Martha: Tout Ensemble/Mystic Stitcher's Pocket and Accessorues

Here is the promised full photo:  Martha, neatly pressed and just waiting to be lined and adorned with bell pull hardware.  I apologize for the indoor lighting. I'll tale a better photo once I get the bell pull hardware and finish it properly.

I thoroughly enjoyed this Morning Glory Designs sampler and will be offering the chart as a giveaway in October to share the joy.   So, if you are interested, check back on 10-4.

Having finished one class project UFO, it seemed only proper to pull another from the list and try for another finish from the backlog.  This is the Mystic Stitcher's Pocket and Accessories from Victoria Sampler.  It was the project from my first Stitcher's Hideaway and my first class with Thea Dueck way back in October, 2007.   So far I have stitched the pocket, the scissor case, the front and back  covers of the needle book and the fob.  All that remains in the tuffet.

Here are some photos of the completed pieces.

The Pocket: Once this is lined, folded and sewn up, everything will be right side up again.    I finished the pocket in one burst of enthusiasm during and immediately after the class.  But once I got home the siren's call of other projects took over.  Every so often, in the intervening years, I'd pick this up again and work one of the accessories.  Sometimes on a whim, sometimes out of guilt ... but always with a considerable amount of pleasure.  I do enjoy Thea's designs and have a fair few in stash still.

The Scissor Case [2-27-13]

The Fob [1-2-15]

The front cover of the Needle Book  [December 2014]

The back cover of the Needle Book [September 2017]








The only remaining piece is the Tuffet [aka, the biscornu]:  And, now, a mere ten years later, I have been struggling with the final piece in the set. Hardangar has never been one of my strengths.  Thus far I have done just as much frogging as I have done stitching, always off by just one or two threads where the stitches should meet.  Even though it'll be a pain in the neck to keep moving the hoop, I have switched to my smaller spring tension hoop.  It holds the fabric more tightly, the better to see and count the individual threads in this rather densely woven fabric.  Lo and behold, it's working.  I stitched a good 40 minutes without frogging.

Rotation Stitching To Date

Over the pre-Christmas weekend, it was stitcher's choice and I chose to jump around quite a bit:  I made a little bit of progress on several pieces but nothing worthy of a photograph.  All, in all, it was a very simple and relaxing weekend: just some very easy stitching while watching a marathon of an old PBS series, The Duchess of Duke Street.  In short, it was a hermitting weekend.

Then came Christmas week:

Monday, it was back to The English Band Sampler, picking up from where I frogged out the errors.   When last seen this flower was a mere outline, now it is quite filled in.  I stitched a few more curlicues around the acorns and stems.  Now, that I have relaxed and stopped stressing over when I will finish this piece, I have begun to make discernible progress again.I also spent a little time cutting all the boards for the stitched ornaments.

On Tuesday, I finished the Sage tea towel.and kitted up the Mint towel.  The pair of tea towels was meant to be a Christmas gift for my secretary, but clearly I didn't get it done in time.  She'll have to wait till little Christmas, The Feast of The Epiphany, on January 6.

Then on Wednesday it was back to stitching on the dragon with the result that page 1 of the chart is completely done but for a few beads that will just have to wait till all the stitching on page 2 is done.  I have gotten a good start on page 2: the breast plates; the scales along shoulders, neck and head; some of the fill stitching and a bit of the face are done.  Of course, that still leaves the wings, shoulder, front claws, neck and face to be completed as well as a bit more scenery.  I doubt this will be finished in 2014 but it may very well be the first 2015 finish.  I do have yet another reason to despise rayon fiber: it is the very devil to frog.  No matter how carefully one picks the stitches, the wretched stuff shreds, leaving one with a fuzzy tail useless for weaving under existing stitches.  The only option is to lay it carefully on the underside of the linen and ever so delicately stitch over it, avoiding bringing any of the fuzzy mess to the front of the linen as one pulls one's stitches.

Then on Thursday, I worked on the Mystic Smalls and finished up the cross stitching and over one stitching on the needle book.Now, all that's left is the ribbon embroidery.  I'll tackle that tomorrow, since the Sage tea towel has dropped out of the rotation.  [I have deferred the Mint Tea Towel to January's rotation.]  With luck the needle book will be my final finish in 2014.

I didn't do any rotation stitching on Friday and so have no assembly finishes to show.  I did page through some of my baby and toy charts to pick out a design for a bib and a burp towel for my great-nephew Liam who is now weighing in at 3 pounds, having gained a full pound since his birth in November.  He is off the ventilator and is strong enough to have yanked out his feeding tube.  The NICU nurses, of course, replaced it immediately.  But it's good to know that Liam is a tough little guy and a fighter.  I have decided on a train motif for the burp towel: a locomotive pulling four flat cars carrying the letters L - I - A - M and a caboose bringing up the rear.  I will probably just use the same alphabet to stitch Liam's name on the bib.

