Weekend Progress Report: August 12, 2012

It's been a interesting  and varied stitching week:

I got started on my latest Teresa Wentzler project: the Woodland Angel Stocking for my grandson, Liam.

I have made some headway on Part II of The English Band Sampler from SANQ.  I worked on finishing up the cross-stitching of the first band of Part II but didn't get very far.  But I hope to finish the cross-stitching by Tuesday evening and spend the rest of the week [sans Wentzler Wednesday] on the satin stitching.  I've never had to do so much satin stitching at one time and have no clue as to how long it will take.  And it won't be mindless repetition, either, since the satin stitching has many changes in color, size and orientation.  The second band of Part II is equally elaborate, with lots of complex floral motifs done in a mix of cross stitch, satin stitch and blackwork.  I hope to finish Part II this month and set Part III as my goal for September..  

And I have been sewing a fair bit, making a nice dent in the contents of the finishing basket ... which, by the way, is one of those fairly substantial rectangular laundry baskets.  I am enjoying the new sewing machine and feel like I finally have a handle on getting all this finishing done.  This week, I finished work on several ornaments, a knitting tote, and a pillow.  I have gotten started on another five projects: a candle mat, another tote, another pillow and two more ornaments.  Once I clear the dining room table of these five projects, I am going to bring one project down and work on it for an hour each morning until it is done, then bring the next and the next, over and over, until the laundry basket is empty. 

I even did a little off-goal stitching on Primitive Needle's Thy Needle.  And I have spent some time researching variations of the cobweb stitch since I want to use some dimensional embroidery on my Encrusted Crazy Quilt Square.

I've mailed out a long overdue exchange and sent on a recently stitched chart to a blogging friend.  There is one exchange still left on my agenda and on my conscience but after that I can say good-bye to a practice that I once loved but now don't seem to have the motivation to handle responsibly.

I've done a giveaway or two ... nowadays, that's more my style than exchanges ... I get to set my own parameters with no guilt, no fuss and no deadlines.

I also reorganized my living room stitching area.  The theory was that if I cleaned up and sorted and put away all the stuff I wasn't using, I might actually find my cording drill which I haven't used since I last put together some Town Square SAL ornaments in June of 2010.  Currently, I have three ornaments that require cording: Star Theater, Holly & Hearts and Full Moon.   I found the drill in a clear plastic zip lock bag that I must have handled at least a dozen times in the past week as I searched through the tote hanging from the arm of my stitching chair.  I'd just never flipped it around to see that my drill was hiding behind my Crop-a-Dile.

The month is nearly halfway over and I still haven't pulled out the 2007 Mystic Hideaway projects or worked on my Fertile Circles Needlebook, the two remaining August goals.  But there is still ample time for those pieces in the next two and a half weeks.  There seems to be a good chance that I will meet my monthly goals two months in a row.

Weekend Progress Report 7/8/12

Thank God for air-conditioning!  In spite of the heat, I was able to get a bit of indoor stuff done.  Chores of a sort that would have been well nigh impossible in the heat:  like emptying and cleaning the refrigerator in anticipation of a service call.  Ironing and a bit of mending.  And finally completing the switch from cool weather to warm weather wardrobes by getting all the cool weather stuff into storage.  It's amazing how long supposedly simple tasks like the last can take when you're working full time and not as spry as you used to be.  I even managed to get out early this morning while the temp was still a relatively cool 75 degrees and clean up my side of an untended hedge from my neighbor's front driveway that is growing through the fence, scratching my car and obscuring my view when backing out of the driveway.  There are a lot of advantages to townhouse living but one careless or negligent neighbor  can really make thing unpleasant.  The neighbors on the right are a great family who own and takes pride in their property, just like we do.  However, the neighbor on the left is a 20-something female renter who either hasn't the time or perhaps, the contractual obligation, to tend to maintenance issues like hedge trimming.  When her whole family lived in the house, things were maintained but once her parents and brother moved out things have definitely gone to seed.  No outdoor work is being done at all.  The task took me a little longer than it should have since, not owning any hedges, I don't have any hedge trimmers.  I ended up using my long handled pruning shears [I do have trees] and snipped off a branch at a time.  An irritation, to be sure, but I just couldn't tolerate the situation any longer.  I wonder if my neighbor will even notice.

