Progress on Rotation WIPs

Friday, Saturday & Sunday: TW Woodland Angel Stocking.  According to the Stocking SAL, Friday night was the time for the fortnightly photo of progress.  But as noted in my last post, I kept going on Midnight Moogies Thursday through Saturday.  I did return to the stocking on Palm Sunday and again on  Good Friday and Holy Saturday.  The Christmas stocking I am working on is a BAP from, dare I admit it, 2011.  It is going to be my grandson Liam's stocking and I foolishly hope to stitch a companion stocking for my granddaughter this year as well.  Liam's stocking is Teresa Wentzler's Woodland Angel and I am adapting a Gold Dimensions kit, Woodland Maiden, to make a companion stocking for Piper.  The theory is the Woodland Maiden will be a lot easier than the Wentzler angel and I will get both done in time to mail cross country in early December.    I haven't yet reached the point when I will have to abandon all other projects to meet this self-imposed deadline.  I figure that will happen sometime in August.  But I have reached the point where things slow down dramatically for this page of chart.  I have stitched what passes for the larger blocks of color in a TW piece [usually five to ten stitches grouped close together] and am now stitching the confetti ...

but, remember, this is TW confetti which means it is all the heck over the place.  Translated this means: load your needle with a blended thread, stitch one cross, count one row down and three rows over, stitch one, skip one, stitch two, then count two rows down and thirteen rows across, stitch two, skip four, stitch one ... well, you get the idea.  Well, I finally got so cross-eyed with all the counting that I decided I needed another landmark/anchor from which to count.  So I counted 27 spaces/54 threads to the left of the bottom of the deer leg and stitched the rabbit.  Now, I have a clear image from which to count on the upper left side of this page of chart.  Even so, you may find that the the progress is hard to see.  I know I spent hours stitching on this piece and even I would be hard-pressed to show you exactly where the progress was made!  My third grandchild will have to wait till 2014 for his stocking but since he'll be only 15 months old next Christmas I am hoping he won't notice the absence of a stocking in December 2013.    I am thinking of using something from the Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy book for his stocking to keep the medieval theme going for all three stockings. 

Monday: The Berry Patch Rabbit.  This one saw just a little stitching on my Monday lunch hour this week and perhaps another hour or so on Holy Saturday.  I needed a break from the TW stocking toward the end of the day, something that didn't call for re-loading my needle every ten stitches.  Somehow it seems appropriate to finish up the rabbit right around Easter and, now that I think of it, an odd coincidence that I stitched the rabbit on the TW stocking as well.  Tomorrow, I will get started on the berries and leaves that really make this design so attractive.

Tuesday: The Cross Stitch Shop.    I didn't get to work on this piece on Tuesday.  See yesterday's post for the rant that explains the circumstances.  However, I did pick it up to work on yesterday and quickly decided I had some frogging to do.  I didn't like the way the brick stitch was looking with two strands and will  remove what I have done and try one strand.  That will be one of my projects for today.

Wednesday:  Mystic Smalls.  Another one that will see some activity today since I haven't picked it up in nearly two weeks.  Like the Cross Stitch Shop, there will be some frogging to do before making any forward progress

Thursday: Midnight Moogies.  There was a bit of progress on this during the week: two of the leaves in the garden.  It may not look like much but it represents several hours work.  I have to admit, I chose to stitch the leaves solely because I didn't want to tackle so much as another inch of the checkerboard border.  If I never stitch another checkerboard in my life, it will be too soon!  Even as close to a finish as this piece is, it is in serious danger of becoming a UFO yet again.  I am so done with it!  So ready to see the last of it!  Even the bright colors have lost their appeal and I find myself enjoying the subtlety of Teresa Wentzler and Cedar Hill Designs so very much more.  However, I am determined to finish the piece in April.  Then we'll have to see just how long it remains in the sewing/assembly finish before becoming the back cushion for my Japanese lacquered bench.

Which brings us right back to the starting point of the rotation.  Since this is Easter Week and I will be off the entire week, I expect to make more than the usual progress.  Oh, I won't be devoting my entire time to stitching: there'll be yard work and housework as well.  But still, there will be more time for stitching than is usual.  I am seriously hoping that by the end of this coming week I'll be able to revise my rotation as follows:
Friday, Saturday & Sunday: TW Woodland Angel Stocking.   This will, of course remain the lynch pin of my rotation since I want to have it and one more stocking done by early December 2013.
Monday: The Berry Patch Rabbit.  I am not sure I'll be able to finish this one in the coming week but certainly before April's end.  Once it is finished, I won't be replacing it with a new start.  Rather, Monday will become a day for Sewing and Assembly finishes.
Tuesday: The Framing Shop.  I hope to have finished the Cross Stitch Shop, both stitching and sewing assembly, and to have moved on to the next in the series.
Wednesday:  Mystic Smalls.   I hope that I'll have finished the re-stitching of the scissor case and the stitching of the needle book and the sewing and assembly finish of each.  That will leave me free to move onto the biscornu and scissor fob the following rotation.  Once I am done with the Mystic Smalls, I will tackle the other Thea Dueck class piece I have on hand, The Sturbridge Box.  I'll be taking a class with Thea again in October and want to have all my Thea projects done and ready for Show and Tell.
Thursday: The English Band Sampler.  It is my hope to have finished Midnight Moogies during this week and to have picked up the English Band Sampler again.

