ISHW end report & a finish

 

So as it happens I didn't post on Monday about what I did during the IHSW nor on Tuesday - but today I am so all is good in the world again! What I didn't do was add more beads to Wolf. I also didn't finish the Dylon project nor did I do a single stitch on the tiny I have going. So far all we have is a lot of stuff I didn't do however I did do something else! I designed a new pattern while chatting with Carla in her hangout on Saturday, then I stitched it while talking with her and later with my bf on Skype and I completed it while again chatting with Carla in the hangout! Quite a productive series of person to person chats I have to say and I'm very pleased with the results.

It's made entirely with materials I had to hand as the shops were closed so I was unable to do any shopping. I used mostly DMC variegated threads as they are more natural for flowers and stems. The tall stems of flowers each use a different colour of thread to add even more variation. I have some Kreinik Silk Mori Milkpaint 0416 in my stash and decided to try that out - it's the darker green thread for the flowers at the bottom. Last of all I used some Kreinik blending filament 085 peacock to make some back stitch butterflies.

I used a bit of 18ct white Aida left over from another project. I used some wheat Hoffmans Bali batik for the inner cover and 2 pieces of wool fabric I have had for many years - they came in one of the Moda fabric tins many moons ago. The button I found in a basket while looking for something else and thought it was a nice shiny blue that would suit the embroidery. I included a layer of thin cotton batting to give the cover some oompf

Top view where you can see that the 4 pages of the book completely fill the spine.

Side view: Unfortunately the light is gone so I can't re-take this photo as it doesn't actually have this squished together look when it's laid flat, it's just that I forgot to adjust it a bit before taking the photo.

Open - the numbers on the pages are the number of the needle size so I know which is which, added with felt tip pen so probably not the best method.

If all goes to plan I shall be posting the pattern of this on Friday.

Oh btw - for those of you who know Carla but have lost her, it's because the name changed on her blog and Blogger now thinks it was deleted (instead of being clever and redirecting people to the correct place), the right place is here: Alaska Wolf Pack. Please adjust any bookmarks, buttons to her misc projects etc if you haven't already, Thank you!

IHSW & TUSAL

It's been a while since I last did a IHSW post, not really sure why - it's just not happened. If you are wondering what IHSW is just click the button above and you will find out all - and hopefully join in too! This weekend I plan on having some fun with Dylon paints and some fabric and thread as well as complete a tiny I'm working on and maybe also add some more beads to Celtic Wolf. The last time anyone saw Celtic Wolf he looked like this:

The whole bit of unstitched grey is to be covered in beads - if I stitched it, it would be over 4500 stitches but it will be a lot less beads hopefully!

I shall return with a report of what I've done over the weekend on Monday.


Now it's time for the TUSAL part of this post. Please click the button above to find out more - it will explain all about this slightly mad but ever so fun SAL.

I've been a busy bee the past month working very hard on Celtic Wolf - most of the shiny thread you can see in my jar is from him, as well as the darker reds, blues and greens. I took some time out from him to work on my Ornament of the Month, which added some lighter blues to the jar.

This is, for those that don't read my blog often, a SAL I host over on another site: Nerd Central Command International Headquarters - or NCCIH for short, which is also slightly less of a mouthful. Click the button to the left to be taken to the first 3 free patterns.


After I'd completed the cross stitch of Celtic Wolf I started the beading, which I can only do in daylight due to the sparkly nature of the beads and my eyesight, so I started stitching some other things in the evenings. Initially I made a new fob which is the first of my new Fob a Month series of free patterns that I host on this blog: A Fob a Month, which added a lot of bright colours to the top of my jar.

Right at the very top are the threads of the Sophie Card kit that I am stitching right now - it's almost finished as I only need to complete the back stitching and then decide which clothes I want to add.

So all in all a very productive TUSAL month! On the less productive months I'm even more happy I keep track of my threads as I can then remind myself that I did actually do something.

IHSW report for January

This IHSW I did a lot of crochet instead of stitching because my oldest son had a friend staying over and I was pretty tired and decided I'd rather avoid frogging. Considering the amount of crochet I had to rip out I'm pleased I made this decision as ripping out crochet is a LOT easier. Before I started on Friday I took the following photo, if you enlarge it you can see the wool to the top right about where the fold is.

The shawl is going to be a bit of a monster - it's 126 stitches wide and 27 inches high, so far I've used about 4 balls of wool - Stylecraft double knit special - I have 14 balls in total to use so there is another 10 balls to go. Each strip is 2" / 5 cm wide and I'm 2 rows into the diamond pattern I'm adding - white with rust diamonds which explains the rust dots at the top of the photo below. Over the weekend I added 8 inches of crochet. Fortunately Carla had her hangout open and I was able to chat quite a bit with her and Nancy who also dropped by for the first time in ages, so I was able to de-stress from having other people in the house which isn't my favourite thing but it's good for the kids to socialise in this way.

