Assessing September Goals, Setting October Goals

SEPTEMBER GOALS
BAP: Continue to work on TW's Tracery Dragons on the designated Wentzler Wednesdays. Did this, and have progressed to cross-stitching page 1 after completing all the cross-stitching, back-stitching and specialty stitching of pages 2 and 3.
Crazy January Challenge: Start Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie. Well, it's started with one section outlined but not yet completely filled in.
HOE: Assemble and mail the Autumn Pyn Keepe. DONE.
Ornament: Aury's 2011 Quaker Red White and Blue Heart. Half-finished.
Sewing & Finishing: the four LHN pillows & two HE pin cushions. No.
Surface Embroidery: finish The Fertile Circles Needlebook No.
WIPS & UFOS from 2010: Continue work on Workbasket's Quaker Sampler, the Jacobean Elegance afghan, and the Beach Find Pansies panel. No.
WIP 2011: Continue work on The Sturbridge Box. No.
And one off-goal project was finished: the piece I will be sending out as my blogaversary giveaway ... and two off-goal projects were started: needlepoint Owl Sampler and the Friendship Sampler.

OCTOBER GOALS
BAP: Continue to work on TW's Tracery Dragons on the designated Wentzler Wednesdays. Crazy January Challenge: Continue Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.
Ornament: Finish Aury's qo11 Quaker Heart.
Sewing & Finishing: the four LHN pillows & two HE pin cushions.
Surface Embroidery: finish The Fertile Circles Needlebook
WIPS & UFOS from 2010: Continue work on Workbasket's Quaker Sampler, the Jacobean Elegance afghan, and the Beach Find Pansies panel.
WIP 2011: Continue work on The Sturbridge Box.

Woebegone Wentzler Wednesday

No stitching on the dragon today ... a lengthy regional meeting followed by leaving work later than usual [trying to make up for a whole morning lost to the meeting] ... left me a little too tired to risk Wentzler style stitching. Instead, I did a bit more work on the first block of Black'd Skie. After all, I couldn't go a whole day without any stitching whatsoever!

Weekend Progress Report: Sept. 25, 2011: My First Three Day Weekend

I have been doing a bit of crowing lately about my new work schedule that allows for a three day weekend every week ... of course, I pay for it with two beastly 12 hour days Monday and Tuesday ... but I expect it will be well worth the sacrifice. So here is how the first one went.

Friday morning: I have only two "engagements" this weekend: a baby shower for my goddaughter and the farewell Mass and reception for Fr. Bill who has been transferred to a new parish after just 10 months with us. So it should be a good stitching and gardening weekend, always assuming the rain stops. Lots of time to enjoy my passion for my backyard and for the textile arts. I am hoping to get the yard cleaned up completely so that I can start on a "landscaping" project. Who knows, I may even get some finishing done! The current favorite in my stitching rotation is Black'd Skie. The Needlepoint Inc Silks are a joy: so smooth, such luscious colors, such amusing names for the fibers. And I always enjoy working on 40 count linen. It may be my imagination, but I do believe the details are more defined and sharper on the higher count linens. And, of course, I love all The Primitive Needle designs I own. The pre-mature death of the designer in a tragic flooding accident was a great loss to the stitching community. But I am also enjoying a nostalgic return to needlepoint with my Owl sampler and a lovely little patriotic piece that I am stitching for Barbara who won my blogaversary drawing. So there will be lots of options to choose from this weekend and plenty of quality stitching time.

Friday afternoon: Well, the rains came in spite of my hopes, so after a bit of grocery shopping and housework, I settled down to some stitching. I finished the cross-stitching of the patriotic piece for the blogaversary prize and dug out the perfect fabric for finishing it. I had hoped to have it ready to mail Monday but that didn't quite happen. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Photos will be forthcoming when I hear that Barbara has received it.