 As to the stitching, I never did get around to working on Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie Block 5 as I had hoped.  But I did meet my other tentative goals of finishing Aury's 2012 heart [see below], getting more done on JBW's Sampler Tree and doing a bit of sewing finishes.  I wouldn't want my brand new Pfaff sewing machine to languish unused and unloved.  I hope to get some more finishes done this week as well.

 I stitched the remaining letters on my JBW Design's The Sampler Tree. And since I just don't get how a potted tree with two bunnies at its feet goes with Christmas. I'll be deleting the pink candles and ornaments and the "Merry, Merry" text at the top and finishing this as a Spring pin pillow.  Instead of a star or angel at the top of the tree I'll be using one of Mill House Glass Treasures: a squirrel.  I think it will make a nice seasonal Spring pin pillow for my display of smalls.

 This is one of the sewing finishes that has been sitting in the to-do pile for a very long while.  It's a Cross-Eyed Cricket mitten ornament.  I finished it as a flat board ornament and used some twisted white cord I had left over from another project.  It is hard to see but the hanger is a beaded one, white and pale turquoise glass beads from Mill Hill Beads.  The backing is simply material cut from one of my husband's old broadcloth business shirts and dyed in a coffee bath.

One of my favorite Christmas ornaments: La D Da's Winter Cardinal.  It's a great way to use up odds and ends of floss since the scarf can be any color you wish.  I always finish the back of this ornament with the same chart stitched in reverse.  I am getting pretty good at reading charts backwards!







Here you can see the reverse.  The colors in the photo above are true.  I don't know why this one came out differently: same place, same lighting, same inept photographer, same point and shoot digital camera.  Go figure!

I finished up Aury's 2012 Quaker Heart.  I used Belle Soie silks Chester Blue, Cranberry, and Icing on a 28ct linen called Meditation.  In the photo, the Icing tends to fade into the light blue linen but the contrast is far more pronounced in reality.  I finished it as a small stuffed ornament and will be using it on the Patriotic ornament tree which I will next display on Veteran's Day and then, not again till Memorial Day through Independence Day in 2013.  




And here is the Star Theater from the Indy Town Square SAL.  Finished as a flat board ornament.  One minor irritation, when I went to make the twisted cord trim for this ornament, I couldn't find my cording drill.  I'll have to tear my various stitching areas apart to find it tomorrow.

Well that's it for the weekend.  All in all, I felt it was pretty productive even if I didn't manage to work on Black'd Skie.

Weekend Progress Report: May 6, 2012

With the exception of a very brief window of sunshine on Sunday afternoon, the weekend was quite overcast.  There is something about overcast weekends that makes me lazy.  My only real commitment was to serve as lector at the 5:30pm anticipated Mass on Saturday.  This meant that Sunday morning could be as leisurely as I liked.  And I liked quite a lot.  After making a lovely pot of Assam tea and a light breakfast of one slice each of French toast garnished with sliced banana and fresh blueberries for my husband and myself, I lazed about: reading, stitching and watching a DVD or two.  Lunch was reheated home-made potato-cheddar soup leftover from Saturday and dinner was eggplant parm and a salad delivered by our favorite Italian take-out place.  It was a very minimalist sort of Sunday.  Indeed, I spent the whole day in a nightgown and my favorite, cozy chenille robe.  Aside from cooking, I did only those chores that couldn't be avoided like making the bed and emptying the dishwasher.  Anyway, there was no trip to the nursery and no puttering in the garden.  That will have to be deferred to the next weekend or, more precisely, next Sunday, since most of Saturday will be consumed by two Confirmations.  I expect I'll squeeze in a bit of time after visiting my Mother.

As to the stitching, it's been mostly off-goal projects this past weekend:

* the sewing finish of Riona's Book Nook Book mark

* the cross stitching finish of Prairie Grove Peddler's Lighthouse Candle Mat
Photos will have to wait till another day though since I haven't the time today.

