Olympic Stitching

I love the Olympics.  I’ll watch sports that I had formerly no interest in… like fencing … just because its the Olympics and these are the best in the amateur world at their sport.  The only downside of the Olympics is Bob Costas.  He must be botoxed to the max because he only has one facial expression.

So, in my Olympic fervor, I decided that all time spent watching would also be devoted to my neglected Alpine Seasons.  I talk about it constantly in posts but rarely do any stitching!  I made some great progress and feel somewhat energized to keep working on it.

I started in the lower left hand corner, finishing that border!  I hate working with the perle silk that makes up some of the flower stems.  Love the color, but the twist and the curliness drove me crazy with the constant knotting and loss of length due to untwisting of the free end.  Ugh.  I actually like how it looks once its stitched tho.  I love the little corner flowers and especially the butterflies…

A larger corner view:

And here is a shot of the whole thing with the bottom left border finished. Note the empty upper right hand corner:

I moved the Qsnaps to the upper right hand corner and finished the inner border and started on the second inner border:

Once I get to the final quarter of this project, the inner borders will finally meet up (hopefully!!!) and I will only have to do the diagonal bits. 🙂 I hope to finish up the borders I’m doing now and keep going onto the mountain/tree/field parts. I can still finish this this year if I just keep working on it!

WIP Extravaganza!!

You could hardly call 6 WIPs an “extravaganza,” but this is more WIPs than I usually have going at any given time, and two are Chatelaines!

We’ll start with the project I’m working on currently that is my current favorite… The Drawn Thread Perennial Border. One thing about this project that I like is the use on only one thread over two on 32 count lugana. I didn’t think that would provide enough coverage on the flowers, and it doesn’t, but I like it anyway. I like that you can see each X, and there’s no concern about two strands twisting up too much and it seems to knot less too. The last flower on the right, is all backstitch, lazy daises, and french knots. This so far has been really fun to work on…

Next is Lizzie Kate Living with Charm Border. I’m doing this one with DMC and am undecided about adding the charms when I’m done. I envision this someday as being a bellpull finish. I like the big blocks of color and total lack of confetti on this one. I haven’t worked on this for about a year and a half… please forgive the wrinkles!

Our next featured piece is Olde Colonial Designs Mimi’s Tape Measure. Ive stitched this one before as can be seen HERE, but with the first one, I lost the pattern, somehow, when I went to pick it up, and wanted so badly to finish it that I bought a second kit just to get the instructions, then since I had everything I needed to stitch another, I decided to do so. This is another that has languished, even though there’s really not much stitching left to go…

The next is the first of two Chatelaines –  Alhambra. For those not familiar with this one, it is mostly stitched with DMC and is lovely lovely lovely. Even though there’s a long way to go on this, I often look at Jenny’s finish and dream of the day when mine will be as beautiful as hers. Jenny’s framing is also awesome…. Also read about and check out these pictures of the real-life Alhambra…

The next piece is Victoria Sampler Heirloom Stitchers Sampler. Zero progress. I hate the way the alphabet looks that I started but I know from looking at Christine’s finish, I know this will be awesome if I ever get going on it again!

The last is Chatelaine’s Alpine Seasons, which is my oldest WIP, also known as the Never Ending Chatelaine of Confetti (NECC). AS soon as I get bored with the Perennial Border, I’m going back to work on this, finishing up the outer border and moving onto the next quarter of the piece. I love it, I hate it, and I really want to finish it!

The Pumpkins Are Complete!

Wow… I’m writing a blog post!

This momentous event is due to the fact that I actually finally finished a project.  The Sweetheart Tree Pumpkin Biscornu is finally finished!  I started it… like… a year ago.  Anyway, I hated it while working on it, but of course, like it now, so here it is in all of its glory!

Isn’t it cute?  Check out the little spiders on the second pic!

I’ve done some other stitching on and off – primarily on Chatelaine’s Alhambra…

The colors on that should actually appear a little brighter…. and the fabric is white as opposed to a lavenderish color, but I’m too lazy to try a new picture.  🙂

So other updates, miraculously, I still have my job. That’s all I’ll say about that, besides the fact that I recently updated my resume and took calls from recruiters.

I’m going to Grand Rapids tomorrow to see Les Miserables… for the 6th time. I just can’t help myself! Its only two hours away… I must go.

So, not sure when I’ll blog again, so I hope everybody has a great holiday season!

Alpine Seasons – Yet Another Progress Update!

Wow… I’m still feeling inspired to work on this, even though it’s the only thing I’ve worked on since the beginning of June.  I’m really happy with this picture, as I feel it shows all of the colors really accurately:

I just love this design, and can really say that I’m definitely over 1/2 way done! So, I’ll finish up that outer border in this section, then have other borders to stitch for the next quadrant. I love stitching borders as it’s not nearly as counting-intensive as the mountainy parts, which once stitched, are my favorite parts and what drew me to this piece to begin with.

Hey I just realized that I left the needleminder on there while I took the picture… so if you’re wondering WHAT that is on the left side of the center motif, it’s a little teapot shaped needle minder that my friend Jenny gave to me.  (Go check out her blog – she’s got a great new start!)

Oh yeah… I haven’t gotten my new scissors yet, but as predicted I DID find my others. Buried deep deeeeeep into the couch, down between the arm and the base of the couch – on the OPPOSITE side from where I normally sit and stitch. I have no idea how they got there….

Where are my scissors?

In the last month, I’ve lost two pair of scissors.  One was a limited edition ginger and the other was given to me by a friend and had a great stitched fob on it.  I’ve also managed to break another set that I adored and was a special gift from a friend.  Both of the lost sets were out on the table next to where I stitch when they disappeared.  I’ve looked where I normally keep scissors I’m not using… I’ve looked in the couch cushions and even looked in the areas where the cats like to hang out and sleep all day.  They are just gone.  😦

I decided that even though I’m unemployed and basically surviving on weekly unemployment paychecks (I refuse to spend savings unless it’s really important), I found myself at the Silver Needle website and got a little carried away! I ordered 3 pretty sets of scissors when I really don’t need any at all!  Nothing fancy or too expensive…but I couldn’t decide between the three I liked so I got all of them.  Besides, I have three large projects going right now and each of them really deserve their own set of scissors…. right???

My only saving grace over this is the fact that even though I have all day every day to drive the short hour to the House of Stitches (which happens to have a South Bend Chocolate source right on the way), I haven’t done so since right after I lost my job.  This has been my only stash enhancement since early March.

I’m on month two of working non stop on Alpine Seasons.  There have been some breaks here and there, but I’m making some good progress… expect an update pic soon!

I have some other possible good news, but I’m superstitious so I’m not going to say anything about it until it’s a sure thing….

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

Partial Mountains and Trees….

Here’s my latest progress on Alpine Seasons!  There’s still some confetti left in the “field,” but I’m alternating between that and the larger areas of solid color in the mountains.  I’ve also included a picture of the working copy of the chart…. you’ll see that I lost my blue highlighter last weekend and have had to move to purple highlighter on the already stitched bits…

Now that I’ve got so much filled in, its getting a lot easier to work on this (less counting) and I’m moving right along.

Alpine Seaons June Progress

Here’s about 3 weeks worth of progress on Alpine Seasons.

The confetti is turning into blobs!!! The fabric color in this pic looks much more accurate than it does in my last post.

I’m just now starting to work on the trees… which is what you see in the upper left hand corner of the shot.  The colors will be the “snow” on the trees.

I have a second interview on Wednesday – wish me luck!