Saturday: One of the problems with a rotation that is currently four BAPs and no smalls whatsoever is that I need the occasional little project to keep my stitching energy going. So this morning, I put together a little something from odds and ends found in my stitching stash. The chart was A Friendship Sampler, a complimentary chart by a designer unknown to me. When I downloaded the chart, I failed to notice that my printer scanned only 5/6ths of the page. The missing portion had the designer's name and all the DMC #s. I don't mind missing the #'s since I never really play by the rules anyway but I am annoyed that I didn't catch the designer's name and can't give the proper credit. I have changed everything about this sampler except the positioning and shape of the houses, so it is nearly as much my own creation as the original designer's but still I would like to give credit where credit is due. Keeping to the recent stitch from stash theme, I pulled out a scrap of fabric that I had cut and zigzagged around the edges before deciding it wouldn't do for a project way back in April. And since I was planning on stitching my Friendship Sampler as an Autumn piece, I pulled out the same Catherine Jordan overdyed cottons I had used for my Earth Day Make Do Sampler and supplemented those fibers with a bit of Caron Wildflowers Marigold left over from my Autumn Spots of Fun Sampler from 2009. Just to be on the safe side, I also pulled some WDW Chrysanthemum from stash and some odds and ends of green floss from other long since finished projects that I have stored on a darling little wooden hornbook shaped floss holder. Okay, the houses remained the same shape and in the same relative position to one another but I changed the tree to a deciduous one so that I can stitch some lovely orange-y gold leaves, I will replace the tulip like flowers of the original with my own interpretation of spider mums and will add some greenery and a few pumpkins, and I have changed the border to a brick stitch checkerboard with corner squares in tent and Rhodes stitch using the Caron Wildflowers Marigold floss. I'll probably go back and frog out the border on the upper right corner and re-stitch it to create a smoother color flow. I still have some spaces to fill and haven't quite decided how I will fill in the blanks but I am happy with this start.

Sunday: It was back to Black'd Skie for the remainder of my stitching time. I have to apologize for the failure to iron the linen before photographing it but I didn't really have the time before work to do so. I am still working on the boring border and have yet to decide whether I will do all the borders at once and be done with them or stitch each block as I come to it.

All in all, a fairly productive weekend and not a bad precedent for all the three day weekends yet to come!

A Meme of Sorts

One of the ladies on the 123 stitch board came up with a "meme" of sorts. I have edited it somewhat and repeated it here, thinking it might be fun.

Regional Phrases Quiz
1. What term do you use to describe a sale of unwanted items on your own property? Yard sale.
2. What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road? The verge.
3. W hat do you call the area of grass that occurs in the middle of some streets? A median.
4. What do you call the long narrow place in the middle of a divided highway? A median.
5. What do you call the drink made with milk and ice cream? A malted.
6. What do you call the long sandwich that contains cold cuts, lettuce, and so on? A hero.
7. What do you call the insect that flies around in the summer and has a rear section that glows in the dark? A Lightning bug.
8. What do you call the miniature lobster that one finds in lakes and streams for example (a crustacean of the family Astacidae)? Crayfish.
9. What do you call the kind of spider (or spider-like creature) that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs? Daddy-long-legs.
10. Are there very specific names used for paternal vs maternal grandparents in your area? No.
11. What do you call the big clumps of dust that gather under furniture and in corners? Normal.
12. What is your *general* term for the rubber-soled shoes worn in gym class, for athletic activities, etc.? Sneakers.
13. What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket? Grocery cart.
14. What term do you use to refer to something that is across both streets from you at an intersection (or diagonally across from you in general)? Catty-corner.
15. What do you call the activity of driving around in circles in a car? Stupid.
16. What do you call paper that has already been used for something or is otherwise imperfect? Scrap paper.
17. What is your *general* term for a big road that you drive relatively fast on? Highway.
18. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining? Sunshower.
19. When you are cold, and little points of skin begin to come on your arms and legs, you have- goose pimples.
20. What do you call the gooey or dry matter that collects in the corners of your eyes, especially while you are sleeping? Sand.
21. What do you call an easy course? Basket-weaving class.
22. What do you call a traffic situation in which several roads meet in a circle and you have to get off at a certain point? Annoying … oh, all right, a traffic circle.
23. Do you use the word cruller? Yes, doesn’t everyone?
24. Do you use the term "bear claw" for a kind of pastry? See above.
25. What do you call someone who is the opposite of pigeon-toed (i.e. when they walk their feet point outwards)? A ballerina?
26. Can you call coleslaw "slaw"? No.
27. What do you call the box you bury a dead person in? A coffin.
28. Do you say "vinegar and oil" or "oil and vinegar" for the type of salad dressing? Oil and vinegar, because if made properly, there is more oil than vinegar.
29. What do you call it when a driver changes over one or more lanes way too quickly? We are supposed to avoid that sort of language on the Internet.
30. When you stand outside with a long line of people waiting to get in somewhere, are you standing "in line" or "on line" (as in, "I stood ___ in the cold for two hours before they opened the doors")? In or on, I use them interchangeably.
31. Do you say "frosting" or "icing" for the sweet spread one puts on a cake? Icing.
32. What is "the City"? Well, New York, of course!