That's the plan anyway.  We shall see how doable it turns out to be.  I am usually over-optimistic in setting expectations but I see no problem with aiming high.

Why I Didn't Stitch Yesterday

Yesterday was frantically busy with no time for stitching, or even a lunch break, for that matter.  When I got home from work at 9:00 pm, I feel asleep on the couch while my husband watched three or four episodes of Warehouse 13 on DVD.

Part of the problem was stress.  The 8th graders in my Confirmation prep program complied with all the NY State Board of Regents protocols to secure excused absences for religious observance while attending the mandatory retreat day on Monday 3/18.  No tests should have been given and no new material taught according to the protocols.    The kids returned to school to find out that no less than nine teachers gave tests and quizzes or taught new material.  I had been in written and phone contact with the principal and the attendance office about this last week.  The  principal had assured me that no child would be "penalized" for attending the retreat but the children had to give up lunch hours and study halls to make up tests that should never have been given that day in the first place.  Others missed notes for a test given the day of their return, clearly putting them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the others in the class.

It didn't take long to draft my protest letter to the principal on which I will be copying the school board.  But it irks me that my kids' religious rights were violated.  The crowning insult was that I knew at least two of the teachers to be Catholics.

And, of course, there was the usual work to clear my desk before the 10 day Easter break.  When I return to the office on 4/8, I need to jump right into preparation for the First Communion mini-retreat, the registration mailing for the 2013-14 program and all the usual Spring routines [inventory, textbook & supply orders, drafting the 2013-14 calendar, building inspection and setting up a summer schedule for maintenance and repair].  This year there will be an additional chore, updating our AV inventory.  All the VHS tapes I so carefully amassed 10-15 years ago are wearing out and I need to draft a list of DVD materials to replace the outworn and outdated materials.

The hard part will be convincing the pastor that I really need to replace these items.  I have been on an austerity budget for the last 5 years with no new electronic equipment or resource materials purchases permitted.  We have been making do with donated used TVs, DVD players, etc.  My office computer is at least 12 years old and showing its age.  We have none of the standard teaching technology of the day: no computers in the classrooms, no teacher's lap-tops hooked up to projectors and large screen TVs showing computer generated Power Point presentations, no wireless in the building.  We are still using over-head projectors and transparencies.  I suppose I should be grateful I don't have to make do with mimeograph machines and reel-to-reel projectors ... or stone tablets and chisels, for that matter!  I have a hard time understanding how we can afford flowers for the church every week or expensive new matching sets of vestments for the deacons and priests but can't afford learning materials for the children who are the present and future of our church community.  Rant over!  For today, at least!  I can't promise not to revisit the topic periodically.  When even our 1st graders are fully "wired", for us  to be teaching with methodologies from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s is just so quaint.

Feeling Feline

It seems amazing given my recent three month long obsession with this piece, but Thursday was the first time I have worked on this since February 24.  That's almost a month without the cats in my lap.  

When last seen, on the 2/25 post, the cats were sitting pretty but the border needed work.  I put in my rotation stitching on Thursday but then just kept going for two more days.

I waited till Saturday night to post a photo so I could show all the progress, including the stitching I did Friday and Saturday. I finished up the right hand border, another two flower petals and started on one of the leaves.  Admittedly, not as much progress as you might expect for all that time but remember this is where I had to place my seams and I was stitching through four thicknesses of Aida with mildly arthritic fingers.  This makes for slow stitching and frequent pauses to rub some circulation back into stiff digits.  The calendar may say Spring but it is still Winter here, complete with four inches of snow on the ground and the occasional patch of black ice on the roads.  Here at the family home, we are not at all stingy with the heat but living in a townhouse built on a concrete slab makes us vulnerable to whatever dampness is in the air.  I believe it is the dampness as much as the chilliness that causes my arthritis flare ups.  Lately, I always seem to feel a chill.  I frequently put on my nice thick chenille bathrobe over my street clothes just to stay warm.  My husband is comfortable in street clothes and it seems cruel to keep bumping up the heat until he sweats.  But I am beginning to think I should take a fashion tip from Bob Cratchitt and start wearing   indoor gloves with the finger tips cut away after the first knuckle.  Won't that look just charming?

