Challenges & SALs – Page 11 – Feather Stitching

It seems that Mum and managed to pick up some nasty bug from the hospital while visiting with Dad last week – Mum managed to get away with just a handful of grotty days, but I seem to have picked up the full brunt of it … after struggling with just a head cold and a head like a tap for a few days, I started getting chills and a slight fever at the end of the week … thankfully I’m just starting to come through the tail end of it and just have blocked sinuses and feeling a bit run-down. It wasn’t the most pleasant trip home this morning because of it, but because I hadn’t slept much the last 3 nights I managed to nap through half of the flight, which was great!

We finally saw the surgical intern at the hospital on Thursday … after waiting for 2 hours we were finally told she had been taken into emergency surgery and could we come back again in 2 hours time, only to wait for yet another 2 hours before she was ready to see us! Anyway they are saying that his surgery may not take place now until late January/early February, depending on the surgeon who’s going to be doing the operation. He’s supposed to send Dad a letter with his new appointment, with the surgery to follow approx one week after that appointment … but we don’t know when the letter will be coming (some time over the next 2 weeks). As it was too uncertain when the surgery was going to take place, and Dad seems quite stable with the diet he’s been following over the last week, I decided to fly home and go back to work for the next couple of weeks … then I’ll return to Auckland again once we know the surgery date. In the meantime, though, I need to pull my finger out and get a new passport issued, as it runs out on 7 February!

So all-in-all it’s been a really crappy visit, truth be told … I have to admit it’s been a little bit stressful, as Mum and I haven’t been able to leave home and get a bit of a break and 1o0% relax, especially with all the uncertainty with Dad – he started to feel like a Jack-in-box in and out of hospital for the entire two weeks. While I’ve managed to get an awful lot of stitching done, it has been more as stress relief than enjoyment, and a way to fill in time at home – unfortunately all the things Mum and I had planned to do haven’t got done … so hopefully when I fly over the next time we may get an opportunity to do some of those planned fun things, and to catch up with people I had planned to see this time … It also means that my heart wasn’t really in my stitching either, and I managed to totally stuff up my colour choices for a Lizzie*Kate commitment piece I needed to do (a travelling pattern that I’d been holding on to for way too long). I might try to put the final stitches into this one tonight if I get chance, but I’m not entirely sure whether I’ll be keeping it or not. I want to re-do it entirely in blues, so I may see if I can quickly kit it up again and get cracking on it, as I want to get the chart into the mail by the end of the week at the latest.

To finish off this post I’ve decided to upload piccies of all the upcoming projects I have for 2013 as part of my new rotation … plus other commitments I have to complete that aren’t in the rotation officially. Mind you, I’ve already replaced one of the rotation pieces with another one I just remembered I wanted to complete, so you’ll now see Eiffel Quaker added to the list instead of the Periwinkle Promises one – I’d originally wanted to stitch this while in Paris but we were out and about so much during the day we didn’t get any stitching time! Rightio, without further ado, here come the piccies … you may also see more blogging again from me this year as I try to wean myself off Facebook, but I know I’ve said that before so I wouldn’t hold my breath 😉

Crazy January Stitching Challenge:

WIPs/UFOs:

SALs & other Commitment pieces:

xxx

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Rotation, Stitch-alongs

Time for a Rotation again?

2 January, 20132 January, 2013 Anne S

I have signed up for so many different SALs and challenges this year that I think the best way for me to devote time for each one is to set up a rotation once again – the first time I tried a rotation it was amazingly successful, but later attempts have been disastrous … perhaps this time it will work … perhaps …

Then again, I also want to continue concentrating on older UFOs/WIPs to finally get them into the finished pile and not languishing around making me feel guilty and gathering dust bunnies …

I guess the first thing to do is to work out what SALs I have coming up this year, along with noting if any of those projects could be combined with the Crazy January Challenge or using existing WIPs/UFOs … then work out a schedule that could possibly work on a 10-hour slot basis. Rightio then, let’s start by noting all the SALs coming up (including those already started while I’ve been in NZ) … here goes:

