Diane's craft blog

Big Progress on Two Projects

2011-05-12T11:31:00.000+10:00

I've been continuing with my rotations despite not posting and have made big progess on both the New England Sampler and Sydney. On the Sampler I've completed the band with the flowers--I think these are the state flowers of each of the New England states. I've then done just over half of the band below that with some more New England historical and cultural scenes. I am getting very close to finishing this project which I bought in 1996. I can't believe it. Without the rotation system I don't think I would even have started it yet. Rotations are amazing!

New England sampler with flower band finished and half of cultural band done.

Close-up of left side of bands worked on.

Close up of right side of bands worked on.

I also bit the bullet with Sydney Rocks project which never seemed to really get going. I've nearly finished half of it now! I breezed through the large tree in a few days and previously I thought I'd never get through it. Then I went on to another page and have done the bulk of that with only minor bits to finish it off.

I'm now backstitching Cottages at Oak Bluffs. I did some at a gymnastics competition but it was hard to follow sitting in a folding chair without anywhere to rest my pattern. I'm back to dragging my feet again but at least I am on the second house of this project. Too many of my projects are at the backstitching phase!!!!

Doing a bit now and then

2011-04-06T10:41:00.003+10:00

I finished my Verandas rotation then didn't do any work the next week. That's bad. The backstitching on House #1 is coming along and you can see the progress in the photo.

I also finally bought some blanket binding for a new fleece blanket for Jade. It's in a beautiful cherry red and I just love it! So this small project has the dubious honor of being my first finish for 2011!

Nimbus fully approves of it as well!

Slow progess but finished backstitching 1 house

2011-03-14T17:28:00.002+11:00

I think I'm not in the mood for fiddly things or for undoing mistakes so that's part of my problem in getting back into stitching. I had a bit of taking out on the backstitching on this to do as I'd used the wrong color under the jade window arches. I've undone and re-done the backstitching under the ground floor window arches. For now I've left the upstairs window. Maybe when this rotation comes around again I'll decide to undo it--or not!

Anyway, I'm on to my next rotation--Verandas and have started the backstitching on that and have made a few mistakes and undone them too. I seem to be really worried about what color to backstitch where. I've started on the house on the far left--the one I just finished cross-stitching--and it's shaping up nicely so far. I really want to finish a few of my projects that are close to being done so I can move on.

Still dragging my feet

2011-03-11T09:15:00.002+11:00

This year has been a tough one as far as adjustments go and that has left little time or energy for crafting, never mind getting all the everyday things done. Both kids have had big steps up to take and I've had to spend quite a bit of my energy helping them.

My son Jarrah has changed schools, gone from a public school to a private school where academic expectations are greater and entered senior school. He's had to adjust to new travel arrangements to his new school which involve taking up to 3 buses the few times a week when we don't drive him. Initially he wasn't happy about changing schools but is now settling in well, making friends and improving his grades.

My daughter Jade has gone into Year 5 which is a big step in primary school. She has also taken a huge step up in gymnastics to the top International squad at her club, adjusting to 3 new coaches and to working along-side girls who are on the Australian national team. She's training an additional session and up to 29 hours per week. She's also started studying in an intensive scholarship test preparation class on Sunday mornings. This class gives her up to 5 hours of homework per week. So she is getting very skilled at micro-managing her time.

So for me there has been additional driving for both kids and providing much more homework help then before. So you can see where crafting time and, more particularly, available energy has gone.

As the kids are settling in I'm also potentially taking on two more part-time jobs this year. More on those in time.

It is frustrating to be so close to finishing a number of projects and to not be actually finishing them off. I think I'm backstitching 3 projects at the moment and I've never done that before.

I pulled out Cottages last night and finally worked through my backstitch problem with it. I used the wrong color to backstitch under the eaves of the windows on House #4. So I undid that stitching which was very fiddly and started to re-do it and I also stitched other areas. I just need to keep up some momentum and keep going.

When she was good she was very, very good . . .

2011-02-20T17:26:00.004+11:00

When she was bad she was horrid. So goes the nursery rhyme. Well here I am trying to get my crafting back on track and trying also to make up for being so bad.
Firstly to the photos!!

Here is where I am up to on the New England Sampler. Kind of gave up/put aside doing some of the fiddly patterns and went for the simple outer and inner borders. At least I got some work done. Most of my recent progress was completed while on holiday in Sydney including on planes and trains so easy borders were the go. At any rate it is coming along nicely.

Since returning home from holidays I've hardly picked up my cross-stitch. When I have it's been this one--The Rocks, Sydney. I'm stuck in a tree at the moment. I've mainly worked on this while at Jarrah's baseball games. Oh, bad Mum again not watching the game!!!

Now I'm ready to go on with a new rotation and to get back into the swing of things. Next in the rotation list is Cottages at Oak Bluffs II where I'm working on back-stitching. That sounds easy enough! Let's knock that off before the next two weeks is over!!

Since I also blog a bit about what I'm reading I'll mention that I'm on the third book of the Millenium trilogy--The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Brilliant books. I put off reading them for a while despite the hype because I was worried about having to read/pronounce all the Swedish names. It hasn't been a problem at all and I'm loving the series. I hope one day his 4th book will be finished and published.

The longer I stay away, the harder it is to get back

2011-01-18T07:42:00.004+11:00

Yes it's been a long time since I've posted. Three months in fact. The end of the year is just such a crazy, busy time. For those of you in the northern hemisphere I don't think you can appreciate the chaos that occurs when both Christmas and the end of the school year coincide. Add to all of the shopping and preparations for Christmas all of the end of year school concerts and celebrations plus work functions plus, in our case, preparations for our main summer holiday away. Then top it off with birthday celebrations for one of our children plus attending other children's parties. Then add in a minor day surgery (for me) with recovery.

This past year we also had my mother-in-law's ill health and hospitalisation and then finding a nursing home for her. She moved in to the nursing home in October but from August onwards we made an effort to visit her very frequently and since she is 30-45 minutes away from us this took up a lot of time. She's settled now and doing well but with her dementia she really has no idea where she is. At Christmas we took her out of the nursing home for the first time and she was confused especially when we brought her back.

Another extra function which occurred in October last year was deciding to change my son's school due to dissatisfaction with the education he was receiving. I was very fortunate to find him a good private school which had a general intake at his year level. He's not happy about this change so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

So does life get in the way of crafting.

I have lost a lot of forward momentum but have tried to pick projects up at random and keep going.

We had our end of year holiday in Sydney this year and I decided to take the New England Sampler with me and I actually worked on it! (How many trips have I taken including long cross-Pacific flights where the stitching never made it out of my carry-on?) I got it out on both plane trips--which were only 1 hour--and a number of evenings and mornings in the room where we were staying. I've continued with it since at home but have decided it is now time to put it away and to get back into my rotations.

I chose to take this project rather than the obvious Sydney one because it is on Aida which is much easier to work on when on the go and because it has simpler regular areas of pattern to do. So I stitched straight lines and finished the alphabet area at the top. Photos to follow.

I just checked to see what my current rotation should be and it is Sydney which follows the New England Sampler so I have to steel myself for working with linen, and on tree branches with half stitches all over the place. But first I'm going to really finish LaTrobe Terrace which only needs to be initialled and dated.

Oh and I forgot to say I framed a few projects myself just before Christmas! Photos coming.

Finished the cross-stitching on Verandas

2010-10-18T07:48:00.003+11:00

House #1 finished

I only worked on this project about 4 times over the past fortnight and got it out for the last time this rotation after dinner last night. After I'd worked on it a couple of hours I realised that I could actually finish the cross-stitching so I stayed up to 11:45 to get this done. Luckily I'd gotten involved in a Swedish movie that went that late and that I was surprisingly able to follow even though cross-stitching meant that I wasn't able to read all the subtitles. I finished the bushes to the left of the last house (House #1) then went back and filled in the one and two stitch gaps I'd left in the palmetto tree and house. The last area I did was the inserts on the front door of the house which were DMC #415. For some reason I didn't have this colour with my threads for this project and it also wasn't in my mother's DMC box so I had to go searching in my craft cupboard for it. Luckily I found it and so was able to finish the project.

The whole Verandas scene--cross-stitching finished!

I'm now back to New England Sampler. With only 4 projects in my rotations they seem to come around more often. Funny about that.

I bought a photo frame for the two Chinese projects and have cut the matting so that I can mount them. It's a cheaper alternative to having them professionally framed but I didn't think they deserved that level of expense. The photo frame is really nice and they will hang vertically one over the other so I think they'll look nice.

On to reading now--I'm on Book 3 of the Tales of the Otori which is titled Brilliance of the Moon. There is only the sequel to go after this and I'm trawling the library website to pick this up so I have it on hand and ready. I'm thinking of reading Stig Larsson's books after this.

Work going slowly

2010-10-13T08:18:00.005+11:00

There have been a few personal happenings lately which have meant that I'm only working on projects sporadically. My mother-in-law has been unwell since late August so there have been lots of trips to the hospital and then the temporary care facility. The past couple of weeks we've been involved in the search for a permanent nursing home for her as well. Plus I've accepted three weeks part-time casual work! So personal time has been greatly curtailed. I have managed to complete the NZ possum scarf--just in time for the weather warming up. I finished the cross-stitching on Cottages II and started the backstitching but unfortunately didn't finish this before the rotation ended. I'm now working on Verandas and so close to finishing the cross-stitching on that as well! But the first week of its rotation I didn't work on it at all so I'll really only get one week's work in on it.

Here is the possum scarf!

I started reading a new series of books called Tales of the Otori and I'm enjoying them. I'm on the third book of the series which confusingly is called Book 2 because originally the series was a trilogy but then the author wrote a sequel and then a prequel. I started by reading the prequel. I'm enjoying the books very much. After these I must go back and finish a Series of Unfortunate Events which I've been slowly creeping through. I'm up to Book 11 there. My daughter Jade just started Book 12. (Of course there are 13 books in the series.)

It's a busy time of year!

Finally got a good start to The Rocks

2010-09-21T10:32:00.006+10:00

I just finished one week's work on The Rocks. This is one of the biggest Juniper Designs street scenes, if not the biggest. Wish I'd figured this out before I started!

Anyway, it's going to take me a lot longer than Latrobe Terrace did. Here is a comparison of the stitching areas of the various Juniper Designs street scenes:

The Rocks, Sydney 16 x 53 cm (current project)
Latrobe Terrace 10 x 49 cm (just finished)
Beechworth 11 x 49 cm (stash)
Strahan 13 x 49 cm (stash)

Port Fairy 12 x 51 cm (completed)
Windsor 12 x 44 cm (completed)
Adelaide 12 x 45 cm (completed)
Maldon 13 x 49 cm (completed)

So you can see in both length and height The Rocks is considerably larger than any of the other street scenes. I guess it will be good to get this one out of the way especially since I'll soon be finishing the large street scene in Verandas.

It was good to have some concentrated time to work on this one as I discovered I made a mistake on the wall and was doing it two rows too high. I had to take a lot out but it didn't bother or discourage me. I just re-did it while I was doing adjacent areas. In the end I've got the wall area to a nearly finished state. The next part's going to be fiddly as it's a large spreading tree. Lots of potential for putting stitches in the wrong place!

I'm now back to Cottages II and, with a good push, could finish this this rotation. I'm getting spoiled with all these finishes! I will definitely have to be off to the framers soon!

LaTrobe Terrace finished!

2010-09-17T11:50:00.005+10:00

Here is the full project, done except for the lettering of the name and my initials and date

The left side of the scene.

The right side of the scene

Yes Latrobe Terrace is finished! The backstitching took me a couple of days to finish off during this rotation. I had a bit of a problem interpreting what backstitching color went where as they used locations like 'paving' which could have been a couple of different things or 'grass' and 'tree branches' and I couldn't tell which lines near the trees were supposed to be grass and which ones branches. Process of elimination plus looking at the colour photo on the kit with a magnifying glass solved the problem.