As to the weekend goal of doing some non-stitching activities, I tried a new recipe: Egg Nog Pancakes from cooking.com.  I can't call it an unqualified success.  Though my husband enjoyed them, I found them both too sweet and too heavy.  I also detected a slight metallic aftertaste but I am guessing that was due to baking powder past its prime.  I'll be putting that on the shopping list before I bake again.  While still in a cooking frame of mind, I made a tray of stuffed pasta shells.  Then I puttered about the house, decluttering a closet, reorganizing my kitchen counter space and cleaning out the refrigerator and oven.

Rotation Progress

Wednesday's rotation piece was the last of my Dragon Dreams charts: The Dragon of the Summer Sky.

Wednesday morning, I kitted it up with the suggested fibers.  The fabric I am using is one of the bargain purchases made at Chris' Collections retirement sale, a 28ct Jobelan Blue Wing instead of the 28ct Zweidart Luguna in slate that was suggested.  The colors are quite close.  Happily, I had all of the Kreinik already in stash. One of the advantages of having a fairly extensive fiber and fabric stash is that kitting up is accomplished without the long wait for mail-order bits and pieces.  I do like being able to start a piece while the mood is upon me.

Of course most of my pre-work stitching hour was taken up by measuring, cutting and binding the edge of the fabric and gathering all the necessary fibers and beads from stash.  The result: was that very little actual stitching was done.  But, I was able to stitch for a portion of my lunch break and for a few hours after dinner, with this result.  Since I made this the stitcher's choice piece for the weekend, I was able to get a really flying start with nearly 1/3rd of the design complete.

Thursday's rotation piece was the Victoria Smalls Class Project from my first Stitcher's Hideaway, the Mystic Smalls.  I didn't have much more than an hour to stitch on Thursday, so the progress is minimal.  Still, it felt good to pick up this 8 year old class project.  For some reason, this photo isn't uploading and I haven't the time to figure out why or to take another shot.  I'll try again this evening after work.

It's been a very long while since I last worked on this project.  I haven't taken a stitch in it since February of 2013.  So, it feels fresh and new again.  I intend to spend the next months reacquainting myself with old class projects and hope, by the end of 2015, to have whittled my sidebar list down to just three or four.

I'll be taking another class with Thea Dueck in October of 2015 and I want to finish up all my previous class pieces from Victoria Sampler so that I have something appropriate to share at show and tell.  That means I'll want to finish this set of smalls, the Sturbridge Box and accompanying smalls and a Christmas  sampler.  I also have an Autumn sampler from her farm series in stash that I'd like to stitch, time permitting.  I realize this is a rather ambitious plan but I will just do as much as I can and be content with whatever progress I make.

Friday's rotation was sewing finishing.  Again, not much time was spent on stitching, so all I managed was to work a bit more on a tote using Mehitabel's Redwork Sampler as it's focal piece.  I'll post a photo of the final finish next week.

And the weekend goal of finding a life beyond the stitching chair was met by
1] visiting my mother and bringing her my annual pre-Christmas gift of a potted mini-Christmas tree.
2] sorting out some books to donate to the local public library's swap room. I'll probably ask my husband to bring them on down on his way to the Historical Society on Wednesday

As noted above, Saturday and Sunday was stitcher's choice and I worked on The Dragon of the Summer Sky.

Monday's rotation piece was The English Band Sampler: I think I am going to have to frog some of the interior of this flower.  Things aren't quite lining up.  So it's two steps forward and one step backward.

This has been a very long post, so I think I'll save Tuesday's progress photo till I've made a bit more progress.  Look for it tomorrow.  Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the sampler charts giveaway in the previous post if you haven't already done so..

Still Not Finished With Finishing

Here's a photo of what I managed to finish yesterday at lunch break and after work.

The last three Trilogy Spring ornaments.  The first is a butterfly approaching a flower made of heart shaped buttons, the second shows some very stylized flowers and the last is a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

The Kindred Spirits Bonus chart.  Ann suggested that we finish it either as a pin pillow or a scissor fob.  I decided to do both.  This little pillow filled with ground walnut shells makes an excellent pin pillow and is just weighty enough to serve as a fob as well.  I am not sure I am going to leave it on this pair of scissors, though.  The greens clash.  The handles are actually a bright kelly green.  I have no idea how the indoor light managed to soften such a bright color to one that actually matches the stitching.

