February - Meteo, WIPGO and a few more

Hello Stitchy friends,

It seems to be too long since I last posted. I have some things to share with you.  My last post was to be released with my first floss-tube and that video is still being edited, so I’ll move on.

I have recently spent a week on holiday – although the original plan was a 3 week drive to Queensland and back to see my Grandchildren, Covid-19 restrictions meant plans had to be changed.  We eventually spent a week in East Gippsland – at a wonderful dog-friendly campground, Best Friends Holiday Retreat.  Although we do not have a dog, the owners are friends of our Scouting Family and it was a perfect, relaxing break.  There was limited internet and no mobile coverage at the campground, so a break from social media was welcome.  I have returned, feeling quite rested.

  There was time for bushwalks and a chance to have a close look at a Temperate Rain Forest

This also meant a good time to stitch.  I finished the 2020 Meteo SAL, and made good progress on my WIPGO February block 4 – Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. 

My goal was to finish one block, and as I am currently working on blocks 6-7 am setting my goal to finish the ship and start on the sea during February.   I think I have made reasonable progress over the past few days

METEO de MOUTONS 2021

I have a finish – The 2020 Meteo project. 

I have finished the December temperature and added all the required motifs.  As Melbourne was under lockdown for more than 7 months of the year, padlocks do feature.  I added bushfire to the start of the year to symbolise the fires that were so devastating to most of Australia on New Year’s Eve.  In this household, there are 3 birthdays in 6 days in February, There are a few more either side, so a birthday cake will suffice.  In October, I took delivery of a brand-new  Yellow car – my HoneyB CH-R.  The remaining motifs are just random trees and flowers to fill the spaces.

I have also progressed on Melbourne Meteo de Moutons 2021. 

All the paddocks are completed, I have determined the floss colours to use for each degree and stitched the daily symbols across the top to show the days of the week.  I hope to make a start on the legs of the sheep soon with one colour for all sheep.  The exceptions will be to show birthdays during the year with bright legs.

WIPGO JANUARY – As part of WIPGO, the numbers called  for January related to Something Seasonal, Something Seasonal and No Guilt Start.  My last post shows how much was achieved on the Mirabilia Mermaids of the Deep – I have subsequently invested in some equivalent beads and will return to this stitch shortly  I have no further stitching progress to share on this chart since my last post.

However, I do have two finishes for something seasonal.   The quick small chart chosen was Lizzie Kate’s Hocus Pocus (Halloween IS a season!)  This has been FFO’d into a small pincushion already and will sit on my shelf until after Halloween this year.

I found Modern Folk Embroidery through floss-tube and was particularly struck by one design – How Doth the Busy Bee.   

I really enjoyed the stitching of this one.  I used 28 count Lugana from Picture this Plus – one of the fabrics in my stash from years ago, the floss was Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe Golden Leaves and a dash of DMC 797 for the cornflower blue.  This I was inspired to add to the chart by a flower growing in my small garden by my front door.  I really enjoyed stitching this, whether it was the design, floss, fabric – I don’t know, but the whole project just flew under my fingers and I hope to frame this shortly.

WIPGO FEBRUARY - As part of WIPGO 2021, I have changed out block 20 as I have yet to fully design the original choice – ‘Raise your Glasses’  I now have it set for an OwlForest design –

Kingfisher – and will be participating with LadyRobynS as part of her birthday SAL.  Due to there being a bit of an embargo of postage from Russia to Australia, I had to source alternate floss for this project.  I didn’t want to stitch this with just DMC, but went looking for suitable overdyes. 

I found just what I wanted while on holiday – Country Cottage floss as shown (the lime green on the very right is an extra – purchased because it ‘looked’ at me)   I’ll be searching my stash for the right fabric to stitch this on and I should be ready to start this on the 15^th February.  Yarram Drapery had a lovely supply of overdyes. and fabrics

HAUL

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a floss tube, and something was said, that set me off on a tangent (all to do with ships on samplers) and somehow I found myself looking at a book – BRENDA KEYS – ‘ULTIMATE SAMPLER MOTIFS SOURCE BOOK’

– well I snatched that up without a moment’s thought and it arrived this week.   It is EXCELLENT – if you like working and designing your own samplers, this is a great reference book.  There is no history for any of the designs, look elsewhere for that information, this is just grid after grid of motifs, numbers, letters.  I have used this already to plot the lettering for 2021 Meteo de Moutons.

 

I also found a chance to pick up one or two fat quarters from both Quilt shops I visited whilst at Yarram.  (Small country town with it’s priorities quite firm – a good bakery – 3 op shops and 2 quilt shops!) 

Of course the sheepie fabric leapt out at me, but I also have another couple of fabrics to add to an Australiana Baby quilt I have been asked to make.  This is the fabric collected at Trintarabee Quilting

 

FROG VISIT - I have made a decision to rip out all that I have stitched so far on Mermaids of the Deep.  The fabric I chose, was not speaking to me and there was a strong probability, that there would not be a lot of margin on the sides of the fabric for the full design.  Late last night, I selected another fabric, and will be making another start on this later in the month.

 

That should be enough of my ramblings for now.  I do hope to release a floss-tube shortly – there is some editing to be done on my first try, or I may record a fresh one and leave the first try as a blooper reel.

 

 

 

Stitching start to November 2020.

 

Hello friends.

One week on from Halloween and a wee bit of a stitching start to November.

Firstly, I had a finish on my Christmas Heirloom Tablecloth for 2019. 

Each square symbolises something for that particular year with the names of those around the table.  As I had a knee replacement in September 2019 and needed a cane to walk both before and immediately afterwards, decided Candy Canes were the perfect choice.    This was finished on Halloween, leaving me plenty of time to stitch on the 2020 Temperature SAL for October.

I really need to work on what motifs to stitch to fill in the gaps.  It is good to see that the month is not completely blue and I am cheered by the little yellow house in the first week.  The 3^rd of November will be the same colour, but that will wait until the first week in December to be stitched.

 

So as I had what I classify as two finishes in the first two days, I justified starting a new project.  The 3 motifs were in an American stitching magazine in 2005 and designed by Jeremiah Junction.  As far as I can tell, they are now OOP (out of print).  I’m stitching mostly with the called for DMC floss, but have decided to use a variegated floss in my stash for the lettering. I’ve changed out the god-bothery sayings on each one, replacing them with something more suited for my stitching nook.  I am stitching all three together as one panel specifically to hang on my wall.  Of course I’ll show my progress as I go here.  This week I should pick up my English floral sampler.

 
This morning however, I woke up feeling the need to cut fabric into itty bitty bits and sew back together again.  So I finished a mini-quilt flimsy, needing only now to put quilt and bind it.   

Then I decided to cut even smaller pieces… these churn-dash squares are 2” finished…  yep.. insane.. mini quiltmakers are insane…  I think this mini quilt will end up about 7” x 9”  They will both be finished as mug-mats and put into the 2020 gift basket.

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.