I really, REALLY didn’t want to have to frog the entire blasted thing, especially when I discovered the error when literally all but the flower’s crosses were already in the piece.

Thankfully, Andie replied positively when I posted the photo, so now I’m fine. It’s her piece, after all – if she’s happy, I’m happy. (and hopefully one of these years will, in fact, learn to count). I will admit that once I actually got the beads on, especially the floating ones above her head, I did feel a lot better. It became a bit more balanced in the square. Who knows – maybe my mistake framing actually is better balanced than what the correct 50×50 frame may have been. :) What would have been there was a lot more of her left shoulder and part of her gown’s bodice. So… a lot more beads. The ones I had barely fit on her gown. I did have to tinker a bit to get them to fit.

The first photo is the entire piece after my round. (It will pop to the Flickr homepage if you want to see a larger version of it – just click on it.) Andie added her square before she mailed off. It’s hard to believe we’re halfway done with the robin now. Only three more stitching rounds, and they’ll be home before Christmas!

Here’s my square, my grumbling and humiliation now washed away (a bit, anyway). This is from Circle of Friends, which was the winning vote (by one!) on my blog a couple weeks ago:

She’s stitched with one modification – the falling rose on the left was moved up about a half-dozen stitches to balance the corner after my counting error. I added the beads back in that were cut off by my miscount on the top, and that definitely helped improve everything.

She’s safely arrived in Rachel’s hands, and I now have Sophia’s gorgeous shadowboxed Christmas Elegance in the queue to begin shortly. Annette has an entry with Sophia’s piece as it was sent to me. It’s a cool technique for a Mira, and someday I may do one of my own in this style.

My needle is busy this week on Catherine’s Angel of Spring by L&L. I’ve never stitched on a L&L piece before, so it’s a good intro to her patterns. I’m the last stitcher on this piece. The 2010 UFO RR is wrapping up later this month (with the exception of one piece that was delayed due to the Canada postal strike). I’m already planning my personal stitching for the rest of the year. I can’t wait to make some good progress!

Happy stitching everyone…

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching Tags: lavendar & lace, mira rr, mirabilia, ufo rr | 5 Comments

TUSAL, Goals, and the Giveaway…

Author: Measi

• Monday, August 01st, 2011

This weekend was a bit more random than expected, so I wasn’t able to prep names for my giveaway drawing. So… last chance to enter runs through tonight! I’ll do the drawing tomorrow, once I get a bit of insanity finished up elsewhere.

My TUSAL jar continues to fill nicely. It’s very lofty in there, but the threads are now touching the bottom of the neck of the jar now. It’s a mix of different colors from the recent robins, as has been the case so far this year. The robins start wrapping up for me this month, though, so my own projects will start peeking through starting in September. :) You may notice a huge hunk of green in the TUSAL jar. That would be due to Noby, the Bobbin Stalker. Noby looooves bobbins and shreds them. This green skein never stood a chance – he managed to swipe it when it was still in its DMC wrapper right out of the shopping bag when I took a break from winding to grab a pop from the fridge. *sigh*

I’ve spent the past week insane from some work unexpected (things are fine, just busy) and the Mira RR, which I’m due to send out tomorrow. I’ll be fine to get it out on time, although I’m a bit frustrated this round. The squares for Andie’s piece are 50×50. I apparently failed at math when I sketched my borders to pull my excerpt out of Circle of Friends, and counted it at 50 w by only 40 h. So she looks a whole lot more centered on my drawn square than she does in the stitched one. I was really, really pissed off about it yesterday when I discovered it – I was almost done with my crosses, and only noticed once I was putting the falling rose on near her head because it was blatantly NOT near the top corner as my sketched borders indicated. But with only essentially five to seven hours of stitching time until I had to mail, there just is no way to frog out ALL of my stitches and redo. I made a little adjustment with the rose that’s falling near her head and moved it up a few squares to balance the empty space, and I’m adding the beads back in that were cut off above her head by my borders, and I think she’ll be okay. If Andie’s not happy, though, I’ll be happy to frog and redo the square once everyone else has a crack at theirs. I tried emailing her yesterday about it, but the email bounced. I’ll try a Yuku PM later today.

