Eastern Bluebird Finish!

Yay! All done! I'm pleased with the result, though I can see some areas for improvement. I enjoyed working on this little guy; he was a quite a challenge since I hadn't done surface embroidery for years. I've got a couple of Trisha Burr books, so I can read up and try another one. Eventually.

Now back to my Japanese Embroidery homework, which needs to be done before my class on October 13.

IHSW and Some Finishes

So this weekend was IHSW, and again it nicely coincided with my Japanese Embroidery class. So at the very least I got some guaranteed stitching from 10-3 on Saturday.

As for my class, I had my "homework" done, and I was ready to learn new things. Here's where I'm at now.  The green pine trees had been completed, and I'm now adding the lattice and diagonal holding stitches.  The red maple leaf is new, and a challenge as the stitches change direction as they move towards the tip of the leaf.



Seasons by Jennifer Ashley Taylor

I finished Autumn Dusk a couple of weeks ago. I've also completed Spring Morning and Winter's Eve in this series, with only Summer Afternoon to complete the set. They are all very enjoyable to stitch and go pretty quickly.

Autumn Dusk by Chatelaine

 

I also finished two huck/Swedish weaving towel kits from Nordic Needle last week. Very easy, quick and fun. And an extra bonus - I did a little hemstitch on the ends. Very pretty, but too nice to use as towels in our house as I'm not willing to subject them to the sort of abuse they would face in our house. So they have been promoted to magnifier cover (so I don't burn the house down since my lamp is by the front window) and project cover.

Sunrise Windbreak from Nordic Needle

Blue Waves from Nordic Needle

Now, for my new start. I've been dying to start it ever since I got it in my hot little hands, and since I just finished up two long-standing WIPs, I figured that I now had the perfect excuse. It's crewel, which I really have never done, but the stitches are basic surface embroidery which I am pretty familiar with. Transferring the pattern - not do much. I tried taping the fabric to a window a d tracing it with a water-removable ink pen. Not so good. Tough to do on such a large pattern, and the pen lines were....well, blobby. Ick. So I washed out the lines to try again. A couple of days later. This time I bought some transfer paper and drew the lines on instead of tracing. Much better, but the lines were very light and rubbed off very easily. So I then went over the lines again with my pen. Ah, perfect. Except for the cramping hand and sore shoulders.

Cramped hand bedamned! I had to start this puppy right away after all that trouble even though it was late. So here's where I'm at now. It's going to be a long haul, but there is a huge variety of stitches to keep me interested.  And I've seen pictures of this beauty finished, and it's wonderful to behold.

Royal Persion Blossom by Taliaferro

And I also worked a little on Eastern Bluebird.  He's an intense stitch, and I had set him aside for a while, a little frustrated with my long and short stitch skills.  But he's looking so much better with his beak and beady little eye that I may just finish him up before going back to my Japanese embroidery homework for the month.

Eastern Bluebird by Tanja Berlin

 

 

 

 

August IHSW Report - Super Late!

Ok, so I started the post on time.  Really.  I just didn't publish it.  Oops.  Well, enjoy anyway, and I'll save up my latest progress pictures for the next tardy update.  :)

Wow. What a weekend. It all started with.....

A haircut on Friday after work. I made the appointment, and was so happy that I got in so quick. Except for the fact that I was driving right straight through the Woodward Dream Cruise. Brilliant! I left work and traffic was backed up the minute I got on the highway. Add the usual loads of construction, and it was ugly. But I got to look at a lot of cool cars on the way. Made it on time, but it was close. And it took up my whole Friday evening.

Saturday from 10-3 was my first Japanese Embroidery class! Yay! Shay Pendray is, of course, a wonderful teacher. The class went by so quickly and I really enjoyed myself. Even the part that sounds the most intimidating, twisting my own silk, was enjoyable. I'm looking forward to continuing on with more classes.

Seasons by Jennifer Ashley Taylor

Immediately after my class, we headed to Toledo to help my sister move. She has been in an air cast for a month and will now be having surgery, so moving herself was out of the question. We got it mostly done, and my parents stayed to help clean up the last little bit at the old place. We got home at 1:30a.m. Ugh.

Sunday, or laundry-catch-up day, I got to work on Autumn Dusk. I've made some good progress since I finished Ashley's Roses.

Autumn Dusk by Chatelaine

And yesterday, some stitchy goodies in the mail! Sashiko and Kogin kits!

 

And A Finish!