There was a very little bit of on-goal stitching: 

* I got started on the border of the third square of The Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  Quite a dull affair of black cross-stitches in a neat rectangle, nothing particularly camera worthy as yet.


And, alas, the Summer issue of SANQ arrived with Part II of the English Band Sampler before I have quite finished with Part I, so there is a bit of catching up to do there.

Weekend Progress Report: April 22, 2012

This has been one of those weeks that I didn't blog much so this post will be longer than usual.  I didn't manage to get in any stitching time on Monday at all.  But Tuesday morning, I managed to squeeze in some twenty minutes or so after breakfast.  And I managed a bit more early morning stitching on Wednesday.  In spite of the pollen counts, I have been having my breakfast and my morning stitching on the patio.  Having been diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency at my last physical has made me more conscious of the need to get a little more sunshine in my life.  My project for the week, Phyllis Mauer's Kogin Tea Cozy pattern is very easy: all straight stitches of varying sizes.  The trick is in the counting and the placement.  And even that is a relatively simple process.  So this piece is the perfect early morning project for a bit of drowsy outdoor stitching before one has finished that first mug of life giving Assam or Irish Breakfast.  However, Thursday morning was just a bit too cool for the patio.  Even with the best of wills, I can't stitch with cold fingers.  But Friday the weather was balmy and I spent my day off relaxing on the patio reading, napping and intending to stitch but never quite getting round to it.  All I really got accomplished was trimming away some hideous vines that were growing over the fence from the neighbor's yard and planting some Blue Lake green beans.  Saturday was more organized if only because I had more to do: getting to the nursery for 4 more bags of soil and 1 more bag of peat and assorted  vegetable flats, catching up on the laundry, cooking and baking ahead for the next few days and doing a quick housekeeping of the living room, dining room and hall.  My youngest son came Saturday afternoon and helped with adding the soil to the planter box.  He then stayed for a very pleasant visit.  I am beginning to think of my planter boxes as huge black holes:  we had to buy 4 more bags of soil on Sunday but, at last, one of the boxes is finally ready for planting.  I filled the second planter box two thirds of the way full of dead leaves and will let it season till mid May in hopes that I'll be able to halve the total of  14 bags of soil and 2 bags of peat greedily consumed by the first planter box.

Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy

English Band Sampler, Final band, Part I

As to stitching this past week, here are photos of my progress on the two pieces that saw any stitching at all.  I alternated between the two projects you see pictured here: two very different pieces in style and technique.



Wednesday afternoon, when I got home from work shortly after 5pm,  I had to breach a barricade of packages, boxes and bags just to enter the house.  The milkman had made his delivery, my seeds had arrived as had my order of loose leaf teas from Culinary Teas and the latest Nora Roberts book, The Witness.  And there were three packages for my husband as well.  Since I went to bed before he got home, I still don't know what he had ordered.  I have mentioned before that I dislike the chore of shopping.  All that sweaty effort of running hither and yon, wasting gas, and you still end up settling for not quite what you set out to buy.  This is why the internet is such a boon: the endless variety, the delivery to one's doorstep, the effortlessness of sitting at one's computer in one's pajamas with a cup of tea at one's elbow.  Of course, Wednesday's bonanza was unique enough to comment upon; often weeks, even months, go by without a package.  Bill and I must have been bitten by the consumer bug at much the same time.  Next week will be another week of "deliveries" but this time from Girl Scouts bearing cookies.  Word has gotten out in my religious education program that Mrs. D used to be a Girl Scout leader and Service Unit Chair.  Four of my students came with their cookie sales sheets and of course I bought several boxes from each.  I am only afraid that the numbers of Girl Scouts will rise in a geometric progression next year as the word continues to spread.  As it is, I'll be donating a lot of cookies to our Midnight Run  for the NYC homeless.  But, what can I say, I remember the years my daughter sold cookies to earn enough for camping trips or other outings.  It's a good cause and who can resist a little girl's hopeful smile as she asks you to buy cookies?