I just looked back to see when I started Latrobe Terrace and it was July last year--so 14 months ago. When I used to work on one project alone it would take me 10 months to finish one of these Juniper Designs street scenes. So 14 months part-time work isn't bad considering how many other projects have been finished or nearly finished in that time as well. Looks like a trip to the framers is coming up!

So this rotation is now another Juniper Designs--The Rocks, Sydney, which I started on a trip to Sydney back in June. I'm working on a wall in the middle of this project and just discovered I did a few hours work two rows too high so I've been frogging and restitching for a couple of days. I've got it fixed now and am 'going forward' as they say. I'll put up a photo of it after this rotation ends this weekend.

I am close to finishing two other projects--Cottages and Verandas--and I've nearly finished knitting the NZ possum wool scarf.

You may notice I've condensed my rotations down to 4. I want to see if that hustles up progress.

Chinese II finished!

2010-09-06T20:05:00.006+10:00

I managed to whip through the remaining three patterns of Chinese II in just over a week. With most of a week to spare in the rotation I decided to get out LaTrobe Terrace and try to finish off the backstitching in the remaining time. I managed to get through about 2/3 of it, which was good but a bit disappointing. I always think that I'm going to get through things quicker than I do!

Then it was back to the proper place in the rotation which was the New England Sampler. I think I spent three weeks on this because I didn't get around to doing anything with it for a week or so. I've finished the top border including the corners. (Just delaying having to do more of the internal pattern which is going to require some concentration.)

Here are details of the corner designs. I think they're really pretty.

I don't have any photos but I'm also working on the possum/wool scarf. I'm on the third and final ball now. Will have it finished just in time for the end of winter!!!

What else is new?

Well I went to Adelaide for a footy weekend with my son Jarrah and we also saw the pandas.

And our kitty Nimbus is getting cuter and more lovely every day. Here he is sleeping in his basket on the scratching post.

I'm also doing a lot of reading and have finished the first three volumes of the Twilight series. Now I'm reading Dan Brown's latest book The Lost Symbol.

Nearly Finished Verandas House #1

2010-08-08T09:18:00.005+10:00

I'm a bit late with my posting this time. I had a good rotation's work on the last, far left house on Verandas. The house is very nearly finished including the foreground. There's just a bit to do around the palmetto tree. Unfortunately there is still the gate & bush area to the left of this house to do and with the way I'm going I think that's going to take a full rotation in itself. Then they'll be another rotation for the backstitching. So hopefully just two more rotations to completion.

I'm also knitting the navy scarf in New Zealand possum wool and this week I ordered and received an additional ball of this wool from a shop in Canberra so that I can make a matching hat for the scarf. The new ball is slightly different to what I had in that it has a touch more shine to it. But the colour is pretty much spot on. In order to blend this new ball in I unravelled the second ball of knitting I'd done on the scarf so that I can knit this new ball in as the middle of the scarf. I'd done about half of the second ball so that was a bit of work lost on the scarf. I've since made up that lost work with the new ball.

I also decided to knit a sweater so I took a pattern I already had (and had already knitted--but I'd given away the sweater) and went to a wool shop in Malvern and bought wool for this sweater. I'd hoped to start this soon but I think I've got too many things on the go and I should finish the scarf and hat first. Darn!

I'm now half way through my rotation on the second Chinese cross-stitch. I finished the second of the 4 patterns and I'm well into the third pattern. If I pushed it this week I could possibly finish the whole thing but we'll see how it goes. I won't post a photo of this until after I finish this rotation. I'm getting frustrated that I seem to be so close with several projects but it's taking so long to finish any of them!

A finish on one and substantial progress on another

2010-07-22T11:10:00.010+10:00

Time to rotate projects again. I've made big progress on the second house of Cottages II starting it from scratch this rotation and getting it about 2/3 complete. Hopefully that means I can finish it the next rotation?

I also finally finished sewing Jade's flannel quilt and she's thrilled about that. I also made and finished a matching pillow to go with it.

I am so close to finishing so many projects that I'm going to go through them and give an indication of the stage each is in.

1. Cottages at Oak Bluffs (2 houses) 60% complete, 2 rotations to finish
2. Verandas of South Battery 90% complete, 4 rotations to finish (there is a lot of back stitching)
3. Chinese II 25% complete, 2 rotations to finish
4. New England Sampler 60% complete, 6+ rotations to finish
5. LaTrobe Terrace 95% complete, 1 rotation or less to finish

So with so many finishes in sight I'm considering which projects to begin in their places. I've already started The Rocks in place of LaTrobe Terrace so that's a lock. Cottages will become Jade's baby sampler and I'll start another Barbara & Cheryl possibly in place of Chinese II.

Here are some other happenings around our place:

Jade dressed for communion with her stole. She is just gorgeous in her dress!

Cat condo being constructed by the boys.

And finally our own home-grown Master Chef!

Second house on Cottages II well underway

2010-07-12T13:08:00.006+10:00

After one week's rotation on this project I've got the second house well underway. It's coming out prettier than I thought it would with the green and pink. It will look lovely in my daughter's room. My son has Cottages I in his room.

I'm finishing off Jade's flannel quilt as well. Last night I sewed the binding on and today I've pinned it ready for hand-sewing. I also promised to make her a pillow in the same fabric so will do that. It won't take long.

Jade has a week's holiday from gym training and I'm trying to make as much use as I can of the extra time I have not driving her around. I've got 4 hours extra work correcting IELTS papers Tuesday and Wednesday, got my car booked in to fix the radio antenna and am continuing to work on finishing off projects as well.

Oh and here is our kitten Nimbus's new toy!

More photos

2010-07-09T11:03:00.007+10:00

It's good taking photos of projects as they come along. It makes you have a good look at what you've been doing.

I just made a change to Jade's communion stole to the 'E' in her name. I flipped the E as it was upside down on the stole. It looks much better. I put the new photo on my last post.

Then I took a photo of my knitting with the NZ wool and discovered a small error where I must have gotten the row pattern out of order. I'm now going to take it out down to there and count my rows a different way so this is fixed and doesn't happen again.

As I already posted I didn't do a lot with the Sydney cross-stitch but thought I should post a photo of where it is now.

Also here is the lighthouse rug hooking all hemmed and ready to hang.

Three finishes, a knitting project and . . . a new kitten!!!!!

2010-07-06T08:59:00.012+10:00

I have got so many things on the go that it is starting to drive me crazy! So I decided to finish off a few things and managed to finish three including a UFO--but started another!

When we came back from Sydney last Monday my sights were set on finishing the binding off and sewing of the brown hooked rug. I'd been progressively gluing the edges of the backing where it was fraying over a few days in preparation for this. So last Tuesday I machine sewed the binding on the rug and hand-sewed it. Finished! Then I put it in the dryer with a wet towel mainly to try and fluff up the older hooked wool pieces which were flattened. There were also areas where the pieces went in different directions (where the new hooking met the old hooking) and I was hoping that a fluffing would fix this up. I also wanted to freshen the rug up and remove any dust as it had been in my Dad's attic for a few years. Well the fluffing certainly freshened the rug up and fluffed it up but there are still patches where the wool goes in different directions (although the hooking is in the same direction) and the backing shows. Anyway, I proudly gave this to Jarrah to put in his room and he has it beside his bed where he puts his feet out onto the floor in the morning.

My next finish was my daughter Jade's communion stole and this was becoming more urgent as she needs to wear this for her first communion on the 17th of July. I had already done preliminary work on this squaring off the stole fabric which was quite skewed and also cutting out the felt pieces to go on it. I sewed up the stole and pressed it and then using double-sided tape placed the felt pictures and her name on it. Done!

Then to the UFO. Jade wanted to learn to knit so I bought her some chunky velour-like yarn and showed her how to knit. While she was knitting I started working on a wool and possum scarf for myself from yarn I bought in Queenstown, New Zealand in 2007. (Hence another new project started.) I also had a hot pink, brown and gold scarf made in funny, bumpy yarn that I'd nearly finished but which had problems so had been put aside. I'd tried to unravel the end of it and because of the bumpy wool had been unable to. I'd dropped stitches so there were a couple of holes, the stitches were all off the needle and it was a mess. I spent a couple of hours on it trying to find all the dropped stitches and put them back on the needle and to crochet up the holes, etc. Anyway, I did as best I could, cast off and used spare wool to close up the holes and make it look nice. It's so fluffy and bumpy that you can't see that there was any problem anyway.

I have to confess that I didn't work on the Sydney cross-stitch when I was in Sydney but it did travel with me to its home city so I guess that's something.

So where am I now? I want to finish off a couple more projects. The lighthouse rug hooking is pinned and ready for sewing. I'm not using binding on this as it's going to be a wall-hanging. I want to frame the Life is a Journey Daydreams project I finished. I want to work on Jade's flannel quilt and I want to get back into whatever cross-stitch is this week's rotation.

But we have someone new in the family and he is getting a lot of attention. We have a new kitten! He is a silver tabby, about 4 months old and he came from the RSPCA. We got him last Saturday so he's only been with us for 3 days. His name is Nimbus. He is a beautiful kitty, very playful and cuddly and loving. But he needs supervision as he tends to claw the furniture and climb the curtains. This is actually a good week to have him home as the kids are off school and have the time to play with him and watch him. We haven't left him alone in a room with furniture yet because of the clawing. This will get better as he learns and as he gets older.

Lots and lots of updates!

2010-06-21T12:40:00.005+10:00

I've got a few weeks to update with photos now that I'm well on the mend.

I finished the first of 4 designs on Chinese II.

Sorry it's on it's side.

I also finished the hooking of my lighthouse rug hooking. Only the hemming to do.

I then did a two week rotation on the New England Sampler. Just managed to finish the right side border and the line along the top separating the border area from the centre. Since I was spending some time in bed I worked on rug hooking while I was there because the light wasn't good enough for cross-stitching. When I came down and sat in the TV room with my lamp I did cross-stitching. Hence, more rug hooking got done than cross-stitching.

Since I finished the lighthouse so quickly I pulled out a hand-me-down project from my mother's house which was only partly done and worked on that. It's a small rug hooking and it had a few problems with fraying edges and it was also worked from the top instead of the bottom so I had to decide how to tackle it.

When I started on it there was nothing done along the bottom but most of the left edge had been done. Don't know why. I will need to buy some rug hemming tape to stablize the edges. It's too bad someone trimmed them!

Here's where the rug is as of this morning. You can see it won't take long to finish it off. It's a big help that the left side and top were already done. I'm planning to put it in the dryer with a damp towel once I finish it to fluff up the older hooked areas. They don't lay nicely.

Now I'm starting on a new project The Rocks, Sydney. This will replace LaTrobe Terrace in my rotations. Yes, I know I haven't finished LaTrobe Tce yet but this is the weekend I'm going to Sydney and we're staying in a hotel in The Rocks so I just have to bring this project and work on it so at least some of it is done in the place it's named for. I'm also going to have a look out for the buildings in the cross-stitch and see if I can photograph them.

On the mend and slowly crafting again!

2010-06-12T10:17:00.002+10:00

Hey, that rhymes! Well the old gallbladder is gone as of 7pm Thursday evening. That was a long day of fasting (from 8am) and waiting! I went into hospital Monday evening (7th) due to pain which was 3 days earlier than expected. I'm now resting at home. I brought a couple of smaller xstitches to hospital but didn't really feel like working on them until Friday morning after the op because that's when I really started to feel like my old self again.

I finished one of the 4 designs on Chinese II so there is progress. I've now started a new rotation on the New England Sampler. As I think I indicated before my next project in rotation is going to be The Rocks, Sydney as I want to take this project on my weekend in Sydney 25-28 June even though I haven't finished LaTrobe Terrace yet.

Gallstones!

