Of Stitching and Crocheting

The stitching around here has been slow but steady. I can stitch for hours and not have a lot to show for that time other than the memory of a pleasant few hours.

There are those that think sitting around the house stitching on a perfectly beautiful day is a waste of a perfectly beautiful day. I disagree with that philosophy. I think any day is the perfect day to sit on the couch and stitch and since recently introducing Netflix streaming through the Wii to our home, well I don't care if I ever leave the house. It's this wonderful, magical thing, this Netflix streaming through my Wii.

I've just started Isabella Johnstone from SANQ, I think last summer's issue. I'm using DMC and 32ct linen that I aged myself. I've also been working a bit on SL Emma Lerch:

(yes, that's the Wii controller, my new BFF)

The picture below is the bit that was able to catch a streak of sunlight, the only sun that I could capture this afternoon:

Emma and Isabella are great companions while I watch episode after episode of Wire in the Blood and 30 Rock. Another project getting a bit of attention is my Ocean Waves afghan. It's from Crochet Today's Quick & Easy Gifts special issue. I'm crocheting it using the recommended yarn because I had it all in the stash. Good old Red Heart. I would say that I wish I was crocheting this using the finest wool but the fact is my family is the type of family that if a drink gets knocked over they reach for the closest thing to sop it up which would be this afghan, not to mention the dogs and our pride of cats, the frequent handwashing of a wool blanket would be a pain in the butt.

All I know is that I need to stitch and crochet much faster. I have a long, long list of projects and even with not leaving the house any more than I have to, I can't get near as much done every day as I'd like. I thought for sure I'd have Emma completed by the end of this month. No way that will happen. I keep trying to tell myself it's all about the process, the finish is just a wonderful perk but I want to move on to the next project. The serial starter in me is itching to start several new projects. It's a constant battle not to put that first little X into a piece of virgin linen. I must control myself or I will spiral out of control and be sucked into the vortex to Fantasy Island or rather the land of "You'll Never Finish All These Projects".

That Emma, She's a Screamer

Since finishing Rachael Holmes my stitching time has been devoted to sweet EMMA LERCH. She seems to be yelling the loudest and considering her loud color palette, she's hard to ignore.

Emma Lerch

Scarlet Letter

32ct cream linen

DMC

started in 2010

The last couple of days have been spent on stitching the house outline and I will admit that while this is a reproduction sampler I am not stitching it the same as Emma. Her house was apparently outlined with over 1 Xs and I can't see where all that over 1 enhances the beauty of the piece so Emma is a better woman than I. I'm stitching the house outline over 2 just like the rest of the sampler. Call me a baby, I can take it. I tried a couple of over 1 stitches and truthfully, they were not making me happy so I made the executive decision to make my sampler a wee bit different from Emma's and no one would know unless I told them and whoops, I just did!

Since finishing the outline of the house I've gone back to working on the border. It's actually going pretty fast and this is from the single slowest stitcher in the history of the world.

Has anyone else stitched this sampler? Did you outline the house with over 1 Xs?

Happy New Year!

Here ye! Here ye! On this the second day of January in the year two thousand and eleven, a sampler has been completed by she who nevers finishes anything. Rachael Holmes

Heartstring Samplery

32ct linen, aged by moi

assorted threads from the stash

(click to make bigger)

New Year's Eve was spent trying to right some wrongs such as the septic tank, the broken front blinds thanks to a neurotic dog and cats who believe they are their personal monkey bars, some cleaning and a bit of stitching. Unfortunately most of the above took away from the time I could spend stitching and Rachael Holmes ended up being carried over to the new year. Since I'm more of a lemonade girl than lemons I decided a finish on the first day of the year could be just as a positive as a finish on the last day of the year and maybe set my stitching pace for the year ahead. January 1st was spent with an NCIS marathon and stitching and stitching and stitching, OMFG, no matter how much I stitched, there was more. No matter how close to finished I thought I was there was more! I gave up around tenish and decided Rachael won and she'd get one more day out of me. At six a.m. this morning I picked Rachael back up, I made X after X after little X and finally after two episodes of Law & Order she was completed.

I love this Sampler so much. I used Beth's colors as a guideline and pulled threads from my stash.

These are the threads I used-the chart colors on the left, my substitution on the right:

WDW Honeysuckle- GAST Ohio Lemon Pie

WDW Dove- GAST Banker's Gray

WDW Guacamole CC Eves Leaves

WDW Pecan DMC 420

WDW Havana DMC 830

WDW Mocha CC Olive Branch and DMC 640

WDW Bark DMC 3021

WDW Red Pear DMC 223

WDW Raspberry CC Manor Red(this was touch too red but it works well I think)

WDW Deep Sea CC Wavy Navy

WDW Bullfrog GAST Forest Glade

WDW Curry CC Finley Gold

My conversion isn't perfect but I'm very happy with the finished result and am working hard not to be so anal about using the exact threads a chart calls for and I'm trying to build my confidence swapping out colors. I've found the investment in a DMC color card is worth every penny. Once a thread can be matched a color of DMC matching a thread from the stash is so much easier.