Well, Wentzler Wednesday Was A Wee Bit Weak.

Finally, I started on page 1 of the cross-stitching. Here it is late September and I foolishly thought I'd have this piece done by the end of July back when I started serious work on it early June. Talk about foolish optimism! I'll be happy to finish it by year's end, at this rate. Nothing much to show yet since I only managed an hour's worth of stitching today. I'll wait till next week to stun and amaze you with a progress photo ... at least, I hope there will be stunning and amazing progress.

First Days

Well, I survived my first day of the program year ... all 12 hours of it. And I have to admit I didn't have it nearly as badly as my husband did. Today was the first day of the Fall session of the UN and my husband manages realty space for UBS, right across the street from the Waldorf where the POTUS and many other dignitaries stay. His building's street access is closed off by the Secret Service agents; NYPD and Homeland Security people are all over the place. Sharpshooters are positioned on rooftops all over the place and mid-town becomes an armed camp. In short, conducting normal business is a logistical nightmare. Not to mention that my husband's usual 2 hr one way commute nearly doubles in time because of all the checkpoints and closures. It seems to me in this day and age of tele-conferencing, it would be ever so much more sensible and far less expensive to hold these events in virtual time/space. After all, it's not like anything really gets done during these first day sessions except a lot of political posturing and place marking. The sensitive security issues are dealt with by the workaday professional UN staffers in normal sessions. It'd just be easier on NY taxpayers if the UN would adopt a lower profile. The cost of added police security and loss of business because of all the above mentioned checkpoints and closures could be eliminated and life could proceed with just the everyday level of chaos that characterizes NYC.

I did manage to get a bit more stitching done on my lunch hour and I relaxed with a wee bit more after work while waiting for my poor spouse to get home ... but I can't show photos as my project was the patriotic piece requested by Barbara as her prize in my blogaversary giveaway.

Weekend Progress Report: Sept. 18, 2011

My religious education program starts tomorrow as does my new schedule of 12 hour days Monday and Tuesday and 8 hour days Wednesday and Thursday with three day weekends. I am a little concerned about the Monday-Tuesday stint but am absolutely thrilled to have a three day weekend. For the past 17 years I have always had a split in my days off: Wednesday & Sunday or Thursday & Sunday. I never felt really rested because I never had two days in a row to recoup my energies. I tended to use the weekday off to schedule appointments and run errands that couldn't be done on weekends. And, at least once a month or so, my weekday off would be eaten up by professional meetings or workshops. And Sundays, well when you work for the Church, even as a layperson, every so often Sunday becomes a work day as well. So the new three day weekend has enormous appeal: not two, but three days off in a row. Meetings are rarely scheduled for a Friday, so I won't be losing many of them and even if I have to work on a Sunday, I'll still have two days in a row off that week. My husband and I can enjoy a weekend getaway to the Catskills or Amish country or some other nearby spot every so often. What could be better? But what about stitching this past week? Well, since work really heated up this past week, not much stitching time but what I did have was spent on Tracery Dragons and the Black'd Skie Sampler from Primitive Needle. So far as Tracery Dragons was concerned, I finished up the #4 Kreinik braid for the dragon's mane and the wrapped backstitch that makes up the thinner branches of the rose bush. The top row of Black'd Skie is done as well. My apologies for the poor photo - I didn't have time to iron it before taking a snapshot. And, I must confess, my stitching time was further eaten away by the arrival of the latest Nora Roberts "In Death" series novel. I devour this series and tend to drop all other leisure activities when a new installment arrives, reading late into the night till I am done, usually a day or two after I remove the book from my mailbox.