Still, it was so deflating yesterday. She looks very pretty, but I’m just annoyed, thanks to the screaming inner perfectionist. I can’t believe I fail at math. And the kicker – I counted this thing three times! I have the erasing marks to prove it on my chart!

Ugh.

Anyway…

I didn’t make any goals for July, since I knew I was utterly, utterly screwed for time in stitching. The robins had backed up due to illness and insanity, and I had no idea how they were going to go. August, though, is looking much better.

For August, I want to…

Finish my Mira RR square for Andie and mail off on time.
Finish Arthenice’s piece for the 2010 RR and mail home
Finish my hours on Rachel’s piece for the 2011 RR and mail to Blu.
Have my Mira RR square for Sophia’s piece at least partially done by the beginning of Sept.
Get a few hours in on the surprise piece I’m stitching with Lisa
Update the Rhode Island Stitchers blog

I’m looking forward to the start of stitching my own pieces next month. I really am. And next month I’m going to get the page together for the 2012 WIPocalypse, I think – so the word can start spreading far and wide as early as possible. :) I’m thinking there is some giveaway potential with it (much as Daffycat’s doing with the TUSAL this year), and I’ve been chatting with some fellow stitchers on Google + about it, and I think I have an actual plan.

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Rotations & Goals, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: mira rr, tusal, ufo rr | 10 Comments

UFO Round Robin Update

Author: Measi

• Monday, July 25th, 2011

Welcome to all of my new followers! I’ve been skimming and adding folks as I’ve been able to. I’m looking forward to this weekend when I’ll have some free time to myself to read and comment. :)

This past week was a furious attempt to get my hours in on Tali’s piece. She sent Mirabilia’s Sleeping Beauty around, and I’ll admit – I fell in love with the piece simply from the color scheme. Purple and green together? YES PLEASE!

Here’s how I received it (ignore those four purple stitches and my needle… on the left):

And here’s how I mailed it off:

I didn’t get anywhere near as much done as I’d hoped to do, but still… progress is progress. I did probably about 12-14 hours of work to get this done.

Next up is more Mirabilia work – I need to wrap up my Mirabilia RR round for Andie‘s piece by next Monday. :)

I’m still taking names for my Summer Fun Giveaway – hop on over to this entry if you’d like to enter your name!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching Tags: mirabilia, ufo rr | 5 Comments

IHSW – Final recap

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

It wound up being a good weekend of stitching for me during International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. I pushed forward on Linda’s piece for the 2010 UFO RR and finished the area I wanted to complete. It’s now shipping off to Catherine in Arizona for its final round before heading home.

This scene was a pretty kit (Dimensions, I think) with lots of half and whole stitches. It was a fun stitch, even if it’s not quite my normal preferred image style.

I forgot to take a “before” photo on this one, but the area I worked was the left center portion – all of the houses and the grass and bushes underneath. The large trees on the top left were already there, as was the blue woman and the retaining wall to her left. It seemed like a perfect area to fill in to really make the piece look that much closer to home.

It’s amazing to me how filling all of the gaps in an area do that – just finishing a small area of form makes the entire piece feel that much more complete. In any case, this piece has definitely made an amazing journey during its time on the robin. When it started, there was only a small part of the horse completed in the center of the piece. Everything else has been added as it has traveled around (literally) the world. There is still quite a bit to do, but with all of the half-stitches involved, I imagine it will go pretty quickly. It’s stitched on Aida, so the work is pretty easy. I know a lot of people complain about Aida. While I normally stitch on linen and evenweave these days, I do enjoy stitching on Aida – sometimes it’s great to be able to not have to focus on where the heck the hole is.

This is the closeup of the area I did. It’s really not as many hours as I normally do on robins, but I’d fallen behind in mid-June due to some project insanity at work, didn’t do as much stitching during my vacation week, and now am scrambling a bit to catch up.

There is some backstitching left to do on the houses. That should make them pop out nicely. I did think the mix of whole and half stitches was a bit strange, but that’s a Dimensions piece for you. In the end, I’m sure the effect will look very good. It does from a distance, even without the backstitching definition.