May 2011 be a year of stitching heaven for all of us.

May there be no knots in your floss

No frogs in your needle

And may the little X continue to bring you comfort and joy!

Thank you to everyone who takes time to read this blog and share the love of the little X with me.

Happy New Year!!!!

2011 WIP Challenge

I decided to try to the up for a challenge WIP challenge this year. Only I'm tweaking it a bit and only starting out with six projects. If I complete these six by June 21st I will then add six more to the stack, once those six are completed, I'll see what three projects look promising for end of year finishes. I always start challenges and SALs with so much hope. This year I'm being realistic. I have pictures of my first three WIP, the weather has been much too dreary here to take pictures of the other three. So I wanted to post this now before I changed my mind and when I post again I will have the most current pictures of all six projects, and maybe have my full fifteen projects decided upon. This is Jane Atkinson by the Scarlet Letter. According to my records this piece was last photographed on February 23, 2009. I love Jane, truly, madly, deeply and would love to finish her early this year. Not sure that will happen, that over 1 verse is a killer. I'm stitching Jane on 36ct Flax linen and using good old DMC. The colors are much brighter than what you see in the picture which is part of Jane's charm.

Above you see Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie. I had hoped to finish this project before the end of this year but as you can see that ain't happening. I know I have stitched more on this block but can't seem to find a picture. This photo was snapped on July 28, 2010. I'm stitching Black'd Skie on 40ct Vintage Pear and using the Pure Palette Silks. They are awesome to stitch with.

And Long Dog's Sonne Spotte Rounds out my top three. I'm using a mix of GAST and DMC and stitching on 36ct creme brulee I believe. This picture was taken on April 15, 2009.

The other three projects that will be seeing lots of action the first part of 2011 are Handwork's Frances Eden, Scarlet Letter's Emma Lerch and Long Dog's Moulin Rouge.

I'm looking forward to this WIP challenge and hope I can keep up my mojo and get these projects completed by June. Unless something unforseen happens I can see this as a very reasonable goal.

Not Fa La La La La La La

But La D Da Da Da or Tah Da De Da De Da:

In the Garden

La D Da

40ct lambswool(I think)

DMC floss

Why yes Virginia there is a finish before Christmas. BELIEVE! This morning while watching LOTR: The Two Towers I put the last stitch into the border. It was nice to actually wrap something up before Christmas. Yeah, pun intended, because I'm a dork like that.

No other news to speak of other than I scored this nifty bowl thrifting last week. Right now it's buried under books and DVDs while we attempt one more time to move the TV armoire but even as emptied out as it is it still won't budge. We are afraid to remove the tv from the top because we will never get it back up there because it's almost as heavy as the aforementioned armoire.

The tree is leaning against the living room as I have stated that I will not put up the tree until the living room is rearranged because I've determined that every single thing wrong in my life is directly related to the poor positioning of the tv armoire. My world would be all rainbows and unicorns if only we could move that armoire.

I did mention previously that I am in the throes of perimenopausal insanity? Oh yes, the crazy is coming round full force these days. It's amazing what small thing determines the quality of my life.

Now back to working on Rachael Holmes and the hope to have her completed before the ball drops in Times Square.

Coming soon:

My 2011 WIP Challenge List

My 2011 Crazy January Challenge List

Dispatch From the Land of Unfinished Projects

How's everybody doing? Getting ready for your holiday, Christmas, Festivus, etc. celebrations? Things here have been busy. I was recently inspired by this post:

Pleasant View Schoolhouse: Getting Started on a Scrap Quilt


And determined that maybe I let myself get too sucked into the perfection of quilting. If my seams don't match up I'm not worthy enough to quilt. If my layout sucks, I shouldn't have wasted my time. I had it in my head that any sewing or quilting I did must be perfect or I was doing nothing but wasting my time and money. So I read Anna's post and decided that some random scrap piecing was in order. I had been agonising for a while over the layout and colors for my oldest son's quilt. He likes green, he's loud and a true wild child. Over the last year or two I had been gathering the random green fat quarter, a bit of green yardage and then pulled some yellows and blues and an orange or two from the stash because all green seemed a little sad to me. I thought my wild child needed a kick of color outside of green. I took my time, tried to be as exact in my cutting as possible, at least as accurate as someone linearly like myself can hope to be.

I then sat around for a week or two trying to figure out how to match up squares and rows and what fabrics worked and what didn't and then banged my head on the table and screamed to the empty house, "It's a flippin' scrap quilt, don't think, sew, don't think, sew". And that's exactly what I did.

