Camp Wannastitch

Because of personal things, my ability to pack this year for camp was compromised. I totally forgot my goldwork project and Olivia Ostrich.

I made massive progress on my current crewel piece and would have finished but ran out of overdyed Pearsalls silk. Oops. 

Also finished stitching and beading my Kurdy Biggs paper piece and I forgot to bring things needed for finishing.

And my only finish was this little Fern Ridge pin called Daddy Long Legs. 

New Year, New(ish) Project

While casting around for which project to pick up first in the New Year, I remembered that the Loudoun Sampler Guild was taking on Queenstown's Phebe Nichols as a stitch along. 

I had barely started it. And worse, I already had a mistake. Started stitching and whoops, another mistake. Three threads in and I have made two big errors. Have I totally forgotten how to count? I sure hope not. 

My fabric is a Lakeside Linen, but which one I didn't right down. I used a conversion chart and am stitching with Cosmo floss. 

Cosmo is a six-stranded cotton from Japan made from long-staple Egyptian cotton. It feels yummy. 

 

Scissor Fob

I found this fob month ago. It was mostly stitched. I just needed to stitch beads and do the finishing. Which I did.

Totally forgot to share it here. Can't remember the designer. (edit: The designer is June Abel.)

But it's so cute. And those bees are so tiny. 

 

More Finishes

 So this little cutie someone got lost and its threads got separated from the canvas. I found this sometime after we returned from my first trip to London back in 2010. There's more than one type of white thread stitched on this. And two different dye lots of one of them. All because I didn't write anything done. And seriously how the threads were no longer in the box with the canvas is beyond me. Anyway. It's off being made into a pillow and when it comes back to me, I will smile at it every day. Because I like the ambiguity of what the gap is. (I know what it is. But it could refer to so many things.)

And I feel safe posting this here even though it's a gift. A little stumpwork piece designed by Nancy Williams. I don't know how many years ago I took this class. I also have the white berries on blue silk version which has been stitched for years. When I find it again, I'll do the finishing and put it on my tree.

Blogger Works Best..

Blogger works best for me on my computer. I have little control over it on my phone. Thus I hardly ever update. For which I am terribly sorry. I'm going to try to be better. (Once again.)

But here's the EGA Halloween plaid I did back in October. I used a version of 10/31/17 to establish the pattern. I never did make it into a spider, mostly because I finished it right at the end of the month. I do have several of the spider cupcake holders and toyed with the idea of a Christmas spider, but that's been put on hold this month. 

Here's a couple of freestyle bookmarks I did for our guild. By freestyle, I just took some threads, mostly pearl #5, and started stitching. I've got one more that I should find and finish. 

 And here's a big finish - Imari Collage by Debbie Stiehler. It's at the framers and I'm dying to get it back. Parts of this stitch were a complete pain in the ass. But it's so beautiful that I forgive Debbie for torturing her students. 

Things are good here in Virginia. The usual Christmas prep going on. And in case you think I'm only stitching on canvas, I've got a few things to show you that might surprise you. But that's going to have to wait for another day.
 

Halloween Plaid

If you go visit the Embroiderers' Guild of America website and look under resources, you'll find some free projects. They are introducing a new one every month. Try this url:  https://www.egausa.org/index.php/resources/free-projects

This month it is a Halloween Plaid design by Mary Waldsmith of Owl Stitchery.

The photos show my plaid in progress and completed. I used 18ct canvas and four colors of pearl cotton. Now I need to make it into a spider.

It is a Halloween plaid because the count is 5 + 5 = 10 then 3, 1. 

Hot off the Needles

This one has been hanging around nearly finished for about 4 or 5 years. There are 3 squares that are supposed to have buttons. And I'm not a huge button fan.

So I decided to use some beads and the witch's  hat got stitched. The other two squares were designed, gravestone and moon with bats, but I never got around to stitching the bats. I ditched the idea of beading the bats and just stitched that square. Phew.

This a design by Marilyn Owen and its in the ANG Chapter Project Book. The only way to get this is as a Chapter project (unless you find a used copy from someone.)

I'm holding on to my copy because I want to use bits of this piece again.

Rookie Mistakes

Back in 2010 (was it that long ago?) DH and I took a trip to London. When I came home, I found this canvas which I just had to have as these signs are all over their version of the subway. I like the ambiguity of this saying. It could be refering to anything, not just the literal gap between the car and the station platform.

Now I wasn't doing a lot a painted canvas at the time and I acquired threads. I stitched the red and blue and the white inside the circle and started the white up in the corner and made my first rookie mistake. 

That's right. I didn't purchase enough of my background thread. We see this mistake all the time at the shop. Not enough background thread. Best case scenario, you held on to your tags. Now we have a sporting chance of matching dye lots.  

Worst case scenario, and here's where I made my second rookie mistake, my threads got separated from my canvas. No idea how this happened. I am usually so careful about this. 

I thought I had been using Pepper Pot and I had an older skein of Cloud which is their white. In retrospect, maybe it was Vineyard I was using. As I can see a difference between the upper right corner and a couple inches in. And then came the second difference between Pepper Pot Cloud then and Pepper Pot Cloud now. That's where the arrow is. 

I'm not going to let this bother me. When it's made into a pillow and your sitting across the room from it, you will only see white. Not three different whites. 

Now that I'm no longer a rookie, but seasoned pro at painted canvas, I never make mistakes. LOL

Bargello

Every time I add a color, the look completely changes. After the four shades of blue, comes raspberry pink.

And then, I'll do all over again 7 or 8 more times.

Reset

I need help. An intervention. I can't resist a new project.

It's bad, you know.

In the past two weeks I started two new projects, both from guild classes. Bought another one. And am ordering two more.

But. I. Can't. Stop.

Here's one of my new projects. We've been discussing this one for a while in our program committee meetings. Finally got it off the ground. It's a gentlemen's pocketbook. Our program chairs each stitched one. One on linen and one on congress cloth. We used the article from Piecework magazine (what issue and year, I don't remember) as our starting point.

I picked a light blue congress cloth from my stash and bought some Impressions which is a wool/silk blend. My bargello pattern is from Erica Wilson's bargello book and she called it Aurora Borealis. I've got four color families in four shades each. Easy to do after I set my first row.

This will take a while as it's 21 inches long. And each shade covers 1/6th of an inch. Glad it's only 6 1/2 inches wide.

That's the scoop on one new project. But I still need an intervention.