My Lady's Garden

Well I finally finished the first 10 hours on My Lady's Garden.  Between the dark fabric and my new stand it seemed to take forever.  I'm still not 100% sold on the fabric, but it's growing on me (plus I figured it's already paid for - why buy more?)  It's actually much more green than this picture shows (again with the crappy photo skills).  It's tough when you get a color in your mind that you want for a project and no one seems to make it.  But I think this will do.

My Lady's Garden (c) Mirabilia

32 ct tumbleweed linen

started 7/21/14, 7/29/14 - 10 hours

So I realized that it's almost August, and as any crafter knows, that means almost Christmas!  So I think I might need to put the rest of my rotation projects on hold for a little while and work on my brother and SIL's Family Sampler.  It's huge!

I probably won't get much stitching done this weekend - it's time for the PMC!  I will be volunteering on Friday in Sturbridge and Toby and I will be volunteering in Bourne on Saturday.  This is a really great weekend for a great event.  My company's Team Grodsky is well on their way to hitting their goal of $200,000 this year, which would bring our total for the 4 years we've participated to over $600,000!  Pretty cool!

Teeny Tiny Tardises (Tardii?)

I feel like I'm on a roll, at least with these small finishes.  On Saturday I finished Disappearing Tardis for Marley.  We're all "Whovians" and love Doctor Who, so as soon as we saw this design on Etsy I knew I needed to make it.  She just got home from a week away and I thought this would be a nice welcome home gift so I hurried up to get it done in time.  It was supposed to be a bookmark, but Marley had said she'd rather frame it, which made more sense to me anyways.  The only changes I made were to do the backstitch outline 2 shades darker than the Tardis for each one - one shade darker just didn't show up in my opinion.  I also (unintentionally) changed the spacing between the last 2 - the pattern had put an extra row between them, but I just did it the same as all the others.  Maybe it was a typo?  Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (less happy with my picture taking skills - I need to work on that!)

Disappearing Tardis (c) DaleksTeaHouse

32 ct antique white jobelan

started 7/15/14, finished 7/26/14

In rotation news I'm still slogging through my first 10 hours of My Lady's Garden.  Between the dark fabric and trying to get used to my new stand it's pretty slow going.  Not to mention the distraction of a few new non-rotation WIP's that are, quite simply, just more fun!

New Toys

Well this has been an exciting week here at Chez Gonsalves.  First, on Wednesday my new Needlework System 4 stand came in.  I've always wanted a cross stitch stand, but never could justify spending the money.  But lately my wrist and elbows have been making it clear that I need to change something.  So after seeing Angie's, I knew it was time.  I found one for a great price, but with not-so-great customer service.  But 3 weeks later I finally got it (ignore the box it came in in the background, haven't gotten around to getting rid of that yet!):

I'm still trying to get used to it.  I've stitched the same way for 20+ years and now it's like I need to learn all over.  I keep forgetting to stitch with both hands - I'm good for a little while, but revert back to one handed eventually.  I'm also stitching on the darkest fabric I think I've ever used which is not helping matters either (tumbleweed linen for Mirabilia's My Lady's Garden).  But I think with a little practice I'll get the hang of it. And actually I've found a way to deal with these giant Mirabilia charts (at least as long as I'm working on the bottom half of the frame!)

And secondly, I FINALLY got my new car this week!  After a month long wait after the dealership somehow sold me a car that wasn't actually theirs to sell, my car finally arrived.  Luckily I had a free loaner for the month so it really wasn't that bad.  Who would have thought that the Honda Fit would be so hard to get?  Here it is - a teensy little car that's just perfect for going back and forth to work...

I also had one little finish this week.  I've been wanting to try my hand at some different finishes for small pieces (a la The Twisted Stitcher and Stitching Dreams) so I tried this little freebie from 123 Citrouille.  The blog is in french, so I asked my coworker Stella (from France) to translate some of it.  Apparently it means 123 Pumpkin!  She chuckled at the name saying after living here for so long she probably wouldn't have remembered the french work for pumpkin until she saw it written down.  Anyways, the chart didn't have any colors called for so I used GAST Chives, Cherry Wine, Sarsaparilla and Midnight.  I also changed the pot a little so it would be symmetrical (remember my whole OCD post?)