Ashley's Roses with her happy recipient (once framed). I finished on Thursday after thinking I would get her done each of the previous three days (don't you just hate that?).

I love beading, so I was excited to get to that part. Except I didn't realize just how FEW beads were on this one. I was so happy about the beading, and poof! I was done - after how long it took me to finish the bouquet and the roses above Ashley's head, it was sort of anti-climatic. :)

I seem to be in a WIP-slaying mode as I decided to work on Autumn Dusk next. I didn't even get the first motif completed before I set it aside, so it's almost like a new start. :)

July IHSW - The Hermitting That Wasn't

Again. So all the progress in this update is before IHSW. This Saturday was the last day of Ann Arbor Art Fair, which was not to be missed. No purchases for us this year, but we went with my parents and I was able to get my mom her birthday present.

I'm still plodding along on Ashley's Roses, or as Miss Alex started to call it, Ashley's Armpits. She found it hysterical that you would stitch those. Of course, my explanation that Ashley would look just silly without them was met with even more amusement. Ah, the refined sense of humor of six-year-olds. :D

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this one, but this last bit is really dragging. I can tell I'm ready to be done as my brain is already churning, trying to decide what to work on next. Another WIP? Something new? Who knows, as I will most likely change my mind quite a few times before I'm done.

Paltry June IHSW

A hermitting weekend where I can stitch? Ha. I had hoped to make some progress....on something. Instead I spent my weekend busier than ever.

I had been working on Ashley's Roses ever since I finished up the Mini Mandala. I had started her a while back, but put her aside after I got tired of all that white and grey. This time I managed to persevere, and I've got the bottom half of the chart completed except for the beading. I may have put in a total of about 40 or so stitches over the weekend, but finished the blue-green gingham and the backstitching on Monday. I should be able to stick with her until she's done, then she will be framed up for Miss Alex's room.

But the big excitement....I have signed up for a Japanese embroidery class! With Shay Pendray! Oooooo! :) I've been looking for new techniques, and Japanese embroidery really jumped out at me. It's so beautiful! But you really can't just go out and grab yourself a kit. Instructors and classes are few and far between and I thought that I might have to suck it up and go to Georgia to the Japanese Embroidery Center for a class. Not exactly convenient with the job, kid, and all. When lo and behold, an Internet search resulted in me finding out that Shay Pendray teaches Japanese embroidery classes at a local (to me) shop! Yay! I'm so excited, and will probably remain so until my first class in August.

May IHSW

Yay! Another IHSW! Now, if I could only get one where there isn't something else going on......

This time is was the Girl Scout Zoo Expedition.  Couldn't let my little Daisy Scout miss that (well, I thought it would be fun, so I signed us up).  Miss Alex had my parents and DH's mom there as well, and a good time was had by all.

Even though it was crowded......Michigan Humane Society's biggest adoption event - Meet Your Best Friend at the Zoo, on the same day as the Girl Scout Zoo Expedition?  Brilliant!! 

And even though it was HOT.  But we got an awesome show from our newest Zoo residents, three grizzly bear cubs.  They were having the time of their lives playing in the water and with each other.

These "little" guys were orphaned in Alaska when their mother was killed by a poacher, and were not only too young to be on their own but were also venturing into "human" areas to look for food.  So they were caught, and spent some time at the Anchorage Zoo before making their way to their new home here.  We hadn't had any grizzlies for a while since our zoo's emphasis is species preservation and rescue.

And on to the stitchy stuff!  Just before IHSW I managed to finish off Mini Mandala 6, so here it is in all its glory.  Gotta love Martina's designs:  beautiful, and a joy to stitch.  With this one done, I only have the two Mini Cirlce Mandalas to do, and I will have completed ALL of the Mini Mandalas. And it's giving me a lovely sense of accomplishment since other than the Temari, it's the only thing I've finished this year.  I'm usually at 4-6 finished projects by this time, but I've been moving between several BAPs this year and it shows.

For this month's IHSW, I decided to start something new - literally.  I'd decided to try my hand at needlepainting, so I ordered a kit from Tanja Berlin.  This little guy is what I've been working on.

Friday's progress

Saturday's progress

Weekend's over!  At least it looks like a bird!

So, my little Bluebird of Happiness is progressing along nicely.  Ms. Berlin's instructions are impeccably detailed. But all of this is done with one (yes, one!) strand of DMC.  Splitting those stitches are a wee bit tricky. Although I am wierdly proud of myself for not using a magnifier.  Justification for the money spent on Lasik, perhaps?