My Need for Needlepoint

I started embroidering some forty years ago with needlepoint ... it was my first love. Though I do far more cross-stitch and surface embroidery nowadays, every now and then I simply have to go back to my roots. What inspired me this time was the grab bag sale of Thread Gatherer's Shepherd's Silk and Sheep's Silk at Needle in the Haystack. Perfect for needlepoint! I ordered a bag of each fiber and a length of eggshell 18ct mono canvas. Once the grab bags arrived, I started casting about for a project. Most of the time, I can be satisfied with one of the lovely Christmas ornaments on the Caron website. But this time, I just had to go for something a bit more ambitious. So take a look at the beginnings of my owl sampler. I love the way the rice stitch in the eye circle worked both in texture and in the variation of color in the overdyed silk! I will finish it as a shaped pillow and hope to have it done for Halloween, 2011, but 2012 would be good, too ... it'd make a great addition to my Professor McGonegal costume. This sampler is being stitched on 18ct eggshell monocanvas with a variety of Threadgather Silk'n'Colors, Sheep's Silk and Shepherd's Silk yarns as well as some Caron Waterlilies. Basically, I am going through all my silk and wool fiber stash and choosing things that fit my colorway. I may even use a wee bit of RG Petite Velvet for the feet. Each section of the design is done in a different stitch and with a different fiber. The chart is from an ancient hardcover book called The Creative Art of Needlepoint Tapestry by Joan Fisher which was copyrighted in 1972. I have kept this book more for the wonderful history of the needle arts and the dictionary of stitches with which it begins rather than the designs which tend to be a bit dated. But I always liked the owl and always intended to stitch it one day. Here is a photo of the design from the book. As I said, somewhat dated. All that striping to give the interest and texture that modern overdyed threads achieve so much more elegantly. In accord with my usual habit, I am playing with the chart and changing things here and there. I'll be eliminating all the stripes within a section, e.g.: the Hungarian stitch at the crown of the head is being done entirely in Thread Gatherer's Silk'n'Colors Chestnut and the large eye rings in rice stitch are being done in Caron Waterlilies Burnt Toast. Those dreadful eyebrows are being banished entirely. I've pulled another of my Waterlilies skeins from stash, Tobacco, that I'll probably use for the breast of my owl. Some of my new Thread Gatherer's Sheep's Silk will be used for the upper and lower portions of the wings. I haven't figured out all the variations just yet. I have been toying with the idea of doing the beak in a Queen stitch which will change the shape just a wee bit and move the right eye ring over a thread or two which in turn will have an effect on the width of the crown of the head. I tried it first with a WDW perle cotton ... as seen in the photo. This will be frogged shortly. Instead of a smooth elegant finish it is lumpy and grotesque. I am going to go stash diving again and see if I can come up with a silkor wool. Four strands of silk or a low ply wool ought to produce the effect I am craving. I love Queen stitches and they are so much easier to do on canvas than on linen so how can I possibly resist including some? This is why I could never be a model stitcher. I view charts as suggestions, gentle hints, jumping off points ... It is true that sometimes, barring the ever so rare mistake, I stitch a chart faithfully - Teresa Wentzler's charts spring to mind here. Even I wouldn't dare mess with a TW chart. But more often than not, I make changes, most commonly with colorways and/or fiber and fabric selections but frequently even with the actual design elements. I think it is the aging hippie mindset: I rarely do exactly as I am told.

