WIP Progress - Such as it is

So far this week, all I have worked on is the Plum Street Sampler Halloween Greetings that was featured in the September JCS 2010 issue. This was charted for 36ct and I am stitching it on 32ct, so I understand that it is working up larger than the designer intended ... but even at 36ct, I would have considered it a very very large ornament. Add that to the fact that there is an awful lot of stitching involved [3 sheep, 1 house, 1 pineapple, 1 raven, 1 pumpkin, 1 crown and a healthy dose of words & numbers] and what you've really got is a small to medium sized pillow ... not an ornament, by any means. So far as I am concerned ornaments should be the quintessential smalls: roughly 3" square [adjust dimensions slightly for other shapes], simple but attractive designs, a fair amount of white space, quickly stitched, more in the fun & funky vein rather than mini-masterpieces. I realize there are some who go to the other extreme with their ornaments ... I am thinking about some of the elaborate Victoria Sampler ornament charts I have seen ... but I consider that way too much work for too little end product.

Since my version of this design will be anything but an ornament, I'll be leaving out the phrase "Halloween Greetings" at the top and substituting another raven [facing center] for the date. I believe I have some thin wale black corduroy in my fabric stash to turn this into the perfect knitting bag [sheep - wool] for my sister's Christmas gift.

Photos will have to wait till tomorrow while the camera battery recharges.

Some Stash Enhancement

And a part of my order from Stitchery Row arrived: all the flosses I needed for the Halloween ornament charts as well as some Homespun Elegance Olde Brass buttons, and the chart for my December Bride's Tree ornament, The Quaker Santa [Workbasket]. They are still trying to get the Monsterbubbles Day of the Dead kit for me and are looking for some bee buttons in the Olde Brass style. I placed an order with 123stitch for some more floss [what else?] and for my fabric for the November and December entries in the Bride's Tree SAL: 28ct raw Glasgow linen and 32ct raw Belfast linen... got the e-mail that it is in the mail ... so I hope yo have it by Friday or Saturday. Still, I feel richly satisfied today ... fondling fiber, examining the chart. The Workbasket leaflet also has a chart for a Quaker Snowman. Though not a big fan of snowmen, I may stitch it on some black linen I have with DMC B5200 or one of my vintage NN overdyes in shades of white and pale blue ... the contrast ought to be interesting and I can always turn it into a small pin pillow or a door hanger or a pin keep for a winter giveaway.

Getting Ready for ...

... some special giveaways. It seems with the NaBloPoMo, I'll be needing some special giveaway to mark my 500th post by Jan. 4, 2011. I can't decide whether to give away 5 $10 or 1 $50 gift certificates to 123 stitch. Spread the wealth or make one person very happy? What do you, my readers, think?

I am also up to 91 followers at the moment ... when I hit 100, I'd like to give away a stitched gift. I thought I'd make an ort jar and have started designing the top. I want this to be real funky and whimsical and I intend to fringe the edges of this top with actual orts attached with the stitch commonly used in rug hooking. I have the perfect fat little globe of a jar. I have some rainbow rick-rack in two widths and some brightly colored floss. All the elements are coming together ... this should be a nice little diversion.

Pillows, pillows and more pillows

As I said earlier this month, blogging daily about stitching can be a challenge. Stitching, by its very nature, takes time. Working full-time and maintaining a household tends to interfere with stitching time ... consequently, there just isn't enough current stitching to fill daily posts. So, I find myself resorting to a series of photo essays about projects done in the past. Today's photo essay will be devoted to pillows. I love piling throw pillows on beds and sofas ... a tendency my husband deplores. If I had my way, I'd finish anything not frame-worthy as a pillow and we'd have to devote an entire room to their storage. In deference to my husband's preferences, I have reluctantly added totes, stand-ups, quilts, bell-pulls, wall hangings and the other non-pillow finishes to my bag of tricks.

Nonetheless, I do have many, many pillows and here are a few:

First, on the left is my all time favorite, the very first Homespun Elegance design I ever stitched, Sampler Patches, from the Plain and Fancy Collection. This was stitched when over-dyes were just coming on the market and long before I found an on-line source for GAST and WDW. I used a Needle Necessities over-dyed floss instead of the recommended GAST but it turned out all right anyway. On the right is a free chart, again, I forget the designer, no longer have the chart and can't find a mention of it in my stitching journals ... so it must be very, very old: before I started keeping records. For some reason, the name Plum Pudding Designs comes to mind, but I am really not sure.

