The Glass is Half Full!

And by half-full, I mean half-done! Yay! :) I'm really having fun bringing some of the brighter colors into the piece. I have to admit I was getting a leetle tired of a thousand variants of avocado green. I'm beginning to see the extra depth that the minutely different colors bring to the piece, though. So, yay for that.

Forgive the crookedness at top. I didn't lay the fabric in the scanner carefully enough. It's not crooked in real life. :)

I'm Actually Rotating :)

I'm almost done with my Fourth of July heart - a short stint of stitching and I'll be finished. I put some time in on the heart while we were driving on a day trip over the weekend. Stitching in the car was a little less fun than I thought it would be. :P Now I just need a slightly less crazy week this week so I can make it to the fabric store to pick up what I need to finish this as well as what I need for Baby A's quilt.

I haven't stitched the heart for a few days, though, because the baby I'm stitching little Nemo for was born a few days ago and I'm very motivated to finish his piece. His mom and I have been friends since we were 5! She's my oldest friend and I'm so excited for her and her new life as a mommy.

SBQ June 22, 2007

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Kathryn and is:

When you start a new work do you look for something small, do you look for another huge project or do you consider your UFOs?

I actually only have the one quasi-UFO and I consider working on it all the time. lol So, I'm not sure if that counts for anything. Also, I've never actually finished any huge projects, so I'm not sure if this question really applies to me.

I just took stitching back up after a few year hiatus. And, since I re-started, I've had a backlog of small projects I've been wanting to do for other people. Once I pick up some Q-snaps, I'll get working on my one huge project while continuing my small projects. After that one is done, I probably will look for another big project to start on.

A New Heart

I've made a small amount of progress on Little Nemo. I can't wait to actually start stitching the fish. Orange is my favorite color!








But, I set him aside today to start working on a July 4th piece. This is a cute freebie that should stitch up very quickly. And, it will give me a chance to practice the no sew wallhanging finish before I do up Nemo for public consumption.

Re-Finishes

I've been itching to stitch little Nemo today, but I wanted to bear down and bead, bead, bead. I added the beads to the Mary Engelbreit kit, which is now an official finish. Now, I just have to find a frame that will fit well.

I also added the beads to the initials and now I'm all set to pick out some fabrics! I found a quilter who will piece and quilt for me for a really reasonable price, so I can't wait to get this rolling.

Finding Nemo

I wanted to get started on some Hawaiian quilt square Christmas ornaments for my mom, but I haven't actually ordered the stash yet. :P So, I decided now would be a good time to start on a project for a friend's baby who should be born any day now. I'm kind of over the bib thing right now, so I'm going to try my hand at this great no sew wallhanging from Focus On Finishing.

I'm working on a small clownfish piece from Artecy on a fun tea colored monaco. It's kind of odd in that it doesn't have any backstitching or fractional stitches at all. I'll have to see how it turns out, and maybe work some backstitching in on my own.



I've gotten a very small amount done so far. I never like having to leave off at such an odd spot, but Baby A wakes up when she wakes up. :)

I also ordered this cute Lizzie Kate Flip It from Stitches 'N Things and hope it gets here soon enough that I have time to finish it and hang it on the door by the 4th.

Once I order the Hawaiian Quilt squares, I'll need to pick up some fabrics and would love to hear recommendations. Since the quilt patterns are in single colors, I'm thinking of going with some hand dyed, marbled linens and a Silkweaver opalescent fabric (spotted here). Any suggestions?

Stick a fork in it!

I knew I should have just held out until I finished. :P Oh well, now I'm finished. When I started Baby A's initials, I decided to leave out the knots, because I didn't think they would hold up well in the washing machine. It turns out that was a good idea since I can't quite seem to perfect knots, anyhow. But, now that I've discovered beads, I think they should be ok. So, I need to pick up a few shades of beads and then I'll repost all three initials.

Then, I get to pick out fabric for the quilt! Yay!

I can taste it!

I was trying to hold out until I finished, because I'm Al. Most. There. But, I hate to go for days without posting. I've finished the backstitching on the flower and butterfly and am about a quarter of the way through the M. Should be done very soon!

With Father's Day being a nice chance to remember just how awesome my Dad is, I pulled out his piece and intended to stitch at least a thread length. But, it's quite big and the fabric is rather heavy and quite soft. I'm really not sure how I was stitching it in hand before. I'm planning on investing in Q-snaps very soon, so I'm going to wait until I get those before I start up again.

"M" Almost There!

I have a few more stitches to put in on the butterfly, the other half of the M and then the backstitching to go! Despite the many neutral shades with really similar tones, this one has been a snap. Much faster than the last two now that I bothered to read the directions and found out the initial designs call for 1/4 stitches not 3/4 stitches. Oy!

P.S. Why can't I consistently make my pictures clickable? Sometimes they work so people can click through to the actual size and sometimes they don't...