I also admitted defeat in my search for my Tokens and Trifles triangles and ordered another package.  Given Murphy's Law, this means I shall find the missing pair any moment now and then have four extra in my stash when the replacements arrive.  But I have to get cracking on my scissor pocket exchange.    I also pulled the fabric for my Christmas Bird ornament exchange but have yet to cut  and bind the edges of the two pieces needed.  I have a favorite chart that is quick and easy to stitch and has the added advantage of using up any odds and ends of colorful floss one happens to have on hand.  So, if this week is all about the Tea Cozy, next week will be all about exchanges.

Weekend Progress Report: April 15, 2012

Things have been a bit hectic here this weekend.  The garden is coming along.  The raised beds are assembled and one has been half filled and I need to buy more topsoil and peat this week to finish filling it.  And I have made a start on filling the second one by filling it 2/3rds of the way with leaf mold.  I figure I'll let it season till  early May and then top it off with a mix of top soil and sand and peat for my lettuces, radishes and carrot crops.  I ought to be ready to do some planting next weekend.  I ordered some packets of heirloom seeds for a number of vegetables: carrots, cucumbers, zucchini and eggplant; and a few packets of wildflower seeds for the front yard planter box.  The flowers are billed as "often self seed" so there is a chance that if they take this season, they may return next year.  I filled three of those heavy duty paper Lawn & Leaf bags with the remaining leaves and swept the patio.  No sooner did I get everything nice and tidy then a breeze sprung up sprinkling everything with tree pollen and tiny little yellow green florets.

As to stitching, there has been some progress there as well.  The English Band Sampler has gotten some quality time and Part I is closer to a finish.  The Redwork section is done.  Though I like the look of it, I am not sure I'd ever want to do a whole project in Redwork.  And I have worked steadily on the tree in the center of this bottom band, nearly completing all the leaves.  A lot of that stitching was done out-of-doors yesterday.  It is always nice to stitch in natural light.  I don't need a magnifier even for 40 ct when I stitch in natural light.  The weather was a very pleasant mid-70 degree day with light breezes every so often.  I had been diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency at my last physical and had been making it a point to spend at least 15 minutes a day in the sunshine.  But yesterday I spent most of the day outdoors.  The simple joys of Spring!  And I shall have my breakfast on the patio this morning.

But it is time to get cracking on my stitching goals for the month.  Having spent the last week on an off-goal project has put me a bit behind.  I intend to spend the entire coming week on the Kogin Tea Cozy.  It is my goal to complete that monthly goal during the week since I spent so much time off-goal in the earlier part of the month.  And since I haven't found my Token and Trifles triangles in my stash, I'll have to order some from 123stitch.  I have one last place to look but I am not optimistic.  I figure I won't find these elusive little cards till I have ordered the replacements!  Happily, 123stitch tends to mail quickly since my scissor case has to be stitched and mailed by early May.

Photos will have to wait till Tuesday since my camera battery needs a recharge.

Weekend Progress Report: March 25, 2012

And my progress this past week on March goals:

Lori Birmingham's Jacobean Elegance Afghan:  I didn't even manage to start on my fourth block.  I was distracted by my new toy, a Pfaff Ambition 1.50 electronic sewing machine.

Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie: Block 2 is nearly done.  The date I put in the memorial is the year of my Dad's death ... the charted 1797 simply had no particular significance for me.  All I have to do is finish filling in the marble facade of the memorial stone.  I'll post a photo when it is complete.

But don't expect much stitching over the next day or two.  Today, Monday, is a marathon of a 14 hour day.  It started at 7:00am with grocery shopping for the Confirmation Retreat, a quick run at 7:30am to Bagel World for 7 dozen bagels for my Confirmation candidates' breakfast, the actual retreat ran from 8:30am-2:00pm, and will be followed by office work till classes begin at 4:30pm and 7:00pm,  the whole shebang ending at 9:00pm.  The Confirmation Retreat was a kind of mixed bag of wonderful moments and some unexpectedly disappointing behavior on the part of the candidates.  This particular 8th grade class has been one of the better ones in recent years and on the rare occasions when they misbehave it always takes me by surprise.  Of course, I laid on a heavy helping of Catholic guilt ... "I am so disappointed by your uncharacteristic behavior, I have always expected better from this group, this is so unlike you guys, etc., etc."  Now it's a matter of getting through the next few hours ... I need two substitutes for two absent catechists and another for a catechist who will be arriving a half an hour late in the 4:30 session.  The 7:00pm session will also be a challengte with some volunteer catechists simply choosing not to meet deadlines for progress reports.  Some days it's just not worth coming into work!  Tomorrow will be one of my usual 12 hour days.  Wednesday & Thursday will seem like holidays with only 8 hours on the job. 

