Time for a change

I've been suffering a bit from a crafting overload over the last few weeks - I seemed to work on 3 exchanges in fairly quick succession, gifts for Alexander's teachers and since then have been drifting, unable to find anything sufficiently interesting to work on. With the lack of inclination to craft came a similar disinclination to blog, so I've not been doing much and have had little to say about it.

I have, however, done a couple of things. The first is my July biscornu for the Basket of Biscornu. I'm really very pleased with it!

This was my first go at bargello and uses a coaster pattern from 'Bargello: A Fresh Approach to Florentine Embroidery' by Brenda Day. I really love the colours I've used for it too - a different combination for me - and I just don't know which side I like best!

After that, I continued the canvas theme by digging out Nova and stitching another 8 or 9 squares.


I had an idea yesterday for a stitchy project to try and had to rush home from work to dig out fabric and ribbons - it's all quite exciting and looks like the crafty overload is history! But I don't think I'll be attempting any more crochet for a little while - still feel a bit crocheted out!

As a result of my new project, I'm now lusting after a copy of Jean Hilton's Stimulating Stitches - isn't it amazing what different people think looks like fun?

Nova again

I'm not too chuffed with Blogger at the moment not wanting to show my slideshow. It keeps complaining about the html, but I can't seen anything wrong with it!

So I've done an image map which achieves the same result, just to stop myself getting cross.

I'm very lazy, I get MS FrontPage to to the hard work for me.

Stitchy update no. 3 - Skiving!

Umm, I think I said last week that having completed part 3 of MTM, I would be concentrating on Paradigm Lost. Well, I lied, a bit anyway. I think I managed the grand total of about 2 hours on PL and have been neglecting it ever since.

The reason? Well, I've been having far too much fun working on Nova! So much so that I've completed row 3 and look to be on schedule to complete row 4 this week! I've been keeping Nova as my 'bedroom' project that I stitch on in bed if I'm having rest when I get home from work, or late in the evening before I settle down to sleep. The plan was just to do the odd block here and there, but I've just been enjoying it too much and last week it crept into my evening stitching slot too.

5.18pm - looks like Blogger doesn't want to talk to Photobucket. And I really liked that slideshow too. Well, if you're really interested, you can always look at it here. Otherwise, you'll just have to make do with the whole thing.

And the whole thing looks like this -


Or at least, it looked like that at the weekend. I think I've added another 3 or 4 block since then.

I also made 3 of these at the weekend, having been reminded via the other Lesley's blog, how much I like fruit loaf and that I've been meaning to bake some for a few months!


I couldn't believe how quickly my neighbour appeared after they came out of the oven and managed to walk off with one. And between the 3 of us, we've nearly finished a second now. Number 3 is in the freezer.

I've been bringing some fruit loaf to work with me this week for lunch, but it hasn't survived that long! I've been feeling in need of a treat of some kind by about 11am as I'm finding work rather frustrating right now! It seems that, because I'm going on maternity leave in about 6 weeks, this has given all sorts of people permission not to talk to me. Consequently, I'm feeling a bit left out. And unfortunately, because I am going on maternity leave in about 6 weeks, it doesn't seem to be worth doing anything about it. It's not as if there's a major problem, just a bunch of frustrating, niggly little things.

Ho hum, roll on 5.30!

Checking in!

I thought I'd pop in and show my recent pics of my progress on Nova. Because the design is made up of a large number of individual blocks, I didn't get so much of a feel for the overall design in rows 1 and 2. I've now started row 3 and that's changing. Each block now is part of the larger oiece and I start to get a feel for the overall design, the gradual colour changes flowing across the piece.

I also had a bit of fun taking these photos - how to show off the end of row 2 and start of row 3 and still make the photo look interesting?



I'm now frantically stitching on Cheryl's RR which I should have finished by now - sorry folks! I've not got too far to go - you can see my progress on our blog at the Heartfelt Friends RR.

I'm feeling a lot better these days than I have been over the last 6 to 8 weeks and life in general isn't stressing me out so much which is quite a relief. I'm also starting to really enjoy my stitching again!

Thanks for all the lovely comments on my previous post. I'm sorry I'm so badly behind on my blog reading, but I will catch up with you all!

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men ......

I was full of plans at the start of this week, but things have rather deteriorated since then! Don't they always?

