This is what relief looks like ...

... 42 lavendar beads left in the beading dish after the project is complete.

I really do think the designers might want to post a reassuring note when they cut things this close. Something on the order of, "Don't panic, you really will have enough beads, in fact you will even have a very tiny amount left over. Trust me!"

So, finally, after two years, I am happy to present Teresa Wentzler's Autumn Faerie in all her beaded magnificence. It has been a long journey but well worth the time. I'll be taking her to the framer's shop before the month is out: I think I'll want a doublemat, picking up the greens and golds and a deep, intricately carved frame. This piece is strong enough to carry an elaborate frame without being diminished by it.

Wentzler Wednesday Wailings

This was supposed to be a Woohoo Wentzler Wednesday. The Autumn Faerie was supposed to be complete in all her beaded glory.

I am just shy of being three quarters done with the beading, mostly done with the third leg of the border and just the fourth to go. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, there is some doubt about whether there will be enough of the lavendar beads. The chart called for only one package but as I reached the halfway point and rounded the corner to the third leg of the border, I began to worry. The beads left in my ceramic beading dish looked pretty sparse to me. Granted these truly tiny petite seed beads are deceptive ... there are always more of them then you think in any given space ... but I was worried enough to set my Ott light on the floor, get down on hands and knees and finger comb the carpet for any stray beads that might have fallen to the floor. For the record, carpet combing recovered seven lavender beads and two black beads, one white bead and one ice blue bead from previous projects. I guess the older beads were too enmeshed to be picked up by the vacuum. Anyway, I am holding my breath as I continue to bead today, hoping for a Woohoo moment rather than an Aaaaargh moment. Any wailing you all here from the general vicinity of the western shores of the Hudson today will indicate that I ran out of beads and had to wait till a reorder comes in to finish this long-suffering faerie.

It remains to be seen whether the next Wentzler Wednesday post will boast a photo of a finished Autumn Faerie or just a sad tale of more beads on order. Whatever the case, the next post will include a new project, Tracery Dragons.

It was a toss-up between Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons or her Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking for the next Wentzler BAP. The dragon won out for several reasons. First, there weren't as many colors to pull to kit it up: only 46. For a Teresa Wentzler piece, that is a shockingly limited palette. She usually requires 75-100, filling two bobbin cases this size. Secondly, after spending nearly two years on The Autumn Faerie, intended as a gift for my daughter Angela, I wanted to stitch something for myself. The Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking will be for my grandson, Liam. Thirdly, Tracery Dragons is one of my Crazy January Challenge pieces, so it takes priority over something that is simply in the 2011 binder, waiting its turn to come up in the rotation. I am still hopeful that I will be able to get to Liam's stocking this year, though ... I finally seem to have found my momentum when it comes to BAPs. And it doesn't hurt that I have joined a fantasy group blog ... seeing photos of the other members' work keeps me inspired and motivated. Who knows, I may even finish Liam's stocking and have time to start one for my granddaughter, Piper. Though not a Teresa Wentzler design, it will still be a companion piece to Liam's: it's a Woodland Maiden in medieval costume. Since the stocking I made for my son, their father, was a Woodland Santa ... well, you can see there is a definite theme in place. I'll eventually have to come up with something equally woodsy for my daughter-in-law, to complete the grouping. Maybe just a woodsy, wintry landscape ... she is an environmental educator for the state parks system, so something with animals and trees would be suitable ... maybe a family of deer. But I am getting way ahead of myself. For now, I will simply concentrate on my dragons! One can only hope the dragons won't take as long to stitch as the faerie. Nothing to show just yet but I promise a photo next Wednesday.

Just the odd thought: At this rate, I am going to run out of alliterative "W" words before a year of Wentzler Wednesdays is out ... of course, I can always go back to one of my weird childhood pasttimes: reading the dictionary ... I was a very geeky kid, long before the term geeky came into being. I can just see myself making a list of suitable words and playing with combinations ... so I guess I am still a pretty geeky adult, some unkind folk might even say a pretty geeky senior citizen. Some things never really change.

Wentzler Wednesday Wishes

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride ... or to put it another way: if wishes were stitches, this faerie would be finished. I had hoped to be done with all the stitching this Wednesday and well into the beading. The goal was to have this piece done in time to take it to the framer on Friday. That's not going to be happening. The cross-stitching and back-stitching are done but I haven't started the beading yet. My eyes are too weary from back-stitching the skirt and I don't want to make foolish mistakes.