November 2012 – Quaker Christmas II SAL
1 January – Nora Corbett’s Bluebell Pixie SAL
1 January – Drawn Thread’s Sampler Gameboard SAL
1 February – Aussie Round Robin
14 February – Ink Circles Cirque des Coeurs SAL
1 May – Teresa Wentzler SAL

Add to that the list of potential new starts for me this year as part of the Crazy January Challenge (the only difference is that I’m making up my own rules by choosing and kitting up 15 projects but not starting a new one every day, just rather working my way through the list). I have to admit I grabbed a handful of my chosen 2013 new starts when I did a rushed packing job to come to NZ and ended up already starting and finishing two of them, so I definitely need to re-do that list of projects once again. I am tempted to add the Quaker Christmas II sampler and Sampler Gameboard to the challenge list, but I’m not confident I can see either of them being finished by the end of the year and happy to just have them ‘in progress’ throughout the year. My CJC pieces will be as follows (there are only 2 relatively large pieces in there, so I’m hoping it won’t be too unachievable, but that could be famous last words, if this year’s crappy stitching time is anything to go by!):

Bluebell pixie – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Little Blue Potting Shed – Brown House Studio
Blue Bayou – Northern Pine Designs
Christmas Elf Fairy – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Bluebeard’s Princess – Mirabilia
Moon & Stars – Little House Needleworks
Trousse aux Fleur Bleues – CMon Monde
Spooky Scissors Fob – Shepherd’s Bush
Little Witch – Shepherd’s Bush
Trick or Treat Box – Just Nan
Acorn Hill – Little House Needleworks
Valentine Fairy – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Christmas double flip-its – Lizzie*Kate
Ebb Tide – Northern Pine Designs
Sky Blue Accent – Periwinkle Promises

As well as these projects, though, I’d dearly love to continue working on some of my older WIPs/UFOs, namely:

With My Needle – The Goode Huswife
Flight of the Bumblebees – Ruth Schmuff
English Garden Sampler – Teresa Wentzler
Enchanted Mermaid – Mirabilia
Egyptian Garden Mandala – Chatelaine

Taking all that into account, let’s see if I can work out a suitable rotation … hmmm, this might need a few days to think through, but easier putting it ‘in print’ and then reviewing again … and seeing as I don’t have any software loaded up on Mum’s computer at the moment, this is kinda my drawing board for now …

Nora Corbett/Mirabilia
(Bluebell pixie, Christmas Elf Fairy, Valentine Fairy, Bluebeard’s Princess, *Enchanted Mermaid (UFO))
Halloween
(Spooky Scissors Fob, Little Witch, Trick or Treat Box)
Quaker Christmas II SAL
Christmas Ornaments & Charity Quilt Squares
Canvaswork
(Blue Bayou, Ebb Tide, *Flight of the Bumblebees (UFO))
Other Crazy January
(Little Blue Potting Shed, Moon & Stars, Trousse aux Fleur Bleues, Acorn Hill, Christmas double flip-its, Sky Blue Accent)
Sampler Gameboard SAL
UFOs/WIPs
(With My Needle, *Flight of the Bumblebees, English Garden Sampler, *Enchanted Mermaid, Egyptian Garden Mandala)
Christmas Ornaments or Free Choice

That actually seems quite ‘do-able’ … but I guess the proof will be whether I manage to start it when I get home … which is now at least a week later than expected, depending on what Dad’s doctor has to say tomorrow. I got the go-ahead from my boss to work over here ‘remotely’ for a while, so that’s good news and takes the pressure off a little bit 🙂

Plus Mum and I placed a small order with 123stitch to re-order the missing threads I need that are waiting for me back home – at least that way I can still continue to do some form of stitching over here, which I have to admit I’ve been loving at the moment … I can’t remember the last time I stitched every single day for over a week at a time … sheer bliss!!!