I have only one more Thursday left in March.   So, if I stick to a strict rotation, this piece will have to wait till early April for a finish.  But, usually, when I get this close to a finish, I let something else drop to concentrate on the near-finish.  That'll be the case here.  I am going to give over some of my Sunday stitching time to the cats.

Rotation Stitching Progress Photos

Just a small correction: People seem to have gotten the impression that my Irish Stitchery post showed recent finishes ... I guess since most of my March posts have been about sewing finishes.  In truth, the Irish pieces have been done over many years and were posted in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day.  I know I have really been heating up the old sewing machine but even during one of my most frantic finishing frenzies, I can only manage two or three items a day unless they are ornaments and then the number might jump to five or six.

I haven't posted any photos of my current projects since I returned to rotation stitching, so here goes:

Monday: Cedar Hill's The Berry Patch Rabbit:  You can just see the shape of the rabbit forming: a powerful haunch and hind paw, a front leg and the suggestion of a chest.  I had to do a bit of frogging here.  The chart called for the body of the rabbit to be stitched in a blended needle of DMC 3041 and 407.  I thought it an odd choice, mauve and medium brown, but I trust this particular designer and assumed it was one of those surprising juxtapositions of color that somehow worked.  It didn't take long to discover that that was not the case, at least to my taste.  I'd like to believe it was a typo but the description frankly stated lavender and mauve.  I kept trying to tell myself that this is how a rabbit would look if it was snuggled down in the shadowy underbrush.  But I just wasn't happy with it.  Once I substituted DMC 3031 for 3041, the piece began to look much more satisfactory.

Tuesday: Town Square SAL The Cross Stitch Shop:  I have begun working by outlininging the windows and doors and the over one sign first because the actual walls of the building are being filled in with horizontal straight stitches arranged to look like brick placement ... as you can see in the lower left corner..
Wednesday: Mystic Smalls Needle Book  No progress since I was not well enough to stitch  Wednesday before last and was preoccupied with finishing this last Wednesday.  I figured no progress would be better than the regression of stitching errors and the resulting frogging so I read and napped instead on the day I wasn't feeling up to snuff.

Thursday: Midnight Moogies.  Same deal as with Mystic Smalls, only substitute Thursday for Wednesday..

Friday, Saturday & Sunday: Back to TW's stocking.  .  Truth be known, I actually spent my time Friday and Saturday on sewing and assembly finishes rather than on the stocking.  I did get back to this piece on Sunday, though.  With all the confetti stitching in the snow and shadow, this may not look all that impressive ... but, trust me, progress has been made.

I have been enjoying the variety after the three and a half month stint of stitching Midnight Moogies exclusively.  I admit I miss the satisfaction of massive progress on a single piece but it surely has been nice to add a finish or two, however small to my  sewing finishes sidebar.  It was beginning to look quite bare for this time of year.  As this month continues, I hope to be able to add a few more finishes both to the Cross Stitch Finish and Sewing Finish sidebars.  This would be a real boost to my stitcher's ego.

And I am enjoying my blog again.  I am getting to write about a variety of stitching and finishing.  It would seem that my readers are enjoying the increased variety as well since the page views per day have increased rather dramatically, over 150 a day since I stopped concentrating on the cats.    Some of the posts actually garnered more than 250 page views per day.  Those are pretty high numbers for me.  And it's not like I have totally abandoned the cats; they will be getting one day of every week.  Of course, the day being Thursday, that translates to only one or two hours a week.  Thursday is a full work day, after all.

Just a Little Irish Stitchery

Heart in Hand Wee Bird: St. Patrick's Day

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A Tie Pillow

Secret Needle Night Shamrock

A very old free chart, provenance long since forgotten

Shamrock Bookmark

Celtic Knot Heart free chart

And a Few More Finishes

Finishing seems to be addictive.  I have worked on some form of finishing every day this past week.  And I am beginning to see some patches of bare wood on my dining room table.  To keep things organized in the future, I think I shall bring only three finishing projects down from the storage area at a time.  And once I eliminate The Berry Patch Rabbit from my rotation, I'll replace it with a formal finishing day in the rotation itself.  Who knows?  This may be the year I finally catch up on all my finishes!  Stranger things have happened.  The problem is that every time I think I have gathered all the pieces needing finishing in one place, one or two more always show up ... or I decide that something I intended to frame should be a wall hanging or finished in some other sewing fashion.

Two of Phyllis Mauer's Kogin Christmas Tree ornaments.  I used hand made twisted cord [DMC Ecru] and beaded hangers on both ornaments.  I used a dark green perle floss to stitch these simple little ornaments.