A couple of Halloween pillows: the first from Glory Bee and the second from the Tall Bird series from Heart in Hand. Both were stitched on the recommended linen with the recommended fibers. Fun and funky stitches for one of my favorite holidays.

It's been so long since I stitched this one, that I can't remember the name of the design/designer but it looks like a Glory Bee to me ... I seem to recall that the tall skinny house is one of Nancy's motifs though Blackbird Designs also uses them, of course, usually in conjunction with a blackbird ... I couldn't find mention of this in any of my old stitching journals and the chart is long gone ... so we'll just have to call it a mystery pillow. And on the right is a piece I stitched up as a souvenir of one of our many visits to Maine. All I remember at this point is that the chart was purchased from Willow's End, a now defunct LNS [Boothbay Harbor].

A couple of complimentary charts from Little House Needleworks: Star Light, Star Bright and Summer House. These simple little designs were stitched in the recommended GAST and WDW on whatever linen scraps I had available but I added a few beads or embellishments for greater interest and texture.

Weekend Progress Report #45

Hillery left a comment yesterday suggesting I combine my own designs for the Bride's Tree SAL into a Christmas Spot Sampler, perhaps adding a few more designs. I thought about it for a few moments ... you know, going over all the reasons it would be difficult. For example, many of the motifs I have designed make rather large ornaments, 70hx50w, stitched over two on 28ct linen. To make a spot sampler using these designs, I would have to either re-design them to be smaller or use a 40ct linen, stitching over two or a 25ct evenweave , stitching over one. Also, the Bride's Tree SAL motifs make up a set only because each symbolizes a wish for the bride's home [e.g.: security, plenty, beauty, hospitality, fertility, love, etc.] and are not all icons necessarily associated with Christmas [e.g.: a rose, a rabbit, a teapot, a fruit basket, a fish, etc.]. But the more I thought of the challenges, the more I thought of ways to resolve them, e.g.: frankly titling the piece Bride's Tree Spot Sampler and including all the words as well as a central Quaker medallion for the married couple's monogram and/or wedding date. And the more I thought about it, the more the whole notion began to intrigue me. I also thought of motifs I might add to the mix to make things more Christmas-like: star, wreath, pine tree, gift, creche, candle. I don't know if I'll ever get around to doing this but it is now firmly esconced in the mental file I carry around in my imagination ... or maybe that's my subconscious. Even if I don't do the spot sampler, I definitely see a creche ornament in the very near future. The general shape is already envisioned: the bottom half of an Quaker octagon [to represent the animal's crib] topped with the upper half of a Quaker circle [to represent Christ's halo] all supported by diagonnally crossed narrow Quaker bands [serving as the legs of the creche]. Thanks, Hillery, for your interest and your inspiration.

But as to actual stitching going on this weekend:

Plum Street Sampler's Halloween Greetings: I couldn't resist starting this one. I am using a 32ct linen, Country French Latte and the recommended Crescent Colors overdyed cottons. It was designed for 36ct, so my finish will be larger than ornament size ... I'll probably finish it as a pin pillow or a gift bag.

The Design Process

I couldn't find a Quaker chart for a pinecone for the October theme in the Bride's Tree SAL, so I cast about for one I could adapt to my purposes. I remembered that Gift of Stitching had a nice Pine Cone ornament that I had stitched as a gift for a stitching friend last year. I looked at that and ultimately decided it didn't work for me.

So I grabbed my handy dandy pad of graph paper and a #2 pencil and started doodling. I used a standard Quaker leaf motif for the rounded top of the pine cone and then adapted a Quaker circle into an overlapping honeycomb for the remainder of the chart. And, knowing I would change it out considerably, I borrowed the branch and pine needle part of the GOS chart as a jumping off point for my first sketch. My immediate reaction was that the first sketch was entirely too top heavy and that, paradoxically, there was also too much white space in the top third of the design.

