Finished another page of my Quaker

The nice thing about the long four day weekend with very little planned was that I was a stitching MACHINE!  I finished another page of my "Love Quaker Style"- it's actually a page and part of the next page.  As I stitch, I finish off any motif that crosses over onto another page so that I don't stop in the middle of a motif.  The flower motif and the top right hand motif both bled onto the page after the one I was finishing.

This is a fun stitch - only three colors, and very little of the red or the gold.  It's the first Quaker design I've stitched and I REALLY like it!

Finished one of the Snow Belles

Well, this first of the six Snow Belles has been finished other than three stitches for quite a while...

When I started the Snow Belles, I just grabbed my threads from stitching Six Fat Men, since the colors were the same.  I was fine except for the three stitches on her cheek - she is wearing a little blush on her cheeks, and the Six Fat Men didn't use that color!  Since this is my travel project, I kept forgetting to pull that thread to finish off.  So, I finally remembered to bring my stitching bag upstairs, make the three silly little X's, and take a picture.

Assuming I don't fall down on the job, there should be another update soon since I'm probably 3/4 of the way done with the SECOND Snow Belle.

Thanks for checking out my blog.

Finished Page 4

Here's what I have stitched so far - it's 4 pages out of 35.  It's slow going, and this will be a VERY long term project, but I am loving it.  It's called "Boulevard of Dreams" and it's a Heaven and Earth Designs pattern.  It's a Las Vegas sky line.  By the time I get to page 7 (the top right corner) there will be the very top of a building (It's the top of the Stratosphere, for those of you who know Las Vegas!  LOL)

This is where I am in the whole thing.  It's 7 pages wide by 5 pages tall, but the 7th page in each row is not a full page, and the 5th row of pages is not a full page.

Here are my statistics on the project so far.....I keep an Excel spreadsheet to track my time (doing that for this one and my other HAED I have in progress).


Page 4:

Started - 7/12/12
Finished - 11/23/12
Days Stitched - 35 Days
Time Stitched (Page 4 only) - 57 Hours
Time Stitched (Project to date) - 243 Hours
Stitches (Page 2 only) - 7,546
Stitches (Total Project so far) - 30,478
Percent Completed - 14.51%

Thanks for checking it out!

Finished a fun design

Well, I finished a travel project I was working on.....this was SO much fun to stitch.  I made some changes to the pattern - it called for the lettering and the border to all be stitched in a subtly variegated blue, and the flowers were more subdued colors.  I started it stitching it the DMC equivalents, and made a counting mistake that.  By the time I discovered it, I was too far gone to frog, so I decided to start over.  When I was going to start over, I decided to use some opalescent fabric that I had bought from Silkweavers (their Facebook sale) and then when I was at a new LNS I decided to look at their overdyeds.  I found this really awesome one from Threadworx called Bradley's Balloons.....variegated with all all these fun bright colors!

So then I converted the flower colors to bolder colors (to try to match the colors in the variegated floss) and made the border a solid color because I felt it would be too busy if it was multi-colored as well.  I am happy with how it turned out....

Oh, and by the way, the pattern is from My Big Toe Designs, and it's called "Normal Family".  It cracks me up because My Big Toe seems to focus on more religious themed designs, and this seemed rather sarcastic for them.

Thanks for checking out my blog.....

It is one of those "kind of" a holiday holidays! LOL

So - inadvertently following my "if it's a holiday, it must be time to post" I have a blog update today!  (For those who don't know - tomorrow is Columbus Day.  I'm not off work, but some people are and the post office and banks are closed - hence my description of "kind of" a holiday).

My local stitching group got together yesterday at our "list Mom's" house. Some people actually went to a quilting show first - I opted to just meet them for the stitching portion of the day because most of my day today was going to be taken up with football.  I worked on "Six Fat Men" and got so close to finishing it, I decided to continue stitching on it last night and this morning at home (even though it's usually my "travel" project). 