Yesterday my February issue of the CrossStitcher arrived and it has a cute little owl scissor holder with matching fob as this month's freebie so I decided to start that in the evening and extend IHSW by a day so I'd be able to report on something stitchy after all. My January issue hasn't arrived yet but it's still within the 14 working days since they told me they were re-sending the issue so I'm not worried yet.

I didn't get much done but it's good to have at least done a few stitches and have another pair of items for the Tons of Tiny project. It's not going so fast stitching wise right now as both kids are now ill (youngest was poorly on Sunday and oldest came home from school today)

A new year - and perhaps a new beginning

It's that time of year when everyone posts about their hopes and dreams and plans for the year to come, I'm no different as I want to make an overview of which SAL's I want to join in with - and also post a bit about the SAL I'm running myself.

A SAL? I hear you ask..

Yes indeed! This year I'm going to host a SAL over on NCC International Headquarters where I will post a new ornament pattern every month - the first one is up already!

 

TUSAL

Although I've not been too good at posting pictures of my jars I've been good and made a new jar every month, some fuller than others but I have kept them all and will continue to do this.

IHSW

Another SAL I've not posted as much about as I should have last year but I certainly made a point of stitching every time and joining in with a hangout chat with some friends so we can chat, stitch, show stuff off and generally behaving as if we are at a stitching bee.

WIPocalypse

I've been kinda doing this for a long time - just not answering the questions asked every month. I hope to be a bit better about joining in with this as well for the coming year.


This SAL needs a bit more space as I want to make a list of things I want to work on the coming year.

• Mikes Mushrooms - it's in dire need of a bit more love and some more being stitched on it.
• TW's Castle Ridge - a new start for the year and I want to finish it this year too.
• My ornament SAL - I want to stitch them up myself too and make examples of how to finish them.
• More TW - not sure what but it will happen.
• The Christmas tree tea cosy - will need to buy thread for that though.
• The cutlery WIP needs finishing.

The Magnificent Year of Teresa Wentzler

Last year I had a blast doing this and this year I have already started on Castle Ridge, in fact it was this project that had the honour of the first stitch of the year! Carla is a great enabler and is keen to egg people on, so I have no doubt that I will finish Castle Ridge and more by the end of the year!

Tons of Tiny

This is another new SAL that I will be joining in with, and it has the added bonus that it fits in nicely with my own SAL as they too are tiny patterns! I shall be sending on some patterns of things I have made in the deep past and still have the patterns for.

D.E.S.I.G.N.

This great little project is meant to help showcase designers all over the world - anyone can jump in and post about a designer they love - and even designers themselves are allowed to write about themselves and their work and share it with the world to see!

Stitch From Stash

It's always easy to go out and buy whatever you want or think you need but it's far better to first go stash shopping instead. There will always be things one really needs to be able to complete a project but if one is careful with money this is more than doable. So with that in mind, along with my stash enhancement activities late last year *gulp* I have decided to curb myself a bit more and try and stick to the 25 dollar budget , though hopefully I will spend far less.

IHSW update

 I got quite a bit more done during the IHSW this weekend. So much more that I actually finished something stitching wise - just need to make it into what it needs to become. I also had a great time chatting with my friend Carla, so much so that time just flew!

 

This is the completed embroidery part of my mystery project A which I finished today. I had a spot of bother with being able to finish as I'd run out of the orange 741 with just 20-30 stitches left so I decided to use 740 instead for those  last stitches instead of waiting till Wednesday when I had money to get more.

In the mean time I finished this little mini quilt top made of leftover squares that didn't make it into my hexagon quilt or were too small for the hexagon quilt. The smallest squares are 1" /2,54 cm square. The quilt is 14 inches / 35,56 cm square

IHSW update post

So last weekend it was IHSW and I got a fair bit of work done but not as much as I'd hoped.

Things I was to work on:

1. Awning for the neighbour that I started last autumn and MUST finish soon.
2. Mike's Mushrooms as it's high time I picked that up again.
3. Possibly also do a bit more of the floor tile.

What I managed to do:

1. Working on the awning is hard work - it's horrible poly and the whole piece weighs 5.4 kg (that's 11.9 pounds) so it is physically draining for me to work in it. I got the side seams done - sounds a lot easier than it was in reality. I started pinning the top seam. I'll do a proper blog on this project from hell soon.

2. Mikes Mushrooms. As you can see I got quite a bit of the biggest mushroom done and I finished the last little bit of the middle one.