Finishing Linda’s piece did take me a bit longer than expected, so I didn’t touch Tali’s gorgeous Sleeping Beauty piece (Mirabilia) for the 2011 UFO RR at all until last night. I adore the colors in it – so far a mix of light greens and purples with a smattering of blue. It’s probably another Mira I’m going to add to my lust pile. :) Pics of that one will go up this weekend when I finish my hours on it and send it along. It’s due to go out on Friday. I’m likely to keep it the weekend, since the robin’s a bit gummed up due to the recent Canada postal strike. Blu is just starting on last round’s piece anyway. So I’ll give it some proper attention on Saturday and Sunday and package it up for a Monday mailing.

In any case, I have X-Files and Dexter episodes to thank for most of my recent stitching mojo. :)

Although not part of the IHSW, I recently had Linda’s piece for the 2011 UFO RR, too. It’s now with Blu for a few weeks. I was pleased with what I completed on it.

This was my first experience with a Lanarte kit. I have to say – their patterns are incredibly easy to read. Nice and clear symbols on the chart itself. I completed the wing tip, wing spot, and a few of the light blue whispies on the upper right.

It surprises me a bit in the photo – most of my stitching (and others’) was done with one strand. It’s a lot brighter in this photo than I would expect with that coverage.

So all in all, it’s been a good few weeks of stitching. The IHSW definitely helped me get some stuff pushed through, and I’m feeling just about caught up again. :)

Tonight I’ll be posting my new giveaway, so stay tuned!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Stitching Tags: ufo rr | 13 Comments

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend Pt. 1

Author: Measi

• Sunday, July 17th, 2011

So far, it’s been a busy but fun weekend. Erich is working all weekend thanks to a huge personnel move to new quarters (hooray, OT!), so our schedules are a little weird.

Yesterday morning I had a great time stitching with the other members of the Rhode Island Stitchers group, including a couple of new women who I hope will return. The library is much quieter in the summer, but it’s been a boon to our group – we were sitting at only 4-6 members for quite a while, and the last three months have been great with upwards of 12-15 every time. It’s wonderful to see all of the different projects everyone’s working – we all have different interests and tastes, even though there’s also quite a bit of overlap.

Afterwards, I drove Matt to work at Battleground in Plainville. Since Erich and I had evening tickets for the final Harry Potter movie at Patriot’s Place in Foxboro, I decided to stay at the store and relax rather than drive back home. I’m about a week late in sending off Linda’s piece for the 2010 RR, and so I’m frantically trying to get the final stitches in before I mail off on Monday. Catherine, who I send to for this robin, has been out of state on vacation, and if I mail it to her on Monday, it should arrive shortly after she returns home. So really, it’s not a huge deal that I’m late, but it’s still annoying me.

Anyway, I got some good stitching in on the piece yesterday. I have perhaps another 100 stitches to go, and then I can package Linda’s up for the mail. Photos will come later today. :) I’m also going to get some work done on the 2011 round robin piece for Tali – which is Mirabilia’s Sleeping Beauty. That’s due to be mailed on Friday, and I think I’ll be in good shape to plunk my hours in before then.

Erich and I decided to treat ourselves to the fancy seats at the theater for Harry Potter. The Showcase cinema at Patriot Place has a Lux Level, which is a 21+ seating area with very comfy leather seats, in-seat dining and a full bar. The tickets themselves are a bit outrageous, but the food is priced reasonably – especially for a movie theater, and the drinks are good. The seats in particular are great – they’re wide (great for my plus-sized butt), with a small swing-arm table for your drinks and food, and there is a center elbow rest between each set of two seats that goes up, so Erich and I were able to cuddle on our own little loveseat in the theater. The only thing missing is an elevated foot rest.

The movie was… okay. I don’t know. My feelings on it are really mixed. I think if I’d never read the books, I’d be very pleased, but I admit to being disappointed. I don’t like all of the scene rewrites made for the movie (especially after part 1, where the movie did stick quite well to the book), and I felt the pace was really, really rushed for absolutely no reason. It’s the shortest Harry Potter movie, and frankly it shows – it felt flat and rushed and almost like a checklist of scenes with no depth in the vast majority of them. I haven’t liked Yates’ style since he took over the franchise – it’s really just a shame that he’s on record as stating he doesn’t like long movies – it’s pretty clear he’s more interested in time than quality. Huge plot holes everywhere, including items that WERE brought up in book one that just get erased in book 2. I expected to be emotional, as it’s a very emotional story. I was crying when I read the book. I just sat there in stunned silence during the latter half of the movie, and was honestly rather angry when I left, especially by the last ten minutes or so. Maybe that will change when I see parts 1 and 2 together – but yeah, I thought the final movie was such a huge letdown. It didn’t need to be – if it had actually stuck to the book, it would have been fantastic.