For those who don't know the pattern, it's a Lizzie Kate - the six patterns are sold separately, and could certainly stand alone, but Lizzie Kate puts together the layout, the addition of the bird house, and the wording across the top and it's available on their website.  Each square has a small snowflake button for embellishment.  In a couple of cases the embellishment is just one more snowflake, but in other squares it's a doorknob, a bunny's tail, a knot in a scarf, or an extra flower on a hat.  This one was a fun stitch.  I changed up a few colors in the lettering - "Snow Day" and the wording at the very top (Snowmen Melt my Heart) were both supposed to be in white - but there wasn't enough difference between my tan fabric and the white.  Even though the snow and the snowflakes show up okay, the lettering didn't.  I am waiting for the six "Snow Belles" patterns to come out - I already have a matching piece of fabric to stitch those on!

And while I was stitching a lot of white snow on that as a travel project, at home I was stitching mostly black.....

Here is my progress so far on "Love, Quaker Style" - it's an Aury TM Design.  It's stitched on 30 count white linen and I really am liking the contrast.  It's the first Quaker design I've ever done.  I've been trying to complete one page at a time, but also complete full motifs if they crossed over onto other pages.  However, it was kind of time to quit one night, and I just didn't feel like pulling out another project in my rotation, so I violated my own rule.  I would say this is somewhere between 1/4 and a 1/6th of the whole project - I forgot to look how many pages it was total! LOL

Anyway - thanks for checking things out.  It will be interesting to see how my travel projects go the next few weeks.  I work two jobs (one M/W/F and one T/Th) and my travel project gets worked on during lunch at the two jobs.  This coming Wednesday is my last day at my CURRENT M/W/F job, and then the following Wednesday is my first day at a new one.  I'm not sure what my lunches will be like at that job to know whether I'll be able to stitch....time will tell!

Thanks for checking out my blog - I do appreciate it!

Another Holiday, Another Blog Post!

 First - an overall picture of where I am as of now on "6 Fat Men".  This one is fun to stitch - blocks of color, no fractionals, no backstitching to speak of (there are a couple of straight stitches - still to be done - on the windows on the house to create panes), and only a couple of French knots (the owls eyes - not done yet).

Here is one of the two blocks I most recently finished - I think I finished this one either Tuesday or Wednesday.

 This one I finished a couple of weeks ago - just hadn't gotten around to taking and posting a picture!  The owl will get black beads (in place of French knots) for his eyes so he won't look quite so possessed!

I have another "finish" - this time it's page 1 of my second HAED (both of which are WIPs) - this one is called "Wonders of Chicago" and is all landmarks from my FAVORITE city in the US!   This time I'm stitching tent stitches - 2 over 1 on 25 count.  The coverage (at least to me) seems about the same as full X's over 1 with 1 strand.  But the stitching goes MUCH faster!  LOL

Here is Page 1 in perspective in the whole project - page 1 of 24 pages.



And finally - my new start!  It's a Big Toe Design - it says "Remember - as far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family".  I was looking for a variegated blue to do the lettering, and while at my LNS for a stitching day yesterday I found this really fun thread (well, I think it's fun) that has bright shades of all different colors.  I figured for a kind of tongue in cheek pattern, the thread would be fun.  My next step with it is to change out the colors for the flowers that go with it.  The original pattern has the flowers stitched in rather subdued colors, which just won't match up with the colors in this thread.  So I'm going to try to pull DMC colors that match each of the colors in this thread and use them for the flowers.

Sorry this is so long - been two months so lots to show you!  Thanks for checking it out!

Finished first of 6 Fat Men

Here is my first of Lizzie Kate's Six Fat Men.  It's been my travel project (which means lunch hours at work, plus the occasional outside stitching session).  I didn't run out of thread on the vertical block, there is a snowflake that crosses over the line at that point.  The other square with the scalloped edges is only partially done - it was a time when I need some mindless stitching.

I'm going to put it aside for a little bit just because I have another project I've been DYING to start as well - it's a My Big Toe design that says something like "Remember, as far as anyone knows we're a nice normal family".....it just seemed SO appropriate for my family.