I still have two more heart ornaments and two more pin pillows to trim before I catch up to the smalls finishing.  And then there are all those totes, a wall hanging and a few more pin pillows to sew.   And that's just the stuff on the dining room table.  Forget the laundry basket in what I laughingly call my stitching center which is currently over run by the boxes of stuff my husband brought home from the office when he was downsized nearly two years ago.  I sometimes fear I will never catch up: not with the finishing or with the clearing out of junk!.

I will admit, though, that I am itching  to do a little more cross stitching.  If I am to come close to meeting my monthly goals, I really do need to return to my current projects.  And, as a full blown Type A Personality, I certainly want to meet a few more of those goals!

So my plan for today: finish work on Sue Donnelly's Kindred Spirits Pin Pillow ... because I really need another pin pillow sewing finish to add to the finishing basket, right???  And then pick up The English Band Sampler tomorrow and for the remainder of the month.

Kindred Spirits Project

Here is the only photo I took of the class, and clearly not of the whole class, just of the few stalwart folk who were determined to squeeze in a bit more stitching while the rest of the group lingered over lunch or shopped in Chris' hastily set up bedroom/shop.

Ann & Liz designed this little stitching journal around the Anne of Green Gables series.  The themes are friendship, kindred spirits and simplicity.  All of these concepts are to be found in the the beloved books by L. M. Montgomery.

Ann generously allowed us to photograph the stitched models of individual pages so that we would have a reference for our stitching at home.  The charts are a bit of a challenge for the habitual cross stitcher since they are charted as if for needlepoint.  It's a small adjustment remembering each box represents a single thread rather than a cross over two threads.  This makes the scale over one rather than the more usual over two.  Otherwise the directions are reasonably clear, even the directions for assembling and finishing the little journal.  That's an area where many charts fall short.  But, happily, this one does not.  As for the design itself: with a full page chart devoted to each page of the journal, placement of motifs is fairly clear.  The kit includes fabric, floss, needles and swatches of faux-faded cotton print quilting fabrics for all the extras: pin cushion, scissor pocket, etc.  One of the best pages of the entire packet is the page with all the specialty stitches clearly graphed out.  There are a number of stitches I have never done before: the tied wheat stitch, the Wessex flower, the Welsh Star & the Pistil stitch.  I foresee problems with the Pistil stitch since it involves a Colonial knot.  I can do French knots but I have never mastered the Colonial knot.  The stitch graph page is one that I can foresee consulting long after this project is complete and when I am designing my own samplers or smalls.   As a bonus, Ann provided another small chart using similar motifs and the same palette.  The accessory chart can be stitched over one or two and may be finished as a small pin pillow or as a scissor fob.  Like the main project, the colors are soft and old fashioned yellows, yellow greens, corals and pinks.  They remind me of the print house dresses  that might have been worn by homemakers just before WWII.  The overall feeling of the entire project is one of nostalgia.

Here are my photographs of the stitched models of the individual pages.

The Cover Page: this is the page where we all made our mistakes.  I stitched my 8 back-stitched page outlines first while cunningly listening to all the moans and groans of those who dove right in to stitching this first page.  Thus I learned from their mistakes.   I was able to consult the pioneers about proper placement of the first tied wheat stitch in the inner border and the length of the  tied herringbone stitch at the beginning and end of each leg of that border.  That is not to say I made no mistakes of my own.  I had to pull out the left side leg of the herringbone border because of a counting error.  Happily, I hadn't yet gone back and tied the herringbones, saving me some rather fussy frogging.  Another strategy gleaned from eavesdropping on those who dove right in: verify the correct placement before going back and tieing down the stitches.

This meant to be the back cover and space has been left for stitching initials and a date and or place.

A small fabric pocket will be placed within the stitched border.  It will hold the small paper needle book included with the kit.

A small gusseted pocket will be placed within the stitched border.  It is meant to hold a little glass vial of tiny buttons or button cards or a small spool of thread or all of the above.

A small pin cushion will be centered within the stitched border.  It will be made up as a log cabin quilt block from the fabrics included in the kit.  It will be further secured with a button right through the center.  Ann even provided the wool roving to stuff the pin cushion

This is the sampler page  Of the whole booklet, it is the only page meant to be stitched over two.

I regret that I can not show the remaining two pages.  Someone else in the class must have been using them for reference when I took the photos and I forgot to go after them later.