So today while Erich’s at work I’m doing some projects around the house. I’m about to get the first loads of laundry in. I have some cleaning to do, and then I’ll get to work on some stitching.

Hope you’re having a good weekend. Stay tuned for another entry this evening, including a new stitchy giveaway! :)

Category: Erich, Geeky Stuff, Stitching Tags: movies, ufo rr | One Comment

Catching up on things…

Author: Measi

• Wednesday, July 06th, 2011

Warning – really, really long rambly entry ahead…

I seriously can’t believe the year is half over already. Granted – 2011 has been a very bad one for me so far, and part of me is wishing it would move its butt out of the way so I can get to (hopefully) a brighter 2012, but at the same time, I feel like time is flying past me in a crazy, out-of-control sort of way that leaves me feeling like I need to get my own butt in gear and catch up.

I hope my fellow Americans had a relaxing, fun 4th of July – and that Canadian readers had a fun Canada Day. Ours was filled with activities over the weekend, but the 4th was intentionally quiet for us. Erich’s going to be working the majority of July on big projects for his company, and so his fun and relaxation was really the important thing, since he’s not going to have full weekends for many weeks.

We went to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday afternoon hosted by our friends Marc and Erin (and their adorable baby boy, Jack). It was a small affair with only six of us – honestly a perfect size. I brought my mom’s BBQ Beanpot recipe that is stupid easy and so, so good. I should post that tonight, actually…

On Sunday Erich and Matt went off to play a Star Wars d20 game with the guys (translation for the non-geek readers: think Dungeons & Dragons, but with the Star Wars universe as the setting), which means I had the house to myself for many, many hours. I spent virtually the entire day in my stitching chair working on round robin stitching and watching episodes of the X-Files that I hadn’t seen in years.

By Monday I’d developed a weird cough that had me feeling a bit off. We spent most of the day relaxing in the house due to the heat, nibbling on burgers and dogs all day, playing games and watching episodes of Dexter. The cats, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, had wonderfully lazy afternoons cuddling up together in our sunroom. At night our neighborhood exploded with fireworks, as they’re now legal here in Rhode Island, and we watched our next door neighbor’s rather impressive display. The bugs finally drove us inside. The night ended with a slight scramble when I heard a HUGE buzzing near our family room light. I thought it might be one of those big bumblebees that I refer to as “drunken bumbles” because they seem to crash into everything. Anyway… the bug was bouncing furiously around the light, then careened under the dining room table, where I managed to get to it before Noby and Gus did anything to it. It turned out to be a Junebug. It was promptly scooped up and dumped outside.

My cough then decided it really wanted to make me miserable by preventing me from getting any form of sleep that night, so yesterday’s return to work was impressively zombified. I couldn’t tell you what I actually did yesterday, but apparently I did do quite a bit because I have several “finished” checkmarks in my planner list. All I know is that I crawled into bed promptly upon arriving home last night in the 7 pm hour, napped fitfully until after midnight, when Erich found some nighttime cold meds, was up from about 12:30-2 am, took the nighttime meds once my previous round had “expired,” and those finally conked me out for the rest of the night.

I’m feeling a bit better today, although I’m a bit out of it from the weird sleep schedule last night. The cough is still here, although not as bad as yesterday. I have no other symptoms, which is very, very weird. Allergies, perhaps? Or maybe a cold that’s so light that I don’t notice it over my normal allergies? Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.