Weekend Progress Report: March 18, 2012

This week's progress on March goals:

Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie: I spent the better part of Sunday stitching on this piece, but I am still less than hafway done with block 2.  This is a much more detailed block than the first. 

Lori Birmingham's Jacobean Elegance Afghan: After spending all of this week's home side stitching on this project, I finally finished one more block on Thursday, 3/14.  Three more to do if I am to meet this month's goals which seems unlikely, at best.

Gift stitch:  Stitched on this project on Friday and Saturday.  Finished the cross-stitching on 3/17.  I still have the assembly to do, though.

Weekend Progress Report: March 11, 2012

I am almost halfway through the month and most of my stitching so far has been off monthly goals although on annual goals: the cross-stitching of Papillion Creations Peacock was finished on March 9 [Friday].  I replaced a bit of the stitching with some Mill Hill seed beads in lavendar blue, just to give the piece a bit of glitz.  Again, the photograph was taken in natural daylight so there is a better sense of the true colors.  Now it is just a matter of doing the finish finishing.  That will require some stash diving in the sewing fabric bins.  The rest of the weekend was back on monthly goals, working on the Jacobean Elegance Afghan.  I am including a progress photo of the afghan block.  Not as impressive as one would hope.  I have nearly finished the third block of the afghan, leaving three more to go if I am to reach my March goal of four blocks.  I plan on keeping the afghan at my stitching chair for the remainder of the week, making it the focus of all my at home stitching time.  As for my travel focus piece, I will have to get back to my gift stitching if I am to have any hope of gettting it off in the mail this month as planned.  I did get to the post office earlier this week.  I had some boxes to mail to my grandchildren and I took the opportunity to mail the Sweetheart Tree's Holly & Hearts Sampler and Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons to their respective winners.  But it seems like there is always another reason to head to the post office.  I have another box for the grandchildren to mail this week and, if all of the Easter goodies I ordered arrive in time, there'll be another box to mail the week after that.  Long-distance grand-parenting is the pits!  Three thousand miles is just too great a distance to place between a grandmother and her grandchildren!

I have never been a big fan of Q-snaps but I do own a few: one of which is large enough to encompass a block in the afghan.  So I thought I'd give the Q-snaps another trial.  Generally, I find that the fabric becomes too loose in Q-snaps.  Since so many people seem to love them unreservedly, I figure I must be doing something wrong to get such unsatisfactory results.  In any case, I thought the afghan cloth [as opposed to linen] might work better in the Q-snap frame.  The tension isn't quite as taut as I usually like but it is workable.  At least I can work an entire block without having to shift my stitching frame when using the Q-snaps instead of my spring tension hoop.  So, between the Doodler Lap Frame I used for The Peacock and the q-snap I am using for the afghan, I have been doing a lot of two handed stitching lately.  I know this runs counter to common wisdom but, for me, two-handed stitching is slower than one handed stab and pull stitching.  I guess when you have been using one style for the better part of four decades, you build a proficiency making it a quicker option than the purportedly more efficient style.

Weekend Progress Report: February 26, 2012

I am moving right along on my monthly goals: I have finished stitching The Sweetheart Tree's Holly and Hearts Christmas Ornament. I had forgotten that way back in 2008, in an uncharacteristic spurt of foresight, I prepared the padded backboards for this flat ornament. So now that the stitching is done, the assembly will be a snap. I have two more ornaments to assemble in addition to this one tomorrow. Once all the ornaments are finish finished, it will leave only one of my monthly goals to fit into the last few days of the month: all I have to do is start [yes, just start] the small gift I need to stitch for my December 2011 giveaway. I promised Jo she would have it sometime in March. I guess I finally figured out just how much I can reasonably expect to accomplish within a given time frame. Now let's see if I can manage to plan March's stitching with equal accuracy. I actually resumed work on one of them tonight, from the Class Project List: Phyllis Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy.

