Apologies for being nearly a week late for this check-in. My family and I were away at a convention last weekend, and I didn’t have the expected connection on Sunday morning at the hotel – which I found odd considering it was a video gaming convention. But anyway… by time we got home Sunday evening, I was feeling pretty poorly… and then work just took over the week while I battled whatever stomach bug I was dealing with.
Still feeling a little worn down, but I’m doing better. Trying to catch up on a bit of bloggy stuff this weekend! 🙂
If you participated, how did you do on the one-month challenge? I got quite a few stitches in, but wasn’t able to stitch every single day. I got… 17 days in. I’m pleased with that. My normal spring rush at work started earlier than expected and took me by surprise this past month, so getting any stitching in was a bit of a miracle, honestly. Every stitch counts, after all!
Spring is slowly beginning to blossom here in New England. April is starting with showers and mild weather, and the daffodils and crocus flowers are opening everywhere. I’m hoping for some mild days later this month where I can enjoy stitching out on my patio outdoors. I may be a little too optimistic with that, though. We shall see!
Have a lovely April with your stitching… I’ll see you later this month!
Best, Mel.
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Important SAL Announcements…
Question of the Month:Â Tell us about your favorite places to buy stitching supplies.
Next posting date:Â April 23, 2023
Topic(s) for next time:Â Give us five projects in your stash right now that you’d really love to start – and why you haven’t yet.
Need all the basic info about the SAL? Go here for all details for 2023!
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Please remember that this stitch-a-long is intended to be fun – so if you’re too busy to post, too busy/ill/etc. to stitch – no worries! Post when you can and share what you have going, even if you’ve only been able to toss a single stitch into it. If you miss a few months, not a problem – just jump back in when you’re back with us! It’s not a race or a competition – we’re all just here to cheer each other on with our progress.
My final WIPGO piece for March was started last year on October 5th for the #13StitchesofHalloween Stitch-a-Long (SAL). It had been an individual SAL the year before with mystery releases, but I decided to just collect the charts and stitch on my own time.
Halloween Candlesticks SAL, designed by Jenny Barton for Lakeside Needlecrafts. (bad angle is my fault)
This piece is a little cutsey for my normal stitching taste, but sometimes… you just need to embrace the cute. I saw someone’s piece as they started the first candlestick, and just loved the backstitching detail on it against this fabric. Once the animals at the bottom were revealed, I was sold.
Halloween Candlestick as of March 1, 2023, stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct Pumpkin evenweave from Fabric Flair with charted DMC.
Such an amazing start, eh? I’m sure it was one of those nights where I was running late but needed to get SOMETHING started for the day… so I tossed in a couple dozen stitches and called it a day. The fabric is very hard to photograph, but the photo above of the finished piece is pretty accurate to the color. My piece is nowhere near as dramatic as it’s appearing in the photo. What appears as white is definitely more peach.
Anyone who knows me and my stitching probably picked up on the center gridline. I don’t grid very often, but I was having a heck of a time counting to the center on my own due to the mystery nature of this SAL and how the sections reveal themselves. The grid is just a basic ten by ten square count across the page. I did the long way first by folding the fabric in half, started the line where my fold was, and carried it across. I then used that count to find the center and place the vertical line. Once I get that center candlestick a bit more solidified, I’ll be pulling my gridlines because they tend to drive me a little nuts. Some stitchers swear by them, but I always find myself fighting them.
I have no specific timeline for finishing this piece – it’ll likely just be a seasonal piece until it’s done. Expect it to come back out for October as part of my #13Stitches stash. 🙂
Continuing my March WIPGO pulls… this week brings me to Celestial Medley from Sudberry House. This leaflet has three small celestial patterns, but the only one I’m stitching is the one called Celestial Shaker Box. All three were designed by Donna Vermillion Giampa. This is an older leaflet, from 1997.
Celestial Shaker Box from leaflet cover
I adopted this piece alongside several others in 2017. It was partially stitched, and I’ve added on about the same amount as what was originally completed when I received it. It’s on white 28 count evenweave – a really nice thick evenweave – and stitched with the charted colors.
Here’s where it starts for March:
Celestial Medley (Shaker Box) as of March 1, 2023. Stitched 2 threads over 2 on 28 ct white evenweave with charted DMC.
Most of my work to date has been in yellow, so I’m going to mix it up and work on that blowing cloud in the upper right. I don’t expect to complete this piece this year. Despite its smaller size, it’s a slow stitch with a ton of confetti, it’s solidly stitched, and the pattern isn’t the easiest to read due to age. When I do finish it, I definitely plan on making it a top of something – but the shaker box it’s featured on in the photo is away outside of my pricing range. I’m thinking maybe one of those metal cookie tins, if the sizing is right. It could make for a handy little doodads box for my altar accessories.