In other news, I keep watching what’s happening at home and groaning. Montana is not having a good year. In early June, they had massive storms that flooded virtually every river in the state. The larger problem was that it had been so cold this spring that most of the snowpack was still there – and now it’s melting off, keeping the floodwaters active. And then on Friday, an oil pipeline near the refinery in Laurel (about 16 miles up river from my hometown of Billings) ruptured, sending oil down the Yellowstone River for upwards of – at last check – 125 miles. They’re now testing soil in North Dakota, fearing that the oil could reach where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri. Seriously, it’s like they can’t win recently. Last year, a tornado took out METRA (aka Rimrock Auto Park Arena, as I think it’s lamely named now), which is the state’s largest indoor arena. And now all of this. It’s just a horrid turn of events in a state that was already poorer than most of the country. *sigh*

Anyway. God, this is becoming a depressing entry, isn’t it? It’s not intentional – blame it on my weird cough. Onward to happier things!

It’s July, which means that there are some lovely stitchers doing midsummer giveaways.

Parsley has a fabulous Christmas in July giveaway full of ornament stitching goodness.

Debbie is giving away an amazing die-cutter machine that’s great for quilters and crafty finishers alike. I haven’t joined this one because I know I don’t have the time for another hobby, but still – this machine looks awesome.

I’m itching to do a new giveaway soon. Maybe I’ll put something together on my next wandering up to the stitchy store.

If you haven’t yet, please pop back two entries and give me opinions on what I should stitch for the next square in the Mirabilia round robin!

Category: Celebrations & Holidays, Dungeons, Dragons & Dice, Erich, Exchanges & Robins, Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, Life, Work, and all the Rest, News & Politics, Stitching Tags: giveaways, holidays, montana, ufo rr | Leave a Comment

Round Robin Updates

Author: Measi

• Friday, June 24th, 2011

Lisa's UFO RR - as completed June 3

I’ve had a relaxing vacation week so far, filled with a lot of stitching (whee… delayed International Hermit and Stitch Weekend!) because I needed to catch up on robins after a rather insane few weeks of work. It seems that most of the others in my robins are having the same issues these days, so I don’t feel quite so bad for being a bit late in sending.

The biggest issue with the robins right now is that Canada’s Postal strike is preventing rounds from completing – and that’ll require a little more tracking work than usual to make sure all of the pieces are accounted for. Thankfully the pieces affected in the two UFO RR’s are safe with stitchers on one end or the other. Nothing is currently floating in the ether that are the US or Canadian postal services. The paused rounds will get sorted out somehow. The most important thing is that the pieces are safe and accounted for.

It’s also been a while since I’ve done some robin updating. I’ve managed to stitch quite a bit the last few weeks, even if it’s been a bit more sporadic than I’m used to. So this will be a bit picture heavy.

First up is Lisa’s Geisha for the 2010 UFO RR. I focused on the lower right portion of the kimono and stitched all of the purple and black colors you see under the stream on the right. This piece is very pretty with great, vibrant colors that I don’t usually use – the detail in the face in particular strikes me. I’m looking forward to seeing this one complete one day (no pressure, Lisa!) It reminds me a bit of the samurai piece I stitched on a few years ago in a RR. I know they’re both dimension pieces, but I don’t think they’re meant to be complementing pieces – the dimensions of them are quite different.

My square for Susan's Mira RR - June 2011

Square for Susan's Mira - 6/23/11

Next up is the Mirabilia Round Robin. I had Susan’s piece this round, and she designed hers to be an “open” piece – each person gets to pick the piece they’ll stitch and which square to put it in. By chance, the squares so far on Susan’s piece were theming a bit toward the children… and since they’re not as common for the robins, I thought I’d look along those lines. The two pieces I was trying to decide between were Under the Friendship Tree and Touching the Autumn Sky. I left it up to a vote between a few people because I literally could not decide between them, and Friendship Tree won. I was a bit worried with my framing at first, but now that she’s done, I’m very pleased. She turned out great – and I may have to add the full piece to my to-do list. This is the piece I actually worked on for IHSW this week. I did most of the stitching this week – I think I only had the lower ribbons and her dress bodice done on Sunday when I picked her up.

