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.

The TUSAL jar

Every month on or around the new moon I post a picture of a jar of threads that are leftover from projects of the lunar month that has just past. My dear friend Carla asked me what size my jar is and what I do with the threads when the post has been made. Since this involves a photo or two I decided to make a little blog post with my reply.

First of all I measured the contents of an empty jar by filling it to the bit where the neck starts with water and then pouring that into a measuring cup that also has cups marked. It filled 1 1/4 cup. I rooted around and found the last jar of this shape that still has the label on (the company changed the jars from this nice shape to a boring normal jar shape recently) It says it contains 450 grams of jam which converted to imperial is 15.873 oz or 0.992 pounds, so that should hopefully answer the size of jar question.

Then on to what I do with my threads - or more accurately what I don't do, as all I do when I have made the monthly photo is put the lid on the jar, add a sticker with the month and year and put it on a shelf as I find the strata in the jars very pretty. I've currently got them on the large wall unit above the TV but I'm planning on hanging a shelf or two in my computer corner for them to go on instead.

You will see that the jars change orientation after the 4th one from the left. I did that because that's where 2012 becomes 2013, so everything on the left is 2012 and everything on the right is this year's.

And there you have it.. all you wanted to know about my TUSAL jars and more hehe.

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 :)

Blackwork Owl

When I was in the UK last week I also treated myself to one little kit while we were in Liberty's - I was having a hard time choosing between the blackwork Owl and the picture of Liberty's and so I asked the kids which to choose. They decided I should get the blackwork owl. This is my first ever blackwork piece and I made it in less than an afternoon. I was pretty daunted by this as I hate backstitches with a vengeance however it wasn't as bad as I feared.

The kit is <a href="http://janesjournal.thecrossstitchguild.com/">Jane Greenoff</a>'s Blackwork Beasts - Owl.
It's 3 x 2 1/2" / 6 x 8 cm.
It's mainly black with gold highlights and green cross stitches for the branch.

Tusal & UFO #11: The 8th century floor tile

 This is my TUSAL jar for the month. It's filled with the threads from the spring flowers embroidery...

with the threads from the Spring peacock...

and with the threads from the 8th century floor tile that I have been working on while travelling due to the simplicity of the pattern.

I ran out of the colour I've been using for the framework (3021) and have to wait till Tuesday to get more as they have had some odd opening times due to bank holidays and the opening times are in the morning, not the best time of day for me to get anywhere except to the coffee pot. As a result I have been filling in the framework with the colours instead. If I place my hoop correctly I can get 2 loops of the same colour done at once and do 5 loops before I have to move the frame, so I can get quite a bit done before having to re-hoop.

Spring Peacock

While I was in England last week I treated myself to a cross stitch magazine. I chose "Cross Stitch Crazy" as I liked the kit that came with it more than the things the other magazines included even though it was rather pink and had a ghastly (in my eyes anyway) pink frame for it (not in picture as I feel the frame is wrong for the work and distracts the eye from the stitching).

I started it while in England, where I did most of the peacock and all the flowers to the left, and finished it at home though it took this long mostly because I was dreading the massive amounts of backstitching it has.

Stats:
Size: 2 1/2" x 2 3/4" / 6.5 x 7 cm
14 colours
37 x 38 stitches on 14 ct Aida.

Finish it in 2013 project: April overview and WIP update post

Non UFO Project:

I started a "large" and complicated new cross stitch project this year 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 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!

In February I dyed the fabric for this using coffee. I started stitching in March and completed the first 3 sections.

Update: I didn't work on this during April.

The Current WIP's:

   

8th century tile floor embroidery in greens and blues. 

 Update: I have added a bit more to the top border.

Sampler - started
Update: I am behind with the TAST (see side bar) and haven't worked on it this month.

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The UFO's:

Sagittarius star sign by Lanarte - central area complete
Update: No progress made on this, so I've returned it to the UFO section.
 

2 sleeping bunnies - a Priscilla babyland embroidery - about half done but I *so* hate doing 1/4 and 3/4 cross stitches.

Dog embroidery (portrait) made from a photo years ago by a company - about 1/5th done.

Dog embroidery (standing) made from a photo years ago by a company - barely started.

Autumn leaves needle book WIP - embroidery is 1/2 finished.

The Mystery Project Completed

This is what it looked like last time I posted about it and this is what it looks like now:

I completed it while on holiday in the UK last week. The pattern for the flowers and vase is from the magazine cutting I'd stuck into a scrapbook many many years ago so I'm not entirely sure which magazine it came from other than that it's almost certainly a Dutch ladies magazine so probably Libelle or Margriet. I changed the colour of the shadow of the jug from the green that it was to a grey as I'd stripped out the background and border that the magazine pattern had. I added the butterflies from the "yellow butterflies biscornu" pattern by Rainburst Embroidery as I knew they were going to look just right with it. Once I'd completed it I realised that I'd made the lines around the edges of the space with ballpoint pen (how silly can one get?!) so I decided to hide the lines with 3 lines of backstitching, 2 in DMC colour variations 4045 and the middle one in 4150. I still have a small section of ballpoint pen to remove but I am planning on trying out ballpoint pen remover on it.