I started stitching anyway, making the changes I envisioned on the fly ... which is the way I do a lot of my designing. My first change was to eliminate the bottom third of the leaf motif and replace it with the overlapping circles. Next I broadened the top center piece of the leaf motif and filled in some of the white space with connecting cross stitches that left small crosses of negative space. Finally, I stitched a very stylized rice stitch branch for my pine cone and some long stitch pine needles. After completing the stitching to my satisfaction, I charted what I had actually stitched, just to have it on file.

Now I need to get started designing a Quaker Angel. I have a clear vision of what I want: a horizontally oriented angel in flight with fragments of standard circular or oval Quaker motifs forming wing and gown, a circular motif for the halo, and the bodice and head stitched in a simple, though not primitive, style ... think Prairie Schooler.

I wonder how many people design the way I do ... half on paper, half on linen. The creative process is a very personal one, to be sure. And I don't claim to be anything but a rank amateur but I do wonder if others share the same process that I do. The vision > a half-realized graph or sketch > a stitched model on which the actual design problems are resolved. No doubt, the real professionals are adept at using all the computer models for designing but I prefer the feel of a pencil or a needleful of floss in my hand.

In fact, sometimes I work entirely on linen with floss like I did with my Fertile Circles Needlebook which I must really get back to and finish. I think, having solved all the design problems, played with all the variations on a theme, and experimented with all the different fibers and techniques to my satisfaction, I just moved on ... even though just a few more hours stitching would have seen the project to completion ... or at least, ready for the final sewing finish! The same thing happened with my Beach Find Pansies, which grew out of finding oyster shell fragments on a Chesapeake Bay beach that reminded me of pansy petals. These projects will have to be resurrected from the UFO basket and finished up in December or January.

Stash diving & WIP Progress

Every now and again I like to go through my stash of charts, partly just to refresh my memory of what is there, partly to plan for the future and partly just to admire the work of the many talented designers I patronize. During the earlier part of the week, I was troubled with sinus headaches that were edging toward migraine intensity. As a result I wasn't able to concentrate on stitching. Instead, I used my usual stitching time to do a bit of browsing through my stash. Although I stitched three Halloween ornaments from JCS September 2010 last month, I have another four charts for Halloween ornaments that I had planned to stitch but didn't get to. I'll be keeping these charts in my current stitching bag to be stitched in 2011: Blue Ribbon's Halloween Greetings from the JCS issue, Monsterbubbles Day of the Dead also from the JCS issue, The Stitcherhood's Boo Pumpkin freebie and Primitive Needle's By the Light of the Moon freebie. I will be designating 2011 a year of Halloween and fantasy stitching. I have such a heavy concentration of Halloween charts in my stash as well as a plethora of dragon charts ... all of which I love and am itching to stitch. Yes, I know that, according to the Chinese calendar, 2010 was the year of the dragon ... but for me it will be 2011. As for larger projects I'll be slipping into the rotation: I definitely want to work on Cross Eyed Cricket's Sleepy Hollow and Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie as well my four remaining Dragon Dream's dragon charts [Dragon of the Summer Sky, Dragon of the Ice Kingdom, as well as the compass point dragons and the dragon tea party charts], a few TW dragon freebies and a beautiful Celtic knotwork dragon that I bought as a pdf directly from the designer. Then I have a few more Workbasket Quaker animals to stitch before I can assemble my quilt. And then there is Something Wicked and Ghosts and Ghoulies Etui and Zucca and The Goblin Market and ... But all that is for next year.

My current project: The Town Square SAL Clock Tower, by the Cricket Collection. I probably managed 3 or 4 hours of stitching on this today, in between chores and errands. However, I am going to have to set it aside for a little while since I am waiting for some GAST floss in colors I didn't have in my rather extensive stash. I am always surprised when a design calls for a GAST and WDW color I don't have. I tend to have most of the muted traditional sampler colors ... and this design calls for a number of bright vibrant colors not found in the sort of thing I usually stitch. I ordered the floss from Stitchery Row back in late October but they forgot that I had said I didn't mind paying two shipping and handling charges if they didn't have everything in stock. I had asked them to send me whatever they had on hand immediately and the back orders in a second mailing.