Generally, I'm a one-at-a-time stitcher and therefore don't use any specific stitching plans, but these days, I seem to have several WIPS which are generally neglected or worked on, depending how I feel! However, I do find it a little stressful (LOL) to have WIPS that I can't find any time to work on, hence the idea of a plan. This was the plan -

Weekday evenings
1. St Petersburg
2. MTM, after current part of St Pete complete

Weekends, assuming 4 weekends/month
One weekend will be spent on each of the following:
1. Nova
2. Bent Creek Red Thread - I started this at work during May. Progress so far -


3. HAED, to link in with HAED SALs on HAED and FG boards.
4. Freebies, smalls, ornaments, exchanges .....

Weekday lunchtimes
Mill Hill buttoned and beaded kits for my son's teachers.

This was let me keep up with St Pete, but allow time to work on other things and make progress on my other WIPs.

I was even making great progress on it, as I spent the weekend of 2nd - 3rd June adding another 11 blocks to Nova!


Spot the Norwich stitched block in the middle of row B!

However, I'm not so sure now. I've made little progress on the Mill Hill kits which I need to finish stitching on by 13th July to give me a little time to mount them for giving to the teachers at the end of the following week. I think therefore, I'm going to have to stitch on them at weekends now as well as lunchtimes. And I had been thinking of joining an exchange, but don't really think I'll have time for that now.

Other slight catch - I'm really enjoying this part of St Pete and would rather continue on it over the weekend!

Another part of my plan from now on is to loose weight. I lost a lot of weight (3.5 stones) 2 years ago, but things have been creeping back up to the point where, if I don't do something about it now, then I'm going to end up back where I started. And that is something I am NOT going to do. So my goal for this month is to loose 4 pounds. Not a lot perhaps, but enough to reverse the upward trend. My overall target is to loose about 20lbs. It's not a huge amount and should be achievable. It is achievable.

It's not as if I have a particularly bad diet. Generally, I just enjoy my food too much, and if I'm down, I comfort eat. I just need to be more disciplined over certain habits.

However, two days away from work on training courses don't help when a nice lunch is supplied for you ......

I'll also be blogging more often as I'm finding it helpful in fighting the depression I've been struggling with over the last 18 months. That's been part of the reason for my weight gain. I mean, when I get bored at work, what distractions are there other than food? And it is boredom that's been the problem. Answer - blogging! And it helps me to connect with the wider world in general and makes me feel better. It's all about breaking down negative ways of thinking and behaving.

At least I've been too busy this week to be bored or depressed!
       

May Achievements

I have a new plan (stitching and life!) which I'm starting in June, so to round up my pre-plan achievements, here's what I've been up to in May.

1. Part 3 of St Petersburg completed - see here.

2. 5 more blocks on Nova - row A completed and a good start made to row B.












3. Good progress made on Starflake, although I put away again on Friday as I'd had enough of the Smyrna crossed and pulling eyelets! However, I am really pleased with my week's progress.



4. Started Bent Creek's Red Thread series with the Snowman.

5. Completed one gift for my son's teachers - details here.

Wow - I hadn't realised just how much I'd done in May!

Finally, I thought I'd share the photo I'm looking at on my desk calendar at work this month.

This is The Isle of Jura, Sound of Corryvreckan from Scarba, Argyll by Colin Prior, a wonderful photographer of Scotland and wild places of the world.
             

A sampler of sorts

I love speciality stitches! They are often an important factor in what draws me to a design or designer’s work. I love the way they add texture to a piece, the way the light reveals different parts of the stitch or highlights the thread in different ways.

It's one of the things I really like about Carol Tinson's designs.

Rhodes diamonds in Carol's huswif.

The range of embroidery stitches to try is immense and to date, I’ve been rather limited in my experience. I’ve come across Sharon Boggon’s classes at Joggles, particularly her “Develop a Personal Library of Stitches” and I’ve drooled over the idea of taking her “Encrusted Crazy Quilting” class, but I’ve never got there, whether through lack of confidence, laziness, or lack of time. I also regularly read up on her “Take a Stitch Tuesday” challenge which gives a fantastic introduction to many stitches and how you can use them.

Last weekend I set out to explore some stitches with a piece of linen, some perle cotton, and a little stranded cotton.

This is the end result and I had a lot of fun! It is still a work in progress, and will probably continue to be so until I fill the entire fabric.

Some of the stitches I've come across before - the Rhodes diamond, spider's web rose (woven wheel), chain and blanket stitch. Many of them are also completely new to me - the interlaced herringbone, lattice, Queen stitch.

I know many of the stitches are a bit irregularly shaped or lopsided - the point of the exercise was to learn about how the stitches are constructed, not to get them perfect.

The Interlaced Herringbone was a bit tricky. I still haven't got the underlying herringbone quite right. But I do love the effect of it, particularly when I've used such contrasting colours.

The Queen stitch I'm a bit disappointed with, it just doesn't grab me at all.