2010-06-01T16:12:00.002+10:00

I've been having abdominal pain for a week now and it looks like I've got a nice big gallstone stuck somewhere. I have little energy for crafting and I'll hear tomorrow from the doctor about what the next step will be when she gets the test results. So I'll be taking a short break from this blog.

Moving on to a new project

2010-05-26T12:31:00.007+10:00

I didn't get nearly as much done on Verandas as I thought I would. I just didn't push it and ended up spending time getting new projects ready by sorting thread bundles in the kits, binding off edges of fabric, and running centre thread markers through several new projects. I also did a few rows on my rug hooking and finished the quilting part of the flannel quilt. All this while also taking care of my son Jarrah while he was recovering from oral surgery last week. So I guess I haven't done too badly.

Now I've started the second Lanarte Chinese Culture project. It's still a small project but has four separate designs on the one piece of fabric.

And . . . I've decided to do The Rocks Sydney instead of Strahan when I finish LaTrobe Terrace because DH and I are going to Sydney at the end of June for a weekend of wining and dining and hopefully a show. Even if I haven't finished LaTrobe Terrace I'm going to bring Sydney with me to Sydney!

Two small finishes

2010-05-17T06:53:00.006+10:00

Red long stitching on the matting done!

I'm still regrouping myself and trying to get back on track. After my last post I decided to get out the Chinese project and finish it off. All that needed to be done was long stitching the Chinese characters on the matting. That only took an hour or so to do so that project is now officially finished. So I'm posting photos today of the two small projects I've finished.

The two parts of the Chinese project. I may have to cut them apart to position them under the matting. This project comes with matting but nothing else for framing. I'm going to try and get some glass and clips from a glazier to frame it. I'll never find a 7.5" x 7.5" ready-made frame.

Close up of half of the project

And the other half of the project

Life is a Journey finished. Luckily this one comes in a kit with matting and glass so is all ready for me to frame it.

I've now gone back to Verandas. I've undone a couple of the stained thread sections but not all of it as I found it hard to locate the ends. I'm stitching the palmetto tree in front of the house. I'm hoping to get to a craft shop today to get more 762 so I can fix this project and feel happy and motivated about it again.

Today I'm going to finish the machine quilting of my daughter's flannel quilt--the one that's been sitting in the machine for a few weeks. That one hit a snag when I ran out of quilting thread and it took me a few weeks to get to Spotlight to get more.

If you want to see what nicotine staining can do just have a look at the comparison of the stained white DMC on the spool with a new skein of white next to it in the photo below.

My son Jarrah is gradually healing from his oral surgery last Friday. This is a photo taken of him on Saturday with his 'chipmunk cheeks'.

A bit of a hiccup

2010-05-15T11:00:00.004+10:00

Well things don't always run smoothly with craftwork. I've been working on the last house on my Charleston streetscape Verandas and ran out of DMC #762, a light grey. Fished around my various stash locations and came up with the end of a skein in my mother's craft box and used that on about 3 window frames. Then I looked at them and saw they were noticably browner than the other window frames. Oh. It must be the nicotine staining. My mother was a great crafter. But also a heavy smoker. So what to do? Well I guess the perfectionist in me says to undo the new stitching and re-do it with a new skein. Only I didn't have time to go to Spotlight to get some. So I tried washing the canvas and also the end of my mother's skein. Both came up lighter but still not as light as what I had been using.

So on Thursday night I had a wet project I couldn't work on the next day and no more 762 anyway. My son Jarrah was going in very early Friday morning to have his wisdom teeth and another baby tooth taken out and an impacted tooth exposed. The op was going to take an hour plus the recovery time. So a great time for me to do some cross-stitch while waiting. I'd just finished my small Daydreams project Life is a Journey (hooray!) and the next project in rotation was also basically finished except for doing long stitches on the matting which I didn't want to do in the waiting room because it is too fiddly. So I decided to go on to the project beyond that in rotation--the New England Sampler--and work on the border. Nice and easy and a repeating pattern easily followed when out and about. So that's what I did.

Now I'm back home taking care of Jarrah giving him ice packs, pain relief and mashing up food and I kind of don't know which project to pick up again. I have three new ones waiting at the sewing machine for me to bind off their edges. But the machine is set up for machine quilting (with a quilt in it)so I haven't done those yet.

I have to make an executive decision about what to do.

An early start to the next rotation

2010-05-08T07:49:00.007+10:00

Huge progress on Cottages at Oak Bluffs--I finished the cross stitching on the first house a week and a half into the rotation! I was really surprised that it went so quickly but once I started in on it I was able to see progress and that encouraged me to try and finish it off.

As I got close to finishing the xs I had to decide whether to then start the backstitching right away, go on to the second house (which is a separate project but on the same piece of Aida) or to go on to the next piece in the rotation. I couldn't face backstitching because I wanted to have a break so that I felt I had 'finished' something. For the same reason I couldn't face starting the second house. So I picked up my next rotation Verandas where I'm also on the last house which I should finish this rotation as well. Then I'll face the same question--backstitch now or go on to the next rotation?

This is my Daydreams 'handbag' project Life is a Journey. It stays in my handbag for the times I'm waiting somewhere and have a few minutes to pick something up. Always having a project on hand has been a great idea and I have a new project picked out to take its place.

Thanks to everyone who answered my question on the CountedCrossStitch and xsers forums about length of backstitching. It was both the Daydreams project and LaTrobe Terrace that prompted this question plus the fact that I'm now or soon will be backstitching on five projects! Some of the Daydreams border is backstitched over 2 stitches and I've decided I like this so will leave it. It wouldn't have looked good in the main part of the project so I'm glad I'm now sure in my mind about bs over 1 square.

I have four! new projects waiting in the wings for me to start very soon. I'll be replacing LaTrobe Terrace with another Juniper Designs street scene--Strahan, Tasmania.

My new handbag project will be Juniper Designs Stonehouse with Settle.

I have a second Lanarte Chinese themed project to replace the first one.

And I'm going to start a baby xs for my 9 year old daughter! This one is called New Baby and can be viewed here: http://www.abcstitch.com/designers_php/feature.php?id=85 Why do one for her now? Well I thought she should have one as her brother has one made by my SIL in his room. His is this design as well.

So of my rotation list only the New England Sampler is not near completion.

Yesterday I finally went through my stash to see what was waiting for me. I have three WIPs waiting. Two were my mother's and are close to completion. One is that horrible Australia map that is so difficult.

I have eight Barbara & Cheryl Charleston patterns, 4 of these are what I've termed 'small' --ie 2 pages or less. I have three remaining Juniper Designs kits--two street scenes and one individual house. And I have two large Chinese landscapes. so large that I don't know if I'll ever do them.

Latrobe Terrace oh so close!

2010-04-27T10:59:00.009+10:00

Well Latrobe Terrace isn't finished as I originally predicted. But it's close. I'd say a week or less will finish it. There's a tiny amount of xs to do then the backstitching. It really wasn't as 'big' of a project as I originally thought. Normally these Juniper Designs street scenes used to take me about 10 months to do before I started the rotation system. If I added up the rotations I've done on this I won't have spent anywhere near that amount of time. Just had a look back through my posts and I've seen that I started this early last July and have done about 5 rotations on it--so a total of 10 weeks. Rotations really do get projects completed. I'm seeing that now especially since I'm in my second year of rotations. Last year I started several of these larger projects so I didn't finish many of them. This year I'm going to see them all finished plus a bunch of others.

I am so glad to be getting away from linen for the moment though. It really takes a lot more concentration especially with half stitches. I'm doing the trees on the far left of LaTrobe Terrace now and I think I've gotten a couple of half stitches one thread off of where they are supposed to be. I just can't face fixing them now so I'm leaving them for next time.

I'm also up to the backstitching on the small Daydreams 'Life is a Journey' project and I can't decide how long to make my backstitches. I think I'll ask this question on one of the xs lists.

Well, I've been avoiding Cottages at Oak Bluffs II but it's time has come around so I'm starting my first rotation on that this year. When I was working on it before I found it very fiddly--one stitch here and another there. I picked it up about 4pm yesterday and concentrated on doing 3 colours--black, a dark grey 413 and the green railing. Just doing those has given it so much structure and has brought it along so much that it's really much farther along than I thought it was. I'd say that first house (house #3) is 45% done. This is going to be a good productive rotation and I'm really enjoying it. I may even get this house close to finished! TG for Aida!

New England Sampler progress

2010-04-14T11:28:00.004+10:00

I decided to end my rotation on the New England Sampler after a very satisfactory two weeks. As previously reported I completed the lower panel in the first week. In the second week I finished the lower border including the bottom two corners and also stitched the boundary lines on the bottom and both sides of the sampler.

This seemed like a good place to stop. I could have carried on and worked on the side borders but decided to leave this to next time. The borders are relatively easy to do as they follow a regular pattern so they make a nice break from having to carefully follow the pattern on other areas of the sampler. So we'll see where I decide to pick this up next time.

In the meantime I think I can safely revise my estimate of completeness of this project to 65%.

I'm now working on LaTrobe Terrace.

A small finish and a major section of another completed

2010-04-07T08:21:00.008+10:00

Going well with the rotations with some help from it being school holidays and Easter! I finished the second small cross-stitch on the Chinese project in less than a week. This left me with the second week of the rotation on the project free. The project comes with a patterned matting (but no glass or framing--darn) and there is some weaving of thread to do on the matting. But I didn't feel like doing that. I felt like cross-stitching. So I decided to go on to the next project a week early and maybe spend 3 weeks on it.

Well one week on with the New England Sampler and I've finished the botttom panel. I did the whole right half of it in one week. This included a number of long days of cross-stitching. Easter Sunday was the day I spent the longest on it--about 10 hours. It's worth it though to have that part done. I'm now going to work on the bottom border and see how long that takes me. If I'm enjoying it I'll stick with it, maybe doing some of the side borders, next week. If I'm ready for a change then I'll go on to LaTrobe Terrace.

I think it's time to estimate the completness of my projects:

Cottages at Oak Bluffs II--5% (this one has a lot of colour changes and is fiddly)

Verandas of South Battery---90% (looking good)

Chinese I--97% (only matting to do)

New England Sampler--55% (over half way!)

LaTrobe Terrace--70% (but could finish it off in one rotation)

With the quilts:

Jade's flannel quilt--85% complete (need to get back to this)
Houses wall hanging--75% (partly taken the front apart to straighten out the rows--fiddly!)

This is the first time with the rotation system that I've gotten so close to finishing most of my projects. So there could be a major turn-over of projects with new ones starting and I'm beginning to think which ones I'm going to bring in to replace completed ones. There are a few waiting.

Rotating again!

2010-03-23T10:31:00.005+11:00

Since working on the Chinese cross-stitch I've decided to go back to my rotation schedule for cross-stitch while still working on the quilts. I'll cross-stitch in the evenings when I feel like sitting and relaxing and quilt during the day when I don't mind going from sewing machine to ironing board to cutting mat.

So I've just finished a two week rotation on Verandas. I chose to do this one as a starter as I just like this project. I've made good progress--finishing House #2 and making a good start on House #1. I figure I could finish the cross-stitching on this in two more rotations and the backstitching in one rotation--maybe! I can't wait to finish it and get it framed and hung!

House #2 all finished

Houses #2 and #3

House #1--this one is as wide or wider than the two houses next to it.

The houses wall-hanging is coming along as well. I have it all put together and pinned for quilting. And I've finally been back to Spotlight and have bought pale green thread to finish quilting Jade's flannel quilt. That one's been sitting idle for a few weeks now. Got to get back into it.

I also thought I would put up a photo of the small project I carry around in my handbag. This one is a Dimensions Daydreams 'quickie' called 'Life is a Journey'. I started it last October on a weekend trip to Canberra and decided it was a great one to keep in my bag and work on whenever I had a few spare minutes. That's been working very well and I'm thinking about doing something like this with another small project after I finish this one.

