First Finish!

after Brigitte that is. Not a big project, but feels good none the less. One more block done in my quilt, 21 more to go! This is Lupine from Carolyn's Meadow.














I'm finishing up a gift for a friend who had a baby 2 weeks after Brigitte, and then I get a new start. I think it will be Spring Spell from Just Nan, since it seems that Summer Spell is on its way. I'm going to try to get back on my finish 2, start 1 project in order to get my WIP list down to a more manageable amount. I've been cheating, there are some not even on my sidebar list, so I've got work to do.

Still here

Yup, still here. Thanks for the comments on Brigitte. Here is a recent picture of her on her way out - she's now 11 weeks old.

we're starting to get into a kind of routine. Not easy yet, but much better than before. The nursing is still rough which is what takes up the majority of my time, but improving slowly I think. And the sleeping is definitely better - she even had a 2.5 hr nap this afternoon.

I've been doing a bit of crafting in between feedings. Mostly cards, as May is a big month for birthdays plus mothers day, so that's been the priority. I also made little photo albums for both grandmothers for Mother's Day, which took time as well. But I have been stitching. Mostly in 15-20 min increments, so I'm not progressing very quickly. But I hope to have a finish very shortly to post.

Good to be back!

Brigitte

So this is why I haven't been posting lately - Brigitte was born on March 11. We are both doing well, but I imagine it will be a while before there is much stitching to report!

Update and SBQ

The lack of updates doesn't mean I haven't been stitching - just means I've been too lazy to download and post my pictures.

Here is my Christmas Chickadee - didn't manage to get the finishing done though.









Since that finish, I've been working on the March house for the country house SAL, finally finishing it up today. I'd miscounted the border and had to redo part, which took a bit longer than expected. I'm not sure if I'll catch up with January and February in March though. I'll work on A New Baby for a while then, and will try to get a picture in before I'm off to the hospital.









This week's SBQ is:
Do you use your needle, a seam ripper, or something else when you have to frog stitches? Why do you use the method that you do?

It depends on how many I have to frog. If its just a few, I'll use my needle. If there are a lot, but the back is clear, I'll use my little beaded frogging tool (see pic). If there is a lot, or there are a few colours making the frogging more tangly, I'll use my boo-boo snips (see pic) to get me started. I've never tried a seam ripper.

February Wrap-Up

I did a decent amount of stitching in February I think - it just didn't turn out to be what I had planned at the beginning of the month. So only 3 out of 6 objectives met.

Finish Baby Sampler - no, about 1/3 done
10 rows on Cranberry Sampler - didn't touch it
4 blocks on Weather Sampler - DONE!
Finish flower sampler - DONE!
10+ hours on Irises UFO -4 hours done
Finish one small project - DONE! (Bee pin-keep)

I also stitched a bit on a few smaller projects, but nothing really big.

Since I have no idea what the baby is going to do this month, I will be fairly conservative with my goals. Namely - stitch on baby sampler. It would have been nice to have it mostly done before he/she arrives, but that is unlikely at this point I think, given my motivation level.

I'm almost done my Christmas ornament - hope to post a pic soon and see if I can get the finishing done this weekend on the FAL.

Chelle - thanks for the comments! The weather sampler is from atelier imaginaire. It was published one block per week all last year, but I only got motivated at the end. I think the freebies were taken down at the end of January, but they may get put up for sale at some point. There is a new series offered this year, but so far I'm not inspired. The backstitching does get a little long sometimes - have to make sure I match this piece with some of my others that have less.

Update

It's not been a particularly productive week - been stitching a bit but not overly motivated. I did manage to do the finishing on my Bee Pinkeep, although I turned it into a little ornament rather than a pinkeep. I won't make most of my monthly goals for February, but I did get the magazine challenge done.

I worked on "A New Baby over the weekend, got about 1/3 of the main stitching done. I need to get cracking on this. Today I decided to take a break from the grey though and work on my weather sampler. I got 2 blocks done, and have now made it all the way over to the left hand side. I love the fabric I have for this (Silver Mist).





I got some lovely stash in the mail today - my Silkweaver order. 5 small pieces from the random assortments (28/32 ct linen/lugana). I got Jamaica Sunset, Antique White, Chasescape, Bluebell, and Peacefull Waters. No plans for these yet, but I'm sure I'll find something! I also have a fat quarter of Mountain Mist (Colour of the Week in 32 ct lugana) which I'd bought for my house project, but it's not as brown as I thought it would be. I'll have to see if it still works, otherwise I think I have a mocha piece that will. Also got some white and chantilly linen from the odds and ends sale. Too bad I'll have no time to stitch on all these lovely pieces in the near future :(

Bee Pinkeep

Another finish for today - I'm on a roll! Here is the Bee Pinkeep from the January issue of the Gift of Stitching (a LHN/CCN collaboration). I'm going to try and get some nice backing fabric for this tomorrow and finish it up into a little pillow.