Thanks for looking!

Started Love, Quaker Style

For some reason, I've felt drawn to Quaker designs lately.  I found this pattern when I was in Las Vegas the last time, and decided to give it a shot.  It's almost monochromatic (mostly black) with a few splashes of gold and red in different spots.  It's an Aury TM Design.  I have finished page 1 plus a little - basically any motif that had any part of it on page 1, I finished off, even if it overflowed to the page to the right or the page down below (or both!  LOL).  I even started another motif on Page 2 before the week ran out.

I'm also working on Lizzie Kate's 6 Fat Men - had a stitching get-together yesterday and got a lot done on it.  I'm almost done with the first square - when I'm done with it, which should be in the next couple of days, I'll post a picture of it as well.

Thanks for checking it out!

Queen of the Needle is done!

Here is the full picture of Queen of the Needle by Just Nan - finished attaching the beads last night.  It was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, so I've also posted some close ups of some of the details.

A close up of the verse on the picture.  The white line is a fan vault stitch, and the hearts are a darning stitch.

A close up of the white flowers with a floral satin stitch and some beading, along with the purple flowers with the eyelet stitch in the middle.

A close up of the beading in the white "lacy" area at the bottom of the picture.  There are pink "pearly" beads and some tiny white beads.

These were some unique stitches to make flowers that look like roses....they were interesting!  Also some satin stitches for the pale pink divider, and some daisy satin stitches to make the white flowers.

Just some beads as the centers of the flowers, and the blue line is something called a cashmere stitch.



First Ever Tuck Pillow

Well, I made my first ever tuck pillow - it's not perfect, but I was pretty proud of it!  A friend of mine tried to make one for me, but when I got it, the part where you tuck the stitching into wasn't deep enough.  So, I decided to try it myself.  I found the instructions on Cyber Stitchers.  The fabric has yellow dots in the middle of the flowers that are hard to see in this picture, and the Letter S is a yellow background with blue flowers with white centers, so it's kind of the inverse of the letter S.  I even found a daisy button to stitch on the top of it (I played with a couple of options - my first thought was a button on each corner, but that looked too busy, so I went with the top center button. 

And here is my niece at her graduation party after she opened it.  I didn't get a good picture of it after she took it out of the plastic bag!  Oh well!!!  She seemed pleased with it - I liked it because it wasn't stuffy like a lot of graduation patterns are.



Finished my Spanish Geometric Sampler

I have a finish!  The pattern is called "Spanish Geometric Sampler" and it is by "The Needle's Content".  It's hard to tell in the full picture, but it has a lot of purple and green beads (well, not purple and green beads...purple beads AND green beads).  It called for two packages of each color....as I was going along, I was REALLY worried I was going to run out of the purple beads.  So I called my LNS (which isn't SUPER local - it's about a 30 - 40 minute drive) to see if they had them, and then a friend who lives right near there....she picked them up for me because we were meeting halfway between our houses for dinner that night.  When I finished stitching, I had about 50 purple beads left out of the original two packages, so I worried for nothing!  LOL

Here are some closeups of the beading....it worked out really well because one of my online stitching groups (the same one who was doign the "blue" theme last month) was doing a purple theme this month.  So I worked on the beading all month long, and finished it last night.



If you've made it thru all these pictures - thanks for checking it out!

A month of BLUE stitching!

So.....one of my stitching groups is doing a monthly "theme".  And the theme for April was "blue" - the thought was you could interpret it anyway you wanted to.  In my case, it lent itself perfectly to stitching on my HAED pattern.  The pattern is "Boulevard of Dreams" and  right now it's a BOATLOAD of blue!  So, even though I normally would have put it away after I finished page 2, I kept it out and stitched on it all thru the month of April.  I had finished Page 2 on 3/20, and got the better part of Page 3 done by the end of the month.

The month of May's theme is "purple".  Again, I have a project tailor made for it - I'm working on the beading for my Spanish Geometric Sampler, and the beads are purple and green.  Every time I say that, it sounds funny - the beads are not purple and green.  There are purple beads, and there are green beads!  LOL

Anyway, thanks for checking it out......