Life is a Journey--featuring a suitcase

Working on 5 projects now!

2010-03-12T20:37:00.006+11:00

I'm spreading myself thinner and thinner as I continue to work on a range of projects. Many are well underway and nearing completion so I should soon have several finishes to report.

Firstly there is the rug hooking which I continue to nibble away at. I have about 20 rows on that to finish.

Then last weekend I began to miss cross-stitching so I got out the Chinese themed project which has been in my rotation list but which I've skipped over a few times and not started. It's a small quick project and I finished one of the two designs--ie. half of it--in two days.

Then I went back to quilting Jade's flannel quilt on Monday but quickly ran out of thread so had to stop.

I'd had to stop working on the houses wall-hanging 'Our Street' the week before when the iron broke because I needed it to iron the seams as I sewed. As I'd bought a new iron just before the weekend I decided to go back to sewing the houses rather than rushing off to buy thread to continue with the quilting.

All of the houses finished and laid out in 3 rows.

I've been pushing through that project during the day and finished all the houses last evening. Today I've been putting them together. I've just about got the centre of the wall-hanging finished with only the borders to do. I may buy different fabric to what I have for the borders as I'm not happy with the colours anymore.

You may just be able to see the gold flecked brown fabric I've chosen to be the 'ground' in between the rows of houses.

I did say five projects. Well a few evenings I've been working on my Charleston, South Carolina project Verandas. I've nearly finished House #2. I should finish it in one or two more sittings then will be on to the last house--House #1. That's a large house so it will take a while. But I plan to have this cross-stitch finished this year.

Does that make 5? Two quilts, two cross-stitches and a rug hooking. I've actually got another small cross-stitch that I carry around in my handbag and work on whenever I have a few minutes. I haven't even counted that.

Will I go back to rotations? Or will I rotate my cross-stitches as I was doing but work on quilting during the day? I'll see how I feel after I finish the two quilts I've got going now.

Update on 3 craft projects

2010-03-02T14:10:00.002+11:00

Rather than rotate projects I'm working on three at the same time--just doing which ever one I feel like.

For the most part this has been the 'Our Street' quilted wall hanging. I've completed seven of the houses now. There are four left to go plus one pine tree. I'm making all of the pieces available in the kit rather than copying the photo on the kit which leaves some of the elements out. Not sure how it's all going to work out in the end. The two rows won't come out exactly the same size.

I've also laid out Jade's flannel quilt and layered it and pinned the layers together. It's ready for quilting and is sitting near the sewing machine ready to go.

This week the weather has been cooler so I've picked up the rug hooking again and am getting near the end of the lighthouse. Only 30 rows to go. I may work on Jarrah's rug hooking when I finish this one because he just hasn't managed to get his really going.

Quilting projects!

2010-02-17T09:42:00.006+11:00

It's still too hot to do rug hooking so I am working on a couple of quilting projects. Yesterday I had a huge day and completed the top and back of my daughter's flannel quilt. The quilt's looking really good and I didn't think it would piece together so quickly. Now I'm up to the layering step. With the other flannel quilts I've made I've used polar fleece as the middle layer. I haven't bought any for this quilt yet so I'm at a standstill until I can get to a fabric store.

That's fine as this allows me to work on another UFO--the foundation paper wall-hanging kit called 'Our Street'. I bought this probably about 7 or 8 years ago and made up one house back then. All the fabric pieces for it have been stored in zip lock bags separated by colour since that time. I got it out over the weekend and made up a second house. I'm kind of cheating as I'm following the colours from the example photo on the kit. The interesting thing is there are three additional buildings in the kit that aren't pictured in the photo. I thought I would make these up as well.

Here are the two houses I've made up so far. The red one I did on Sunday and the blue one I made several years ago. The foundation papers are still attached to the back of the houses. I'll tear these off when I'm ready to square the blocks up and piece them together.

Another Finish!

2010-02-12T15:59:00.004+11:00

My second finish for 2010--the Japanese fabric necklace. The glue is still drying but it looks good. It was a quick project admittedly but it's great to check another one off the list!

The flannel quilt is finally laid out now. It's going to stay on the floor so people can swap squares around over the weekend. I guess I'll start sewing it on Monday.

I need to look through my stash for another small project to work on in the meantime.

Working on a number of projects

2010-02-11T11:20:00.005+11:00

In keeping with my plans to finish off a few non-cross stitch projects this year and because it's been too hot to work on the rug hooking I've been working on a few other things this past week.

And I have my first finish for the year--a lovely green summer dress for my daughter Jade!

I bought the fabric for this dress, which came on the bolt with a gathered top, two years ago at Joanne's Fabrics in Connecticut. I thought it would make up into a lovely cool dress and my daughter would love it because her favourite colour is green. This has been such a hot summer I thought now's the time. I've got to do this while she's still young otherwise it won't suit her. Well it's come out beautifully! She has a school ball coming up so if it's still hot then this may be her ball dress.

Jade has also wanted a flannel quilt since I made one for myself a few years ago. My sister had sent me some fat quarters so also in 2008 I bought additional fabric, again at Joanne's, so I could make the quilt. There just isn't nice flannel fabric for quilting in Australia. What there is is in designs suitable for kid's pajamas. So I've worked out a pattern and have cut out my squares. It's just going to be done in simple squares. Jade is currently laying out the squares the way she wants them on the kitchen floor so I can't go on with this until she finishes this and everything is decided. The colors are all bright and cheerful. I love the yellow fabric with the ladybugs and also the green fabric with bamboo leaves. This latter one is also going to be the backing for the quilt.

So since the quilt has come to a temporary halt I've started working on a necklace kit I bought years ago at a quilt show which uses lovely Japanese indigo fabric. I did attend a workshop then to see how it was made but that must have been in about 2002 or 2003 and I've forgotten. Unfortunately, the instructions aren't really clear.

It's a new year and time to start blogging again!

2010-02-04T12:23:00.004+11:00

Happy New Year! We had a fabulous Christmas and trip to the US. Now we're back in Australia and the kids went back to school this week so I'm starting up my blog again.

It's wonderful having a fresh start to things. It gives you the freedom to re-examine where you are and how you've been going and to make changes to the way you've been doing things. That's where I am now. Not only in relation to crafts but also in relation to general household organisation (which is a constant uphill battle) and other personal goals.

So I took a piece of paper and wrote '2010 goals' on the top of it and started a list. Some of the things on the list are going to be hard such as putting photos in albums (there is a 10 year backlog of these), learning how to use new video-making software and making a movie out of our holiday videos, and figuring out what's wrong with the stereo and fixing it or getting it fixed. Maybe that last one won't be so hard because I just have to find someone else to do it.

Crafts are on the list and this year I'd like to work on and finish 2-4 non cross-stitch projects that I have on hand. I've already made my daughter's just completed 12 x 12 rug hooking into a pillow for her. That wasn't really my craft but I guess it was my first 'finish' for 2010. I'm also going to go through the craft cupboard and straighten it out and re-organise it. I'm looking forward to doing a couple of smaller quilt projects this year. I know I have a bunch of bright flannels to make a flannel quilt for my daughter Jade. There's also a summer dress for her with a gathered bodice which only needs a back seam and spaghetti straps to finish it. That should take hardly any time to finish and I should do it soon while the weather is warm. I'll list and prioritise these things over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime I've also been rug hooking. The kids and I all bought rug hook kits at Michael's in the US. They are so cheap there. My kit is 16 x 32". It's of a lighthouse. I've done over half of it since we came home in early January. I haven't worked on it for a week or so because it's just too hot to be handling wool and having a hot wool rug on my legs. But I also haven't been doing any other crafting either so I have to get back into the swing of things.

Anyway, here is the project:

and here is how it will look when finished:

I'm going to make it into a wall-hanging.

End of Latrobe Tce Rotation

2009-11-24T09:45:00.005+11:00

Considering the amount of time I've been out these past two weeks I haven't done too bad on this rotation. I'm probably about half way through the Queenslander house on the left of the centre of the pattern. Had I had fewer distrations I would have been aiming to finish it in the two weeks. But that just wasn't possible so I figure any progress is good progress. I've also had a tickle in my throat for over a week and I've been coughing more and more to the point where I just feel drained of energy. I'm taking anti-biotics now and hoping that will bring me back to life.

I know this isn't a reading blog but I've reported from time to time how I'm going with Diana Gabaldon's Voyager series. Well yesterday I finished the 6th book in the series called A Breath of Snow and Ashes which goes up to December 1776. It was a really good book and I'm so glad I kept with this series through the more gory bits in the earlier books. I am really looking forward to reading the latest book An Echo in the Bone which was just published in September. I've put a reserve on it at my library. The new book is going to cover at least part of the American Revolution so that should be quite exciting. Right now though I'm taking a break from Diana Gabaldon and trying a new author Di Morrissey. (What is this with all the Dianas and Dis?)

The other cross-stitchy news is that I had my two Xmas presents framed. Here they are still with the protective packing around them. They look great.

So I'm now back to the beginning of my rotations and on Verandas again. Worked on it last night and it's going well.

I've been stitching for the past couple of weeks

2009-11-15T17:02:00.006+11:00

I'm slowly struggling back into it. I picked my stitching back up with no idea of which project or week I was on. So I made an executive decision to work on the New England sampler and I had a productive week with it. by last Sunday I'd just about finished the lower band to the middle of the pattern. I'm very happy with it!

From October 16-18 I was away interstate and started a new 'travel' project that I could work on while I was on the go. This is a small Daydream kit called
Life is a Journey. Since then it's stayed in my handbag and I've worked on it from time to time. I'll keep this one in my bag and continue to work on it on a casual basis.

I'm now about to head into my second week of Latrobe Terrace. I've only worked on it twice this week and next week with two evening meetings isn't looking too good. But at least I hope to get some more done on it.

I've finally put my two Xmas presents in for framing and I pick them up this Wednesday.

It's only about a month until we go to the US for Christmas and there is so much to do with Christmas and travel preparations. My DH has painted our lounge/dining room a lovely off-white and over the next couple of weeks I'm getting a few curtain quotes. These won't be done and hanging before we go but if I at least order them we can get them in in January. This is just such a busy time of year!

I've fallen in a heap

2009-10-28T19:34:00.002+11:00

Well craft work has certainly taken a back seat this month. With three weekends away and all the packing and unpacking associated with that plus several work days in between and the usual Mum's taxiing time has been limited. I've also taken on an additional unpaid job of Membership Secretary for a non-profit organisation this month and I also applied and was tested for an online editing job. We'll see what comes of that. I think I'm getting a few things under control now.

I'm starting to think more seriously of Christmas and I need to get my completed cross-stitches to the framers.

The weekend before last I went away to a friend's sheep farm with Jade and because we flew I took a very small new project with me. Surprisingly I got a bit of it done. It is one of those Daydreams quick weekend projects which shows a few suitcases piled up and says 'Life is a Journey'. It's still in my handbag and I've pulled it out a couple of times since. I think I'll leave it in there and do it when I get the chance.

Right now I need to figure out where I'm supposed to be with my rotations. I think I'm on the third rotation in my list--the Chinese themed one--and I don't know that I really feel up to picking up something new right now. Something that I'm more familiar with would be better. So I may make another executive decision and go for the next project in the list which I think is the New England Sampler.

Getting back into it a bit

2009-10-12T16:59:00.004+11:00

Another weekend away but I did manage to do some stitching last night on Verandas. Yes I figured out that that is the rotation I'm on.

Brought my stitching to the swimming pool today to get some done while my daughter has school swimming then discovered I forgot to bring a needle! Instead of sticking it through the margin of the fabric I left it sticking in the arm of the couch! It doesn't look like I'm going to get very much work done this week either!

As promised here is the updated photo of Cottages II. Not a bad start to that one.