The third UFO RR piece (for the 2011 RR) is Linda’s, but because it’s stalled here before mailing on to Blu in Canada, I’m still tinkering with it a bit and will continue to until Canada’s mail strike is sorted and I need to finally package it up to mail. I’ll get a photo up once I actually mail it. The piece is Butterfly Fairy at Rest from Lanarte. I’m working the right wing – it’s a pretty mix of blues and browns, and I’ve made some good progress mapping out it out so far. Now I’m just filling in color change spaces. Truth be told, I’m relieved I have some extra time on her – I’d really like to fill in the area completely that I focused on. It drives me a bit nuts when I just run out of time on robins. I set my robin goals more on an area than actual time, so when it leaves unfinished I feel like I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to do.

My Mira after three rounds

Sophia was kind enough to post the progress on my Mirabilia RR after the third round. She chose to do the Winter Queen (top left corner). Isn’t she gorgeous? The whole piece is looking amazing so far – I cannot wait to get it home and get it framed! And the amount of shiny on this thing already is astounding – there are still five more profiles to be added! Andie now has it, and I already know what she’s stitching… but that surprise (and where she places) will come when I receive the next update.

So now the robins are moving again (mostly). Up next are Andie’s Mira RR, Linda’s other RR piece for the 2010 robin, which is a pretty English countryside scene, and Tali’s Sleeping Beauty by Mirabilia. It’s going to be a very fun round!
Thanks for stopping by!

Category: Exchanges & Robins, Finishes, Stitching Tags: mira rr, mirabilia, ufo rr | 6 Comments

Monthly Stitching Goals – June edition

Author: Measi

• Friday, June 03rd, 2011

This year is flying!

For May, I wanted to:

Finish Kathy’s Mirabilia square - Done!
Stitch five hours on Floral Bellpull - Didn’t even touch it.
Stitch five hours on BoInk - Done!
Finish and mail the Folk Egg and gifties to Line - Done!
Put at least 10 hours into each UFO RR - Done!
Put five hours into the “Super Sekrit Stitch” project. - Didn’t even touch it.

For June, I’d like to…

Finish my hours on Linda’s RR piece
Finish Susan’s Mira RR square
Stitch five hours on Floral Bellpull
Stitch five hours on BoInk
Finish one of the little squares on the “Super Sekrit Stitch” project

As always, I set my goals probably a bit higher than I should. But I think that just keeps me motivated, even if I do a little bitching along the way.

There’s another RR I’ll receive in June (Linda’s piece for the other RR), but it’s not due to get mailed until after the 4th of July weekend. I imagine I may be holding it until then to stitch at this point.

Tomorrow is looking like a fun-filled day. I’m heading up to Bush Mountain Stitchery with Hera after we get our nails done. I need to get supplies for my Mira RR square. She needs some fabric for a new project (which Bush Mountain has a ton of to choose from). I’ll be attempting to not spend too much money on other things while I’m there – it’s a huge challenge! Erich may or may not join us. I’m hoping he does – partially to keep me out of trouble, but partially because I think he’ll enjoy the back road drive through Massachusetts. It’s a decently long trip for us – about two hours each way.

And then tomorrow night – hockey! Hopefully the Bruins will tie the series up. I’ll be working on BoInk during the game, since it doesn’t require color changes. :)

Happy Friday, all!

Category: Rotations & Goals, Stitching, Wanderlust Tags: boink, mira rr, stashing, ufo rr | One Comment

Round Robin updates

Author: Measi

• Sunday, April 24th, 2011

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a lovely holiday. Erich and I had a quiet Sunday, mostly spent at home. The weather was gorgeous for most of the day. More on what we did late in the afternoon in a bit though…

I updated my status on Rachel’s round robin earlier this week. Kris’ piece for the 2011 edition of the UFO round robin is now ready to travel again. :) This piece is quite busy, but it has adorable colors in it – and was a perfect springtime stitch. It’s the Spring Sampler from Kooler Design studios. When Kris sent it, she’d just started it:

And here’s how it’s being sent to Blu tomorrow:

I got to cross stitch a peep! The little spots are jelly beans. Once there’s some backstitching in here, it’s really going pop. :)

My next project is the Mirabilia RR, which I have a comfortable start on. Hopefully I’ll have it done by the weekend, although this is my busiest week of the year at work, so I may not get it done until next week. Regardless – it’s my go-everywhere piece until it’s done!

