MAY I share my WIP parade?

Hi All.

And here we go for 2022. I've spent up until 1 May stitching monogamously until all I had left were 7 BAP WIP 

So, I've spent a week kitting up and starting one or two projects...

Angry Cat

Durene Jones : Halloween SAL / Flowers & Bees SAL / Sleeping Cat / Stitching Sayings

Jardin Prive : Carre / ABC Sampler

Lizzie Kate - Plant a Little Kindness

Pinker & Punkin - Bees Blooms & Chickens

Stitchy Princess - Miss Sunflower

Shepherds Bush - Joy Sheep

Modern Folk Embroidery - 2021 SA Fruits of Plenty

Halloween Mag 2021 - Angry Cat/ Broomstick Brigade / Current Mood / I'm not Evil / Owl-oween.

and lastly - thanks to an intervention on the zoom meeting :

Long Dog Samplers - Tap Dancer

Now admittedly, several of these are smalls - under 50 x 50 stitches and a lot are on Aida, but there are a few BAP's - which will join with the existing 7 remaining WIPs in my list

English Floral Sampler

Shores of Hawk Run Hollow

Boothy Threads 12 days of Christmas

MIrabilia Mermaids of the Deep Blue

Jeremiah Junction - Stitcher's Panel

Jardin Prive - Histories de Moutons

Bronnybs Designs - Robert Burns Halloween

Bees and Flowers SAL

Now I have an even dozen WIPs Never mind the several designs lurking in my head that have yet to escape onto the design board.

 

Instead of Monogamous stitching I now have a weekly rotation - by type.  My weeks run Monday to Sunday and only loosely work around a calendar date.

1st week - kitting up and stitching all those lovely new charts that have spoken to me for that previous month.  This will othewise be a quick rotation of WIPS as take my fancy

2nd week  - BAP - Big A$$ed Projects

Projects and charts that are over 200 x 200 stitches in size.  Either one or however many I can put some stitching into for the one week

DJ Halloween SAL

3rd week - Christmas and Halloween.

Have you looked above?   Have you seen how many Halloween projects I have going??  Time to whip a few of these seasonal WIPs into line.  Bonus points if I FFO them

4th week - My designs.  I have so many ideas running in my head that I REALLY need to get them down on paper (or USB)  Most of them are samplers, but there are a few alternate ones here too

5th week - for some of those months where there is an extra few days. 

Bees Blooms & Chickens

Broomstick Brigade

Current Mood

I'm not Evil

Owl-oween

so many projects - so little time

ABC Sampler

Carre

Plant a Little Sunshine

Miss Sunflower

Joy Sheep

How many WIPs do you have?

Sleeping Cat

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2020

 

HALLOWEEN FINISHES FOR 2020

Ok so technically the quilt is not 'finished' but who cares???   Doesn't it look SPOOKTACULAR??

The two older finishes are now finally cushions and the new finish from last weekend is also now a permanent addition to my Halloween cushion collection

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FRIENDS

AND FINALLY - AN UPLOAD TO YouTube - MY FIRST

Halloween 2020

October finishes off in a fine fashion

 

Things were happening during October, although I don’t feel that I accomplished much stitching.

I forgot, in my last post to show you the updated Temperature SAL – I stitched all of September and one week into October.  I really got enthused over the little yellow house, after all the weeks of blues and greens.  It has appeared that the colours will return to blues and greens for the rest of October, as it has been chilly again.  I think I’ll be putting lock motifs onto each month March-June and August to October, as it appears we will be out of such strict lockdown in early November. (but enough about Covid talk as there are plenty of other venues to discuss this, and I don’t want to mention it  except to placemark it in history)

Something else to get really excited about, was showing off a lovely quilt finish.   I finished the flimsy (quilt top) two years ago, it was a MSQC tutorial pattern if I remember correctly, and took me only a weekend to put it together.  The intention was always to stitch bees on it, and I did – there are 6 little bumblebees buzzing around the stars, turning them into sunflowers.