Stitching details:
28 ct Haystack (Kiwi Illusions) Lugana from CountryStitch
recommended DMC threads
17-19 February 2007

February SAT Part 2

As part of both the SAT and the magazine challenge on the Friends Gather board, I started stitching the Bee Pinkeep yesterday. I thought I'd be able to finish it today, but the scattered flowers are a bit slower than I expected. Still, getting there, and hope to finish this tomorrow.

February SAT Part 1

It's SAT weekend, and I have a new finish! This is the mystery flower sampler from last summer from Kissy Cross. I stitched it on 16 count white aida using DMC in 413, 470 and 3803.

I finished stitching the borders on my flower sampler this morning, and then decided that I would do the finishing as well while I was at it. I think it turned out pretty well - this was the first time I'd used a pillow form rather than stuffing and I got the dimensions right, although one of the seams was pretty tight. Unfortunately the colours don't match any of the rooms in our house right now, so I'll have to find a space for it until we finish decorating. I'm happy to get this done for a few reasons - one is that it's been hanging around for almost a year, so its about time it got done. But the other is that its one of my aida projects. I'm not starting any more projects on aida (at least not planning too) except for my flower quilt blocks. Now I'm down to only 3 aida projects, so I have more room for stitching on funner fabrics.

I'm now working on the Bee pinkeep from gift of stitching - its on the country stitch fabric that Nicki sent me for the cat lady exchange last fall - glad I finally found the perfect use for it. Hopefully pictures tomorrow.

Blocks Finished

I finished up the last block on my flower sampler today. I then went and bought my backing fabric and started to stitch the borders. I might not stitch them all, still deciding exactly what will be best. I'm hoping to finish this up tomorrow so I can do the weekend SAT on a new project.

Stash and SBQ

The SBQ this week goes very well with the stash I've just received, so I'll post about them both together.

Do you like to buy “chartpacks” that include charms, buttons, and/or beads or do you prefer to gather all materials yourself?

My answer is very similar to Renée's - if there are accessories or special flosses needed to complete a project - I'd rather buy them all together. I am able to buy DMC (very expensively) and Anchor threads locally, and occasionally needles and DMC linen. But other than fabric and notions, nothing else is available locally. While I don't particularly like to buy kits if they're just plain floss and white fabric, I would (or at least chartpacks) if there are special items - I'm just to much of a wimp to do much adapting to patterns so far. I don't mind ordering fabric separately, but having to order accessories just gets difficult. Kitting up Gingham Stitches (see below) took 4 separate orders to get everything together. I'm sure I paid enough in shipping to make up for a slightly higher cost.

______________________________________________________
And here is the lovely stash I received recently in the mail. Still waiting on one package, hope it gets here soon, as I really need to get cracking on the baby sampler and my fabric is in that one.

I bought the pattern for Gingham Stitches (Erica Michaels) as well as the fabric, GAST and buttons recommended. That gingham linen is hard to find though. I also have the finishing instructions for the Design Ladies Accessory book, the stiching instructions are on their way as well. Also 3 Treasure Braids and the DMC I needed for Cranberry Sampler. My monthly stash enhancement package is a kit for a cute little ort basket by Susan Greening Davis. My FOTM is Amsterdam Blue Cashel Linen. With all this, I guess it's time to go stitch!

Heading for a finish...

Hopefully tomorrow. I had plans to work a bit on each of my pieces, but that didn't happen. After frogging block 2 on my flower sampler, I restitched it properly. Then I realized how close I was to finishing this piece, and decided to do block 9. Although its probably my least favourite fo the sampler, I finished that today, and am now half done with #6, which is the last before the borders. So I should be done this week if all goes well!

I am still waiting on at least 3 packages of stash - one of which has been on order since December :(. Hoping that I get some soon - I think I'll deserve a new start once this is done, and I need the packages to finishing kitting up my new projects.

Stitching and Unstitching

I think I spent almost as much time today frogging as I did stitching. Which isn't as bad as it might seem - I've correctly the two major mistakes I made in both the flower and Cranberry samplers, so now both are good to go. The mistake in the flower sampler was one I made last summer and caused me to put the piece away for 4 months, so it's good to have that fixed so I can finish up the piece. I think I'll work on this tomorrow.