And now for a few photos of my own progress on these pieces:  It took me the first day and the better part of the morning of the second day to stitch the back stitched border of all eight pages.  It was not a particularly stimulating way to start off the class.  But I know myself well enough to know that if I had just stitched one outline and then started on the main design of that one page ... well that might become the only page ever stitched.

Having stitched all the outlines, I am going to feel compelled to complete each and every one.  And I am less likely to get bogged down by the fiddly counting required throughout most of the project or abandon the piece at the first mistake.As you can see, I am working the border first and am almost done with the final leg of herringbone stitches.  I do have to go back and tie the last leg and then do six tiny eyelets in the same red in the lower corners.  Then it is on to the large flower bands at the top and bottom of the page.  I'll be devoting much of my weekend to this project.

I also started the accessory piece and got the border stitched Sunday night while keeping my husband company as he watched TV.  I really wanted to have all the bits and pieces of this project "on the go" so I would be motivated to finish them all.  I stitched the OC of OCT last night after work and hope to stitch the T and get started on the Roman numerals for 2014 before work today.

And, finally, here is a photo of my Maine heart, stitched in the car on the way home.  These Victoria Sampler charts are the work of just a few hours and always teach a new specialty stitch, in this case: the diagonal Queen stitch.  I recommend them highly.  It is my hope to eventually have an ornament for every state that my husband and I have visited or in which we have lived or in which our children have lived.  I still need to stitch Washington, California, Vermont, North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama and Minnesota.

Some Recent Finds

My husband and I made another road trip to the Coxsackie antique and collectible shops on Rte 9W in Greene County last week and I found some real treasures.

First off:  four lovely green glass salad [or maybe sandwich] plates in a thumb print pattern.  These match some depression glass pieces I already have, in color though not in pattern.  Which is fine with me since I do tend to do the mix and match shabby chic thing.  I don't think these are depression glass though because of the presence of tiny bubbles which make me think these plates may have been hand-blown.

Then, I found this lovely Japan ware Phoenix pattern syrup pitcher and oval serving bowl.  The syrup pitcher has a lid that completely covers the spout and must be removed before pouring.  I had never seen the pattern before but it was love at first sight.  I am thinking of pairing this with my pale blue depression glass breakfast set the next time I serve pancakes or French toast with fruit.

Here is a detailed close up of the phoenix motif.  I suspect these were restaurant pieces because of the heft of the porcelain.  We are not talking delicate translucent china by any means.  Although the glaze and design mimic high end ware, I am reasonably certain this graced the table of some modest commercial establishment.  The mark on the bottom simply says Made in Japan.  I would date it to the 1950s or so.

Some more shabby chic: sixteen mismatched silver plated iced tea spoons.  I recently ran across a method for making cold brewed iced coffee syrup to avoid the bitterness that iced coffee often has. See this link for directions.  That and a yen for some solar tea had me scrambling for iced tea spoons.  It seems I only had the one and it was stainless steel.  Now, I have a treasure trove of silver plated spoons and all I had to do was dig through two 3x3x3 boxes brimming with assorted spoons marked @ $1.00.

I picked up another sugar shell and an interesting serving spoon to use with my oval dish [see above].

And I couldn't resist a teaspoon with a pattern that looks like pebbles viewed through a stream of running water.  I haven't researched this yet to find the true name of the pattern but I have started calling it my Babbling Brook spoon.  

And I hit the jackpot when it came to stitching accessories.  I always look for stitching related stuff but aside from the occasional button jar, I rarely find any.  This time I found not one but two animal themed pin cushions.  Serendipitously, SANQ is running a two part series on animal pin cushions this issue and next.  The first one I came across was this crazy little turtle lying on his back and with a very surprised look on his face.  He is seven inches long from tail to head and is about three inches high.  The pottery body is textured but unglazed and his belly is a worn and faded gold velvet cushion.  He has black and white flat glass eyes.

Here is a close-up. There is a tiny chip missing from the top of his left eye but the piece is in remarkable condition otherwise.  Judging by the wear on the fabric I am thinking this might be a late 19th century piece but I am not sure how I would go about researching it.  I'll be checking out a few Internet sites and I'll look at the footnotes in the SANQ articles to get further leads.

The second pin cushion is probably a mid 20th century piece.  Much smaller than the turtle, it is a white glazed ceramic rabbit with the cushion on its back and surrounded by tiny flowers.

So, all in all, a very good haul.  The funny thing is that I went in looking for a brass handled walking stick for my husband.  He needs a cane due to rheumatism and arthritis but he dislikes the generic drugstore variety.  He prefers something with more character.  Our next road trip will have to be to a huge place on Rte 17 in Ulster County.  I may have better luck finding a walking stick there.