On another topic: I chose the winner for my Holly & Heart Sampler chart giveaway. The first two names selected by the randomizer did not yield either an e-mail address or an active personal blog link when I clicked on the names ... so with no way to make contact with those individuals, I moved on to choose Kim. I can understand not wanting to post an e-mail address on a stranger's blog but a person's profile should lead to a way to contact them. I have used comments on a person's blog to inform people of wins before, so it doesn't always have to be e-mail, if an individual wishes that to remain private. Ultimately, it boils down to this: if you want to win a giveaway [at least, one at Oubliette], you have to make yourself reasonably accessible to contact. I am persistent but I am not a psychic!

Weekend Progress Report: February 12, 2012

I spent most of the weekend [and, indeed, most of the week] virtuously working on Tracery Dragons in keeping with my stated annual and monthly goals to work on old class projects and WIPs from the last two years. After last week's deviation into the immediate gratification of a scissor fob and two bookmarks, I thought it best to get back on track before I completely lost my shreds of self-discipline and reverted to the old habits that left me with over a dozen half-finished class projects and six or seven WIPs, in the first place. I refuse to call my WIPs UFOs since I know exactly what they are and I have been working on them continuously, really I have! As you can see from this photo of my dragon, I am closing in on a finish ... with less than a quarter of a page of cross-stitching and back-stitching to go. And then the specialty stitching of the dragon's mane and the rose stems will complete the project. That will make two finishes from the WIP list so far this year but none as yet from the Class Project Challenge List. I will have to get back to working on the Holly and Hearts Sampler very soon. What I am finding quite confusing about all this is how much easier and more quickly stitching on the dragon is going this time around. It took me June, July, August, September, October and the better part of November to accomplish roughly the same amount of stitching I have managed so far this year: six months as compared to six weeks. And, the motifs that were sheer torture in 2011 [the roses] were a breeze to stitch in 2012. Go figure!

I'd like PIF this chart once I am done with it. If you would like to have it, just leave a comment below.

Weekend Progress Report: February 5, 2012

This has been what I hope will be an atypical week. Due to short staffing and just general madness at work, I have been a little too stressed to concentrate on my goal projects. Instead, I went for simpler and less ambitious stitching: bookmarks and a tiny scissor fob. At midweek, I finished a lovely Celtic Bookmark from Dinky Dyes, though I totally changed the colorway. Then I stitched a dainty little chart from CEC called Tiny Basket. I love pansies and just couldn't resist this darling little Spring scissor fob. Next, I finished up the week by stitching another bookmark, this one of my own design, Riona's Book Nook: a bookcase with lots of interesting little details - a spider plant, a kitten staring down from one of the shelves, a small geode tucked in the corner of a shelf, an antique bottle. Can you guess what you might find on my book shelves? Well, all those things and more, except the kitten. I am allergic to cat dander. But somehow, adding the kitten to the bookcase seemed to make it look nice and homey. All I have left to do on this bookmark is the geode [yet to be drawn and charted], the back-stitching and the specialty stitching of which the spider plant will be made [some modified lazy daisy stitches, some long stitches and some star eyelet stitches]. It is amazing how much detail one can pack into a space less than two inches wide by seven inches high. The upcoming week should be better. My program assistant will be back from her two week sick leave. First Confession and the Confirmation interviews are behinds us. The stress levels should recede just enough to let me get back to the Holly and Hearts Sampler and the Tracery Dragons. I hope to have both these pieces finished by month's end. And, though I really do want to limit new starts to small quickly finished items, temptation comes in the form of the latest issue of Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly. This issue includes Part I of a lovely band sampler that I absolutely must start. The story of my life: too many intriguing charts, too little stitching time!