Still, I am closing in on a finish here ... just one more Wentzler Wednesday ought to see this project completed. Then it's onward to the next Teresa Wentzler BAP: Tracery Dragons.

Wentzler Wednesday Whips By

This Saturday, we celebrate two Confirmation ceremonies with a total of 81 8th grade candidates being confirmed. So far this week has been consumed with Confirmation rehearsals and other details [ordering a catered lunch for the Bishop and other celebrants, flowers for the altar, contacting the ushers, assigning altar servers, correcting the Mass booklet with an errata sheet], with the finalizing of the registration mailing, final exams for the grades 3-7, progress reports and other end of program year business. I look forward to June with the relative calm of actual registration for 2011-12, textbook and supply inventory and ordering, catechist recruitment for the new year and so forth.

But Wentzler Wednesday is becoming sacrosanct ... so here is the latest progress photo. Four hours of stitching on Section IV yielded satisfactory progress, especially when you consider that I am OCD about my floss, using just one needle for my TW projects, and threading it with just the one blend at a time and returning all floss to the bobbins when I am done stitching with each blend. I used to park my needles on sheets labelled with all the symbols but found that I ended up with a lot of knotted and wasted floss. I am now content to work more slowly but much more methodically. I am hoping to finish up the cross-stitching on Sunday and perhaps start the beading on Monday. The plan is to have this particular project completed during the next Wentzler Wednesday and get it to the framer on my day off on Friday. I had toyed with the idea of having a Jill Rensel frame for this piece but decided against it. This will be a gift for my daughter who already has two Wentzler companion pieces, The Spring Faerie and the Lily of the Valley Faerie. I think I will try to frame the Autumn Faerie in similar fashion to those.

Reverting to my first topic: My students never fail to surprise me. I had been dreading the Monday and Tuesday rehearsals for Confirmation to such a degree that I was mildly hysterical and a wee bit manic the entire weekend. Anticipating the Monday one in particular was playing havoc with my equanimity since my four biggest discipline problems would be attending that one. I even went so far as to warn the pastor so he would expect to be scandalized by their raucous behavior in Church. So what do the little darlings do? They behaved like perfectly sedate, mature and reasonable young people. There were several theories floated as to why this happened: transportation to the Twilight Zone, alien abductions, faerie switches, parental threats involving death and dismemberment ... but my favorite was put forward by my assistant, Josephine, who thinks my guardian angel decided to cut me a break and patrolled the church with the spiritual equivalent of a cattle prod. It's her theory that said guardian angel knows just how close I am to running screaming from the office never to return and also knows that no one else wants this job and probably has orders from on high to keep me from retiring until I find and train a replacement. Note to self: at next year's rehearsals, when explaining to the young ladies what shoes constitute dress shoes and what do not, DO NOT use the terminology of my youth: thongs now refer to underwear not beach shoes. The current term, apparently, is flappers, which in my youth referred to the wilder sort of young woman from my grandmother's time. I do believe words should mean much the same thing for at least four generations. It would avoid so many awkward moments!

Wonderful Wentzler Wednesday

This is the second time I have had to post this particular post due to some sort of maintenance done by Blogger ... hence the discrepancy with the date:

This practice of devoting one day to the Faerie has exceeded all my expectations, moving along a BAP that was stalled for nearly two years! Section III is done. All that remains is the skirt and legs in Section IV and the beading in the border. I feel fairly confident that I'll finish this project before month's end.

Wentzler Wednesday Works Well

I made quite a lot of progress on my Autumn Faerie yesterday, nearly completing Section III ... in spite of the frequent color changes in the apple. I feel like one of those Pointilists, you know, the painters who painted with dots back in the late 19th century ... long before computers made the pixel a commonplace graphic arts term. Like those long dead artists, I painstakingly put in just one tiny dot of color and then mix up an entirely new but ever so closely related color and put in one more dot. Well, that may be a bit of an exxageration, I may put in four or five dots of one color before moving on to the next. But that's a Teresa Wentxler piece for you!