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Finishes

Final WIPocalypse post for 2012

29 December, 201229 December, 2012 Anne S

Unfortunately I can’t show piccies of the latest stitching I’ve been working on, as I’m on holiday with my parents in NZ and didn’t bother bringing my laptop with me … and of course I left the cord for the camera … and Mum’s PC is so old it doesn’t have a memory card slot … so the only stitching I can show from the last month is an ornie that I quickly whipped up in my last weekend at home before I flew out that I’d uploaded to Facebook – it was a gift for a work colleague who had had us over for lunch the previous weekend – hopefully she likes it as I didn’t get to see her before I left, and I could only leave it on her desk for her on Xmas Eve. I also just realised that I never took a photo of it finish-finished, so I’ll have to get Pauline to do that for me!

“Joyeux Noel” by Monsterbubbles (I think)
stitched on 32ct white Belfast linen
with totally different Au Ver a Soie and Belle Soie silk threads from the design
(I wanted a more traditional look for Pauline)

The other stitching I’ve been doing is a little bit on a Bent Creek Easter design, and I am about 2/3 through Blossoms and Blackbirds by LHN (most of which was stitched last night). My Dad was taken into hospital 2 days after I arrived home and we’re just awaiting a surgery date for him now – it was supposed to be on this coming Monday, but now there is doubt that it will happen, and we were told to come pick him up from the hospital today and to take him back again tomorrow night. I’m glad I’m here as a support for both Mum and Dad even if it’s just for playing chauffeur service to/from the hospital and taking Mum shopping etc. At least he had a really great Christmas Day with our extended family before he went downhill again 🙂

And on that note I guess it’s time to head back into the lounge and pick up my stitching once again for some more family time – better make the most of it again before we head back to the hospital again tomorrow night!

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Works in Progress

Sorry for the missing photos everywhere! & WIPocalypse update

6 December, 20126 December, 2012 Anne S

Really sorry that there are “Temporarily Unavailable” pictures everywhere on my blog … I forgot all my photos on here were hosted on Webshots which has just shut it’s doors … and I need to find the time to upload everything somewhere else and re-add them into the posts once again … that is obviously going to be a MASSIVE undertaking seeing as how long I’ve been blogging for 😦

Unfortunately I’m also working 12-14 hour days every day at the moment, so I don’t have the energy at night to fix the pages up just yet. I apologise for any inconvenience, but I’ll return to fix the blog as soon as I get some spare time, but that may be a couple of weeks away yet.

As for the WIPocalypse, I can also blame my woeful working hours that I’ve barely picked up a needle in the last month. The only stitching I’ve really done has been two ornie finishes for exchanges (which I can’t show yet), and half an ornie for myself that I started about 3 weeks ago and still haven’t finished! If nothing else, I guess I can show you my ‘half an ornie’ for the month … maybe that’s better than nothing, and proof that I did at least pick up a needle at some stage towards the beginning of this lunar cycle!

And here are two little snippets from the exchange ornies that I completed (which I’ll be able to share in the final post for the year I guess):

2012 WIPocalypse, Finishes, Framing, Little House Needleworks, Mirabilia, Stitching Smalls, The Floss Box, Valerie Pfeiffer, Waxing Moon Designs

October 2012 WIPocalypse update

29 October, 2012 Anne S

Not as much stitching done all up as I’d like over the last month, although I’d thrilled to show that I did manage to get one 2-year-old UFO out of the “hiding in shame basket” and back onto the Qsnaps … over the last month I not only managed to put the final stitches into it, but last night I even finish-finished it! I also stitched a little scissor fob to match it yesterday, but it’s still not sewn together yet. I hope to do that over the next day or so though 🙂

Biscornu 458 by The Floss Box — **“Biscornu 458” by The Floss Box**
Stitched on 32ct Thunderstorm Belfast linen by Zweigart
with DMC threads

Scissor fob matching biscornu 458_incognito1 — Scissor fob to match Biscornu 458, personalised with recipients details (not shown)

The other stitching I did was to put the bi-cones onto Letter S … still have to add the name to this one, but I’ve bought a frame for it in readiness and need to get this one finished sooner rather than later, as it’s a gift for a work colleague’s daughter (instead of a birth sampler) who has now left work!