Flower Pot (c) 123 Citrouille

32 ct antique white jobelan

started 7/10/14, finished 7/23/14

I did make a tactical error with this little piece.  I decided to cut my small piece of jobelan in half in order to get two projects out of it figuring this would fit fine on one half.  And it would have been perfect - if I had stitched it in the right direction.  Instead I stitched with the design going horizontally across the shorter width of the fabric, which means I have about an inch on either side of the design (and tons of room at the top and bottom).  Rookie mistake!  I guess that will impact what type of finish I end up using.  I'm thinking maybe a little pillow?  We'll see!

Anyone else have this problem?

Whenever I sit down to craft, be it cross stitch, knitting, whatever, I end up with a lapful of this...

Sunny the Cat - "Why yes,  I do need to be all up in your business, why do you ask?"

Round and round...

For those who know me, it comes as no surprise that I can me a teensy bid OCD about things. But just certain things – my house can be a complete disaster, but certain parts have to organized. Like my stitching for instance. Once I heard about the “rotation method” all those years ago I knew it was the way for me. Basically each project in my rotation gets 10 hours and then I move to the next one. I used to go all old school with a little binder with pages for each project, but for this cross stich resurgence I’ve upgraded myself to an app for my phone (I use “Office Time” for my iPhone – it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good). The only problem I have is I’ve found myself forgetting to turn the timer on or off a couple of times and then I have to guess. Really rubs my OCDness the wrong way, but what can you do.

I’ve set up pages for each of the WIP’s in my rotation (over to the right). I’m sure I have pictures for the beginning hours (somewhere), but I just started with where ever each was when I picked it up after my years-long hiatus. My current rotation is:

1.  Antique Shoes © Bucilla – this was a kit I loved the picture for and waited till it went on sale at Michael’s to buy. I switched out the aida for some jobelan and like it even better than the original project photo. This really reaffirms my hatred of kits though. They give you a project card to store your floss – what a mess! I keep all my DMC on little plastic bobbins all in order (see OCD above). And I’ve already run out of one color. Luckily I found a conversion chart online so I was able to find the DMC equivalent. If I had known about the conversions earlier I may have just used DMC originally. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

2.  Chat Noir © Mystic Stitch – this is for my husband, who loves the original poster. This is my most “stitch intensive” piece. I never knew DMC made so many tan/cream/yellow colors until this piece, which seems to use them ALL. I read somewhere that the best way to deal with the (9 page!) pattern is to tackle 100 stitches at a time (10x10 squares) and this seems to work pretty well. The squares around the cat’s head were rough - I think some of the background used 100 different colors in those 10x10 squares! I live for working on the actual cat. Straight black might be a little boring, but it’s much less stressful. Whenever I’m working on anything else my husband will look over and say “that’s not my cat…” I don’t think he has any idea how long it’s going to actually take!

3.  Family Sampler © Little House Needleworks – this will be for my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas (hopefully they won’t read this!) I’ve just started it and am loving it so far, especially after a Chat Noir stint – it’s very relaxing stitching. I’m a little concerned with how big it’s going to be. I think the fabric is more like 30 ct instead of 32, and it just seems huge. Luckily they have a pretty big house, and seem to love “Americana” type stuff, so I think they’ll really like it. There’s an option to stitch a family to mimic theirs, so that will be fun.

4.  Convent’s Herbal Garden © Chatelaine – this will be my forever project I think! I remember buying this years ago and actually had to go on a payment plan to pay for all of the silks and beads. Lots of stuff going on with this one - I had to insert the Family Sampler in between Chat Noir and this one to give myself a little break. Some of the specialty stitches might be the death of me. It’s pieces like this that make me appreciate my rotation. After 10 hours I need a break! I’m convinced the final product will be worth it though…

5.  The Sanctuary © The Drawn Thread – this is a new start for me. I was supposed to stitch something else, but the fabric is backordered so I pulled this one out of the stash. I was a little Leary of stitching it as directed (1 strand of silk over 2) but am loving how it’s coming out – very dainty and elegant. This seems to have quite a few specialty stitches as well, so hopefully they won’t kill me. Here I am at 10 hours. The “reverse cushion” stitches in the border are much prettier in person. It’s hard to capture the sheen of the silk in the picture.

(c) The Drawn Thread

32 ct linen

started 7/18/14, 7/20/14 - 10 hours

And that pretty much sums up the state of my rotation at the moment. In the past I’ve usually kept it to 5 pieces, but the little plastic drawers I use to keep them in actually have room for six, so I think I might add My Lady’s Garden © Mirabilia. Since finishing Gathering Eggs and Touching the Autumn Sky I want to make sure I add one of hers back in.