Stats:
Size of embroidery: 7 3/4" inches square / 19.6 cm square
Fabric: 24 ct evenweave
Number of colours used: 21
Number of cross stitches: 4737
Number of backstitches: far too many!
Time needed: 2 weeks

Travel sewing bag

2 years ago I started making this to take with me on my travels with the kids during the summer holiday as we went on our day trips to other towns and to visit museums (my kids LOVE museums... as long as they are the interesting kind and not just filled with modern art). What with one thing and another and me trying to make something super duper complicated (for a bag) and not knowing how to complete it, the bag ended up in the pile of UFOs.

I finally worked out how to make my neat edges with the flaps I wanted: add a zip at the join of the blue inner lining and the patchwork bag flap. That way I could turn it right sides out after sewing around the sites.

The bag closes by folding the top flap down and then folding in the side flaps. Then the front is lifted towards the back and the Velcro strips do the rest. The bag flap is closed with a thread wound around a button - a simple and quick way to keep it closed securely.

The flaps can be folded up and fixed in place with Velcro strips on the front flap to create a corralled area to work in, say in a moving train or on a boat so that things don't fall to the ground and get lost. It also makes it easier to pick up the bag while open and move it from one place to another.

• It has one pocket with a zip that is the same size as the bag itself. As the bag is fully lined on the patchwork side this will not result in the seam allowances getting ravelled. 
• It has 4 gusseted pockets in different colours sewn onto the lining, these pockets close with Velcro.
• It has a scissors holder (the triangle thing)
• It has a thread holder with inbuilt needle holder. (the cylinder thing)
• It has a tiny biscornu pincushion.
• The entire outer cover and the inside of the flap is hand sewn 2" patchwork hexagons
• The strap is made out of 3" squares machine sewn together.

Stats:
Closed the bag is 10 1/2 inches wide and 8 inches high / 27 cm x 20 cm
Open it's 22 inches long and 8 inches wide / 56 cm x 20 cm
Fully opened out it's 25 1/2 inches long and 17 inches wide 65 cm x 43 cm

The Mystery Project - part 7, the central part is complete.

Now it's time to spot the difference - can you see where the backstitching is? If you can't see it all don't be sad, I had a devil of a job seeing where I was working when I was adding them and I kept track with the pattern lol.

Not much else to say today, so I'll just go on and work on the next bits.

The Mystery Project part 6

As you may remember this is where I started yesterday and despite the appointments (the one with the specialist in the hospital was cancelled but I only found out when i got there - yay!) I got so much done that I actually finished the main piece of embroidery! All I have to do now is do the backstitching and then I can get onto the second element of this project.

Just one appointment today so I ought to be able to complete the back stitching in between cleaning the kitchen.

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 part 4

As you may remember this is where I stopped yesterday. I didn't get so much done as my body was firmly telling me that all the bailing I had done was "A Bad Thing" and shouldn't be repeated. It also made getting up and moving very painful so I didn't move all that much as a result either.

I managed to do some more of the leaves, the snowdrop and most of a lily. You will also notice that I have more colours in the sidelines waiting to be used as all of time continued outside the area the ring was in and I didn't want to cut the thread when all I had to do were a couple more stitches with that colour. With all the greens and creams it would be very easy to confuse them so I have added a little tab to each with the colour symbol so I know which is which.

I'm not so sore today so I hope to be able to get a bit more done.

The Mystery Project part 3 and a bit more

This was where I was yesterday when I made the last update. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked but I was slightly distracted by the rather unexpected results of a downpour. I had been raining for a while and then the rainfall intensified to the extent when the sewers couldn't cope with the results and water started coming UP my sink drain and filling my sink. To avoid getting a flooded kitchen I had to act quickly and I started bailing out the sink and throwing the resulting water out into my back garden through the open back door. I spent over 20 minutes racing the water level in my sink and managed to avoid it overflowing, though a few times it got pretty close. However the last thing I needed was sewer water all over my counter tops and in my cupboards, though admittedly some got on the tile floor but that was easy enough to clean. Then once the rain had stopped there was the fun task of disinfecting all area's that had come in contact with the sewer water - good fun that lol.

After all that I was in quite a bit of pain so wasn't really much to much else, including going collecting for the heart foundation which I was supposed to do. I feel quite bad about that but it's not really something I can do much about really. I did however get some of the green done and I finished all of the greys and I completed the bottom half of the embroidery.

The "bit more" I promised in the header is a little bit of news about my blog - nothing exciting mind, just 2 new pages in the bar at the top. I made one page where I put my WIPs and one page where I put my UFOs to make it easier for anyone who is curious to find them.

The Mystery Project part 2

Yesterday I showed you the picture above with my progress of the day before. Today I'm back with another update as I got quite a bit done. I had started doing the white at the bottom following the line of the light grey I'd done the day before and then completed the rest of the while of the vase working from there. It wasn't till I started doing the darker grey after completing the while in this section that I noticed that I was one stitch too far too the right on the first 5 lines from the bottom. Fortunately I only had to remove about 50 stitches to sort it out as I could leave most of the white in place.