Besides that, I stitched block 36 on my weather sampler - this is starting to come along nicely, although I still have a lot to go.

A distracted day

I got a fair amount done today, but spread out over a bunch of projects. Not sure if its more productive that way or not though, but its what I was motivated for today. Here is Irises after today's stitching. Also managed to finish the border on my pincushion and knit a few more rows of my baby blanket. Hopefully my next pictures will show more progress.



Hi Kimber - nice to see you here!

SBQ

I signed up for the SBQ a while ago, but never got around to answering them. I won't try to catch up! but here is this week's, suggested by Danielle:

Have you ever been to a stitching retreat?

No, I haven't. I don't even know anyone IRL life who stitches (other than a cousin in France) and I'd be way too much of a wimp to go on my own. Plus, stitching is not particularly popular in Quebec, which means I'd have to travel a long way to get to one. Maybe sometime, but its not in my plans for the moment. Some of the reports I've read sound fun though.

Sampler Progress

I was a bit stitch this afternoon, and managed to finish block 5 of my flower sampler. This is coming along nicely, despite the frogging still to do. Block 5 went fairly quickly, hope the next two do as well.

When that was done, I picked up Lupine again. I think I managed to identify all the colours - or at least decide the way I'll stitch them. Awfully hard to distinguish between light lavender and very light blue. I figure if I can't tell the difference, it won't show up in the blending anyways. I was calculating how many squares I needed for the quilt to make it a decent size - I've got a long way to go! I think I'll have to leave some patchwork bits in it as well though, or I'll never finish. I'll aim for 24 squares though, which means only 21.5 left to stitch.

Weekend Stitching

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd planned. We ended up going shopping and it tired me out so much that I napped much of the afternoon instead of stitching. But I did pick out my lazyboy, so that was nice. We just have one more place to check prices first before we buy it, but the model is picked. Yesterday I spent much of the morning making mess in the kitchen - for only 2 of us, we ended up with a lot of food, but I guess that's normal for SuperBowl Sunday. Today I had to go back to the hospital for some tests, which took a chunk out of today as well.

I did another block on my weather sampler - this one went fairly quickly compared to some of the others. Then I put in 2 hours on my Iris UFO. After all the backstitching on the Cranberry and weather samplers, it was nice not to have any to do. Tonight I'm working on a little pincushion motif, once again with no backstitching, but not quite worth posting a picture. We'll see how I do tomorrow.

Cranberry Sampler Start

I started work on Cranberry Sampler by the Sweetheart Tree today. I didn't think it would be a particularly easy stitch, but didn't think I'd spend have my day frogging either. I was half done row 1 when I realized I'd made a mistake very close to the beginning. I'm going to remove the top part though and keep the bottom. I was already a bit frustrated with all the backstitching, so took a break by stitching rows 2 and 3. I'll finish frogging next time, as I don't want to get too far a head of row 1. There are 4 more similar rows, which I imagine will be the most time consuming part of the sampler - the others ones appear much quicker once you get going. The colour in the photo is terrible, but I'm stitching on 32 count ivory linen with the recommended threads (DMC so far).










While at the hospital for tests on Thursday, I started my next Carolyn's Meadow kit - this one is Lupine. I really like the patterns, but hate sorting out the threads to start. Still not convinced I have exactly the right colours, but I think it looks okay anyways. Not a priority project, but nice to have something little to cart around.

February Stitching Plan

Although I ended up doing a lot of stitching in January, I didn't manage to get all of my goals accomplished.

• Start Cranberry Sampler: nope, a little late
• Start Baby Sampler: still waiting for my fabric
• 2 blocks on weather sampler: yes, blocks 41 and 9 done
• 10 + hours on one UFO: 10 hours on Regatta

I also managed 3 small finishes

• Beaded Rose
• Comfrey
• Chicory

and managed to stitch 4 blocks on my flower sampler. So pretty good, although not exactly what I had planned.

February should hopefully be a big month of stitching for me. I'm now on maternity leave, with normally a month at home to relax and get ready before the baby comes. So I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time in my stitching chair with my feet up. I'll probably end up tweaking my rotation a bit in the next week, but we'll see how that goes. My goals for February are:

• Finish stitching all but personalization on baby sampler
• 10 rows on Cranberry Sampler
• 4 blocks on weather sampler
• Finish stitching flower sampler
• Stitch 10+ hours on Irises UFO
• Finish at least one small project

I have another of other projects started/waiting in my drawer - I imagine I'll work on some of them as well to keep from getting bored with the same projects, but hopefully will be able to keep my starts under control until I get some more finishes done. I recieved some stash in the mail today and I'm expecting more in the next week, so will have to be good.