Anyone who knows me well, whether in stitching or just in general, knows my love of Dragons and all things fantasy. One of my very first attempted pieces was Teresa Wentzler’s Castle, after all! On the less blended version of dragons of the same era, there were the adorable chubby little dragons by Jennifer Aikman-Smith, designing under the name Dragon Dreams.
Snowball Fight by Dragon Dreams, featured in Stitchers World magazine in January 2002.
Snowball Fight is a project I adopted many years ago, long before my accurate record-keeping about my projects. My first photo of it is back in 2012, so I’m going to assume I adopted it a couple years before that. Sadly I don’t remember who I adopted it from. (sorry about that!)
Regardless of the actual date – it’s definitely an older piece in my stash, and it really doesn’t need to be. It’s not that big. Like so much of my stitching… momentum just kinda died for a while with motherhood. But that’s the beauty of stitching. It can be picked back up at any time.
The version of the piece that I adopted is on a piece of 28 ct evenweave. It’s not exactly the color that I would have chosen as a fresh start… I probably would have done something closer to the original blue you see above. But I picture the background color in the version I’m stitching as the inside – or a rock wall near – a dragon’s cave. It’s a couple of dragon kids playing in the snow, as all kids in colder climates love to do. Who knows if Momma Dragon was making sure they stayed close to home and took this “photograph” against the rocky cliff?
Snowball Fight by Dragon Dreams as of March 1, 2023 – stitched 2 over 2 on unknown 28 ct evenweave with charted DMC. (White streak on the fabric is sunlight, not actually part of the fabric dye).
The last time I worked on this, I got most of the work you see here done on the right-hand dragon. It’s a decently quick stitch with a mix of DMC, satin thread (for the tail) and some fluffy red whisper thread for upcoming scarves, which I’ll do last. This is a possible finish for this year. I’m probably about 2/3rds done at this point. I’ll have to see where I’m at after a couple nights of focus on it – probably this upcoming weekend!
What a crazy month! I felt like I was just running crazy all of February and just in a funk. Maybe it was delayed emotion from January’s losses of Carol and Noby, I don’t know. But I just was a big ball of crabby for the better part of the month. I finally took a week off from work President’s Day week since it was also school vacation week here in Rhode Island. That definitely helped a bit. I could have used another week, though. but I have a couple more vacation days to enjoy with Erich and Max at the PaxEast gaming convention later this month.
I don’t know – I’m just a little mentally off. (sigh) Hopefully I shake it soon. I’ve been wanting to do a FlossTube video too… but haven’t been able to since early December due to various illness rounds and rough voices. Maybe I’ll try to get something filmed later today.
Stitching-wise, February was a good month. I finished my WIPGO goals – two days each on Fruits of Plenty, Deep Blue Sea, Bayun Cat, and Dear Rine. I’d hoped to fully finish one of my smalls, but didn’t. But I did get some progress made on some other stitching I was itching to do. The “Stitch What You Want When You Want” philosophy is a good one. 🙂
Onto the stitchy updates…
I spent a good portion of the month focused on The Fruits of Plenty. I really wanted to get the original February portion done. Didn’t quite get there, but I made a lot of progress and I’m very happy. I’m taking a break from it this month to focus on another piece, but I’ll be picking it back up in April.
Fruits of Plenty by Modern Folk Embroidery as of February 13, 2023 – stitched 1 thread over 2 on 40 ct Antique Ivory linen from Silkweaver in DMC.
I did wind up having to do some frogging on Fruits to start the month – my original heart outline was miscounted. I discovered it as I started to do the blue fill-in pattern… and then discovered it was STILL off as I finished the fill pattern- but it’s even. So I just made a quick adjustment to my fill-in. It won’t affect anything else. And now my “mistake on every piece” record continues to be 100%. 🙂
Of all of the pieces I worked in February, Bayun Cat was the one that I feel most satisfied with. It just moved along, and I feel like I have a good placement of the center of the piece now – the rest should flow nicely.
Bayun Cat by Owl Forest Embroidery as of March 1, 2023 – Stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct Belfast linen provided in kit.