Mum came over to visit for just over a week last the week before last – unfortunately we didn’t have a great deal of time together due to not being able to get time off work, but the first weekend she arrived we had a wonderful time and got out and about quite a bit. We took a drive to a picture framers about an hour’s drive from home, and came home with 9 different frames and 2 huge pieces of mat-board, ready to go crazy and do some framing jobs. I’m still waiting for 3 of the frames to be made up yet, then I’ll go pick those up … but in the meantime I did manage to frame up the following:

Freesias framed — I managed to get this framed while Mum was here so she could take it home with her – she was so thrilled she is going to take it into the rest home where she volunteers to show everyone – it’s lovely when your stitching is appreciated! Freesias are Mum’s favourite flowers, so I’ve always wanted to stitch this for her 🙂

Trick or Trick fairy framed — **“Trick or Treat Fairy” by Mirabilia**
Technically not finished framing yet, as I’m waiting for spacers to be added beneath the glass, then the backing put back one … but I couldn’t resist sharing early, as I just love this one! 🙂

And that’s probably all I have this month for the WIPocalypse … while my fingers aren’t necessarily flying every night (usually just the weekends these days), my stitching still remains my most favourite pastime on the weekends for unwinding from a stressful working week – I don’t know what I’d do without it! Sadly my hours mean the only blog reading I’m getting to do is on the morning commute, and it’s too hard to comment on my phone, but at least I’m still getting the odd bit of blog reading in – and the WIPocalypse is at least motivating me to post at the moment at least once a month … who knows when that’ll change, as work is particularly stressful at the moment, but “que sera, sera”, “what will be, will be” 🙂

2012 WIPocalypse, Finishes, Freebies, Halloween, Judi Utter, Sweetheart Tree, The Goode Huswife

October WIPocalypse and a small finish (Updated)

1 October, 20121 October, 2012 Anne S

Not much stitching was done on my WIPs this month … instead I was focusing on stitching a gift for Mum … but I’ve also just joined up for another smaller challenge which starts today and that is to complete 3 WIPs by the end of the year. I may not be able to complete it entirely, as I have another couple of commitment pieces to work on before year-end, but I’ll try to focus each week on getting at least some stitches into those 3 selected WIPs … but the ones I’ve chosen are relatively small, so you never know your luck in a raffle, and I may be able to get them completed in time …

In the meantime, here is the only update I really have on my WIPs this time round – a couple of extra swirls put into With My Needle:

I started a page on my blog here to keep a track of the progress made during the year on my various WIPs – sometimes it’s hard to forget how much you manage to stitch over the course of a year when you put one stitch in here and one stitch in there, so I placed a progress piccie of how everything sat at the start of 2012 – once finished they get their final piccie added and get moved up into the “Completed” section … but for now I can easily see how my WIPs/UFOs currently stand, and it’s a reminder to pull my finger out and get some more moved into the finished section! I think this will continue to be a feature on my blog until I start moving the bulk of my projects out of the In Progress section!