A bit of a lull in proceedings

2009-10-09T10:54:00.004+11:00

October is here and the busy end of year season has started early. We had a lovely break away last weekend to Phillip Island south of Melbourne. This weekend DH and I are off on a work retreat for his work to a winery area. And the following weekend Jade and I are off to a friend's near Canberra. So with all of the washing, organising and packing and unpacking I haven't touched my stitching for a week and may not do much this rotation. I'm not even sure which rotation it is!

I am also reading another Diana Gabaldon tome of nearly 1000 pages. It's the fifth one in her Outlander series called The Fiery Cross. I'm just over half way through the book and under pressure to finish it before October 23 as it's due back in the library then and someone else has a reservation on it so I can't renew it! After getting a bit tired of reading about Claire and Jamie I've hit my second wind and intend to go through to the next book before Christmas. The most recent book in the series isn't on the shelves of the library yet and there are 3 reserves on it so it's unlikely I'll get my chance to read that before Xmas.

I will leave posting a photo of my Cottages progress to a later entry.

Golden Gate Bridge finish!

2009-09-28T09:19:00.009+10:00

Another finish for the year! This time it's Debbie Patrick's Golden Gate Bridge. This project has been in the works since about May 2007 so it's one of my older projects and one that I blogged about here in 2007. I started it as my 'travel' project and in the early days mainly worked on it when my son was having his weekly tennis lesson. I found it very fiddly, though with frequent colour changes and lots of small patches of one colour. This made it difficult to work on as a 'pick up' project so when I re-planned my rotations this year I stuck it in as one of the rotations and that's worked out well.

So now (probably in a week or so) it's off to the craft shop to have this and the two Fabric Collectors framed. That will be great to get those all done!

Now I continue on with Cottages at Oak Bluffs II. Here a progress photo of that.

My birthday

2009-09-27T08:58:00.004+10:00

Friday was my birthday so I finally got to open my Daylight Ultimate Floor Lamp! I put it together yesterday morning with some help from my son and now it's all in place and ready to use. It looks fabulous! Last night I was too tired to do any stitching after working in the afternoon so today will be my first opportunity to try it out. My family are all marvelling at the lamp especially about its attachments--the magnifying lens, clip to hold a pattern and the utility tray. The only thing it's really missing is a cup holder! I've been waiting to own a lamp like this for over 20 years.

Started Cottages at Oak Bluffs

2009-09-24T07:18:00.003+10:00

OK cheating a bit here. I finished some of the backstitching on the bridge then realised I was running out of DMC356 (medium terracotta). Since I don't know how old some of my floss is I was wary about starting a new area with an old skein and then switching to a new skein in case there was a colour difference. So I started on the next project for this rotation until I get a chance to go to the craft shop and get more DMC. Then I ran into the same problem on cottages except this time I'm running out of DMC840 (medium beige brown). I've relied so long on my built up supplies of DMC that it's a bit of a shock to be running out of floss! Guess it's time to go shopping.

The colour descriptions for the floss are taken from this website: http://www.shopdmc.net/List%20of%20DMC%20colours.asp

Latrobe Terrace half finished

2009-09-21T21:04:00.006+10:00

In just two rotations I've finished half of Latrobe Terrace. I can't believe it. I've never worked so quickly on one of these Juniper Designs street scenes. (And I've already completed five of them.) When I've worked on them in a dedicated way prior to using a rotation system one has taken me about 10 months to finish. Here I am only the equivalent of one month into this one and I'm half done (not counting backstitching). I'm getting sold on the rotation system.

Today is the first day of the Term 3 school holidays which means I'm on an even more irregular schedule than normal with ferrying the kids around. Jarrah has a couple of orthodontist appointments (today is actually his official treatment start date) and baseball training on Wednesdays. Jade has a busy gymnastics training schedule with more mornings than usual. Thank goodness Paul takes her for the 7am starts! I've also got work this Wednesday and my usual Saturday afternoon examinings this Saturday. So who knows what will get done this rotation? One good thing is that this is the final rotation on the Golden Gate Bridge and there's only backstitching to do. I've done a bunch today but there's heaps more with all of the bridge cables. I hope I have enough DMC356 to finish it all!

I'm going to make a list of all of the patterns and kits I have. It's going to be painful doing this because it's only going to highlight the impossibility of getting through it all.

We went to the Melbourne Show (actually the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Show--like a US State Fair) yesterday and I took a few photos of the kids. I thought I'd upload one of them in the animal nursery.

Good progress on Latrobe Terrace

2009-09-14T13:52:00.004+10:00

I'm halfway through my Latrobe Terrace rotation and well into the building on the far right of the pattern. I have just a bit of foreground and background to do to finish this area and the whole right side of the design. And this is only my second rotation on this project. It's amazing how quickly it has gone in just 3 weeks! I can remember similar projects like this taking 10 months of dedicated work to finish. At the almost half-way mark I can't believe how fast this one is!

Yesterday I prepared the fabric for Cottages at Oak Bluffs II. I bound off the edges and made the centering lines. I'm going to do this one the same as Oak Bluffs I where I stitched both houses on the one piece of aida and then framed them as a set. The first one hangs in my son's room and looks great there. The second one will go in my daughter's room.

Today I ordered 5 new Barbara & Cheryl (of Verandas and Rainbow Row fame) patterns that I love. I inherited two from my mother but wanted to do some others as well. These will be waiting for me at my Dad's in the US when we go there for Christmas. The patterns I ordered are: The Garden Wall, Shady Afternoon (love the red and pink tones), Queen Street Alley, South Battery View and Ironwork Gate. I just discovered that the gate in Ironwork Gate is the one in another Barbara & Cheryl that I already have: Under the Oaks. I'll be doing one of my many Barbara & Cheryl patterns in the Verandas rotation once I have finished Verandas.

Fabric Collector #2 Finish!

2009-09-07T12:01:00.005+10:00

I'm a week late writing this but I finished the second version of The Fabric Collector by stretching its rotation into a third week. I had really lost most of my interest in the project after already completing one but thought I should continue on and get it done so that I can take the two of them for framing at the same time and well before the Christmas rush. I'm just going to wait to finish the backstitching on the Golden Gate Bridge which I should do in its next rotation later this month and then I'll take all three for framing.

So here is the second Fabric Collector. I did a better job on this one in not making the couple of errors I made on the first one. But in comparing them they look pretty similar. At any rate, the two recipients--my sister and sister-in-law--don't live anywhere near each other so they'll never get the two of them side by side for comparison.

In extending one rotation by a week I decided to cut the rotation on New England Sampler by a week and so I have a photo of that also to show. I didn't put a lot of time into it over the week. I finished a couple of small buildings, the deer and some of the foreground to the centre of the sampler. It is coming along slowly.

New Daylight lights have arrived!

2009-08-21T12:26:00.002+10:00

My two new Daylight lights have arrived but (Boo Hoo) I've been told I have to wait a month for my birthday to open the large one.

I just picked up the small portable one from the post office this morning. I got it for a real bargain price on eBay. It's a $120 lamp which I got for $62. I'm hoping the family isn't going to make me wait to use this one as well! Maybe what they don't know can't hurt them. He he.

Continuing with Fabric Collector

2009-08-19T07:48:00.002+10:00

My work this rotation has been sporadic because I've spent more time in the car driving children from place to place. Last week Jade had a training camp at the VIS (Victorian Institute of Sport) in Prahran (inner Melbourne). The traffic and parking down there is horrendous. Thankfully this time all of the parents of the gymnasts involved formed a car pool so we didn't have to do as much driving and waiting around as last time.

Yesterday I had a ridiculous day driving Jarrah to school early for band practice, waiting around for 40 minutes to access the once a week secondhand uniform shop so I could drop off uniform to sell, waiting around for another 50 minutes, taking him to the dentist, driving him back to school, coming home for an hour then going back to Jade's school to pick her up and take her to training, coming home for 2 hours then going back to pick her up at 5. The day was a total write-off but I did do some cross-stitch in the evening.

Since I haven't had as much time as usual to cross stitch I'm planning on continuing with this project into next week in order to finish it. Rules were meant to be broken, weren't they? This will cut into the two weeks of the New England Sampler a bit but that's not my favourite project and it's a long way from being finished so that's OK.

On House #2

2009-08-14T10:10:00.004+10:00

Another great rotation where I finished House #3 and made a good start on House #2. I'm beginning to be able to predict the finish of this project. About 3 more rotations to finish the cross-stitching then one more for the backstitching. So 4 rotations. That would be a May 2010 finish. Close but not that close I guess. The main thing is that I am progressing on all my projects at a rate that I wouldn't be otherwise. Certainly if I wasn't rotating at all I wouldn't be getting through these projects the way I am.

I decided to swap the order of the next two projects I'm working on so I've started back on The Fabric Collector. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to break up the big projects and not do one big one after the other--ie Verandas followed by the New England Sampler. Secondly, I wanted to break up the linen projects--ie Fabric Collector followed by LaTrobe Terrace. So this rotation is my second on the second version of the Fabric Collector. I haven't done heaps on it but I am making progress.

At the moment I'm really struggling with getting good light on my work. It seems that no matter which way I turn myself or the lamp or the magnifier that I wear around my neck I get shadows. So I've finally broken down and bought a specific craft lamp--the Daylight Ultimate Floor Lamp. I bought it on ebay and saved about $30by doing so. I just picked it up from the post office this morning and it is waiting for me to assemble it. It is a new lamp in the box.

Not only that but I also bought the Daylight portable light to use on the go. It also has a magnifier with it.

Back into the swing of things

2009-08-05T11:11:00.003+10:00

I've been working very well on Verandas since Sunday. I finished House #3 and am doing the foreground in front of the house now. My aim for the rest of this week is to finish the foreground and start on House #2 (the yellow house on the left side of the project).

This morning I went to Spotlight and bought some new DMC for various projects on the go and for one I am preparing to start. I bought 2 skeins of white, and one of 3051, 934, 775 and 3813. I also looked at daylight lamps. I am having eyestrain from the lighting I use. I have been using a floor uplamp with a 'daughter' arm but I can never seem to aim the light so that I don't have any shadows. I'm looking through a magnifying glass which I wear around my neck and that is a big factor with the shadows too. This week I've added another floor lamp with a daylight bulb but still I'm not getting enough light. I don't know whether to get a Daylight light or an Ott light. Today I saw a lightbox which sits on your lap and shines up through your work so I don't know if that is something I should consider. It would be helpful if there was some way to try these things out first because they cost hundreds of dollars and who knows how good they are?

Anyway, here is the new project I'm getting ready to do. It's another Debbie Patrick.

An admission

2009-07-31T20:39:00.002+10:00

OK I admit I haven't been cross-stitching this week. I've just finished two weeks casual full-time work and have been too exhausted in the evenings to pick anything up. Being the end of the month I've also had two school council meetings to attend since I'm on both of my children's school councils. This is my second year on my daughter's (primary) school council and my first year on my son's (secondary) school council. I'm starting to get into both of them and am enjoying getting the inside info on how schools are run.

Tomorrow is also probably not a cross-stitching day as I'm taking my son to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and then my DH and I have one of his annual work dinners to attend in the evening. I hope I don't fall asleep on the table!

I have been doing a lot of reading lately though. I've nearly finished the third book in the Outlander series. I wrote before that I was reading the first book Cross-stitch. I then read Dragonfly in Amber and came very close to deciding not to read any more books in this series because of some of the very gory bits that were in the first two books. The description of Drawing and Quartering in Dragonfly was what nearly did me in. But I decided to go on with it and I'm now less than 100 pages from the end of the third book Voyager. This book has been much less gory and generally more enjoyable so I'm glad I've stuck with it. I'm looking forward to the fourth book Drums of Autumn which I have in paperback. My sister brought this book from the US to Australia when she last came to visit 10 years ago and it's been sitting on my bookshelf since. I've just read that it takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, where my sister lives, so I think I'm really going to enjoy reading it.

Only backstitching to go!