He doesn't look quite as nice as the picture, but this is my first time with this technique and it's been FOREVER since I've done any sort of surface embroidery so I'm willing to cut myself a little slack.  I'm even pretty sure what my problem is.......randomness.  You see, my rows of long and short stitches are just a little bit too precise (well, that and some are a bit too short).  I think there needs to be a bit more unevenness, especially on the border between two different colors, to make Birdie look a little more natural.  And my little engineering brain has a hard time computing that.  The best I can usually manange is a random-looking pattern.  :)

But despite that, I'm pleased with my progress and can't help but remember that, like everything, this can only get better with practice.

And, I'll leave you with this little gem, from Miss Alex. To clarify, I only eat bagels about 4 times a year, but apparently it leaves an impression. The rest of it is pretty much right on.  :)

April IHSW Results

Well, not that there is much in the way of results, anyway. No stitching Friday, as it was the Fun Fair at Alex's elementary school. No stitching Saturday, as I went to the scheduled haircut and color appointment and straight to work after that. And worked until 9:00 at night.

Sunday, finally! I managed to fit some stitching in after the realtor's visit. And was (and still am) feeling pretty perky because she will price our house for more than we owe. Yay! The cleaning lady never showed. Boo.

So here's my progress on Mini Mandala 6: Part 1 is complete and I have skipped Part 2 to work on Part 3 for now. I feel like such a rebel. :)

April IHSW

Ummmmm....two months since I posted last?  Oh, dear.  Well, I do have a couple of good excuses....

First, I missed the March IHSW thanks to Scrap Camp.  Twice a year we head out to Okemos (East Lansing, home of the MSU Spartans for those non-Michiganders) to stay in a hotel for the a weekend of scrapbooking.  Great, since this is about the only time I get around to it.  My big acheivement is that I finished the book from our New York City trip.  We won't talk too much about the fact that the trip was in 2008.  I'm still proud of myself, since I am a wretchedly slow scrapbooker.  So, here's some highlights.  Hopefully I'll have better pictures this time too, since I'm using my real camera instead of my phone.  :)

So, after Scrap Camp, we had a good portion of the house painted:  living room, dining room, kitchen, stairway, and upstairs hallway.  It was fabulous to pay someone else to do it.  I vividly remember doing all that myself right after we bought the house (10 years ago, so this was long overdue), and had no desire to paint all the baseboards and trim around 11 (!!!) doorways and 4 windows.  Done in two days, and it looks awesome.  However we had to spend a good deal of time moving all the stuff out of the way for the painters and then putting it back when they were done.

Then a couple of weeks ago Miss Alex got to go to Disney.  For a week.  Wow.  We had a great time, and as usual Alex was a champion traveler.  Not many five-year-olds can make it through a week of walking all day at Disney without a stroller and without a meltdown, especially when it was in the mid-90s the last two days.

Here she is, "all princessed up", as she says.

So, with all that going on, my progress on Twister is not what I would have hoped and not what I would have usually accomplished by now.  But it's looking good.  And I'm glad to have moved on from the blue for a while.



Since Twister is too large for a travel project, I picked up Chatelaine's Mini Mandala 6 to take with us to Florida.  Not much progress there either, but I'll be continuing on with this one until it's finished just so I'm not leaving another WIP lying around.  Got plenty of those.

So my plan was to hermit as much as possible, with some interruptions.  We already had plenty going on over the weekend without the chaos from my work this past week bleeding into my weekend.  So after having Alex's school fair tonight, then coming home and picking up for the cleaning lady who comes tomorrow morning (thank goodness for that!), tomorrow I have a haircut/color appointment, after which I will go to work.  The hubby will take Alex to a friend's birthday party while I'm at work, and I will come home so that he can go play hockey in the evening.  Whew!  Sunday will probably be a laundry marathon, so hopefully I will manage to fit in some hermitting then.  I hope so, anyway.

February IHSW Update

Here's to another successful weekend of semi-hermitting!  I debated for a while beforehand about what I was going to work on:  I've been working on Alhambra Garden since mid-December but have not made much progress since the giant basement project has sucked up so much of my time. 