Some More Finishes

This has been a great month for finishing.  Not counting the totes on this post, I have managed to add 17 items to the sewing finishes sidebar just this month.  Admittedly, all of them must be labelled smalls: most are ornaments which aren't major deals when it comes to finishing.  But it is some consolation for not having a cross-stitch finish yet this far into the year.  With any sort of luck, I'll manage one or two of those within the next few weeks as well.  Midnight Moogies is fairly close to a finish.  The Mystic Smalls are moving along as well.  And the Berry Patch Rabbit is a smallish piece as well.  So, I have some hopes for listing some cross stitch finishes soon

I did finish up a few totes:

Jennifer Aiken-Smith [Dragon Dreams] Dragon of Compassion as a very girly tote for my very girly 3 year old granddaughter.  I figure since I think this finish disgustingly over-the-top fussy, Piper will find it adequate.

Papillion's Peacocks as a gift tote to be put aside till needed.  I am thinking I could use it for my Mom's birthday in April or for her Mother's Day gifts in May.

I also assembled the two Kogin Christmas Tree ornaments and made the cording to trim them and made and stuffed a small pin pillow.  All I need to do is slip stitch it closed and stitch on the twisted cord trim.  So, I should be able to add another three finishes to the sidebar tomorrow.

That brings the total for the month up to 19, with three more finishes looming on the horizon.  This pretty much clears my dining room table of all the accumulated small or uncomplicated sewing finishes of cross stitch pieces for the time being.  I do have several more cross stitch pieces awaiting tote finiishes and I have a few simple crafting sewing finishes left to complete as well.  But once those are done, I intend to work on the more complex cross stitch project sewing finishes that I have on hand and start to winnow those down at the rate of three a month.  I have nine pillows, one tea cozy and two pedestal style pincushions in my to-do basket.  It would be so nice to be able to catch up with all my finishing but that never seems to happen.  But, in this year of stitching mostly large projects [BAP WIPs and class projects], most of which will require framing rather than sewing and assembly, maybe there is some hope of coming close.  I won't be accumulating projects requiring sewing finiishes at the usual rate and will be able to deal with the back log.

Weekend Progress Report August 19, 2012

This has been a good week for staying on goal even if I am not stitching quite as much as I might wish.

Part II of The English Band Sampler was my primary focus during the later half of the week. Since I really want to get Part II of the English Band Sampler done this month, I devoted my hermiting weekend to it.  And in spite of having to frog one entire blue carnation motif because I started it one thread too far to the left, I finally managed to get all the cross-stitched outlining done.   It took me half an hour to frog the darn thing and another hour and a quarter to restitch it, leaving me nearly two hours behind where I might have been.  Darn  these aging eyes!  But I did get a fair start on the satin stitching and, one hopes, will be able to finish it by Tuesday.    It is hard to see all the satin stitching  because I have been using DMC 3770 thus far and it doesn't show up well in the narrower bands between the square tiles and in the dividing bands.  I've never had to do so much satin stitching in one project so I have no way to estimate how long this will take.    With luck, I can begin work on the second band in this section by Thursday or Friday.  The second band is even more complex than the first in terms of fussy motifs.  However, minus Wentzler Wednesdays, there are still ten days left in this month.  I just might finish Part II this month.  Who am I kidding?  But I might come close.  Hope springs eternal!

Weekend Progress Report: November 6, 2012

Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie: I have been progressing nicely on block 2 of this piece.

Sewing and Assembly Finishes: I devoted this weekend to finishing up four floss tags [see yesterday's post for photo], a Blackbird Designs Quaker Medallion strawberry emery from the JCS 2006 Christmas Ornament issueusing some recently acquired upholstery fabric samples for the leaves, a small padded wall hanging entitled Time for Tea [a free chart that I stitched so long ago that the designer's name does not immediately spring to mind] using some of that lovely hand-dyed chenille from R & R Reproductions in the color Smoke and a pin pillowmade from a Silver Needle free chart proclaiming that "I love to shop at The Silver Neede" trimmed in more of the chenille, this time in the color Cinnamon. I have one more piece prepped for a pin pillow finish but I am rather tired of sewing so I may be putting that off till next Friday. It is very pleasant indeed to see cross-stitched pieces finally transformed into usable stitching accessories or decorative items for the home. And, who knows, I someday may be able to reclaim the laundry basket that contains all my "to-be-finished" projects for its original purpose: carrying laundry up and down the stairs of my two story townhouse! I plan on working on my Workbasket Quaker Sampler for the remainder of the day. Perhaps I'll make enough progress to make a photo worthwhile tomorrow.