Wentzler Wednesday is Back

After a week hiatus, the Faerie is back. But what with all the other activities on the agenda, I have to admit that the poor dear is just limping along. When last seen it looked like this.I only managed an hour or so on this project, stitching in the evening. Unfortunately, some of that hour was spent frogging and restitching that last little bit of scarf to the right. Poor counting resulted in it being stitched a full three rows higher than it ought to have been. I had seriously considered just leaving it that way and fudging over the area where it is supposed to meet the skirt. But I knew it would irk me everytime I saw it. And it is intended as a gift and gifts should represent our best efforts, oughtn't they? So all I managed to get done on Section III was a start on the leaf in the lower left corner and the back-stitching on the inner circular border. But I plan to work on it a bit more on Thursday and Friday. I'd really like to see a substantial amount of Section III done before May 1st and the entire project finished and beaded and ready for the framer by May 31st. The Queen of the unrealistic goals strikes yet again.

I did manage to finish the stitching on Martina's Easter Rabbit freebie. I have to admit all those tiny flowers in the border, with five color changes for each, got to be a bit of a drag toward the end. I plan to do the sewing finish tomorrow evening at which time I will post a photo. After going through my rather extensive sewing/quilting fabric stash, I decided on using a plain black cotton backing for the pin-pillow finish. I like this chart enough to revisit it, though, I believe I'll stitch just the central rabbit as a scissor fob next time out.

Day light was reserved for gardening and working on the front of the house ... with just a short trip to the hardware store to get all the supplies for working on the retaining wall in the backyard.

The weather here has been most strange: more West Coast than East Coast. We start off each morning with a pre-dawn drizzle, then a fog that burns off about mid-morning and finally, sunshine and somewhat humid low 70s. So, the weather isn't exactly cooperative. Yesterday, I purchased all the plants for the front planter box. I spent a very pleasant hour at the nursery with my new gardening guru, Tina, picking out plants that will work in a very sunny, warm space. They are all perennials and, while initially rather expensive, they will pay for themselves over the years as they return each May and June with lovely blooms. There is still enough space left to plop in a few annuals in mid-June for some July and August color. And the six mum plants I put in last year survived the horrid winter and will provide some color in September and October. I have several types of dianthus, some coreopsis, some lavender, some creeping phlox and some foilage plants. The main colors will be white and pink. It should all make a splendid showing through early summer. Here is a "before" photo of the general set up for the box. Since the vile contractors, who found every way to cut corners last year, used the back fill from excavating and leveling the area for our backyard patio to fill the planter box instead of the top soil as promised, I took delivery of five bags of top soil and 3 cubic feet of peat moss this morning. Next, it was a matter of emptying out at least half the poor soil and replacing it with decent soil that holds moisture. Then, and only then, could the planting begin. As I said, The weather isn't exactly cooperative. It has been unseasonably warm and humid, making physical exertion that much more taxing. It slowed me up a bit. Okay, to be honest, it slowed me up considerably. I console myself with the thought of how many calories I must have burned off. The word for the day was rehydrate. Tomorrow, I hope to finish setting in all the plants and spend some time raking all the dead leaves in the backyard and scrubbing the retaining wall so I can apply the concrete sealant before on Friday. With any kind of luck, I 'll have time to apply two coats of white paint as well before returning to work on May 2.

And, apropos of nothing, I must shake my head in mildly disgusted amazement at the gadget obsession that has overwhelmed this consumerist society in which we live. A housewares online shop that sends me e-mails sent me a real winner the other day, offering me a great bargain on ... get this ... a banana slicer. I can't imagine why anyone would want a gadget solely for slicing bananas cluttering up one's kitchen when everyone with a kitchen is quite likely to own a knife! Voila, bananas sliced quite neatly. Are we so obsessed with saving time that we must have a gadget that slices the entire banana in one operation. I mean, really, just how long does it take to slice a banana? Less time than it took to write this paragraph, I am sure!

Wentzler Wednesday Redux

This dedicated Wentzler Wednesday notion is really working. It has converted a UFO that was a weight on my conscience to a piece I look forward to stitching on regularly. Finally, I am making rapid progress and I am nearly done with Section II, just a bit of the skirt and hand to do. Hey, this may actually be a Christmas present for Ange in 2011. That would make it a mere two years later than planned but who's counting? I may have to follow this up with a Thea Thursday so I can finish up a set of class pieces from Thea Ducek Mystic Stitcher's Hideaway ... can that really have been four years ago this coming October???

What is it about stitchers and stitching that produces baskets filled with half-finished projects? I know there are a few very disciplined folk out there who stitch one project at a time, get their projects to the framer or produce a sewing finish within mere weeks of the cross-stitch finish. Such folk are atypical, though, if the blogs and boards I read are any indication of what really goes on! I wonder what prompts so many of us to invest so much time and energy in projects only to abandon them midway or, worse yet, do nothing with the finished piece!