And I made up a small pin pillow.  This is Papillion Creations' Moonlight Serenade.   I used a teal fabric that picked up one of the colors in an old Needle Necessities overdyed floss, trimmed it with a bit of cotton crochet lace and trimmed the edges with hand-made twisted cord [DMC 156, 210 & 211] picking up the lavenders in the stitching floss.

Some More Finishes

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

I did finish up a few totes:

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

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

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

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

One More Ornament Finish

This is a long overdue gift which I will be getting out in the mail as soon as possible.  It is Ink Circles Full Moon.  I stitched it for myself on the recommended cream colored linen but for this gift to an English stitching buddy, I thought I'd  go with this lovely purple linen to serve as a night sky background.  I love this particular design and may very well stitch it again should I ever need a Halloween exchange.  Keeping everything perfectly symmetrical calls for slightly tricky counting but the final effect is well worth the effort.  I used a tri-color home-made twisted cord for this version: three purples, one of which matching the linen.  And a beaded hanger using orange and lavender seed beads and gold bugle beads.    I backed it with a greenish black satin finish double knit fabric which, though a somewhat odd choice, actually worked very well.  All in all, I am rather pleased with the final finish and I hope Jo enjoys it once it is finally received.

And Yet More Sewing & Assembly Finishes

We had some snow Friday and into Saturday morning and I spent a cozy weekend, sipping tea and doing some ornament finishing.  Whenever I have to do some flat ornaments, I tend to wait until I have accumulated enough to make an assembly line process the way to go.  In yesterday's post I showed off the four Town Square SAL flat ornaments that I added to my collection: The Button Shop, The Book Shop, The Primitive's Shop and The Antique Sampler Shop.  But I also worked on a few more flat ornaments:

The Sweetheart Tree's Holly and Heart Christmas ornament.  I ended up using Weeks Dye Works Blue Spruce for making the Twisted Cord since I didn't have anything else on hand in the proper color range.

And an old freebie featuring a cardinal singing its little heart out amidst some Christmas greenery.  I don't have the designer's name.

Sue Donnelly's Stitcher's Hideaway souvenir ornament for the 2012 Spooky Retreat.  I am rather pleased with the tri-color twisted cord I made for this ornament.  It took a few tries to get it right but it was worth the extra effort.  I also added a little Jack-o-lantern brass charm to the beaded hanger just for fun.






That makes a total of 7 flat ornaments so far and only three more to go: a Halloween ornament from Ink Circles called Full Moon and two of Phyllis Mauer's Japanese Kogin Christmas Tree ornaments  I only managed to prep the boards for these ornaments but I should have them finished over the next day or two.  In between bouts of finishing, I have been working on my rotation projects and will post photos of those toward the end of the week.

Some More Sewing and Assmebly Finishes

Since the darling children in my religious education program seem to have passed on the rather nasty stomach bug that's going around, I had an unanticipated day off yesterday.  And I spent some of it working on additional ornament finishes.  I seem to have accumulated quite a lot of cross stitched ornaments that required "some assembly."  So, here are some photos of yesterday's progress.

I stitched together and stuffed two more small pillow Christmas ornaments but have yet to slip-stitch them closed and add a hanger.  One is an Elizabethan design [a very old freebie that I finally stitched last Fall] and the other is a Japanese Kogin design, a bonus chart in the class kit of Phyllis Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy from the old C.A.T.S. festival.  I also stitched a Kogin Christmas Tree from that same chart pack but haven't yet gotten around to the finish-finish.

And I started work on a gift tote I will use for my 3 year old granddaughter's Easter package.  Now my dear little girl is totally into girly frou-frou and pink.  As many of  my readers know, I detest pink and prefer the minimalist approach in most things.  Less is more is a truism I live by.  So it is an act of grandmotherly love to turn Jennifer Aiken Smith's Dragon of Compassion into a tote for my Piper.  I have been playing with possible trim placements for the front of the tote and have come up with this arrangement.  I think it is well over the top which means Piper will probably think it just makes the cut.  I will finish up the tote tomorrow.  Not only is Friday my day-off but we are expecting snow later on today with an accumulation of five inches or so by tomorrow morning.  I'll also spend part of Friday working on some flat ornament finishing which I tend to do assembly line style.  I have about 8-10 ornaments that need this treatment.  Maybe by the end of the weekend, I'll have another finishing post.

Rotation Stitching Progress:  Sadly, I neglected my Wednesday assignment, the Mystic Smalls Needlebook, in favor of reading for a while and napping for a while longer.  Stitching while ill is never a good plan for me and generally results in more un-stitching than stitching.