SBQ June 14, 2007

This week's SBQ was mine, actually. But, I'll try to answer it anyway. :)

How do you store your WIPs and other projects that you have kitted
up?

Up to this point, I haven't really had more than one project going on at a time. And I *just* discovered this whole "kitting up" thing thanks to some of your blogs. So, The Elephant in the Room (my borderline UFO) is really the only project I have sitting around. Thus far, I've just kept it in the manila envelope it was mailed to me in. I think I'll be transferring it into a ziploc bag today...

I "M" Making Progress

I've gotten started on the last letter for Baby A's quilt. I had to put a dark paper behind it when I scanned so you could at least sort of see the really light colored stitches.

With no tutoring scheduled this week, I've had time to fly right along on stitching! And, I *think* I've finally figured out how to put in a picture so you click on it for the full size shot. Crossing my fingers...

No More Monkey Business!

Doing the happy dance on this one! Monsieur Monkey is all finished and ready to ship out. Since I had the beads around (for the last piece), I decided to use some beads for his eyes.

The poor hubbin is not particularly interested in cross stitching but I couldn't stop hassling him on this one. Do you think beads for eyes would be creepy? (still contemplating the idea) Does this look creepy? (holding the beads next to the piece) Does *this* look creepy? (basting the beads in) Are you sure this doesn't look creepy? I don't want to anchor this if they look creepy... LOL He was very helpful.

Swinging Along

This piece is coming right along! My fingers were starting to get kind of sore trying to pull the needle through the plastic canvas - there's no give, of course. And then I had the brilliant revelation that I should use a smaller needle. Duh. It's still a little tough dragging four strands of floss through holes that already have 8 - 12 strands in them. But, it's certainly easier.

Should just be another night or two of stitching and it will be time to break out in that happy dance! :)

Just Hanging Around!

I have two projects I want to start working on. First, I'd like to stitch the M for Baby A's quilt. Also, (inspired by Kathryn) I'd like to stitch some Hawaiian quilt blocks for ornaments for my mom for Christmas. I'm really excited to branch out from Charles Craft, et al...and pick up some pretty, hand dyed linens for that project.

In the meantime, I'm stitching a request for my cousin. Baby Sabine (of the magnolia bib) has a big brother who loves monkeys. So, I'm stitching a wall hanging for him. This is my first time working with plastic canvas. Of course, there are no fractional stitches. But, the biggest difference for me so far, is having to be hyper-aware of how threads are sitting on the back of the piece - the canvas is clear, so of course I don't want anyone to be able to see threads zigzaggin between stitched areas, from the front.

I got a small start on it, and then realized I didn't actually pick up all the threads for the piece. Or, more likely, I did but misfiled #976 and can't find it, now. :P

Knot Good

So, apparently I suck at knots. French knots, colonial knots...I don't discriminate. After some practice, I finally got a string of decent knots on my scrap cloth. But, when I tried to do some on my piece, they looked like crap. So, I decided to cut my losses and leave out the rest of the knots. :( Which is frustrating, but it does mean I'm done, so...yay?

Any tips on knots, ladies?

I finally joined the 21st century and bought a scanner. So, this is my first piece that I actually scanned instead of taking a picture of it!

Little Stitchey, Lotta Talkey...

We've been sticking pretty close to home since we moved to NC, because our daughter (the baby) is what we call a car screamer. Put her in the car, she screams. Sometimes happily, sometimes angrily, sometimes just out of boredom. Cranking Jason Mraz way up quiets her down every time, without fail (only Jason Mraz, though - NO other musician cuts it) but it's probably not a good thing to blast out the kids' eardrums at such a young age.

Lately, she's become quite the conversationalist and she's now happy babbling to her brother, which has limited the car screaming. So, we decided to venture a few towns over to a farmer's market, today. Our town has a daily, year round sort of farmer's market but nothing is quite like the atmosphere of the weekend markets.

As we were getting closer to Lumberton, we were getting pretty excited. There were permanent signs out on the highway directing people to the farmer's market! It had to be BIG, right!?!? Wrong. lol There were two farmers. One "antiques" dealer. One craft booth. Seriously.

Oh well, we had a nice drive and we did pick up some beautiful fruit and a few kinda sad looking vegetables, that I'm pretty sure will be much tastier than they are pretty. And, now I'm finally getting to my point. I struck up a conversation with the crafter who had a bunch of framed cross stitching for sale. I asked her if there were any needlework shops around and she told me no in Lumberton but yes in Fayetteville! Well, yay!!! Then, bless her heart, she lit up and told me there was a Michael's! A Jo-Ann! And even a Hobby Lobby!! Sigh. I guess I really don't have an LNS.

What I do have, though, is a fun little design that is getting very close to the happy dance phase. I've started the backstitching and - after about a week of lackluster stitching motivation - I seem to have caught the bug again. I can't wait to finish up this post and pick up that needle!