And oh yeah, I also finished a "travel" project - my Halloween Lizzie Kate "Velcome".  Here's a picture of THAT (I don't think I posted one before...LOL)

Another "Finish"

Well, I finished page 2 of Boulevard of Dreams, my first ever HAED - I've been tracking some statistics just because I'm a geek that way:

Some statistics (probably only interesting to me, but.....LOL)

Page 2:
Started - 7/8/11
Finished - 3/18/12
Days Stitched - 29 Days
Time Stitched (Page 2 only) - 61 Hours
Time Stitched (Project to date) - 140 Hours
Stitches (Page 2 only) - 7,546
Stitches (Total Project so far) - 15,386
Percent Completed - 7.33%

I don't normally keep track of my stitching time, but for this particular project I have an Excel spreadsheet that I open up each time I start stitching and track it.  I know when I'm done, people will ask, and I will want to know, how long it took me to stitch it!  LOL

And - by way of comparison - here is how much is done in relation to the whole project - YIKES!!!!!

A Quick Finish for my Niece

I stitched this up for my niece who is graduating from high school this year (obviously!  LOL).  It's a Bobbie G Designs pattern called, shockingly enough "Congrats".

It was a fun quick stitch - colorful, fun, and easy.  I think I finished it up in about 2 weeks or so.  I made a couple of changes (so what's new).  The pattern didn't call for outlining all of the letters (just some of them - which didn't make a lot of sense to me).  I outlined all of them, and also outlined the mortarboard and the stars.  To me, without any backstitching, the stars looked like blobs!  LOL

The pattern also didn't allow for the personalization - but I figured without it, there's no way of knowing it was made especially for her! 

My plan is to go to Joanne's and find some fun whimsical fabric that matches some of the colors in the picture (which shouldn't be hard - there are a BUNCH of colors in there, all fun colors!) and then a friend of mine is going to make me a tuck pillow to put it in.  I figured that way it can go on her bed or on a shelf.  I'm hoping she'll take it with her when she leaves for college in the fall - she's off to Brigham Young! 

Obviously, the actual project has her last name and the name of her school, I just hate to post that much info on the internet.

Thanks for checking it out - once the pillow is done I will post pictures of that as well.

Finished a Lizzie Kate Christmas Project

This was a really fun project to stitch. It was a travel project, so I worked on it at lunch time at work as well as at a stitching get together a couple of weeks ago. I did make one mistake - the bottom border is off one row. It sould have been even with the last little spot where things stick out on the side borders. I realized it when I got all the way across, but I didn't want to rip it out. First off, I didn't think it would REALLY make a difference (in fact it gave me room to put my name and the year - otherwise there would have only been one row in between the cardinal block and the bottom border), but more importantly, the red is a Crescent Colors red, and it's not colorfast. I was afraid if I took it out I would leave red color where I frogged. So I left it - and I'm okay with that!

Now I'm working on another Lizzie Kate - it's a Halloween design that says "Velcome" and has Frankenstein, Dracula and (I think) a ghost.....I'm not looking at it, so I'm not sure! LOL

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Halfway Done with Frederick

Well, the top shelf of Frederick is done......still have the second shelf (and the backstitching) to do. This one is a pretty easy stitch except for the stitching on black issue! LOL

Now I think I'll pull out my Heaven and Earth Designs Vegas picture......that one I may be still working on 10 years from now! LOL

Finished Letters, Leprechauns, & Luck

Well, when my stitching group got together yesterday I "finshed" this one - it was a Blue Ribbon Designs pattern called "Letters, Leprechauns, and Luck".

I made a few minor changes to the pattern, and one major one! LOL

I used the DMC conversions on the chart, and changed (1) the flags on the top and bottom (subbed what was a reddish color and changed it to a more "orange" color), (2) the pots of gold on the top and bottom (made the bottom row of black one stitch smaller on each side so it looked like a pot), (3) made the J shorter (for some reason, it was taller than the other letters), (4) filled in the Celtic not (the pattern JUST had it outlined - it's between the O and the P), and finally, as usual, I subbed beads for the French Knots (on the snake - his eyes, and on the house - the door knob).

