Some Heritage Sampler progress

I know Martina of Chatelaine designed this piece to be a sort of Mother's tree listing your female ancestors. I already have Mother's Tree in progress for that - so I'm using it as a Family sampler instead. So that is my husband's name there. The next line of text will be "wed on January 28, 1995 to" and then my maiden name on the next line. Then a line will say, "Their children" and then Alex and Katie's full names and birthdates on the lines after that. I have a verse I might put in the remaining lines, provided I get that far before the grandchildren are born! :) I'm thinking of doing the verse in backstitch, so that I can easily frog in about 10-15yrs when the grandkids do come and I can then add their names too...

It is a LOT of over one lettering, so I'm trying to make as much progress as I can while I still have my eyes!

Happy Dance: Alhambra Garden

Here she is finished and in all her glory! No way I'm waiting to frame this baby. :)

A Tale of Two Chatelaines

I made a deal with myself that I could go ahead and start Convent's Herbal Garden on New Year's Day IF I stitched on only Alhambra Garden the week between Christmas and New Year's AND once I spent a few days on the new start, it was back to Alhambra Garden until it is finished.

Here is the progress on Alhambra Garden - definitely starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - but it will still be a little stretch before I can really happy dance.



And here is what I managed to accomplish in 3 days of stitching on CHG. *sigh* it isn't nearly as much as I'd hoped, but the over-one and eyelets slowed me down a bit.



The fabric is 28ct Fairy Dust, which is a soft peach tone - very yummy. I'm going to have to figure out what to do about the yellow flowers along the outside edge of the design though cause I think they will disappear on this fabric if I stitch them in the recommended 094 Lemon Waterlilies. The yellow eyelets in the picture are that same floss color, but I think they are okay here since they are surrounded by other stitching so they still pop okay.

Fourth Fountain Finished!

I finally finished all four fountains. The first seemed to take forever and I know I frogged and cursed a lot, the second wasn't too bad, and the third was fine. This one seemed to fly by - don't know why it seemed so hard at first. Anyway, all four are done now. I'm not going to make the end of the year, but it'll definitely be done in time for fair this year. :)

Oh, and Covenant's Herbal Garden is almost completely kitted - it will be started as soon as this one is finished. :)

Alhambra again

The latest progress on Alhambra Garden. I asked Katie to step into the picture as so many of you commented last time that it helped show size/perspective.

Also you can see my working copy of the chart in the background. I copied all the pages so I wouldn't ruin my chartpack and then cut and taped all the pages together. I really stink at trying to flip back and forth between pages, so that has really helped me a lot even if the entire pattern is huge. This way I can mark and bend and fold and no worries. :) I also clip the entire thing (often folded to the spot I need) to a music stand. I love having a music stand for my charts. I've seen several needlework chart stands that cost $100 or more - this was $12.50 several years ago at the local music store, and it does exactly the same thing.

Anyway, I'm really getting excited that I just might finish this one day. :) I'm starting to order the silks and such for Covenant's Herbal Garden - I've decided to start that when this one is finished. :)

Some Heritage Sampler progress

Some good progress on this - I really like how it is coming out, but it is probably going to be forever and a half before it is finished. I guess that is okay, I'll just keep plugging at it. :)

This time I finished another band where the names will go, and I did a few more of the over one alphabet along the left-hand side.

Alhambra Garden

One pic of just the WIP - one with Vanna. LOL

Katie just needed to be in that last pic, so I let her. :) I made some good progress on this one the last two weeks. Finished the triangle on the right and worked some more down on the yellow and brown lattice work. I *think* I *might* just be able to finish this piece before 2010 is out - certainly for fair next year!

I also started a new travel project - just two small monochromatic designs of ballet figurines that I'm stitching on a tote bag made of aida. It has been so long since I've stitched on aida - but at least it is easy and this will be a fun project to work on while watchingng Katie's dance classes. If you didn't already guess, the finished product will be a dance bag for her dance shoes. Maybe I'll show a pic next time I post, right now it is just sort of a blob.

Heritage Sampler progress

Not a ton of really visible progress on this one since my last post, but trust me it was a fair number of hours/time consuming. I did the grape viney border next to the over one letters on the right and then I did the eyelet border under the top band and the orange line under that. I think next time it will be unavoidable and I'll have to do some more over one lettering! There is a lot in this piece. I'm happy with how it is coming out though. :)

3 Down, 1 to Go

Fountains that is! I really love this design, but those fountains always trip me up. This one actually went pretty smoothly though with no real major visits from the frogs. I finished the fountain on the right this time and began the triangle on the right out from the fountain. I think that when I finish Angel of Summer, this will likely be my next focus. I'd really like to finish it for fair this year, but probably shouldn't be saying that out loud! Don't want to jinx it!

Shoveling and Stitching

As many of you know, there was a big snow storm in WI Tuesday into Wednesday which resulted in a day home from work and school. I spent the day shoveling the heavy snow the blower couldn't get at the end of the driveway, and then stitching 6 over one letters on Chatelaine's Heritage Sampler. Good thing I have no deadline for finishing this thing - there is a ton of over-one letters! :)

More Heritage Sampler

Not so much to show this time either, but I did get A-F done in the over-one so I think that is pretty good. The close up shot shows the progress made this go-round. I'm not sure I like these orange and brown shades so much, but I think they will look better once I can see the piece as a whole come together. :)

I've just about finished with the frames on my Mira RR, so I'm going to start stitching my section next, hopefully I'll get to that tonight.