Weekend Progress Report: January 29, 2012

This entire week has been devoted to Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons, which was on my list of Crazy January Challenge 2011 projects, and therefore qualifies as a 2010-2011 WIP. I am in the home stretch, working on page one [I started from the bottom and worked up]. But if the past is any indication, this page could take as long as three or four months to complete. I am hoping that won't be the case though, since I have been moving pretty quickly on this project during the past week. I think I have a better understanding of the flow of the design now and that helps me stitch more effectively. It's not my usual m.o. to work on a single project. Most of the time I have a five project rotation going. But in 2012, I have challenged myself to clean up my stitching act. The plan is to use a three project rotation this year since I am concentrating on finishing up class projects and the more recent WIPs. Three different projects seems to be just enough to give me the variety I crave but few enough to keep me focused on the goal of actually finishing pieces ... instead of starting something new two or three times a month and ending up with a huge pile of WIPs. In theory, I should end 2012 with a whole bunch of finishes and a very short list of UFOs/WIPs.

Weekend Progress Report: January 22, 2012

As Hermit and Stitching Weekend continued, I worked diligently on my current monthly goals.

Crazy Class Project Challenge: The Sweetheart Tree's Holly and Hearts Sampler. Aside from finishing up the brick stitch row, I have stalled on this piece. I need to get the motivation to really examine that last row of tracery below the heart to see where I made my mistake and then frog and re-stitch. While my cold was at its worst, I didn't have the concentration to do so. And, now that I am back to stitching on Tracery Dragons after a three month hiatus, that's all I want to stitch. Maybe this week, after the novelty of the dragon wears off, I'll finish the sampler. I am so close to a finish and it would be fantastic to have two finishes this month!

2010-2011 WIPs List: Finished The Workbasket's Quaker Sampler on Saturday 1/21. I turned it into an anniversary sampler by putting Bill's and my initials in the medallions flanking the heart, in which I stitched the year of our marriage. No sooner did I put that down, then I promptly resumed work on Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons. I appear to have recovered my enthusiasm for the piece and have made a fair amount of progress. But then I have been working on areas that are comprised mostly of the trellis and the leaves, each of which only have 5-6 color changes and work up pretty quickly. Unlike the roses and the dragon, which have many more color changes, lots of confetti placement and a nightmare of fractional stitching. The stems and branches are also slow going because they are so irregular and require such careful counting even though most only have 3-4 color changes. When last seen, the dragon looked like this, with pages two and three of the chart stitched and backstitched. And now that I have gotten a fair start on the stitching of page one, it looks like this.

And, I'd also like to announce the winner of the two fried egg buttons: Mary Ann, #10 in the CAY SAL. Only 7 members of the SAL had signed on for the contest at the time I printed out the entries on Friday morning [one day later than planned]. And I chose the winner by writing the seven numbers on a sheet of paper, closing my eyes, and jabbing the paper with my finger. Not particularly scientific but I am sure Mary Ann doesn't mind.

Weekend Progress Report: January 15, 2012

This has been a busy weekend professionally: Saturday morning and early afternoon were consumed by the Reconciliation mini-retreat for my second graders and Sunday was a Catechist's Spirituality Day [based on The Serenity Prayer]. I had 43 darling little second graders at the first and I took 4 of my 33 catechists to the second. So, not too much stitching this weekend nor during the preceding week. And all this while I have been continuing to deal with the Everready Bunny of colds, that has been going and going since New Year's Eve. For most of this week, in an effort to evade the frog, I switched from my rather complex WIPs to a virtually mindless project, BH&G Tooth Fairy Pillow [see photo on 12/14 post]. So, in addition to getting less stitching done, most of what was done, was off-goal. I did start feeling a bit better Friday night and, during the weekend, finished off the blue motif and the green motif in the smaller rectangle and started on the central row of medallions for personalization. Since we just celebrated our 41st anniversary on the 10th, I believe I will place a B in the first medallion, the date 1971 in the central heart and an R in the third medallion. And since this is a three day weekend in the USA, celebrating Matin Luther King Day, I was able to get in some more stitching today. So, I am closing in on my first finish of 2012. I'd be a lot prouder of that fact if it weren't a WIP dating from 2010. But I'll happily accept any finish at all since I usually already have one by mid-January.