So early this afternoon, I got our laundry done and finished my hours on Kris’ piece. Erich was playing Dead Space 2 on the Xbox. I swear half of my stitching is done to the sounds of violence in some form. It’s really odd. But anyway… it was absolutely gorgeous outside, and I told Erich that as soon as the laundry was done, I really wanted to go somewhere so we could enjoy the day a bit (mostly so we didn’t spend the entire weekend in front of the TV). Saturday had been a wash-out, and I definitely had a case of cabin fever.

We headed out around 3 to head up to Battleground. Matt was working today, and he had told us he was pretty sure it would be dead due to the holiday. We figured we’d take advantage of the quiet time to geek with him. I’ve been itching to do some Warhammer painting, but it’s not really something I can do easily here at home – so it’s really a Battleground-specific project.

We headed north, and pop! goes Erich’s left front tire about 4 miles from home in Pawtucket. Now… this was not unexpected. When Erich had the massive car repair last month, we were told that there was a bubble on his tire and that the rim looked cracked. Thankfully it happened in such a way that Erich was able to maintain control easily and pull over – and into a relatively good location to swap out the tire. Donut was switched out on the axle, and we continued on our way. I’m very happy that this didn’t happen during a commute or during bad weather, though!

We got up to Battleground, and found only my car in the parking lot (Matt’s been driving it lately). For the next hour or so, the three of us were the only ones at the store. All of the doors were open, giving the place a nice, fresh breeze. It was great. I got to work painting. Erich decided he wasn’t in the mood and curled up with a good game of Civilization 4.

About three hours later, I’d put some serious work into my figurines, and managed to finish my first two:

Erich put these two together and primed them, but I did all of the painting, very slowly by hand. For perspective, the taller one is probably about 3 inches tall. The smaller one is, obviously, half that. So the details on these things are insanely tiny. My painting skill is not great, but I’d say they’re pretty good for my first model finishes ever! (now I just have about 50 more to do…)

I know they’re not exactly the girliest thing out there. I do have a batch of completely over the top girly ones in store – intentionally so to annoy all of the guys.

For those who aren’t familiar with these figurines, they’re Orks (yes… spelled that way) from a tabletop game called Warhammer 40K. It’s a futuristic war strategy game where players battle each other with squads of different races of figures. Different types of figures are worth different point totals and have different abilities. It’s quite complex. I haven’t played yet beyond an intro game, but I wanted to try my hand at creating the figures. :)

So overall, a very productive crafty weekend here!

Category: Celebrations & Holidays, Erich, Exchanges & Robins, Family & Friends, Geeky Stuff, Stitching Tags: ufo rr, warhammer, weekend | 10 Comments

Stitching Hermits United…

Author: Measi

• Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

This weekend was International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, hosted by Joysze. I took full advantage of it, thanks to the three day weekend we had due to Patriots Day on Monday. Lots of round robin stitching to do – and the first priority was to get my final hours on Rachel’s HAED complete, since it was due to be mailed yesterday.

The photo to the right is where I ended up yesterday. I’m not thrilled with what I got done, but the color changes really slowed me down this round. Ah well – progress is progress!

Unfortunately, my hours for Rachel’s piece took up my weekend – I’d planned on putting some time in a couple other things, but that’s now shifted to tonight through Friday.

Next up is the final few hours on Kris’ piece – I want to get that mailed off to Blu by Friday to allow for the extra shipping time needed. And then I’ll get my square for the Mira RR finished. I’ve already made a good start on it, so hopefully I can have the stitches done by the end of the weekend.

On Saturday, I had to do a stash run for beads and metallics for the Mira RR. Erich was hosting a Dungeons & Dragons game at the house starting at 10 am, so I got up bright and early and headed up to Bush Mountain Stitchery in Ware, Mass. It’s about a 2 hour drive from me, but it’s a pretty route and after an extremely difficult, emotional week, I definitely needed the drive alone in my car to do some thinking.

It started as a sunny spring morning, complete with a pack of wild turkeys popping across the road in front of me as I wound through the woods at 50 mph – I now know my car has fantastic brakes. Thank goodness the roads weren’t slippery.

