A little inspiration

Inspiration by Rosewood Manor. Not a ton of progress, but I'm happy with how it is progressing. Because there are so many stops and starts this is one where you feel like you are running in place for ever and ever and then all the sudden you take a step back and Hey! there IS progress after all. :) I think I'll have that next moment when I finish filling in the leaves and flowers in the emptyish section. (Yes I'm making up words now, must be tired~)

I'm back to working on Alhambra Garden now, probably will work mostly on that until it is finished, which still might be another month or so. I am finishing the last of large triangles on the bottom now. I'm expecting the stitching to still take some time to finish and then all the beading in the center will definitely be time consuming too.

I got all the rest of threads for Covenant Herbal Garden for Christmas, so I have them soaking and bleeding out all the excess dye now. I decided to make this my new start for 2011 on New Year's Day even though I know I won't be done with Alhambra. My plan is to stitch on Alhambra til Jan. 1 - then stitch CHG through the New Year weekend and Monday (I have Monday off) so I get a good start on it. Then I'll go back to Alhambra until it is finished.

Inspiration 8/15/2010

This time I filled in the area on the left side down to the pot and started the vines beyond. I like to backstitch in the vines first in an area to sort of mark it out and then I go back and fill in all the flowers and birds. This is fun to stitch cause it goes relatively fast in spite of all the color changes. It is a little challenging to anchor all those loose ends in a way that they don't show, but it isn't too bad either. This is a relatively good picture except that the fabric color is a bit yellower than it appears here.

Inspiration progress

Just plugging along on this one. You can sort of see my approach to how I'm stitching this piece in this picture. I like to stitch some of the vines to "mark out" where things should fall and then fill in the leaves and flowers. Makes for fewer counting mistakes. I didn't get a whole lot done this time, worked on the border some and did the viney part that is missing the leaves/flowers and the planter on the left side.

Inspiration - Rosewood Manor

I finished the whole top! Actually I was almost there the last time I worked on it, but it was still satisfying to complete it. Next time I think I'll work on the inner rectangle of the design and see where that leads me.

In house news, the sellers have accepted our offer on the short sale, which I guess is good news, but means absolutely nothing if the bank doesn't approve it - so we shall see. :)

I decided to participate in another Mira RR (I know, I know, but I'm not moderating this time.) so I'm working on my layout for that next.

Inspiration progress

I managed to get in some stitching over the weekend on Inspiration by Rosewood Manor. The colors are more true on the left side of the photo where my light was shining when I took the pic.

I also managed to finish my French Monogram design into an actual basket. It turned out okay I think, but I'm still not itching to make any more. I decided I'd give it away as one of my "Pay it Forward" gifts. So if you'd like to have it, make a comment to this post and I'll draw someone at random. Psst... I'll load it up with some other goodies inside too! Not sure exactly what yet, but it will likely be based on whose name is drawn and what chocolate I can get hold of. :)

Growing Inspiration

This piece is so much fun to work on - so satisfying to finish each little flower, leaf, and bird. It is slowly but steadily growing, and because I enjoyed working on it so much this Thursday, I kept right on stitching on it on Friday (friday is my "free" day in the rotation). So sad to put it away, but hey, Thursday isn't that far off right? :)

Inspiration - Rosewood Manor

After working so long on getting those blankets finished and then stitching for a month solid on the Mermaid to finish her in time for the fair, it felt really good to start something new.

Did I pick one of the pieces that have been on my to-do list for ages and ages. Oh, of course not - I had to start the fabulous piece I just bought on our get-together this past Saturday! What fun to work on.

I see that my digital camera has some sort of weird smudges on the lens or something, but I'm too lazy to retake the pic. I think this is still a pretty decent picture, you can see the detail pretty well. The linen is 32ct Moonglow Belfast and the design is all done in DMC - which I love. No extra expensive fibers to buy, which sometimes puts me off of large and lovely samplers. The linen is really soft and nice to work on too, and supposedly although it has a hand-dyed look, it is actually colorfast, meaning I can wash it when I'm done. Since this piece has a lot of thread changes, I'll likely not put it in my Q-snaps and up on my lapstand. I'll probably just keep moving around my little 6in. metal hoop, which means I'll want to wash and press it when I'm done!

It is all whole stitches and backstitches - no beads, no partial stitches, no specialty stitches. Don't get me wrong, I like all those things, but it is nice to have a piece that doesn't have all those things thrown in the mix of my rotation too! And with all the stopping and starting it is still challenging enough and still beautiful enough to hold my attention. Perfection!

Speaking of my rotation, with the major hurdles out of the way, I've decided to try something completely new with my rotation. Well, new to me - I know there are several other stitchers who already use this method, so I cannot really claim credit for coming up with it or anything. Since I have 6 large projects, I'm going to try to rotate nightly, with a "free" night on the 7th night of the week. I will put the projects I want to finish first on Sat. and Sun. since I get the most stitching time on the weekend. The problem I see that might come up with this method is that I might not see enough progress before having to move on in the rotation since on weeknights I often only get an hour of stitching time and if we have a busy weekend, Sat or Sun. might not be any better. I'm going to give it a go though, and if I find I'm getting frustrated not making enough progress I might do a week on this rotation and then a week on a "focus piece". We'll have to see. I'll suspend the rotation for any Round Robins that come in the mail as I am completely hopeless in that area - have to start it as soon as I open the package! So for now here is the new rotation:

Saturday: Alhambra Garden
Sunday: Angel of Summer
Monday: Hardanger table runner
Tuesday: Silkwood Manor
Wednesday: Mother's Tree
Thursday: Inspiration
Friday: "free" day