I'm also working speciality stitches into Nova which is mainly stitched in Scotch, Mosaic and Tent stitch. Some of the blocks are simple tent stitch in one colour representing quiet areas of the design. There are roughly one or two of these blocks in each row. Now, I want to keep those areas relatively quiet and will minimise the introduction of new thread colours, but what I am going to do is, in something like one block per row, use a speciality stitch for one of these blocks. In this way, I'll also learn new stitches and techniques.

For the first row, I've used Rice Stitch, mainly because at the time I wanted to use a stitch I was already familiar with, but to use it on a larger scale.

Next row, Norwich stitch, I can't wait to give it a go!

March roundup

There are a few things I've been stitching that I haven't got round to posting photos of, so I thought I'd sum things up here.

Watergarden - I haven't stitched this since the beginning of March and am going temporarily retire it from my WIP list as others will be taking priority.

One of the things with all Chatelaines is the amount of beading involved. I didn't fancy the idea of leaving it all to the end, so decided that I'd add the Delicas in stages. At the end of February, I reached a point where I'd finished the central blue section and started the surrounding border, so I decided it was time to do a little beading.



Part 1 of St Petersburg became available at the beginning of March and I was really pleased to complete the stitching and add the Delicas on schedule, even with a week left over at the end of the month! My monster scroll frame made an enormous difference.



Part 2 was released last weekend, so I'm hoping to get started this evening!

In the last week of March, I picked up Medieval Town Mandala again. Actually, I completely restarted it having decided that I really wanted to do it on opalescent fabric. The amount I'd completed previously was minimal, so it wasn't a problem. I'm really pleased with the progress I've made to the extent that I've almost finished part 1 and the photo below is becoming out of date!



I'm also very pleased with the progress I've made on Nova over the last month. In October, I'd completed the first 3 blocks. In March, I added another 7!



On the down side, I haven't been able to keep up with Carol Tinson's Huswif as I would have wished. Part 3 is due this month, and I've only just finished part 1. This one has been my lunch time stitching at work where I've been feeling a bit stressed and not much like stitching recently. Sometimes even, it feels like the stitching adds to the stress. It gets confusing when I actually enjoy doing it yet feel stressed by it at the same time. So I think I may take a break from the lunchtime slot for now. Maybe when the weather is better, I'll get out to the park at lunch time and do a little stitching there. Sorry I don't have an updated picture!

Stitchin' Pretty

This is what I love about Carol Tinson's designs - you're challenged as a stitcher to learn new stitches and techniques in order to complete her beautiful designs.

My current favourites in the Mystery Huswif are the Spiders Web Roses.


You can see instructions at http://www.hand-dyedfibers.com/spider.html

Before I completed my first one, I was a little worried about what would happen if my thread got twisted while I was making the rose. I railroad all my top stitches and sometimes the bottom ones too (depends how the thread is behaving), and I didn't want to spoil the effect of the roses with twisted thread. However, I soon realised that it really doesn't matter. In fact, a little twisting can add extra texture to the rose and even improve the look of the end result. The main thing to do when stitching these stitches is to have plenty of thread on your needle!

The main point with this stitch is not to get your tension too tight - then I think you would have difficulty with the texture and overall look of the rose.

I've nearly finished part 1 now, although part 2 arrived by email earlier this week. Here's where I've got to so far.


The photograph makes the colours look much lighter than they are in real life.

I've switched around some of the colours - I think the HDF Hazelnut is my least favourite. I've also left out the alphabet in the centre but have one or two ideas for other things to put in that band, as well as in the alphabet bands of part 2.

I just have to finish the leaves on the right hand rose and a herringbone band below, then I'll be ready for part two!

Ooh - and I've even managed a stitch or two on Nova this week!

To rotate or not to rotate?

Or should the title of this post be Obsessive Stitching? It's just the simple problem of how can I find enough time to stitch all the beautiful designs I want to stitch?

I don't think I'm really a rotation stitcher. I'm not keen on the idea of having to stitch a set number of hours/days/weeks on one piece before switching to something different. I'd much rather just be able to stitch what I feel like working on at any given time. So I don't think I'll start a rotation.

Maybe I'm more of a one-at-a-time stitcher - I'll start one thing and stitch it until it's finished before I start something else.

But if that's the case, then how did I end up with so many WIPs? And when am I going to find the time to work on them all, let alone actually finishing?

For example, take Nova by Genny Morrow.


I started this last October when I was up in Scotland staying with my parents, completed 3 squares, but I haven't done a stitch on it since and half the threads have walked .......

Nova, at least, should be easy to fix - how difficult can it be to stitch one square per week? (Or one evening per week if I'm feeling ambitious.)

Now I just have to worry about all my other WIPs .......