The other small finish I have is a little freebie that I started yesterday morning when staying at a friend’s place, and finished today:

“Jolly Pumpkin” freebie by Jodi Utter
Stitched on 28ct Mushroom Meran fabric
with recommended DMC threads
(The chart is still available from the Cyberstitchers website here)

Updated to add another finish: Thanks to a public holiday in Sydney today, I also just managed to put the final stitches into my Halloween Fob by The Sweetheart Tree – it’s surprising how long that backstitching takes on these little projects, but it sure does make a massive difference to the end result! One more WIP knocked off for the year, which is awesome! 😀

“Halloween Fob” by The Sweetheart Tree
stitched on 32ct Pipi hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended DMC threads and Mill Hill beads

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Finishes, Stash, Stitch-alongs, Works in Progress

August WIPocalypse update – part 2

3 September, 20126 April, 2014 Anne S

Not much stitching taking place throughout August on my WIPs where a finish was the result … although I did almost manage a finish of some ornaments that have been sitting around for months, and months, and well many more months – the first one below got put to one side ‘cos I wasn’t enjoying stitching with the threads … I decided to finally suck it up on 26 August and get them finished, until I realised I didn’t have the Mill Hill beads I needed to finish them! Stitchy friends to the rescue, though, and some will be winging their way to me soon so I can get them finished next month 🙂 (Thanks again Amanda, you rock!!)

The “before” shot as they stood at the beginning of the year and start of the challenge …

The “after” shot as they both stand now … just waiting for the beads to be added now 😀 Was hoping they’d be finished during the week last week, but I was working mental hours so too tired when I got home, then I was house-sitting the weekend just gone with an active border collie and 3 kitties, and decided not to chance beading!

I did manage to finish one other WIP, though, which was another small Christmas ornament – I don’t know why I put this to one side for so long … once I put my mind to it it didn’t take too long at all to add it to the “finished” pile on 20 August. I really like the colours in this one.

“Christmas Tree Quilt Ornament” by Handblessings
stitched on 32ct antique white Belfast linen
with recommended Needle Necessities/Threadworx threads

Another WIP I worked on a little bit is a Sweetheart Tree scissor fob … another one where I’m missing some beads, but hopefully they’ll arrive in a few weeks and I can finish this one off before the next update is due 🙂 Once again I’ve put the before and after photos here 🙂

The last piece of stitching for the month was actually a new start … it only took a few hours and this one was put into the finishing pile – I just love it, it’s so sparkly in real life! 😀

“Ice Blue Snowflake”, Tiny Treasured Diamonds kit by Mill Hill
Stitched on kit fabric, with MH beads and DMC

And when I wasn’t stitching over the last month I was labeling beads, using what have now become my favourite bead storage units … so much so I’ve had to try and track down some more so I can finish the job 😀

And the other hobby over the last couple of weeks is increasing my XS stash (well, that of myself and Mum to be exact) … which is sadly a hobby that is short-lived and I’m back on a no-stash diet (although I still have a few things yet to arrive, such as those wonderful bead storage units) 😀

All-in-all a lot more productive this month than I’d realised … a few stitches here and there really do make a difference, it seems! 😀

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Cross Stitch

2013 Crazy January Stitching Challenge

26 August, 201226 August, 2012 Anne S

I have managed to finish one whole WIP for the August WIPocalypse challenge, but I’ll leave the details of that for my challenge post in a few days time … sadly it’s only a Christmas ornie, so that shows you just how much stitching has been done over the last few weeks!

While I haven’t been doing much actual stitching throughout August, I have been kitting up some projects and planning projects to join the 2013 Crazy January Challenge … same rules as normal where you choose 15 projects and start one a day for the first 15 days of January. That part I don’t think I’ll be doing, as I often only get chance to do one strand of thread on an evening if I’m lucky, so that’ll just make me discouraged right from the get-go … instead I’ll just choose 15 projects that I intend to attempt and finish by the year’s end, and have created a Facebook folder to track progress. The only problem so far is that I just can’t seem to stop adding projects to the pile that I really really want to stitch up … I’m supposed to narrow the choices down to just 15, and as you can see from the choices to date I’m not doing too well on that score!! If my mojo returns soon, I might make a start on a couple of them before the challenge starts. I’ve tried to keep most of them quite small to medium in size to make the challenge a little more manageable, but I’ve thrown one or two larger pieces into the mix as well. (And the Christmas Quaker one shouldn’t be in this gallery, but I don’t know how to exclude it!)