The big change I made was that the pattern called for the border to be filled in with a "checker" stitch. I tried it out, and I didn't like the coverage. I think the problem might have been that I stitched on 28 count and the model was stiched on 40 count. But I'm happy with the "open" look of not filling it in.

So I needed to figure out another travel project. I have my Lizzie Kate Christmas one I'm working on "Christmas is Forever" and I also kitted up another Lizzie Kate pattern - this one is a Halloween pattern called "Velcome" It has Dracula, a Ghost, and Frankenstein on it - but cute versons of them! LOL

Anyway, thanks for looking!

Spanish Geometric Sampler

This is the whole picture - you can't see the beads very well - I have beaded the top most band and the two left most bands. They don't show up very well in the picture.

I tried to take a closer picture, but I don't know that it's a whole lot better. I will try to do some better close up pictures when I do my next photo op. I did discover (when looking at the picture) that I have a couple things I have to fix - I'm missing some green stitches next to the purple motif in the top row, and there are supposed to be purple beads in the center of each of the purple motifs in that row. But, alas, my beading patience has run out for a while! LOL

This whole beading process has given me a whole new appreciation for those of you who stitch in hand. I am an avid Q-Snap user, but I can't really put this back on the Q-Snaps to bead it for fear that I will crush the beads. So I've been attaching the beads "in hand" and it's a challenge! But - there's no deadline for it, so I will do it as I can, and it will get done when it gets done! Now....on to something else - probably Frederick, depending on what jumps out at me when I open my WIP box (which is a really bad phrase to use when I'm watching Hoarders on TV - because in that case, things really do jump out of boxes! LOL)

Queen of the Needle

Here's the progress I've made this week on Queen of the Needle. It's a fun stitch, with some specialty stitches. The only thing I've changed (so far) is that the pattern called for Perle Cotton for some of the white, but I didn't like trying to stitch with it (mostly struggled with even just threading the needle! LOL). The roses (the pink flowers) are a funny little stitch, and the hearts are stitchined with kind of a satin stitch. The white row under the hearts is a "fan" stitch. In between the two sets of pansies there is a charm that gets attached, and there are also some other beads to attach. Obviously, I'll leave all of those for last.

Thanks for checking it out!

I'm BBBAAACCCKKK!!!

So - it has been a ridiculously long time since I've posted in here.  Part of it was just being busy, and part of it was that I had lost my stitching mojo for a while.  But - I seem to have it back!  (And, by the way, thank you to those who were concerned that I hadn't posted for a while - it does make you feel good when people "miss" you!).

Anyway - when I resurrected my stitching mojo, I stitched a little bit more on my Vegas picture - but I'm not posting a picture until I finish the page I'm on.  But as a reward for finishing a row of blocks, I started a new project!  (That's a way to jump start mojo right - start something new!).

The something new I started is a Lizzie Kate - always a fun easy stitch.  I found it when I organized my stash over New Years - I knew I had the pattern, but I didn't realize that the pattern came with the fabric and the threads - so no work to kit it up!

The pattern is a 2008 Special Edition called "Christmas is Forever".  Here is my progress so far:

And here is the sideways picture of what it will look like what it's finished!  LOL  (I can't figure out how to rotate the picture on here, but you get the general idea.

As is always the case with a Lizzie Kate pattern, it's been a fun stitch so far.

My Southern California Stitchers group had a LOVELY get together yesterday.  Six of us descended on one the home of a very generous group member, and settled in for about 6 hours of stitching, talking, laughing...and oh yeah, lunch!  We had a great time, and that's where I got a lot of time in on this project.

I'm hoping to get back into a rhythm of rotating my projects AND updating my blog!  Wish me luck (I think I vow to be a better "blogger" every year!  LOL)