2009-07-27T06:41:00.003+10:00

Here's the bridge with all of the cross-stitching completed! I've been working full time in a fill-in position and so didn't do any work on it during the week. Luckily I managed to finish it over the weekend. So the next time it comes around again I only have the backstitching to do to finish it off. Hooray! I'm really pleased with the progress I'm making on my projects this year.

Finally getting somewhere with the Bridge

2009-07-20T14:37:00.010+10:00

I've finished the foreground of the Golden Gate Bridge despite the hiccup with the shades of green. With three green shades sprinkled amongst each other I don't think it is apparent at all that there is a minor colour difference between two areas of DMC3051. So the problem wasn't really a problem at all.

Closeup of the green area

Since I finished the foreground I've been working on the buildings on the other side of the bridge. This is where I've got small numbers of stitches of many different colours. Rather than keep threading my needle with a new colour I've been keeping the one colour and moving through the pattern doing as many areas of that colour as possible. Because it's harder to see any progress towards completion this way I now realise this is why this project has been seeming to take so long. I think now it's about 80-85% complete however so the end is in sight!

Last night I went back to doing some of the cloud areas in the sky. I made a small error near the end and decided to take a few rows out and re-do them. I'm working with DMC775, a very light blue. The threads I'm using are from a plastic spool in my mother's DMC box which I inherited. It's wonderful to have this collection with all of the DMC colours (excepting some of the newer ones) organised on labelled spools. The numbers on the spool tags are in her handwriting which makes it even more special. It's funny, my Dad was going to give the box away to a friend of hers after she passed away until I asked him if I could have it. It's a wonderful keepsake of her for me especially as she was such a craftswoman. She was also, however, a smoker and a heavy one especially towards the end of her life when the Alzheimers really affected her memory. She would light up a cigarette, forget she was already smoking one and light up another one. She nearly started a fire at least once when she put a lit cigarette in a plastic waste basket full of papers. When I first brought the DMC box home every time I opened it I would smell her cigarette smoke. This definitely brought back memories of her to me. I go into all this background because number 775 was stained due to the cigarette smoke. I didn't want to throw it out though so the other day I washed the thread with liquid detergent. Most of it lightened up. The one length of 6 strands that didn't I threw out.

My mother's DMC box--the box opens on 2 sides and both sides are full of DMC spools

The threads for this project organised into snack bags on metal stationery rings

I'm now close to finishing two of the five items in my rotations--this one and version 2 of The Fabric Collector. So now I can begin to think about what other projects in my stash I'd like to do next. It's exciting to be getting through projects like this! More on this later.

DMC colour problem

2009-07-16T15:01:00.003+10:00

I'm working on the foreground below the left support of the bridge doing the various shades of green there. I stitched one section with 3051, a medium green, then began stitching just below it with another strand of the same colour. After doing a few rows I realised that there was a slight (but to me noticable) colour difference between the two areas. The new strands I'm using are a bit darker, almost with a blackish tinge to them whereas the first strands I used don't have that blackish appearance. You probably wouldn't see the difference in a photo but when I finish this rotation and put a photo up you can have a look at it.

This problem has slowed my progress as I've found it discouraging. I've decided to keep going on with it and to look at the first area I've done after I finish stitching all of this colour. I may have to restitch what I did with the first two strands. It wouldn't be a lot of work. I hate problems like this.

Completed a quarter of Latrobe Terrace!

2009-07-13T11:33:00.003+10:00

Well I've come to the end of a very productive rotation. I worked on two projects at the same time, completed one while starting a new one and I've finished about 25% of the new one! It is really refreshing to do something new and it's also refreshing to finish a project, especially one which has been hanging around for a while. And all of this was done during the kids' two week school holiday. I don't know how much more I can say about it.

So now I'm back to the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm ready to move on and leave Latrobe Terrace (and working on linen) and get back to Aida, even if it is 18 count. I need to set a method of attack for the bridge as I keep changing my method from trying to finish all of one color to trying to finish one area. This time I think I need to focus on one area and finish it. It's hard for me to estimate how far along I am with this project because there are gaps all over. I'm probably 2/3 done. I don't think I can finish it this rotation but maybe the next time it comes around I can.

Another Finish!

2009-07-10T08:29:00.005+10:00

Yes I can finally report that I've finished the Christmas calendar. Hooray! After starting this in the lead-up to Christmas 2007 it is at last completed in time for Christmas 2009. I've uploaded this photo of it to webshots in a new album called 2009 Finishes.

So the remainder of this rotation is now officially Latrobe Terrace.

My rotation schedule now is:

1. Golden Gate Bridge
2. Verandas of South Battery
3. New England Sampler
4. The Fabric Collector #2
5. Latrobe Terrace

I'm dropping the Map of Australia for now. Maybe I'll contemplate adding it in tandem with another project when I complete the second Fabric Collector. Working on two in one rotation seems to work when I have a less favoured project because it enables me to choose which one to work on.

Updated webshots photos

2009-07-09T09:23:00.002+10:00

Yet another post this week! I must have time on my hands! I've updated my webshots photo album with progress shots of three of my WIPs in a new album called 2009 WIPs. In it are the Christmas calendar, New England Sampler and Verandas progress shots. I may put more photos into it today.

I've also repaired the link to that website on this blog so you can actually click on it now and get there.

I think that's it for now.

Finished top of Christmas calendar

2009-07-08T10:02:00.003+10:00

I know this is my third post this week and I usually don't post my progress so much but since I've been posting about Latrobe Terrace when my rotation actually is the Christmas calendar I thought I should post my semi-finish of the calendar.

So here is the top of the calendar which I finished last night. It's looking pretty good I think. Now just have to secure it to the bottom, fix the backing on the bottom and attach a hanging string and I can really report a finish!

Cross-stitch the novel

2009-07-07T08:43:00.004+10:00

For a number of years I've toyed with reading this novel by Diana Gabaldon, mainly because of it's title. (It actually has nothing to do with cross-stitching and the book is titled 'Outlander' in the US publishing world.) I also like reading historical fiction so it was within my area of interest. I don't know why it took me so long to finally get around to it but last week I finished reading this book, the first in a growing series called the Voyager series. I'm now on the second book 'Dragonfly in Amber'. The seventh book is due for release this year.

Cross-stitch tells the story of Claire, a former WWII nurse, who in 1947 visits a stone circle in Scotland and is transported back to 1743. There (or should I say then?) she meets an outlaw named Jamie Fraser, marries him, although she is already married in the 20th century, and has many adventures with him while they try to elude the English forces occupying Scotland. Some of the details of what befalls them are gruesome but other details of life in this time are fascinating.

The second book begins in the 20th century with Claire and her 20 year old daughter Brianna(Jamie's child) returning to Scotland from New York where they live so that Claire can tell Brianna about her past. There is a 21 year gap in time from the end of the first book and readers are left to ponder when and why Claire left Jamie.

Anyway, yesterday I did a fair bit of cross-stitching on Latrobe Terrace and I've started the second building (the much larger one) to the right of the centre. The kids had a ball at the roller skating rink and I had 2.5 hours to myself to cross-stitch plus what I did last night. Today's we're going to see Ice Age 3 and a friend is coming over for a sleep-over. If I have time in the evening I will work on the Christmas calendar.

Started Latrobe Terrace!

2009-07-05T12:33:00.004+10:00

scan of the kit cover

I'm cheating a bit with this rotation because I started Latrobe Terrace (Juniper Designs) before finishing the Christmas calendar. The calendar is coming along well but I seem to need to take breaks from it so I started sorting the threads from Latrobe Terrace. Then I bound off the fabric edges and marked the centre lines. Tuesday night after doing a bit on the calendar I decided to take a break and do some cross-stitching so I made a start on the small building to the right of the middle of the pattern. I've had a busy few days since then and have only done small amounts of work both on the calendar and this cross-stitch. But I have another week to get the calendar done so there shouldn't be any problems finishing it. I'm up to embroidering the reindeer's body. Then I can sew it on, followed by the head and lastly the outside ear. Then all I have to do is to join the top and bottom, sew on the backing and a hanging string and it's all done!

details of the houses

We're right in the middle of school holidays now. Despite what many people think these weeks are actually busier than school weeks with all of the activities the kids are up to. This next week we've got a number of playdates including a sleep-over scheduled. Tomorrow the kids are going roller blading. I can't join them in the rink because of my frozen shoulder so I guess I'll be cross-stitching. He, he.

My first finish for 2009!

2009-06-30T15:23:00.006+10:00

It seems rather strange to be reporting a finish! Just goes to show how used I am to doing large projects that take up to or over a year to complete.

I finished The Fabric Collector half way through the second week of my last rotation. I knew I could finish it during that rotation but, a you may recall, I'd made a boo-boo on it right at the beginning of the rotation and then didn't pick it up for about 4 days because I knew I'd have to fix it up and that's a drag. Well I fixed it up at the same time as working on a new area--did a bit of fixing then a bit of new stuff--and that kept me interested enough to go on with it. I am just amazed that I finished it in 3 and a half weeks!

This is the first time I finished something while using this rotation system and all of a sudden I wondered what to do with the remaining half week of the rotation. Should I do another Fabric Collector for my sister-in-law who is also a quilter or should I sort out the colours from the Latrobe Terrace kit and get that ready or should I get a half week's head start on my next rotation? All possibilities opened up. In the end I decided to start another Fabric Collector as a second Christmas gift since the first one only took 3.5 weeks. I think I've made more progress on it the second time around than I did in the same amount of time on the first one. I'm being more careful this time about counting my rows so that the pattern elements are correctly positioned. Not that it really matters with the first one. I think it looks great!

The kit contains enough fabric and floss to make 3 samplers but there were only enough buttons for one (the buttons go in the corners and mid way along the top and bottom) so I went to Lincraft and bought 6 buttons for the second one. I'm hopeful of finishing this piece when its rotation comes around again.

Second round of The Fabric Collector--another Xmas gift!

So now it's the end of June, about the time when I planned to add the Christmas calendar to my rotations. I've decided I hate the map of Australia so much that I'm going to put it aside for a while and work on things I like. So I started back on the Christmas calendar again. I've been working on this off and on since about October 2007. Back then I finished the pockets and nearly all of the ornaments that go in them to count down to Christmas. Last year I started a bit earlier, finished the last ornament and then worked on the top part of the design with Santa and the pine trees. There's a lot of work involved in cutting out the felt and sewing the sequins on the various pieces there so I didn't finish it in time for Christmas again. But the kids used it as it was and it was fine. This year it's going to be finished. In fact it will be finished this rotation.

Yesterday I started in on it by doing the sequins on the part with the pockets. That was fiddly especially as some of the beads wouldn't thread through the needle. Anyway, I got that part done last night then started on the part with the pine trees. I stuffed and sewed the snowman on and part of the sign in front of him. I've worked again on that area today and he's coming along well. I have yet to sew on his right arm, hat and the sign in front of him. Then it's on to the reindeer which is the last element in this area. Finally it's attaching the top to the piece with the pockets and sewing the backing on and it's finished!

Piece with the pockets with sequins--finished!

Santa and the snowman (nearly finished) waiting for the reindeer.

I haven't yet decided if I'm going to start Latrobe Terrace next in lieu of the map of Australia or if I'll go back to the Golden Gate Bridge and the start of my rotations. I'm mindful that if I add too many projects in rotation it's going to take me longer and longer to get around to them. Hummmm. I'll see how I feel when I finish the Christmas calendar.

Half way through my current rotation

2009-06-22T14:26:00.003+10:00

I started this rotation with great enthusiasm last Monday by working on the border of the sampler then . . .whoops! . . .discovered after I'd finished one side that I'd mispositioned the thread spools by one row. Oh darn! I was really annoyed. This project just seems to invite mistakes. I don't know what it is. Maybe because all of the stitched areas are separated. I don't know. All I know is that I didn't seem to find the time during the week to undo what I'd done. On Saturday I started to fix some of it up and last night I finished fixing my mistakes and also finished all of the thread spools on the other 3 sides of the piece.