"Woe is Me" Wentzler Wednesday

Dated for Wednesday but actually posted on Thursday because the camera battery needed recharging. My religious education program starts next Monday, the Annual Parish Picnic is Saturday and I am meeting with new catechists this week as well as with the perennial crew of last minute parents registering their children. Registration opened May 15 and the "deadline" was June 30. But in ministry, "deadline" translates as "please, for pity's sake, register on time so I don't have to update class lists and parent hall duty lists 90 times in the last two days before classes start". And that is just the tip of the iceberg: textbooks, workbooks, parent orientation packets, fundraising packets, program handbooks have to be re-counted/adjusted. Catechist binders and Attendance Rosters have to be updated. Name tags, Permanent Record Cards and student folders have to be added. Late registrants are a logistical nightmare of clerical mistakes just waiting to happen! But I stick to my philosophy that no child shall be denied religious formation or sacramental preparation because of an arbitrary deadline or parental inconsideration, idiocy, irresponsibility or discourtesy ... even though I send reminder postcards in July and August and do a follow-up phone call the Tuesday after Labor Day. This year seems to be a little harder on my nerves and demanding of my patience ... I guess I am getting too old for this. Most late registrants try to turn things around so this is all my fault, as in one woman's protest that "When I got the registration packet in May and saw the exorbitant fees, I just threw it to the side and said I'd deal with it later! Then, we were travelling all summer and I didn't get around to it." This same woman cheerfully pays three times the amount of my fees to place her children in Little League and has one child in travel hockey which ends up costing thousands of dollars a year when you consider ice time, hotels and meals for the family when competing out of state and still has sufficient funds to "travel all summer"... but she questions my fees of $270 a year for two children. Still, I manage to remain polite and welcoming even as I seethe inwardly ... and I did wait till she left the building before banging my head on my desk. To make matters worse, yesterday was primary day and my auditorium is a polling station. And the dear elderly folk who volunteer to staff the polls had me lowering, raising, lowering, raising the air conditioning temps at least a dozen times during the day ... the pastor insists that the controls remain under lock and key to prevent waste and to encourage accountability of the staff. The old darlings were very sweet and apologetic in the extreme, and I know and like most of them but still... So that set me a bit behind in my routines preparing for the first week of classes. Needless to say, I didn't get much stitching done today ... which is probably a good thing. My frazzled nerves would probably have resulted in loads of frogging. In any case, here is my progress photo. Only the most observant eye for detail will detect any progress since the last photo!!! Okay, I'll tell you. The trellis outlining/backstitching was finished Wednesday 9/7 and Wednesday 9/14 I started on the gold tourmaline metallic mane on the dragons.

Another September Goal

... was to start Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie. Oh, my, what a BAP! The piece is huge ... far larger than I remember: 197w x 247h. It is stitched in panels or boxes a la the HRH series. I think this officially kills any chance I might have had of completing the Crazy January Challenge of 2011 successfully. After all, there is still Allesandre Adelaide's Zucca on the list after this. Even if I decided to limit all my stitching to Tracery Dragons and Black'd Skie for the remainder of the year [a most unlikely choice, at best], I doubt I'd finish up both by year's end. And that still leaves Zucca out of the mix: another BAP, if not in size, then in complexity. But I am not nearly single-minded enough to focus solely on BAPs. I have two 2010 WIPs still in the stitching bag that I would like to have done before the close of 2011. And there's a 2011 goal to have stitched one Town Square ornament a month this year: I have five ornaments to go. I have yet to receive the JCS Halloween book for 2011 and I just know there'll be a must stitch ornament or two or three in that issue. Then, of course, there is my committment to stitch a blogaversary ornament. What was I thinking? Well, back to the details. I am stitching this on a piece of 40ct raw linen with one strand of the recommended Baroque Silks from The Pure Palette. The ridiculously tiny bit of progress you see in the photo is the product of four hours stitching! Gotta love 40ct projects!!!