Oh, and I have a couple little projects going at the same time, for those times when I don’t want to work on something big or worry about timing what I’m doing.

Whew – that was quite a post for the 2 of you or so who are actually reading this (one of which isn’t even a stitcher – hi mom!). But I’m glad to get all the information down in one place – for when I forget what’s going on!

I'm Back!

Well, I’m back, and stitching with a vengeance! After quite the cross stitch hiatus, I've finally dug out my old WIP’s (and of course started some new projects.) I've been knitting and crocheting away for years and that’s taken most of my crafting time. But every now and then I get a little bored with knitting and want to try something a little different.  Not that cross stitching's "different" since I've actually been doing it longer, but you get the idea.

Strangely enough this renewed interest actually started on a knitting get-away. Angie and I drove down to Baltimore for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May and made a long weekend of it. We discovered something interesting over the weekend though – we are really not “yarn festival people”. We lasted about 3 hours at the actual festival - it was hot and crowded, and everything starts to look the same after a while. So we switched to what we actually like best, and shop hopped! We had stopped at a number of stores on the way down to MD (one in each state I think), and after the festival we googled yarn stores in the area and ended up at Cloverhill Yarn Shop. After not buying ANY yarn at the festival, I did at least buy some yarn there. Next door to the yarn store was a cross stitch store, The Stitching Post. For old times’ sake I wanted to just check it out and Angie ended up buying the cutest little knitting hedgehog pattern (I may have been a slight enabler in that decision). Over the rest of the weekend I helped her get started on her project and the itch to get back to my old projects totally kicked in.

So out they came – I realized I hadn't done any stitching in years, but I had kept everything, knowing the desire to stitch again would come back eventually. I had to decipher a bit where I was with the rotation that I had been using, but was able to figure out where I was. I realized that some of my WIP’s went all the way back to the end of 2001! Yikes! The great part was I was pretty close to finishing a couple of Mirabilia projects. So in no time at all I finished:

Gathering Eggs © Mirabilia

32 ct bay leaf jobelan

started 1/22/03, finished 5/20/14 (103.5 hours)

The funny part with this one is that everyone who I showed it to asked why I didn't finish the lower left corner. The pattern left that unstitched, and it didn't bother me at all. Apparently most people think it looks a bit unfinished. Oh well, I like it.

I also finished:

Touching the Autumn Sky (c) Mirabilia

32 ct wedgewood blue lugana

started 12/23/02, finished 5/25/14 (102.75 hrs)

This one has a slight problem. A long time ago I wrote about how I had snipped a fabric thread near her hand. You don’t really notice it (unless you look close or I point it out), but I’m a little nervous about what will happen when (if) I get it framed and they stretch it. All I can imagine is it running like a run in nylons! The helpful lady at Thistle Needleworks suggested I pull out the snipped thread and then anchor and weave in another thread from the edge. This makes me a little nervous as well, so we’ll see what happens.

This brought up another kind of sad point, in that quite a few of the projects I had finished back then as well as some of my WIP’s had been started when Marley was very young and intended for a little girl’s room. Seeing as she just turned 13 (!) things in her room have changed a bit since then. So now I have to figure out what to do with some of the “little kid” projects. I've already picked out a spot for Gathering Eggs in my hallway, but I’m not quite sure about Autumn Sky. I don’t have much free wall space, so I’ll have to think about it a bit.
My latest finish this year is:

Punkin Season (c) Full Circle Design

32 ct cream lugana

started 3/18/07, finished 6/15/14

I officially started this in 2007, but had only completed the border. In the past I had shied away from small finishes because I didn't know quite what to do with them (as far as framing, etc.) Luckily I've discovered some great cross stitching blogs like The Twisted Stitcher and Stitching Dreams, where they show a lot of “smalls” and Vonna at The Twisted Stitcher also has some great finishing tutorials. So I think I want to try making this into a cube. I’ll have to raid my MIL’s fabric stash and see how it goes.
Whew – well I guess that’s enough for my first post back. I have some new (and old) WIP’s to show you, but that will have to wait until another day. I updated the pages listed on the left with all of my knitting finishes (Ravelry links), a page for each cross stitch WIP and a page for each year’s cross stitch finishes. It took forever one night, but I like having everything in one place to see (even if some of the early pictures are really awful!)