First Paper Piecing

I totally forgot!  I also have my first attempt at (foundation) paper piecing.  I saw it in the Quiltville Facebook group and decided to give it a whirl with a fat quarter bundle of Halloween fabrics that have been hanging around in my stash.  I used the print out from Generations Quilt Patterns.

I can't wait to do more!  I'm thinking of doing a table runner with these fabrics.  Maybe I'll mix one of them up with more than three colors.

Oh, and just for giggles, I finally got my TV wall mounted.  It's on a articulating arm so that it can come straight out, or turn 180 in either direction (and tip down), but my favorite thing was installing an outlet behind it so I can hide the wiring.

2014 Halloween Blog Hop

Welcome to the

Blog Hop!
Hosted by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching 

This is one of my favorite Halloween-ish pieces.  It's a freebie from Tantes Zolder/My Aunt's Attic, but that site was shut down a couple of years ago. 

Your letter is:

and

Your next stop is Fantasy Cross Stitch

Have fun!

IHSW and TWOctob... SQUIRREL!

I had such "grand" plans for this weekend. I was going to spend all of my time playing Assassin's Creed and quilting stitching on my TWOctober projects (ES).

And then Squirrel.

I ran across the cutest little freebie in the Pumpkin Seed Stitchers' group on FB and just had to immediately stitch it.

It's called Haunting Love, by T. A. Smith Designs.   And the love? Rats.  RATS!!

This picture is most color correct, btw.

So I printed out the freebie and thought about it for a bit.   I have a piece of Sparklies fabric I was going to do the Ghostly Mandala (from JustCrossStitch) on, but I went with this piece instead.  I dug through my thread stash and used Fiesta for most of it, I was going to do it for nearly the entire piece but ran out, so I switched to Black Coffee for the tree/border/bats, and I used Hibiscus to satin stitch the heart.

Because love.

So this was my IHSW weekend, not so much with the assassinating or TWOctobering, but hey, rat love :)  I'm super pleased with this piece and I'm thinking of maybe trying a flat-fold finish for it.

Miss Witchy Mouse by Just Nan

Back into stitching means back into seeing new patterns.  
Just Nan has been releasing these adorable little constructed ornament mouse pieces that are just too cute.

There have been several, and I managed to snag a Witchy Mouse for Halloween and a Gingerbread Mouse for Christmas (there's also a gingerbread jingle mouse, but they're so similar I don't need both that I've recently purchased because I'm a weak, weak woman).  There's also a Lindy Mouse that was created exclusively for the Silver Needle and Minerva's Mouse, which is the one I'd love to get a hold of (though I'd rather have just the pattern than the whole owl cloisonne kit, but see previous weak statement, I'd spend the cash!).

The one only took me a couple of days and was a lot of fun.

The instructions call for the use of a toothpick to make the broom, but my toothpicks weren't ones I thought would work well (colored and shaped oddly).  I think I'm happier with this cut down bamboo skewer.

In regular light

Under the Ott.   I should have gotten a better picture of her back - there's a spider! :)

So I'm back to my regularly scheduled rotation.
I think I like the screaming/schedule hybrid that I've adopted.  It's working out pretty well.

Update:

I emailed Nan/Just Nan - I had met her multiple times at CATS and because one of my high school buddies knew her (his sister was her god-daughter, and they lived in her house, complete with stencils and art she had painted on the wall!).   I wanted to thank her for designing these awesome mice and to say that I was happy that she was still designing after my long hiatus from the stitching community.  So many designers have either retired or just disappeared that it's nice to see a great designer still around.   She returned my email (quickly!), and mentioned there will be another gingerbread mouse!  whoohoo!

Finish! Halloween Fairy by Mirabilia!

I managed to fall wrong during aerial yoga (what? I'm not invincible, you say?  pshaw.) and was homebound for a day, so I thought I'd finally finish Halloween Fairy.   I think I started it two or three years ago? (some time in 2011 maybe?), and finally got around to finishing it.

Unfortunately, New Year's Fairy and Halloween Fairy's threads got all jumbled and I lost some of the threads and beads, so I had to reorder those threads before I could get it all done.

And here she is!  Hoorah!

Another Mirabilia update

Right now, there's nothing terribly exciting going on in life.  We have our three year inspection coming up in two weeks, and work has been a bit insane (levels for signage kind of insane).   I've been a bit antisocial because of the extra workload, and I'm super excited that we're almost in the clear.  TWO. MORE. WEEKS.

But I've seen a couple of movies, and got one color done in the wings for each movie, so huzzah progress!

Before:

After:

Two movies... imagine how far I'll get when I eventually make it to binge-watching a TV show!

Not gonna lie - I was a little concerned with the color combos.  It looks different from the cover model, and I wasn't sure what was going on.   Working with hand/over dyes can be so tricky since what might be perfect in one batch could be radically different looking with another, but I do like it so far.