Any theories, readers?

Puttering about on Friday

I love Fridays ... especially when I don't have loads of errands to run. It's a relaxing day just made for puttering about: 20 minutes spent vacuuming, 30 minutes spent stitching, 30 minutes emptying/reloading the dishwasher and sweeping the kitchen floor, 30 minutes spent stitching, and so on throughout the day. Catching up on household chores at my own pace. It's a quiet day. I am home alone and can listen to music or not, put in a DVD or not. Sunday is a different sort of day off: one shared with my husband, companionably watching DVDs with him or reading together or whatever. Both kinds of days are enjoyable, each in their own way. But today I can be selfish, consulting only my own wishes. I can have lunch at 11am or 2pm or not at all, whenever I feel like fixing it, whenever I am hungry. In short, I can do whatever I please without worrying about someone else's needs or wants. Is it any wonder I enjoy my Fridays so very much?

I started my stitching today by continuing to work on TW's Autumn Faerie, finishing the apple and starting on the three leaves in Section II. As noted yesterday, picking one day a week to devote exclusively to my BAP has already produced satisfying progress. I find I am more inclined to continue with the piece after the designated Wednesday, at least until I finish one more element of the design, before putting it away till the next Wednesday. Anyway after taking nearly two years to complete the border and Section I, I feel like I am positively flying through Section II ... I figure just one more Wentzler Wednesday should see its completion, since there are only the leaves, a bit of skirt and some back-stitching to attend to.

Wentzler Wednesday

When I decided last week that I ought to dedicate at least one day a week to my Autumn Faerie BAP, I clearly chose the wrong day ... a TW Tuesday just isn't going to cut it since my Tuesday workday is 12 hours long, leaving very little time for stitching. Adjustments need to be made and since Wednesday is a normal 8 hour workday, that shall be my new BAP day. But of course, life threw me a curve on my first Wentzler Wednesday. I overslept and didn't have time to get in my usual one hour of stitching before breakfast. Then, the workday was hectic and I didn't manage to get in my usual 1/2 hour of stitching at lunchtime. The only stitching time I had was after work, so the progress is not nearly as impressive as I had hoped. So I decided to extend my Wentzler Wednesday into Thursday. The before photo is from last week and shows the whole piece. The after photo shows just Section II since I didn't bother to remove the piece from the hoop and iron it for a photo ... after all, I'll continue stitching on my Faerie throughout the day. So far, the idea of dedicating at least one day of stitching to this two year old BAP is working well ... seeing tangible progress has rekindled my enthusiasm for the piece, prompting me to keep it in my rotation longer each week. For those who don't understand my delight with what may appear to be rather slow progress ... let me point out that in the small bit of the apple that I have stitched to the right of the smaller wing ... well, there are thirteen time-consuming color changes in that tiny bit of stitching. All the typical TW blended needles and fractional stitching eat up stitching time as well. But the result is well worth it ... her pieces are so lovely when complete. Taking a bit of a break from all the color changes, I back-stitched the smaller wing and the hair. I like to do the back-stitching as I go along for two reasons. I enjoy the instant gratification of seeing the piece come alive as I go along ... it keeps the stitching morale high. And, frankly, I don't think I could face doing all of it at one time.

Changes in the Wind

I don't know if I can call myself a rotation stitcher any longer. I used to be the sort of stitcher who always had 5-6 projects in the stitching bag. In a sense, I have actually gotten worse with 12 of my Crazy January Challenge pieces to complete and 4 projects from 2010 still in the current stitching bags.

But things have changed ... very probably precisely as a result of my choices for the Crazy January Challenge projects ... most are largish projects with two honest to goodness BAPs in the mix as well. All are projects I have been itching to stitch with the result that I seem to have become a one-at-a-time sort of stitcher instead of the wildly fickle needlewoman I used to be. I need to see substantial progress on these dearly loved pieces and once I pick them up they are very hard to put down. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would stitch on three different projects in a single day. Now, I find myself remaining with one project for days at a time.