Block 5

I was having lots of fun with this sampler so decided to keep going. Got the border finished for block 5, just the inside flower left to do, which I hope I'll get done this week. I then have to frog about half of block 2 :( before moving on to the last two blocks.

Sunday Stitching

This was a fairly good day's stitching, although it doesn't necessarily show up as such on the pictures. I put in 3 hours on my Regatta UFO and managed to get most of the bushes done in the top corner. This is a lot of random stitching, so quite slow. Next time I pick it up, I'll probably work on the mainsail so it should go a bit faster, as there are actually rows of colour. My goal for January was 10 hours on this piece, which I accomplished. I think I'll pick up another one of my UFOs for February and come back to this one later. For comparison, beginning of January and today.










Reading the Christmas Ornament blog reminded me that I had a Christmas ornament in progress. As the rest of my stitching plans are temporarily on hold, I decided to pull out my Christmas Chickadee (Valerie Pffeifer, from WOCS). I spent much of my time frogging, but did manage to get a wing done. Hopefully next month I'll be able to get this one done. I'm only planning on stitching 3-4 ornaments this year, so even if I'm a bit slow on this one, I should still be okay to get everything done.

Chicory

Rather than work on any of the projects I'd really planned to do, I decided to finish up my Chicory piece (Carolyn's Meadow). At least its off my table and leaves me free to do something else tomorrow.









I was getting ready to start my Cranberry sampler, when I realized I had the wrong fabric. I'd ordered cream linen but recieved antique ivory by mistake. Hard to tell if this will make a difference, but as there is stitching with really light colours, probably better to change. Unfortunately I don't have a swatch to compare with - just going by the recommended fabric. So doesn't look like I'll get this started in January like I had planned. Also waiting on fabric for my baby sampler. Not having much luck with my new projects, so I guess I'll have to work on some older ones tomorrow.

Catching Up

While I haven't posted lately, I've managed to stitch and craft a bit. Pretty good as we were away at a wedding all weekend.


Still feeling attached to my flower sampler, so I worked on block 8. Here it is together with the rest of the stitching. This won't be one for January, but could easily be a February finish I think.

I also worked on another of my Carolyn's Meadow kits, this time Chicory. I worked on it more than it shows, but unfortunately had to frog out everything I did on Sunday, as I'd mixed up my light and very light yellows. I think that's my biggest irritation about kits - trying to get the floss sorted correctly.

And I also made a few cards, one for the wedding and one for a baby thank-you.

I tried working on my baby blanket too, but that's not moving ahead as fast, so I'll probably end up stitching instead.

I also decided to abandon one of my UFOs. It had barely anything done on it, and I really didn't like the pattern as much as I thought I did. It was a really cheap kit too, so not even worth saving for the fabric. Into the garbage. Only 4 UFOs left to finish!

Block 3

I've been stitching this weekend, just more relaxed. Last weekend was pretty intense stitching-wise, so I had did a few other things this weekend. I really wasn't motivated to pick up any of the other projects on my WIP list on Friday, so decided to stay with the flower sampler, and start block 3. I wanted to get one block done per week, but two is even better I guess.

I also started knitting a baby blanket, but no pics until I get a bit further along.

Block 7

I finally finished stitching block 7 of my flower sampler. This one was a lot longer than the block above, but I managed to get it done tonight, not having it finished yesterday. Here is block 7 plus the sampler as it stands now. I'm going to try and keep getting one block done a week - hopefully next one will be quicker.

Flower Sampler

I started working on block 7 of my flower (no-longer) mystery sampler tonight. Took a while to get into it, so wasn't able to finish it, but should be good to finish tomorrow. I'm really enjoying these patterns - once you get the hang of each repeat they go quickly. I don't think I would pick the same colours if I did it again - I picked at first to try and stay with flower colours, only to realize after seeing the patterns that it really doesn't matter. I think it would look nice in a monochrome blue scheme - maybe another time.

Yesterday I wasn't feeling stitchy, so made this card for my cousins instead. I still have a bunch of thank-yous to send so more card pictures to come.

And I think I have another project for the year to do (like I needed one). Isabelle pointed out a year-long SAL which I think I'll have to join. If I get my block done tomorrow I'll start pulling thread - I think I might have fabric for this on hand already.