My next goal is to get that final green in the empty spots and then do the hair/skin.  I want to fill everything in before I just go to knock out the main body of the wings.  I'm hoping I have enough Dandelion, I've read that the single skein that the kit came with is sometimes not enough (though I am pretty good at floss conservation), I won't complete each stitch as I go, which will make for a stripe-ier set of wings, but should save floss and look fine, I think.

WIPocalypse - July edition.

So for S&Gs, I'm joining in the WIPocalypse stitchalong (hosted by Measi).  Most of my projects are really, really old (with the exception of the Mirabilia Fairies, Celtic Ferret Knot, and Deco Spirits, all well over 6 years old!), and I've already set up a rotation to try to reduce the number I had.  I thought joining in would keep me a little more accountable for posting stitching updates, even if I probably feel like I shouldn't :)


This month’s discussion topic is:  It’s halfway to Christmas.  Do you start your holiday stitching this early?  If so, what do you hope to accomplish this year?

I have never been huge into Christmas, though I used to make some ornaments (and collect the JCS ornament edition), but it's been a long, long time since I've worried about making pieces for other people, nevermind the holidays.   When I do stitch something with a holiday theme, I don't tend to put a deadline on when it's done.  So nothing for me!

Speaking of holiday work - my current project is still the Mirabilia Holiday Fairy - Halloween.  I worked on it a bit during the World Cup, but didn't get too far because I was enjoying a rather strong cocktail made by a friend.  I did the rest last night while watching 12 Years a Slave.


Here's my before fairy - pretty much everything in the skirt done except for the beads

And here's the after - The other edges of the wings (in Black Coffee) are done!

She's a really big fairy (you know, for a small fairy)!  I mean, all of them are approximately the same sized, but the span of her wings is sizable.    I think I'll enjoy the New Year Fairy after her, because that fairy is so tiny in comparison!

Halloween Fairy update

I worked a wee bit on Halloween Fairy last night.
I'm determined to finish my downstairs home wreckin' projects (namely the half bath and the kitchen), but I just got tired of maneuvering in the teensy bathroom with a ladder (seriously 9 ft ceilings, yuck), so I worked on her instead.

I really wanted to get the bottom half of her done.  I'll do her arms/body/head next and then get to the wings. 

I also got a skeleton of a spreadsheet done to catalog my patterns/charts, because... yeah I need to do that.  I've already bought one duplicate in the past year, and I should really stop that.

Mirabilia starts & Progress

It's no good for me to talk about stitching progress if I don't actually have any, is there?

Right now, I'm in love with Mirabilias, probably because I finished the S-Fairy, which I hope to have framed pictures of, in the not to distant future.

In the meantime, I started something brand new while I was on vacation, and it's Deco Spirits by Mira.

I owned this chart wayyyy back in the day, not long after it came out in '96, but I didn't think I'd ever actually get around to it and I gave it away.

And then I saw it posted by someone on my 'book wall, and I remembered why I fell in love with it to begin with.  PLUS it totally fits in with the decor at the house, so I figured - why the hell not?  I had almost everything I needed in stash, so I brought it and got started.

So here she is - Deco Spirits (this block is going to be Earth):

Last year, because I did not have what I wanted for my project (rather, I didn't have the DMC on me, and I sure wasn't going to buy anything I already had), I started Halloween Fairy.   I somehow lost the Chocolate Cream Pie Crescent Colours, so I was just stitching around that area till the thread came in that I ordered.  Last night I stitched a bunch of it, but no pics, Alas.

And here is New Years Fairy, which I started for no damn reason at all, but the goal is to get Halloween done and then New Years.
After that, I may or may not start on Thanksgiving, or just work on some other WIP projects to decrease the load.    I want to get down to 5 WIPs, so we'll see how that goes.

 

So that's it for now :)

Halloween Happy Dance

I finished another small piece. This is Checkered Halloween by M Designs. I'm not even sure why I had the kit, it's not my "usual" style, but I saw it and decided to stitch it "real quick" before getting back to the UFO RR I'm working on right now. I needed a break from the greens I've been staring at, I guess.

I'm thinking I should finish it as a flat fold to display during the Halloweeny days. I love how I"m going to have to get the alignment dead perfect on mounting, because those checks do not lie (It makes me a little ashamed I didn't press or stretch it for the HD picture... oh well).

Bat, Bats, everywhere!

I finished! It took almost an entire two skeins of Crescent Colours, but I got it done! And yes, I took the picture on the diagonal. Actually I took two pictures, but the color shows up better in this one. It's some sort of melony/orangy material, and I'm very very happy with it.

I was thinking that I'd like to get this one with a specialty matte cut. Something that goes around the bats that's neither square nor diagonal, nor circle. I'm not sure what yet. I also realized that I have Bavarian Christmas wreath that need to framed. If I get enough seasonal stuff that is the same approximate size, I think I'll just use a rotating spot on the wall and hang up a seasonal something.

Or I might finish it into a flat-fold... I can't decide what I want to do, but I want to display this sucker!!!