  I did not overthink the backing fabric, just using two fabrics and not thinking about how wide each panel was going to be.  I stitched a label on Aida and incorporated that into the binding. 
I really love the overall look.  The yellow binding just sets off the whole quilt entirely.   

Of course the main excitement, was picking up the prop for the quilt photo-shoot.    A BRAND NEW CAR!!!!

HoneyB is a Toyota Hybrid CH-R – the 2020 model.  I have waited 18 weeks to pick her up.  She drives like a dream.  My little Yaris is 14 years old, and somewhat tired.  My son will be the new owner of that car.  I decided in March that I would get a new car and overthought the process all thw way to the end of June when I made the decision between the Sporty Yellow CH-R or the super safe Subaru sedan – a blue Boxer.   The funky yellow colour and the style (and a really good price) was the bit that put me over the line.  I’ve had the car a whole 6 days and it will take me several more weeks to learn all the gadgets and bits and bobs.  

This past weekend I decided to stitch something for this year’s Halloween.  I found a pattern in a 2012 Halloween ornament magazine and scrambled in my fabric collection and specially flosses - a mixture of Dinky Dyes, Six Strand Sweets and Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. The body of the ravens are perfect for this floss specially dyed for me for another Halloween project a few years ago, by Nancy of The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. I like the blue sheen to the black ravens...

The pic makes it look a little bit washed out, no matter what I do. The lettering is not so washed out as it appears. The fabric is called Prank and was part of a Fabric of the Month club some 6 years ago from Picture This Plus. I have all these bits of evenweave in bright colours and I will eventually stitch on them

I hope to take this and another couple of Halloween finishes from a couple of years ago and finish them into cushions in time for Saturday.  I doubt if I’ll be going to the extremes of previous years for decorations, might just decorate my stitchy nook.  I’ll share pictures with you then.

 

 

Sew Over September

Sew over September….

In fact, sew over 2020 – it’s taken me quite some time to become disenchanted with lockdown, but I think as the weather improves, the urge to get out of the house, travelling further than the allocated 5km to the nearest supermarket increases.

It’s not so much the wanting to visit the Grandbabies interstate (which I do – I really do), but even the desire to travel within my own state, to visit my sister (5 hour drive), to visit my bestie (1.5 hour drive), a day trip down the coast, into the hills, across to the other side of town – is almost overwhelming.

If the general populace behave themselves, lockdown will soon be over, and although a grand Halloween Party is unlikely, we should be able to gather the family together for a celebratory meal at Christmas…

In the meantime, I walk around the block and spy into other people’s gardens, this lovely display of proteas, or the gumnut blooms which look like ballerinas, or even the lorikeets feeding on a seed block are distractions.

Meanwhile, stitching and sewing continues.

My Halloween quilt now has a border of monster teeth.  I am extraordinarily pleased with how well these worked out – especially the rounded corners.  It is now sandwiched and being quilted on my home machine – really trying not to overthink how this is quilted…just point to point and in the ditch for the main part.  Once this is done, I can return to my other project… the honeybee quilt.

For stitching this past week, I’ve been concentrating on the 2020 SAL and am near the finish on both colourways. 

The Lilac version is the original chart and I’ve added beads along the way.  The blue version had to be adjusted because I didn’t calculate the length of the fabric very well and would have run out of fabric.  This will be beaded on completion of the rows, which is only another couple of evenings worth – I’m not certain if I will put it away in rotation for another 3 weeks or shuffle out my rotations completely and finish it!

I really have to get a move on with some Christmas stitching, as am participating in a couple of Christmas ornament exchanges with currently nothing but ideas spinning in my brain to show for it.  So as it is a lovely sunny day – I will heave myself away from the computer and go and plan my next week’s worth of sewing and stitching.

Nearly forgot to empty out my ort pincushions, these sit next to me and I tuck away all my stitching orts to pop into my TUSAL Jar.  By the look of this, I have been stitching...have emptied them now and will start afresh for this week.

Hoping everybody is keeping well – what are your next projects that you are planning?   Drop me a line and let me know…  (Jo – I read your blog..  I KNOW you have about 60 projects on the boil  - lol  )