Point in case: since Tuesday, I have stitched on Teresa Wentzler's Autumn Faerie exclusively and have made very satisfactory progress as a result. And earlier this month, Dragon Dream's The Ice Dragon's Kingdom held my attention very nearly to the exclusion of all else. To illustrate my point, here are two photos of the Autumn Faerie: one taken Tuesday evening and one taken Saturday evening. I have finally finished Section I in it's entirety and moved on to Section II, which is already partially complete because I always stitch the borders first on a TW piece and because, when I was stitching the tendrils of the faerie's hair in Section I, I continued right into Section II to keep my counting accurate and to use all those blended needles of thread most efficiently. Then, too, there's much more white space in Section II than in Section I, so it is reasonable to hope that I'll be able to finish the section by the end of the month ... even with some CJC and other 2010 WIP & UFO stitching going on.

A TW Tuesday

Yesterday, I decided that I needed a bit more disciplined approach if I am ever going to finish my current BAP so henceforth Tuesdays shall be T. Wentzler days until such time as The Autumn Faerie is complete. That's not to say I can't work on it other days of the week, but rather, put simply, I MUST work on it on Tuesdays.

So here are some before and after photos. First this is what it looked when I picked it up Tuesday morning ... lots of little blank spaces in the left wing ... a counting nightmare. In order to give myself a clear reference point for my counting, I did a little back stitching on the scarf and then worked from there. It may not look like much progress was made but I tend to take my time with Teresa Wentzler pieces, counting three times before stitching, since frogging tends to be complicated by the blended flosses ... it's very hard to see what needs to be frogged ... so it's best to avoid problems in the first place. Anyway, this is what it looked like when I put it away.

I know I entitled this post A TW Tuesday, but I just have to show a small photo of Monday's stitching, a charming little Easter freebie from Martina ... see the link on Sunday's post. I have been so disciplined thus far this year, working on only my Crazy January Challenges and my 2010 WIPs and UFOs ... but I just couldn't resist starting this piece. In any case, it is stitched entirely from existing stash ... so I can, at least, justify/rationalize the start by saying it didn't involve any additional expense. It's a fussy little piece with lots of fractional stitches and loads of not-quite-confetti stitching which require some very careful counting ... but I am looking foward to a fabulous finish as a pin pillow. You can see the rabbit taking shape nicely and in the lower left corner you can see one of the flowers that will eventually surround the inner border/frame.

Why?

Why does one project capture the imagination to the point that one simply can't put it down and another project doesn't, even though the second project is equally beautiful if not actually more so?

My obssesion with the Ice Dragon continues, with this result. The flosses needed to finish the dragon's body arrived in the mail on Tuesday. But as I get home from work at 9pm on Tuesday, I had to wait till Wednesday to put them to good use. I see a finish in my not-too-distant future!

There has also been some small progress on The Autumn Faerie. When last seen, the faerie looked like this. It is very difficult to find the exact spots on the chart to reference to fill in in the empty spaces in the full wing ... lots of counting and recounting ... and then pouring over the full page of symbols to find the right floss or combination of flosses ... it takes confetti stitching to the nth degree. It is somewhat easier to stitch the other, partially hidden wing. But my goal is to have section I complete by the end of the week, so both wings need to be worked on. Since I stitched the border first, parts of Section II, III and IV are already completed. Section II is not quite as densely charted as Section I ... considerably more white space in the design. And Sections III and IV each cover only a third as much chart as Sections I and II. So once Section I is completely stitched, I'll feel like I'll have gotten over the biggest hurdle for this project. I am hoping that will give me the momentum I need to finish this piece. As long as I seem to be in the one-project-at-a-time zone, I may as well go for another big finish! Here is another photo, with the progress made over the past few days. The casual observer may not discern much progress, but I assure you hours have been spent on this project between the first and second photos. Anyone who has ever stitched a large Teresa Wentzler piece will know exactly what I am talking about!!!

I am hoping to transfer the narrow focus that has characterized my stitching on the Ice Dragon to The Autumn Faerie. The Faerie is a three year WIP and long overdue for a finish. The Ice Dragon, on the other hand, will have been a WIP for just a little over a month before becoming a finish. Go figure!!!

Miribilia Limited Edition Halloween Faerie

This is my main focus project this month and I am happy with my progress thus far.

Here is a photo of how she looked Wednesday morning

And another of the progress by Thursday morning

As you can see I am obsessing a bit on this piece and find it difficult to put down even for silly little distractions like eating, sleeping and working to pay the bills. When I am through with her, I'll be passing the chart on to my daughter, along with the remaining Crescent Colors floss ... normally, any faeries I stitch end up hanging on my daughter's walls but this one will stay here. Ange will have to stitch her own. I have fallen in love with this dainty faerie and have decided that she lives here.