The weird stitches outside the ring are threads that I still need to continue along with to outside the ring but as I don't want to move the ring yet have just got out of the way for now.

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.

Always Time for Tea

This little embroidery is entirely the fault of a really special friend of mine who did a grand job of enabling me after which I did indeed create this in a couple of hours. It's a pattern from World of Cross Stitching. Issue 202 that I did a few colour adjustments on as I just cannot stand pink or purple.

First I swapped the lilac for a muted orange (209 -> 3854) then I swapped the darker pink for darkish ecru like colour ( 760 -> 3866) and the lighter pink for a really pale yellow (3713 -> 712) You can't really see much difference in the two colours unfortunately but I wasn't going to unpick it again as I'd first used "ecru" instead of the 712 but that was even less visible in difference, so I ripped it out. I have to admit that I rather like the cream coloured cups now that they are finished - much more like something I'd buy myself

Stats:
Size of embroidery: 1 1/4" x 3 1/4" / 3,25 x 8,5 cm
Fabric: 18 ct Aida

Giant Jelly...

Today we heard that my oldest son got accepted into the school of his choice , which is more than enough reason to celebrate in my book. To do something slightly different I decided to use up the last 3 packets of jelly from England (that's jello for all you lovely American's out there :) ) I had raspberry, strawberry and blackcurrant which go together nicely.

This takes a good 5 hours to make and will feed *lots* as it's 3 pints / 1 1/2 litres of jelly. You will need a really large bowl for this - glass is best to show off the layers though you could turn it out into a dish if you wish but jelly isn't all that stable so the height might be fatal.

Ingredients:

• 3 complimentary packets of jelly (jello)
• A couple of handfuls of raspberries (frozen or fresh)

Preparation:

1. Take half a pack of raspberry jelly and make it as per the instructions, remembering to halve the amount of water used at each step. 
2. Cool to room temperature 
3. When the raspberry jelly is almost cool make half of the strawberry jelly.
4. Put the raspberry jelly into the dish and into the fridge
5. When the strawberry jelly is almost cool make half of  the blackcurrant jelly.
6. Check to make sure that the raspberry jelly is set enough to take a bit of pressure - it doesn't need to be completely set.
7. Carefully pour the cooled strawberry jelly over the raspberry jelly layer.
8. Put the dish back into the fridge.
9. When the blackcurrant jelly is almost cool make second half of  the raspberry jelly.
10. Check to make sure that the strawberry jelly is set enough to take a bit of pressure.
11. Carefully pour the cooled blackcurrant jelly over the strawberry jelly layer.
12. Put the dish back into the fridge. 
13. When the raspberry jelly is almost cool make second half of the strawberry jelly.
14. Check to make sure that the blackcurrant jelly is set enough to take a bit of pressure.
15. Gently place the raspberries on the blackcurrant jelly.
16. Carefully pour the cooled raspberry jelly over the layer of raspberries.
17. Put the dish back into the fridge. 
18. When the strawberry jelly is almost cool make second half of  the blackcurrant jelly.
19. Check to make sure that the raspberry jelly is set enough to take a bit of pressure.
20. Carefully pour the cooled strawberry jelly over the raspberry jelly layer.
21. Put the dish back into the fridge.
22. Check to make sure that the strawberry jelly is set enough to take a bit of pressure.
23. Carefully pour the cooled blackcurrant jelly over the strawberry jelly layer.
24. Put the dish back into the fridge.  
25. When the top blackcurrant layer is completely set the jelly is ready to feast on.

Enjoy!
Note: It's a dark day so I couldn't take photo's indoors and my garden is still a bit of a mess so the close up was taken pointing towards the light so you can see the jelly layers at their best while the full view was taken in front of a convenient wall.

Finish it in 2013 project: March overview and WIP update post + TUSAL

New Project:

I started a "large" and complicated new cross stitch project this year 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 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!

In February I dyed the fabric for this using coffee. I started stitching in March

Update: The first 3 sections are complete 

New completed project:

 I made a cover for my diary using 25 different embroidery stitches - a new post with this will follow soon as it's worthy of it's own post.

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The Current WIP's:

Sagittarius star sign by Lanarte - central area complete
Update: No progress made on this.

   

8th century tile floor embroidery in greens and blues. 

 Update: I have added a bit more to the top border.

Sampler - started
Update: I am behind with the TAST (see side bar) and haven't worked on it this month.

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The UFO's:

2 sleeping bunnies - a Priscilla babyland embroidery - about half done but I *so* hate doing 1/4 and 3/4 cross stitches.

Dog embroidery (portrait) made from a photo years ago by a company - about 1/5th done.

Dog embroidery (standing) made from a photo years ago by a company - barely started.

Autumn leaves needle book WIP - embroidery is 1/2 finished.

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Tusal:

This month I only worked on Mike's Mushrooms so all the threads in the jar are from that.