Oh, and thanks everybody for the well wishes on the house. :) :)

Alahambra Garden WIP

I finished working on this several days ago now, but just took forever to take the picture and get it uploaded to the blog. This one is coming along nicely I think. :)

Not much to show

Not so much to show for a week's worth of work, but that seems to be par for the course these days. I completed the top band in the section where the names will go and I extended the outermost border down on each side. Didn't do any over-one this time, but will get back to that the next time I pick it up.

I'm stitching on my Mother's Tree next. I wanted to work on my Angel of Summer since she is the closest thing in my WIP to a finish, but I cannot find her pattern. I've searched high and low and cannot find the @#$! thing. I know it is here somewhere and someday I'll run across it somewhere really odd and wonder why I ever stuck it there. *sigh* For now I'll just work on something else - it isn't like I don't have enough things to stitch!

Alhambra Garden - half way there

Since I have two of the side triangles and two of the diagonal triangles and all of the center I'd say I can claim this is half way done, right? This time I did the diagonal triangle on the right, the foliage underneath and the purple bridge thing to the left of the foliage. I guess it is a bridge, I dunno - looks pretty anyway right? :) So I'm having a small half-way done with AG dance.

I had to put away all my 'big stitching stuff' - the stand for my charts, the lap stand, the boxes of threads that normally sit by my chair for a showing yesterday and for the open house tomorrow - so I'm just gonna stitch on small travel type projects for the next day or two. When I do pull out something big again I'm going to work on my Angel of Summer.

Over one overload - Heritage Sampler

This time I worked mostly on the over one lettering "Fauls" (our surname) and "Family" and "J" and "F" to sign it around the tree ornament. I also started the "golden vines border" that you see beneath the tree ornament.

I'm a bit overloaded on the over one for now - and considering the alphabets on each side and then the names, I'm glad I have lots of other projects to switch out to! I am really happy with the progress so far though - really like how it is turning out. I have to admit to not really be 100% sure about the oranges and yellows and browns with the light green in the "golden vines border". Especially on the gray fabric. We'll see though, I bet it will blend in better when I get in a row or two in the sampler/names section.

More Alhambra Garden progress

I finished the top triangle motif and began working around the corner of the design. A fair bit of progress, but then I always wish it was more. I could press on, but the Christmas ornaments are finally starting to call to me now that we've finally put up our tree.



Hopefully I'll have a finished ornament or two to show off for my next post.

Heritage Sampler progress

I finished the tree ornament! At first I didn't think I was going to like those flowers much particularly the yellow ones as I thought they were getting lost a bit. Once I got the leaves stitched in though I'm thrilled with how it looks! :) I'm going to keep going with this one a little bit more, the next bit is to stitch in my last name in one vertical band and the word "Family" in the other vertical band on either side of the tree ornament area. I also need to stitch in my initials and the year on top of and below the tree. Hmmm... what year should I use? I started this piece in 2007, but not sure if I should use that year as it is likely to be several more years before I actually finish the piece. Maybe I'll do 2007 and find a place for the year ended somewhere else in the piece. Since all those letters and numbers are over-one I think I might tire of this pretty quickly, but I'm going to try to do a little of that before I move on - maybe back to Alhambra Garden as it is whining to me from the WIP pile ever so quietly.

Alhambra Garden progress

I was going to finish all of the top triangle before I posted a progress pic, but on Saturday I decided to stitch some on Heritage Sampler and before long Alhambra Garden was tossed back into the WIP pile. I thought I'd at least take a pic and post it to show I did work on it a little. I'm still enjoying stitching it, I'm just enjoying Heritage Sampler more at the moment. Maybe I'll come back to AG when I get tired of Heritage Sampler. :)

I have made an executive decision to only stitch on what I feel like until the new year. I'll probably try to go back to some sort of rotation then, but for now I'm going screamin'.

Heritage Sampler progress

This one has been calling to me recently and after working only on Silkwood Manor for so long I decided to just stitch what I felt like stitching! I finished the border around the center tree design and started the tree itself. Fun working with the silks!

Those are Katie's pink fingernails holding up the picture. Freshly painted so I had to be really sure they were all dry before I'd let her near this piece! :)

I think for now I'm just going to try to work a little bit on each piece before trying to get back to any sort of really organized rotation. After I've visited with each piece maybe I'll pick another focus piece and try to finish something again. Not sure what I'm going to work on next, but Alhambra Garden and Inspiration are calling the loudest right now - we'll see which wins. :)

Alhambra Garden WIP

I think I've finally found a rhythm that works for me with this piece. When I first started past the center box I found this piece so difficult because of all the color changes. Now though, I've figured out that if I do the yellow outlines of the columns and lattice work and then fill in, it goes more smoothly because the pattern is more obvious and I make fewer counting errors. This time I worked on from the top left corner across the top, and I enjoyed working on it very much.

Next up though, is Silkwood Manor - I like that piece because I always seem to make good progress on it when I work on it. I'll work on it for at least a few days - until I'm satisfied with how much I get done and am ready to move on in the rotation. I think I've finally sucumbed to a screaming rotation. I may go back to a more structured one at some point, but for now I'm just working on what I feel like for as long as I feel like. The only rule I have for right now is no new starts (at least until I finish something!)