(if only my yard were ever as green as this quilt)

I took this picture this morning in the yard, a cloudy overcast 6:48a.m. shot, and I do believe some neighbors were peaking out their blinds wondering what the heck I was doing. I'm the weird, quirky, odd neighbor and I'm okay with that.



Here's another picture. I randomly sewed two squares together, then stacked them up in a pile, then I determined how many pairs of squares I'd need per row for a twin sized quilt, the number was 14 and then I started just sewing my pairs together. Once or twice I stopped and changed up a square or two but I didn't really think too hard about it. The top was going to be what it was going to be and I didn't want to plan it. I wanted a joyful, happy, scrappy mess--this means that no matter how I laid out the colors it would be a success, as long as it had the happy gene, the smile factor.

Last night when the spousal unit arrived home from a long day at work he saw the quilt top on the back of the couch and a huge smile spread across his face, "If the oldest son doesn't want it, I do". That right there is success.

This is the top stretched out on DS#1's bed, OMG, that room is a dark and scary place. But the top fits the bed and will be perfect when I add a border. I had been worried and so had the oldest son that this quilt had a girlie feel to it. I kept saying groovy, not girlie, GROOVY I tell ya.

The two fabrics above are the ones he finds most offensive, particularly the one on the bottom. I had yardage of that, whoops! The top fabric, yeah I knew it was girlie. I get it, but it sure made me happy to cut it up into those four inch squares. It's the one fabric that is me in the quilt, so I left it. We have named this quilt, The Girlie Man.

Next up is a quilt for the middle son which will be a mix of old jeans, plaid shorts, some cut up button down striped shirts, maybe some osnaburg fabric and a few blue prints thrown in. I plan to make it similar to this quilt:

Pleasant View Schoolhouse: Another Scrap Quilt: Someone Stop Me!

I like the 3x6 retangles a lot. It may end up being a hot mess trying to use denim but I'm going to try. Worse case scenario, I'll need to swap out the denim for some dark blue solid fabric.

Then a scrappy quilt with blue as the dominate color for DS #3.

If you have been wanting to try piecing but decided it's above your skill level or too fussy, or too hard, I beg you to just jump in and let go. The quilt doesn't have to be fancy, use stashed fabrics, try to do it right but don't fret if seams don't match up exactly or if there's a bit of puckering. I loved this project so much. I took my time cutting, I pinned it to death just before sewing, and I still got puckering, I still didn't sew perfectly straight but I tried, I tried so hard and that's all that matters. My biggest obsession was trying to keep matching fabrics from popping up next to each other. It was impossible, to let go of that control, to just jump in and sew strips of squares together and see what turned up where, it was fun and liberating.

This quilt couldn't be more basic:

4 inch squares

14 to a row

21 or 23 rows of squares

That's it.

From the Cross Stitch Pile:




Progress on La D Da's In the Garden. This is taking forever! I'm finally down to a bit of filling in and the border. Maybe I'll have this finished by the weekend.

November Manifesto

Before I get to my November Manifesto, I had two final finishes for October. Stacy Nash's Jack Treat Bag and Hallows Eve pinkeep:

Jack Treat Bag

Hallows Eve Pinkeep

32ct antique white linen

DMC

Fabric aged by moi

Back of Jack Treat Bag

Fabric used for lining treat bag
Backing fabric for pinkeep-yeah, my homespun has a touch of bling, that's how I roll

November Manifesto

My plans for November are many:

1)Finish Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie

2)Make solid progress on Scarlet Letter's Emma Lerch

3)Finish the oldest son's Christmas stocking-Drawn Thread's Stefan's Christmas Stocking

4)Start the middle and youngest son's stockings-still debating a pattern for the middle son but the youngest has chosen BOAF's Wish Upon a Star Christmas Stocking.

5)Stitch some ornaments(designs and who they are for to be determined later)

There are probably more but right now these are at the top of the stitching priority list.

The other goal is to finish Nanowrimo this year. I have a writing schedule, I know the story I want to tell and with the oldest son finally employed I can do it. I am allowing myself a shitty first draft, thank you Annie Lamott and I'm just going to do it. I have a series planned, I know the stories of the first three books, I have a YA spinoff series and a prequel series and another spin off series. I just need to not have to share a computer and now for five hours Mon-Thurs I don't have to. I am going to do this. If everything goes as planned, of course it won't, I'll finish the first draft early, won't look at it again until January. Then I'll rewrite, then let a few friends read it, then rewrite it again, then see if my agent is interested and since she doesn't represent this kind of book, she won't be, then I begin the search for an agent. I have seen this book published, It will happen.

I love creative visualization. Creative visualization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone remember that scene from An Officer and a Gentleman where Debra Winger tells Richard Gere that if he sees himself flying jets it'll happen? Yeah, my life's philosophy based on a movie. If you see it, it will happen. My mantra. Kind of like George Costanza's "If you believe it, it's true" philosophy.

YouTube - Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it...

Happy November 1st!