Sunday nights are a really good time for me to get a lot of stitching done. I should probably be brain dead from sitting in front of the TV for 4 hours but I don't mind all of the forensic TV shows. They keep me entertained while I stitch. So here's where I'm up to as of this morning. You can see I even started the saying at the bottom. I just keep jumping all over the pattern and doing whatever I feel like. I still have to go back and finish stitching all of the fabric on the shelves and there's a small quilt on the upper right wall to do. There's a bit of backstitching as well. How far am I going to get this week? And will I make any more mistakes????

One rotation finishes and another one begins

2009-06-19T10:51:00.007+10:00

I made a big push last Sunday night to bring the small section of the New England Sampler to some sort of a finished state. As I previously wrote I'm doing the lower band starting on the left hand side and going across. This area depicts a farm scene with an apple tree and some buildings. I finished the apple tree and the foreground in front of it and did some of the foreground below the buildings. I've also decided not to stitch the phrase 'Stitched by . . .' in the dark green foreground. I always put my intials and a date on my stitching and I'd rather just do that. So I'm doing the bottom of the foreground totally in the dark green. It looks nice so far so I hope it will turn out nice.

I received a surprise email from a former co-worker who liked the two Charleston cross-stitch patterns I had (Rainbow Row and Verandas) so much that she copied them and finished Rainbow Row long before I'd even started it. Now more than 10 years later she's working on Verandas and she emailed me because she was missing part of one page of the pattern. It's amazing that we're both working on the same project in the exact same area of the project without knowing it. Not many people have my taste for doing large cross-stitches of houses so it's great to be able to share the journey with someone. So I thought I should put up a photo of Rainbow Row which I finished nearly 10 years ago in November 1999. Wow, I had no idea it had been so long!

Now I'm working on the small sampler Christmas present for my sister. I don't know why but I keep making mistakes on this one. I'm working on the border and mispositioned some of the thread spools so I'm unsititching at the moment. Frustrating!

Thank you for voting!

2009-06-10T12:06:00.003+10:00

Thanks to everyone who voted on which Juniper Designs street scene I should start next. I don't know if voting was along a state-based bias or not but I agree with the result. I think LaTrobe Terrace is the most interesting of the 4 projects because of the unique style of the houses and the bright colours. I can't say I've ever seen LaTrobe Terrace in person where I have seen the other three, but why should I let that stop me!

I'm into my second week on the New England sampler and it's going well but not fast. I've had a lot of extra 'outside' activities on including my daughter's appearance in the state gymnastics championships. Life does get in the way of stitching sometimes! I did end up going down from the middle and I'm working on the lower band of the sampler. My main focus has been an apple tree. I'm enjoying this area very much because it uses several tones of the same colour of apple green (what else!). I've got a few days left on this rotation but we'll be having houseguests from tomorrow and over the weekend so I don't know how much more I'm going to be able to do.

Reluctantly time to move on to next project

2009-06-01T10:41:00.004+10:00

Well my Verandahs rotation is up. This is my favourite project so I'm really sorry not to be continuing on it. I didn't finish the house I was working on but I'll finish it next time for sure.

So now it's on to the New England Sampler. I feel reluctant to pick this up again because I'm enjoying the Verandahs so much but also because I have to start a new section of it and, since I've finished the middle of the design, I have to decide whether to go up or down. I think I'm going down.

There are definitely projects I like more than others and I wish I could spend more time on the ones I like--but then the others would never get done. So there it is!

Now about my poll--it looks like LaTrobe Terrace, Brisbane is narrowly leading Sydney. LaTrobe is the most colourful of the designs so that's probably not surprising. I'll have to decide where I'm going to fit it into the rotation. I'll do another rotation on the Fabric collector sampler then probably slot it in after that because I'm hoping to come close to finishing the Fabric collector this next rotation.

I'm going to have a push this week on the decluttering I've been doing. I just want to get it done and I also have guests coming next week so it would be nice to finish it before they come and to have the house looking really nice. My DH is also having a big declutter in his junk room. He must have 20 + boxes of papers in there plus other stuff spread all over the place. The decluttering he's doing now is the most I've ever seen him do. I just hope he either finishes before the guests come or keeps it up after they've gone. Well I'd best get back to sorting through piles and deciding what to do with them.

First week of Verahdahs rotation

2009-05-25T16:47:00.006+10:00

I thought I should update my blog to show that I've really been working on my cross-stitch. Well here it is. I've just taken a quick photo without removing my work from the hoop. This is a photo of House #3, the house just to the left of the middle of the piece. I really love its colours even though they are in the light brown family. I think it just looks superb. The roof is is a dark brownish purple which just sets the house off beautifully. Here it is.

What you see here in the hoop has all been done this week. This includes the light green bush to the right of the house. With one more week to go on this rotation I think I'll be able to finish the lower part of the house. It does have a flowering bush or tree in it to make it a bit tricky but I still should be able to complete it. I may not be able to do all of the foreground because it's got a lot of colour changes. But we'll see how I go.

Now I'm starting to think about starting another project and adding it to the rotations. I'm thinking of doing one of my Juniper Designs street scenes. I have four of them--Strahan, Tasmania, Beechworth, Victoria, Sydney and Brisbane. I've had Strahan the longest--about 10 years. Brisbane is the most recent one I've bought but even that must be 5 or so years ago. You can vote on which one I should do first!

Strahan Tasmania

Beechworth, Victoria

The Rocks, Sydney

LaTrobe Terrace, Brisbane

Naughty, naughty!!

2009-05-22T10:59:00.004+10:00

I can't tell you how many times I've intended to update this blog!!! Each time I got sidetracked. I've been doing a bit of eBay selling lately and much of my computer time has been taken up with that. But it's gone a bit quiet for now so here goes.

I'm not very proud to say that the Aussie map didn't go very far. I did some work on it the first couple of days of the rotation but then couldn't bring myself to pick it up. So that was a very unproductive 2 week rotation.

I did much better the next 2 weeks working back on the Golden Gate Bridge (Debbie Patrick pattern). In fact that has really come along. I haven't posted a picture of it for absolute ages so here it is!

As you can see I'm working all over the place. Sometimes I decide that I want to complete one area--such as under the bridge. At other times I decide that I want to follow one colour and do it wherever it is on the pattern. On this rotation I finished under the right bridge support, the water section between the two supports and then I started doing DMC#775 (very pale blue) all over the sky. There is a lot of that colour so I didn't finish it. No idea where I'm going to decide to pick up next time.

That rotation went very quickly and now I'm back on the Verandahs one from Charleston. I think this is really my favourite piece right now. I don't know why. I just love doing the houses. I've started working on House #3 which is the house just to the left of the centre of the piece. I haven't done heaps but it is going well. I'm working from the roof of the house down and I've done some of the bushes between it and the completed House #4 to its right.

This is still my first week of this rotation and I want to make the most of it. Next week my son goes away on a music camp for 3 days so they'll be a bit less driving around for me and maybe a bit more stitching?

Not doing very well

2009-04-23T07:00:00.002+10:00

Well so far this week I've only worked on my cross-stitch one day. The concentration required to work on this project is so great that it is not an enticing project to pick up in the evenings when I'm tired and during the day when I'm on the go there's no way I can pick it up and work for a few minutes. It takes me a few minutes to even figure out where to put the next stitch! I know I'm whinging. It has been a busy week so far and I've been out quite a bit. Maybe next week things will settle in a bit and I'll be at home more and work on it during the day a bit.

The Cross-stitch from Hell!

2009-04-21T09:32:00.005+10:00

Here is the picture of the completed cross-stitch that came with the kit.

This is where I'm starting from.

Well I've delayed and procrastinated and now my rotations have finally taken me to the project I dislike the most. This is the cross-stitch from hell--the map of Australia. Why is it such a problem? There are a couple of reasons. First, it is loaded with half and quarter stitches. Thank goodness I'm using linen or I would have had to abandon the project before this as I couldn't have done it on Aida. Second, the kit as it was originally made up was to commemorate the torch relay around Australia for the Sydney Olympics. So it has a lot of Olympic stuff on it that I am not including as all I wanted was a map. You can see I've done quite a bit on it. I'm working on the border now and the bunches of flowers in the corners are a real pain in the pitoozie. I'm trying to push through it all.

What I'm not including are: the backstitching showing the route of the torch relay, the guff about number of athletes, etc in the border, most of the stuff on the bottom where the Olympic torch, etc is. I think I'm going to include the word 'Australia'. I'm not sure about the flag yet.

Is it going to be too plain with this stuff removed? I'm not sure. I've never altered a cross-stitch pattern as much as I'm going to do with this one before. So I just don't know. I'm going to start to do the backstitching within the map area as well as working on the corner flowers. I'll see how I go.

New project half done!

2009-04-20T08:05:00.007+10:00

It's been a busy two weeks with the kids being home for the school holidays and Paul and I (but mainly Paul) painting two rooms in the house--including the room where I do most of my cross-stitching. I was really only excluded from the room for a couple of days so it didn't affect my progess at all. In fact, I had lots of extra stitching time while my son Jarrah was having some catch-up French tutoring. Last year Jarrah decided to change languages three quarters of the way through the year because his Chinese teacher wasn't teaching to his level but was teaching at a beginner's level. Because he's studied Chinese for 7 years already he found the class too boring. These holidays were really his first opportunity to get some tutoring to catch up for the three terms of French he missed last year. So each day I took him to his tutor and sat outside in the car and stitched while I waited. I started on a new project called The Fabric Collector and have finished about 50% of it. So I hope a good run on my next rotation of it should finish it. It would be wonderful to finish a project so quickly because I mainly work on long-winded projects!

Thanks to everyone who participated in my poll on how to leave a project at the end of a rotation. I see that the majority prefer to leave a project at some sort of a 'finishing' point rather than at the start of a new area. I'm going to take that on board and try to do that each rotation when possible.

Now having said that I have to admit that this rotation I didn't quite finish off the last area I was working on and last night I just didn't have the desire to keep going. So I thought it was better to stop rather than really force myself. I reluctantly have to admit I made a mistake on this piece and I've decided that it doesn't matter so I'm not going to undo it. So much for my rules!!!!

Actually I first made a deliberate change to the pattern when I was doing the quilt on the wall of the sewing room. The quilt was not symmetrical in its design. I was really surprised about that and, being a Libra, just couldn't live with it. So I added 3 columns to make the quilt symmetrical. I was really happy I did that. However, what I mucked up was the placement of the quilt on the linen. Somehow I got it two rows too high and didn't realise it. Then I counted from the quilt to the top of the bookcase and didn't double check this by counting from another part of the pattern so the bookcase ended up being two rows too tall. Whereas all the shelves are supposed to be the same height, now the second shelf is two rows higher than the other shelves. I'm annoyed about that but I've just added more fabric on that shelf so that it doesn't look empty compared with the other shelves. You can see this below. At least the mistake I made involved full rows and not half rows as can happen when working with linen. I know now I should have used more guidelines. If I make this piece again--and the kit came with enough fabric to make two more of these!--I will use more guidelines.

Chair, Quilt and Sewing machine. Note the 3 added columns on the quilt's right which made the pattern on it symmetrical.

Bookcase with extra tall second shelf.

So the rotation on this piece is over and what I didn't finish was putting all the fabric on the bookcase shelves. That will be where I'll pick it up next time. After that there is one small quilt above the sewing machine on the right then it is just the sampler border and saying.

Finished my Sampler rotation

2009-04-06T07:21:00.007+10:00

Well it's Monday morning and I'm at the changeover from one rotation to the next. Last night, later than I'd expected, I finished working on the New England Sampler and I finished it at a good stopping point. I'm sure it took me more than the 2-3 hours I predicted and it didn't help that I made a tiny mistake and then had to undo stitches. But I have left it at a 'finishing' point without starting a new area and I've also left it without the mistake in it--another one of my 'rules'.