I spent a couple hours at the store, buying the materials I needed and doing a little wandering. I picked up three charts – Salem Remembered from the Primitive Needle, Official Crazy Cat Lady from Raise the Roof, and Ye Olde Coffee House from Little House Needleworks. Bush Mountain carries full lines of DMC, Anchor, Finca/Presencia, and Sullivans, so I decided I’d do a little experimenting. I kitted out the Little House pattern with Sullivans to see how it stitches up. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but the shop owner at Bush Mountain likes it and says the coverage is good with the Sullivans – and that it doesn’t tangle as badly. I am intrigued.

I mean, I’ve always stitched with DMC. It’s what I’m comfortable with simply because I’m familiar with it. But I’m not devoted to the brand, particularly if another brand fits my stitching style better. To me, floss is floss – just like with fabric, different projects may be better with different materials. I’m not someone who is devoted to a brand – I’ll just use what I feel is best at the time to get the effect that I want.

Anyway, after I left the store I decided to wander a bit further out Route 9 to see what was there, mostly in hopes of finding something for lunch… and yeah, there’s nothing really. I finally gave up at the McDonalds in Belchertown. I headed south from there, past the Pike (I-90), and then took US-20 most of the way back home, since it’s a road I’m very familiar with thanks to the Brimfield Show. It’s so eerie to see the show fields completely empty when I’m used to seeing them in complete chaos for the May show.

So I got a good day of wanderlust in. A little shopping, a nice amount of wandering that took me in a huge circle of western Massachusetts, and a lot of time to myself to think. The thinking is continuing.

And so’s the stitching. :)

Category: Exchanges & Robins, New England, Stitching, Travels, Wanderlust Tags: haed, ihsw, mira rr, ufo rr | 5 Comments

TUSAL Update – April

Author: Measi

• Sunday, April 03rd, 2011

It’s the new moon already? This year is flying by, isn’t it? We’re already a quarter of the way through! The new moon marks TUSAL update time, so here’s my jar. It’s been getting a nice mix of springy threads, thanks to the Folk Egg I’ve been stitching up for my Blogoversary giveaway. Other threads in there are a mix of Mirabilia RR threads and various UFO RR threads. Today I’m adding in some pretty blues, as I’m working on Rachel‘s UFO piece, Wizard of Oz from HAED.

My threads almost hit the neck of the jar now, but to be fair there’s a large pile of DMC wrappers at the bottom, so the threads probably only take up about half of the jar – and they’re quite lofty still. I may dump the DMC wrappers out of there. I don’t particularly like how they look in the jar. I think just a pile of different threads will eventually make a far nicer look in there. Maybe I’m just being too picky though!

April is going to be an odd stitching month for me. I have big deadlines looming at work with one of our largest clients renewing their insurance on May 1st. The last week of April and first week of May are going to be a bit… creative… so no Celebrations of Needlework for me this year (I’ve really wanted to go for years – Lisa will have to scope out the place for anything I absolutely cannot live without!) I’m most likely working fully through one of two weekends. I’m probably going to be cranking some overtime. I think I’ll be carrying pieces with me wherever I go in case I get five or ten minutes to stitch here and there.

Things I absolutely need to stitch on this month are as follows:

Rachel’s aforementioned UFO RR piece for the 2010 edition
Kris’ UFO RR piece for the 2011 edition, a Donna Kooler seasonal sampler
Kathy’s Mirabilia RR square (fairy theme)
Folk Egg – finish up so I can mail to my winner, Line.
Another piece in my possession that is for an exchange (secret partner thing, so shhhh…)

Needless to say, lots of variety of pieces, and I’ll have some lovely threads adding to the jar next year!

Thanks for stopping by – please drop me a hello and I’ll pop by your blog as well this month!

A personal request for my blog, BTW… if anyone else is using a self-hosted WordPress blog and has the Google Friend Connect running, can you contact me? I have tried several times to get the blasted thing going, and it simply will. not. work.

Category: Exchanges & Robins, SALs/Challenges, Stitching Tags: mira rr, ornaments, tusal, ufo rr | 3 Comments

Find Me On

WIPocalypse 2013

Who am I?

Email

Challenges & SAL’s

Memberships

Recent Posts

Archives

Pages

Dragons

Meta

Tag-Archive for ◊ ufo rr ◊