As well as the 2013 Crazy January Challenge, I’m also hoping to work on at least 1 or 2 of my older UFOs to at least make some progress by the end of the year, even if they aren’t finished. And finally I’ve also joined up with a SAL of Quaker Christmas II by ByGone Stitches – this is one huge mother of a project, so it may take me 10 years to finish … but I figure I’ll just try to do a set amount of stitching on it each month, be it one day or weekend, so eventually it’ll get stitched up 🙂

And last but not least I also went a bit crazy and finally succumbed to stashing a few HAED charts … who knows when they will ever get stitched, but they’re pretty to drool over in the meantime. This is all because I saw a finished version of the Egyptian Temple one, then found out they currently have a 25% sale happening … and, well, the rest of PayPal blitzing history! 😉 I’ll add a piccie of my selections later 🙂

2012 WIPocalypse, Exchanges, Finishes, Just Nan, Stitching Smalls

August WIPocalypse

8 August, 20128 August, 2012 Anne S

Too late at night to put any words for now ‘cos I’m going cross-eyed from lack of sleep … will post my month’s progress piccie, though – I managed to finish this little Just Nan piece (stitching-wise anyway).

I also completed 2 biscornu pieces for an exchange, but yet undecided which one to use so I can’t show and tell those properly yet …

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Finishes, The Goode Huswife, Works in Progress

July WIPocalypse progress

5 July, 20126 April, 2014 Anne S

Been a quiet month stitching-wise, with only a small section of stitching done of one of my WIPs that has been sadly neglected – I’m probably halfway on this one now, though, and while I’m not enjoying stitching the stems leaves on the flower very much, I’m enjoying the rest of it. Most people who know the design will be thinking “what is she talking about, she’s probably halfway? that is one big-ass design!” … basically I really don’t enjoy the ‘primitive’ samplers and style of stitching myself, and the whole design just isn’t “me” – but for some reason I really really fell in love with the bottom section with all the gold swirls after seeing someone else stitching it, so I’ve decided to just ignore the rest of the design and am stitching the bottom section only 🙂

I also had a new start and finish, which was one of the charts I bought when I was in Paris – I think I might stitch this one again in traditional red threads, but for some reason I had the sudden desire to stitch it with white silk on a blue linen, and it turned out pretty enough 🙂

The other stitching I did was for an exchange – I truly love this one, and definitely have to stitch it again for myself!! I had a devil of a time deciding which “bird” ornament to stitch, hence there have been a few bird ornie finishes over the last 2 months and not much else, but in the end this is the one that I chose because it’s quite different to what others would have chosen I think, and I really love it! It was one of the Gift of Stitching issues, but I’ve just mislaid my working copy for now and can’t remember which issue it was in. I’ll try to update with the details later 🙂

The rest of my stitching time was taken up not doing actual stitching, but doing a whole big bunch of finishing over one long weekend, and I had a blast! Here were the results – most of them are waiting to be stuffed and have their ‘bottoms’ sewn up, and others need cords to be made and attached, or felt backings and hangers attached, but it’s still a great start to seeing them finished off properly:

I also started another couple of ornie tutorials while I was doing my finishing frenzy, and once I get the cords etc made up I’ll be able to finish those and publish them 🙂

The other non-stitching news is that my flatmate leaves tomorrow … so much to tell on that score, so I’ll leave that for another day … and Mum has offered to come over and help out with cleaning the place in case I need to move out (which is possible) and also be there for moral support. Our last visit here wasn’t perfect after my flatmate had a temper tantrum and was slamming doors etc so it will be really awesome to send a couple of weeks chilling out with no-one else around. And this could be a good opportunity to sit up in the lounge each evening getting some of those ornies finally stuffed and sewn up! 😀

I have other news as well, with photos of a couple of gifts/exchanges received, but I’ll leave that until another post as I need to head off to work now …