The backstory - we have been finishing our basement, complete with full bathroom.  Three weeks ago we passed the final inspection and bought a bunch of furniture from IKEA.  Love it, but I'm never buying that much furniture that requires assembly at one time EVER again.  If I never see another tiny Allen wrench again, I will be fine.  Then it was putting away Alex's toys.  Then it was hauling all my craft stuff from the second floor to the basement and putting that all away.  Aside from a few small chores and a few things that need a home, we're pretty much done.  Yay.

The car all loaded up. The hubby didn't think I could fit it all in, but if nothing else, I am a master at making things fit. What you see is an Expedit entertainment center, a 4x4 cube Expedit bookcase with the desk that attaches to it, a futon, a Trofang storage tower and my new Poang stitching chair. And, there's a kid in there too. :)

So for this round of IHSW, I decided that it was all stitchee and no basement workee.  Awesome.  And I decided that while I wanted to work on something different for awhile, I didn't want another WIP.  So I decided on Twister.

Here's where I started on Friday

I changed the colorways to be more true blues and golds instead of the options that were given.  It's a lot of one color to do at one time, but the different stitches make it interesting and the compensation stitches can be a bit challenging.  I missed a bunch of stitching on Sunday to go up to Frankenmuth for my belated birthday dinner with my parents and sisters.  Pretty much took up most of the day, but the chicken was good.  :)

The progress as of Sunday night

Saturday, Alex went to a friend's birthday party at Michael's  Of course she was thrilled when she found out the party was at a craft store.  Here is her project, a little box that she painted and decorated with foam stickers.

And, of course we both came by the crafting bug naturally.  My mom prefers sewing and quilting.  She recently finished this paper doll quilt for Alex.  With a couple of exceptions, the fabric for the appliques all came from remnants of clothes that she had made for me when I was little.  The other remnants came from a dress that I made while in 4-H when I was about 10, and a remnant from the Christmas tree skirt that she made for me a few years ago.

To Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

I thought that I would post the info for the temari kit, in case anyone might be interested in making one themselves. Also, I felt that I should credit the designer, much like any other project.

The designer is Barbra B. Suess, and I ordered the kit from her etsy shop, JapaneseTemari. She ships you the materials, which is far more than enough to make the three temari that I made. Purchasing the kit gets you membership into the Yahoo group that contains the instructions. Fabulously detailed instructions.

The pattern I used is called Morning Glory. There are a couple of other kits in her etsy store along with finished temari available for purchase, and also a couple of her books.

While my previous post showed the steps to make the temari, they weren't detailed enough to really make one just from my pictures. I highly recommend this kit if you want to give temari a try.

IHSW Update

I really enjoyed my first ISHW - and made a lot of progress, just not on what I had originally planned. Friday was my only time that I worked on Alhambra Garden, and that wasn't much because I got home pretty late. But I did manage to finish the peacock feathers at the edge, and progress is progress.

Saturday I decided to start working on a temari kit that I had ordered as part of my New Year's Resolution to try new techniques. Here's the kit as I received it. The hubby was not terribly excited when I took out the bag of rice hulls...."You bought a bag of dead leaves from the internet?!?"  I patiently explained that they were NOT dead leaves, they are rice hulls.  He then wanted to know why I ordered rice hulls from the internet. He had to graciously admit defeat with my response:

"Well, do YOU know where to buy them?"

I discovered that temari are quite enjoyable to make, and thanks to wonderfully detailed instructions, pretty easy. First you put rice hulls into a nylon.  Mental note, next time it would probably be ok to cut off the band at the top.  Tough to make that round.

Then you wrap with yarn, shaping it into the spherical shape.  The wraps were what I had the most trouble with.  You are supposed to wrap randomly, to avoid big bunches of yarn or thread in one place.  Apparently "random" does not compute in my engineer brain, so I had to settle for a wrapping pattern that closely simulated randomness. :)

Next, it is wrapped with sewing thread.

And the divisions are marked off.  Ooooo....measuring.  THAT I can do!

Then they are decorate according to the pattern, first with thread wraps.

Then patterns are stitched onto the temari. This is where I left off last night - two complete temari, and one almost done.

Lovely! And fun. And now I shall enjoy myself thinking of the next new technique to try. 

IHSW!

So, here is where I'm starting the weekend on Alhambra Garden. Unfortunately, I won't be able to be a complete hermit this time, but I'll do the best I can. :)

Cute Moose!

Alex brought home this little masterpiece this week. Love the antlers! Just looking at this little guy makes me smile too. :)

Hi!  We're new here.  Please bear with us as we set up our world.  :)