3. Floor tile: I managed to do the last little bit of the corner loops so they are now complete and the frame is now 1/2 way done.

So not as much cross stitching done as I'd have liked overall but I did as much as was physically possible.

IHSW and UFO #11 The 8th century floor tile

It's IHSW weekend! I again have a child free weekend and hope to get quite a bit of stitching done.

Things I'm going to work on are:
1. Awning for the neighbour that I started last autumn and MUST finish soon.
2. Mike's Mushrooms as it's high time I picked that up again.
3. Possibly also do a bit more of the floor tile.

Speaking of the floor tile it's probably a good idea to show you where I am with it now.  Above you see where it was last time I updated you. I managed to get more of the brown (3021) thread that I needed Tuesday afternoon and I completed the framework stitching. I have also just about reached the corner with the colours as I only have 18 stitches left to do on the last dark green loop and then the little bit in the corner before I've reached the half way point with filling in colours.

While working my mind has been busy thinking about the centre area. I'm not so sure I want to go head and do the tile floor filling I had planned as I keep thinking of just using this as a frame for another embroidery - but I'm not sure what to do yet.  I keep thinking of doing something in blackwork, possibly an owl or a bit inspired by the floor tile I saw in Maastricht in the St. Servaas church last week when I was there with my bf. Time will tell what I end up doing as right now I have plenty of time to think about it :)

The Mystery Project part 5 & IHSW update

I'm starting with a picture of yesterdays progress as I have from the beginning or the project so that it's easier for you to compare progress :) Yesterday I got quite a bit more done, having no kids certainly helped a bit but as they were returned in the evening not completely hehe. I was also feeling the after effects of Friday's sink emptying fun a lot less. What didn't help was that I had to remove a section of leaf as I'd mixed up colours and used the wrong one which looked like the right colour in the artificial light. It was just the one thread length so it wasn't all that bad.

I have finished with 3 of the yellows now and don't have that many flowers left to do before this part is completed up to the back stitch phase (ugh). When this is done I have a few more elements to add to complete this embroidery.

I have a bunch of appointments today so won't have as much stitching time as I'd normally have.

IHSW update: I got a lot of stitching done - this project was barely started when I picked it up again on Thursday as can be seen here: The Mystery Project & IHSW and now it's 75% complete.

The Mystery Project & IHSW

 Don't forget it's IHSW this weekend! This time it's a child free weekend for me so I hope to get a lot done in between preparing the vegetable bed for planting outside seeds.

While looking at my UFOs last year I came across this but couldn't find which pattern belonged to it, so I set it aside knowing that I'd probably eventually find out what it was for. I was right - a couple of days ago while thinking about my options for the #stitchingpirates latest contest over on deviantArt and while starting to put a printed in a magazine pattern into the PC Stitch so I could play around with it and Frankenstein the pattern, I realised that *some* of the squares had been coloured in with pencil - the way I do with patterns I'm following. A moment of pondering later and I knew what it was and I'm so happy - I've been wanting to do this pattern "forever" as I really love the flowers but don't like the background as much and judging by the rectangle I've drawn on the fabric I was planning to do something other than the square background in the pattern.

I finished putting the pattern into PC Stitch on Tuesday and have started stitching - it's going easily and quickly which is nice too - a nice break from the complications of the mushrooms.

As you can see there is quite a bit of progress happening here and that;s just what I managed between doing some gardening, the dentist for the post tooth removal check up (supposed to be 2 weeks ago but my rheumatism had hit the jaw and I decided to wait for the flare up to go away) and he gave me some really good news while he was at it - the 3 wisdom teeth that have erupted can stay where they are! This is a huge relief as I was really worried that they'd have to take them out but all I needed was a filling and they were good to go. I also went on a quick trip to town for some stuff.

Mike's Mushrooms - Update 3 & IHSW

As you can see I got a fair bit of progress done since I updated on Sunday, even though it's not complete you can clearly see where it's going now. The bit I was worried about turned out to be the shadowed part of the stalk of the second mushroom, so that's a bit of a relief hehe. Having done all the "large" bits of colour I decided to just start at the top of the list of colours and work my way down so I don't end up with 20 odd colours with just one or two stitches at the end - something I hated with the last section.


About this project:
This is a "large" and complicated cross stitch project based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct coffee dyed Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for!

The incomplete half of this section is what I managed to do during the IHSW ( I extended it a day hehe), not as much as I'd have liked but I have been plagued by wisdom tooth coming through, which broke a tooth... fortunately today is dentist day (at last!) and I can see what he can do to help me with it - anything is better than having to deal with this pain without being able to take painkillers due to my allergies.