Another small finish:

The Octber Bride's Tree SAL ornament. The Quaker Pine Cone is my own design. As soon as I receive more fabric from 123 stitch, I'll get started on designing and stitching an angel in the Quaker style for the November ornament... I don't want to fall behind again with this SAL. I have ordered Workbasket's Quaker Santa for the final ornament in December. It'll be nice to have the complete set.

Veteran's Day

I can't think of a better way to mark Veteran's Day than with a photo of my Dad, a Purple Heart medal awardee, who survived WWII but undoubtedly had his life shortened by the wounds he received in France. He died at the relatively young age of 59: a good and honorable man sorely missed by his family and friends for more than two decades.

Today, I will pray for peace on this planet so that no men and women need to lose their lives because their leaders are consumed by hatred and greed for territory, power and wealth. War is an obscenity which we should have evolved beyond long ago.

Monthly Giveaway Winner

Using an on-line randomizer, I have determined that the 8th commenter is the winner this month. So, the magazines and tea will soon be winging their way to Mary. As is usually the case, I don't seem to be able to predict what will be a popular giveaway and what will be a ho-hum flop. Things I think ever so clever garner almost no attention whatsoever and things that strike me as rather ordinary go over quite well with the readership. I confess, I wasn't sure how well this particular giveaway would do ... I thought it really appealing and that is usually the kiss of death for my giveaways. But there were 13 comments. So I guess it was neither a wildly popular success nor a total flop ... simply a giveaway that coasted a smidgeon below the average response.

I am closing in on two statistical blogging landmarks, worthy of being marked by unique giveaways in the future.

The first, my 500th post, will probably be reached in time for the January 2011 giveaway. Something that special ought to be marked by a more personal giveaway, a stitched item of some sort. I was thinking of an Ort jar with a padded lid or a cupcake pincushion, a piece I could stitch up now and hold in reserve for the giveaway.

The second, my 100th follower, is much more difficult to predict but if the list continues to grow as it has over the past few months, sometime before June or July 2011 is the likely time frame. I am aware of just what a compliment following is. I myself follow about 35 blogs through my blog list and regularly drop in on another dozen or so that are bookmarked on my favorites list ... I devote some of my precious computer time to this because I respect the creativity of the bloggers on my various lists, as writers and as textile artists and as modern day philosophers/diarists/storytellers. I admit it gives me something of a thrill that a blog I started mainly to have a visual record of my stitching over the years [replacing my hand-written and unillustrated stitching journals] might be entertaining others. A more practical and realistic voice whispers that most come for the giveaways and the photos of finished projects and probably pass right over my golden prose. Whatever their reasons for visiting, I welcome all my readers and I have a special place in my heart for all those who take the time to comment or who participate in my giveaways. I find all this very affirming. And when the 100 mark is reached, I'll have to come up with a significant way of celebrating.

The Retreat was cancelled

I should have been on retreat [the religious sort] since Sunday afternoon but it was cancelled because of low enrollment. This is a major disappointment because I could really have used the time for reflection and renewal. The topic would have been Franciscan spirituality which is centered on a preferential option for the poor and on instrumentality ... all of which resonates very deeply for me. I am just going to have to soldier on until Spring when I will again be able to carve out some time for my own spiritual renewal. I'll have to look at what is available at the Bethany Retreat Center or maybe at the Domican Sisters of Hope motherhouse. It won't be exactly the same sort of thing but it will go some part of the way to filling in the gap.

And just because there have been too many posts without pictures these past few days while I am trying to blog daily for NaBloPoMo, I am including this photo of two adorable little sock monkeys purchased from my parish's Prayer Shawl Ministry ... they'll be Christmas gifts for Liam and Piper. I just love that I was able to get them sized for Big Brother and Baby Sister. I have a kit to make a couple of sock monkeys stuffed in the very back of one of my dresser drawers but I doubt I'll get to it any time soon ... certainly not in time for my little grandchildren to enjoy such toys. So I was absolutely delighted to see these on the sales table when the Prayer Shawl ladies were setting up for after-Mass hospitality this past weekend. I can give sock monkeys that I didn't have to make myself and I have the satisfaction of knowing I was able to support a useful ministry.