Bayun is tricky to photograph – my camera tends to really wash it out. I had to over-saturate the photo a bit to really get the true color of how pretty and variegated those yellow and orange flosses are. I love the little houses that the cat is curled around. 🙂
Dear Rine got two days worth of stitching for WIPGO, but I confess that I’m just not really feeling this one right now. I managed to get a full circle and a portion done. So… yeah, not a lot. But that’s ok. That’s my whole goal with WIPGO – to just get something into these WIPs. Even if it’s a few stitches. My mood will likely change at some point and then I’ll get into a zone with this one and plug ahead.
Dear Rine 2017 (Dierencirkels) by Rine Oddens as of March 1, 2023. Stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct Poltergeist lugana from Silkweaver with DMC.
I’m working on circles to see what I’m going to be able to fit from the original pattern since my fabric is a different shape than what’s called for. I think I’m going to end up 4 circles short of the full pattern – I think I’ll manage to fit 45 comfortably – 5 rows of 9. Then I just have to decide which of the circles I’m not as interested in stitching. The geometrics I can eliminate easily. It’s the animals that are harder!
The final WIPGO piece of the month I worked on was Deep Blue Sea, and my goodness I struggled! I was fighting the fabric, I was fighting my chart. UGH. I think it’s honestly just because I find the Chatelaine charts a little hard to wrangle. It’s like working on a Wentzler in a way – a lot more concentration is needed to get stuff done.
Deep Blue Sea (Mystery XV) by Chatelaine. Stitched per charted on 28 ct Phantom linen by Picture This Plus in customized mix of silks and cotton threads.
Once I figured out what the heck I was doing, I did manage to move through another quarter of the coral in section 3, though. I’ve left this on my Lowery frame for now. I forgot to finish a little bit of the coral in the top center section. I’d also like to get the straight band stripe done on the left before I put it away to rest for a bit. Depending on how this year continues to go… this may be my focus piece during the summer. It’s one that I really do just need to settle in with for a while to get into the right mindset. Once I do that, progress comes pretty decently.
So that was all of the WIPGO stitching for the month. Goals accomplished – yay! Then it was time to settle into whatever else I felt like working on while I was away for a couple nights with friends. Normally I attend Stitcher’s Hideaway in February. This year I was a bit tight on funds due to cats and kids and all sorts of things, BUT… my friend Christine and I had already reserved our room at the end of the retreat last year outside of the block rate. So I decided to still go up to the hotel to get away, stitch, and just have a mental health retreat to try to shake this funk. It kinda helped, it kinda didn’t. A little drama there… but it’s over and done. Overall, I had a nice time. It was good to spend time with Christine and one of our other friends, Val, who I only get to see a couple times per year due to distance. I do think like with so many other things post-Covid, stitching retreat life is starting to change direction a bit. We’ll see where it leads.
I did a slight bit of stitching on I Love New England, but forgot to photograph a before photo. It wasn’t anything exciting though – about 300 stitches on the border in a straight line. That’s coming up for WIPGO for March, though – and is my focus piece for the month. So I’ll do before and after photos on that for March.
I set a goal for myself to finish the tree limbs in my Temperature Tree for 2021 so I can finally get the leaves on there and finish it. I’m happy to have completed that goal in February!
Temperature Tree by Stitchin’ Mommy as of February 25, 2023 – stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct. Dreamin’ Lugana from Silkweaver with DMC 839.
Now I have twelve limbs ready for daily leaves. I have the temperature records written down through the end of October for that year. Just need to get the rest of the year written down, and I can start patching in leaves! The heart gap on the trunk is my own custom addition – I’ll scratch my initials and the year in there. It just felt… right. One of my friends suggested stitching this year’s leaves in there, but I have other temperature charts selected for 2022 and 2023. I don’t mind having it backdated. I’m taking a one-month break for this one, and then I’m going to start plugging the leaves in. This will be a definite finish for this year – likely sometime this summer. I can’t wait to see all of the colors blossom!
Finally, I started one of the other temperature charts I just mentioned. This one’s for 2022. It’s called Temperature Drink Shelf from Kristi DiClemente (KristisCornerNeedle on Etsy)
I will be changing the top “Grab Yo Drank” to “Na Zdrowie” since I come from a good Polish heritage family. I’m going to use the same threads and color chart for this one as I am for the tree for 2021. Here’s my very little start on it:
Temperature Drink Shelf by Kristi DiClemente started on February 25, 2023. Stitched 2 threads over 2 on 32 ct Sea of Fog evenweave by Fortnight Fabrics with charted DMC.
I’m stitching the glasses as I go along that shelf partially to help with the counting. It’s a looooong shelf. Like… 180 stitches long. But once I have one in, it’ll be much easier for the rest of the months!
And that’s the insanity for February. Lots of stuff worked on! Every stitch counts… 🙂