Catching up... *again*

I'm so behind with updating some stuff so I'm just going to make another of my catch up blog posts. First of all the Diary cover you see above. This embroidery started with a little red "starfish" shape and then it took a life of it's own as it slowly evolved to become the heavily embroidered piece that it is now. It became a coral reef - full of life and unexpected things - there are starfish, seaweed, a crab and if you look carefully you may even spot the lobster that somehow ended up there. The red wavy bit at the bottom left is only attached at the bottom - the rest is completely free from the background. The long snakelike thing that curves from the bottom to the top of the piece has over 2000 stitches in it and took me several days to do - it's made with the Casalguidi Stitch. I had a lot of fun making this, it was nice trying out loads of new to me stitches and, as it was made free form, even I didn't know what it was going to look like till it was finished.

It's 4 x 3 1/8 inch / 10 x 8 cm, made on 14 ct black Aida using 5 colours of variegated perle (red, green, blue, orange, yellow), 4 colours DMC colour variations, beads and several kinds of ribbon. I used a total of 25 different stitches to create this, many from Sharon b's Dictionary of Stitches for Hand Embroidery and Needlework and some I found in my ancient copy of Enclyclopedia of needlework by TH. de Dillmont.

I made the embroidery into a cover for my far too pink diary, which I'd only got because I LOVE the (not so pink) interior and I knew I'd eventually get round to making a cover for it.

I used the following stitches:
Basque Stitch
Bullion Knot
Bullion stitch
Buttonhole Bar Stitch
Buttonhole Wheel
Casalguidi Stitch
Cast on stitch
Chain stitch
Coral Stitch
Cretan Stitch
Detached Buttonhole Stitch
Detached Chain Stitch
Double Cast On Stitch
Drizzle Stitch
French knot
Feather stitch
Ghiordes Knot
Knotted Cretan Stitch
Renaissance Stitch
Rosette of Thorns
Scroll Stitch
Sorbello Stitch
Whipped Fly Stitch
Whipped Spiders Wheel
Woven Spiders Wheel

One thing that really surprised me is that this was selected as a Daily Deviation over on deviant art!  There are around 35 volunteers there and they each get to choose something from the section they look after as a one day feature and one of the Artisan Crafts volunteers chose this! Thrilled barely covers how I felt about this when I found out hehe.

Although I haven't mentioned the February TUSAL (see sidebar to the left for a link to the project) yet, I did make my monthly jar. You can see threads from the clown I finished in January, the Elemental biscornus and the Soufflé girl Dalek heart.

And this is the not so late Match TUSAL In it are threads from the Coral reef diary cover, the little end bits one keeps from projects from the colours I used for the Dalek heart that I'd not tidied up on time and got a good soaking from a glass of coke that got knocked over. I'd washed ALL the threads on the spools and rewound them on new ones but just couldn't face all the little bits I'd saved so decided to put them in the jar instead. There are also threads from the start of Mike's Mushrooms.

In case anyone has forgotten it's IHSW weekend! So get stitching!!

I was going to add a recipe to this but have decided to write it up as a separate post instead so it's easier to find later on in time.

IHSW, TAST, and more

I didn't get as much time as I'd hoped to stitch during the IHSW, nor did I have as much energy as I'd like - I'd seriously underestimated how long it takes to recover from pneumonia and how easily I tire still, which is also why this post is so late - I just have not had the energy left after dealing with everything else.

What I did manage to achieve was a start on a bookmark for a special someone, which I finished last night. The completed bookmark is 7" x 1 " / 17,5 x 2,5 cm. the little blue figure is a Lego minifig the recipient chose from their collection for me to use as the inspiration. He said that he thought the minifig looked dead because of the X eyes and the fact that he's lying down which he thought was extra fun - that's kids for you lol. The name is done with red variegated thread, the rest with standard DMC floss. Made on a scrap of 18 ct Aida.

I sewed one of the two Elements biscornu's together - the fire and water one, which I won't include now as it's not yet got the button on, looks exactly the same as the last one and I'll make a separate post with both of them once completed.

I also cut out 2 cloaks from fleece for the kids that I still need to sew together, and, as there isn't much to look at apart from a pile of fleece I won't be showing photo's of them yet either.

This year I'm joining in with the Take A Stitch Tuesday project where every Tuesday (or almost every Tuesday) a wonderful lady shows how different embroidery stitches are done. Since I want to expand my stitch knowledge this seems like a good thing for me to join in with and hopefully it will be fun to do. One of my many UFO's was a partially finished frame that I couldn't remember what I had started it for. I realised that this would make the perfect frame for me to try and do all the TAST stitches in, hopefully also creating a pretty picture in the process.

 I have already done this weeks stitches for this - not much as I don't want to run out of space prematurely and I can always add more later. I am also working on completing the frame of cross stitching.