Can you see the single stitch gap in the purple row? Not leaving that was the mistake I made last night. There is a church steeple that goes through that gap. Anyway, I'm really glad I fixed that up!

Maybe I should put in writing some of the craft rules I've come up with over the years.

1. Always finish a project. (I guess most of us have this rule.)

I used to have a corollary to this which was Don't start a new project until you finish the project you're working on. ie only work on one thing at a time. I don't follow this rule anymore! (And sometimes this bugs me--but the results--getting things done that I otherwise wouldn't do--speak for themselves.)

2. Don't leave a project with a mistake in it. (You won't want to pick it up again because it will be a pain figuring out what was wrong and undoing it. Of course the longer you leave a project untouched with a mistake in it the harder it is the next time to remember what the mistake was and figure out what to do about it.)

3. Always, always, always go back and undo mistakes and re-do it right. Even if the mistake is invisible to 99% of the people who will look at your project YOU will always know it is there and your eye will be drawn to it whenever you look at the project and you will regret not fixing it. The amount of time it takes to fix a mistake is tiny compared to the volume of regret you will feel later.

Those are the main rules I can think of now. I have a particular cross-stitch rule which I guess most of us also have--Wash hands every time before working on a cross-stitch. Recently when I was working on a hot day and sweating and I was away from home I had to compromise about this rule. I've tried using hand sanitiser when I couldn't wash my hands. I don't know if this helped with cleanliness but at least I wasn't getting germs on my work!

This is my next project. I was looking at the pattern last night and it really looks like it will be a breeze to finish. One can always hope! Oh, it comes with two sayings. I'm going to do 'she who collects the most fabric wins'.

Good Progress on the New England Sampler

2009-04-05T08:59:00.004+10:00

Here is a scan of the New England Sampler pattern cover. I discovered in looking at the actual cover that even the original is blurry! No wonder my photos come out blurry! This is very unsatisfactory when I'm trying to examine the picture to clarify a question I have on the pattern and all there is is blurr. I've even looked on the internet for a clearer picture and this is all there is. I did find another blogger working on this piece but she's done the top part down to the start of the state names whereas that's basically where I've started and I'm currently working down from there.

Today is my last day on this rotation and I'm just about at a good stopping point as well. Probably 2-3 hours work on it today will have me finishing the flowers and the purple separating line below the nautically themed band. I'm not sure if in this case it is good to stop there because it leaves me with two options on starting up again. Either do the village life band at the bottom or the historical band above the state names--or even count my way to the top of the sampler and work there. No too risky if I miscount. I'd rather do one of the bands adjacent to where I've already worked. So is flexibility good or should I choose one band and do a few stitches so that I'm committed to a choice for next time? Maybe I'll do a poll on this.

My next rotation is a new project! I'm going to start this small Juniper Designs project which will be a Xmas present for my sister.

Although I was told that the kit came with enough fabric and floss for both versions it disappointingly only came with one set of floss colours and it uses Ginnie Thompson Flower thread which I don't have a lot of. One version is in bright colours and the other is in darker 'country' colours. Well the kit contained two pieces of linen--one dark brown and one 'natural' but there was only the 'country' colored floss. I don't think the kit had been tampered with at all. So I'm going to use the 'natural' linen and the 'country' coloured floss. I think it will look nice. My sister is a quilter and she has a book shelf like the one pictured in the project filled with fat quarters filed by colour. We'll see how long the project takes as now I have two Christmas projects in the queue to get done.

I thought I should formalise my rotations as they will stand at the moment. So here are the projects I am rotating:

1. Golden Gate Bridge--55% complete (this is a small project so should finish quicker)

2. Verandas of South Battery--50% complete

3. New England Sampler--25% complete

4. The Fabric Collector--new project (but a small one!)

5. Map of Australia--80% complete (This one is a real pain with half and quarter stitches plus I'm changing the pattern and not really sure what I'm going to do with it. I am completing the border, however, so a good push on this should have me finish it soon.)

To be added into the rotation after July:

6.Felt Christmas Calendar--85% complete.

What I hope to finish this year:

Certainly #1 the Golden Gate Bridge. That's a smallie.

#5 The Map of Australia if it doesn't drive me crazy first.

#6 The Christmas calendar.

Obviously #4 The Fabric Collector if it's to be a Christmas present needs to be finished well before Christmas.

Then there are other projects (quilting) that I'm considering for this year. I have a collection of bright coloured flannel to make a lap quilt for my daughter. She keeps nagging me about this. I also have a lovely Civil War quilt kit to make a new quilt for my bed. I don't have photos of either of these but I'll put them up soon. If I start on these then obviously cross-stitch is going to fall behind. I'll just have to see what my priorities are.

Over the next two weeks my son is having some private French tutoring and I'm planning on sitting outside the tutor's house while he has his lesson and cross-stitching. So I should make some real progress!

Some projects from 2008

2009-03-29T10:47:00.005+11:00

Since I didn't do any blogging in 2008 I thought it would be nice to put up some photos of things I worked on and finished that year. First I'd like to show Cottages at Oak Bluffs I by Debbie Patrick which came out really nice and is beautifully framed and in my son's room. I love the blue and yellow tones of this piece. In January last year we also painted my son's bedroom and he chose a blue feature wall which is where this piece is hung so everything ties in together very well. Since this was one of the rotation pieces I was blogging about in 2007 I thought I should show it off as a finished piece.

The other project I've worked on in the lead-up to two Christmases is a Bucilla Christmas calendar which has turned out to be a massive job. It's still not finished but I'm planning on adding it to my rotations in the second half of this year and hopefully will finish it off then. I finished the pockets in late November 2007 and worked progressively finishing the ornaments which go in them in the lead-up to that Christmas. I finished all but one ornament--the reindeer--that year. I started working on it again in early November 2008 hoping and assuming I would actually finish it in time for Christmas but it has turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated.

In 2007 I made four flannel quilts--one for myself and three presents and late last year I made two identital photo memory quilt which came out really nice. The photos are taking a long time to upload so I'll put up photos of those in another blog. I've also got a few new pieces of stash that I could put up.

It's nice to be able to blog about things I've finished!

A massive effort on Verandas

2009-03-27T06:41:00.004+11:00

The right side of Verandas finished--except for the backstitching!

Close up of house #4

Close up of house #s 5 & 6

Well I put a lot of pressure on myself last week to finish House #6 and the whole right side of this cross-stitch by Sunday. I did it but only with a massive effort staying up late stitching many nights and working for hours on the weekend. I finally finished the bush to the right of the house on Sunday night at 11:15pm. I'm so glad I brought the piece to this point as it will be more encouraging to pick it up on the next rotation because I'll be starting on a new house (#3) back in the middle of the pattern. The downside is that I'm a little bit burnt out from cross-stitching so this week I've been taking it a bit easier and not pushing myself so much.

My rotation for this fortnight is the New England Sampler and I'm working on the middle pannel which focuses on nautical themes. So far I've done a couple of small boats and am working on a rocky headland with a lighthouse. It's a total refreshing change from the Verandas and I think that may be one of the keys to keeping the rotations fresh--that and not pushing myself too much all the time.

Coming to the end of my Verandas rotation

2009-03-22T11:26:00.003+11:00

Just coming to the end of my second week on the Verandas. I've put in some late nights stitching in a push to try and finish House #6 and environs. I'm down to the bush on the right of the house and it's touch and go whether I finish it today. Because I'm going to be out all day Monday and Tuesday I thought at least I'd write about my progress and then wait and see how far I get today before I put up a photo of it.

The weather is very hot and sticky and it's been a job to keep my hands clean for stitching. I'm looking forward to the cooler weather.

I'm trying to decide actually how to use this blog. It's really no fun if I only post once a week but I don't want to be taking photos of my work constantly. I am finding that doing this blog again and doing fixed rotations is spurring me on hugely to make progess. I want stitching to be fun though. The purpose of stitching is the journey not the end product.

In addition to stitching I've also been decluttering. I've done the filing cabinet, which was so full I couldn't file anything away! Now it's got plenty of room. I've reorganised and tidied the papers in the kitchen which used to take up one whole bench. Then I've done the window seat cabinet in the study where lots of old papers were hidden. I'm now in the process of clearing out and tidying up the triple cupboard in our upstairs hallway. My tidying up is motivating my kids to also tidy their rooms and closets up. There's still lots more to do including organising all of our photos--digital and print. That's got to be a several months job in itself. Anyway, I keep plugging away at it bit by bit which is the only way to get things done.

Tomorrow and Tuesday my daughter is going to be at a gymnastics training camp so I'm bringing my stitching and hoping to get some done somewhere even if it's at a coffee shop nearby. Evidently parents aren't allowed in the gym to watch!

Update on my speedy stitching

2009-03-15T11:19:00.007+11:00

I've just finished my third week back into stitching, my second week on the Verandas piece. I'm working very hard on House #6, the house on the far right. When I started on this rotation only two colors of the house were present--a dark brick red and the white balcony lines. Now I've just about finished the house proper and the palmetto tree on its right. As you can see from the photo of the finished piece, though, I still have a lot to do to finish this side of the pattern. There is the foreground which has a lot of colour changes and a large bush as well. These will take time and I don't think I'll finish them in the coming week. But maybe . . . Ideally, I'd like to finish the whole right side of the piece at the end of this rotation so that when I come back to it I'm back to the middle of the pattern starting House #3. You can see that I did do a lot of stitching since I blogged on this piece. I finished Houses #4 & 5 in that time. This was mainly in the second half of 2007. I was doing 1week rotations then. So far I like doing 2 week rotations as I can see more progress on each piece. Last night there was a pretty awful movie on TV called 'The Core' about a group of people who travelled to the Earth's Core to save the world. Absolute rubbish but a great background for stitching. Before that was on I also stitched through Ice Age 2, a much better quality movie.

I now need to decide which piece is going to be next in my rotation. There is the New England Sampler and also my bugbear the Australian map on linen whose border I'm trying to redesign. When I was last working on it it wasn't coming out well. I think the centre of the piece is pretty much finished. There are flowers in each of the 4 corners which I have to do. Gee I really should try to finish this one.

Over 3,200 views and no comments!

2009-03-11T12:50:00.002+11:00

I've just looked at my webshots site which shows photos of my crafts and noticed that since it's been up there have been over 3,200 visitors to the site. And not ONE of them has left a comment! That is amazing! Did they find nothing they liked? Did they go to the site by accident? I think that is a shame that no one has shown enough interest in my work to say anything about it!

Oh the site is http://community.webshots.com/user/craftydiane Enjoy!

I'm stitching again

2009-03-10T16:21:00.003+11:00

Well it's been a long time since I've added to this blog. From my recollection I was still stitching in '07 but just not blogging. But then '08 hit. What a frantic and frenetic year with work, study and kids. I totally abandoned stitching.

This year looks to be very different. Firstly, my uni position has not been reinstated and so far I haven't looked for any other work. I do have some weekend work as an English as a second language examiner so I'm doing that more regularly to make up for not having the other job.

Secondly, I finished my Graduate Diploma (major equivalent) in Chinese!!! Hooray!! However, I would still like to continue studying Chinese in some form but I haven't been able to find anything formal. And, really, after 9 years of Chinese what I really want now is to be able to speak more fluently and classes just weren't giving me that. So I'm continuing to meet my language partner from uni once a week and getting some Chinese practice in that way.

Thirdly, my daughter's gymnastics commitment is getting heavier and heavier to the point where it's going to be pretty difficult to find work around the times I need to be available to drive her to training. Right now she's doing 17.5 hours per week over 6 sessions and some of these impinge upon school hours. I haven't given up on the idea of weekday work but I want to finish things I'm doing around the house first.

So I'm home, doing a huge declutter of over a decade's worth of course notes from courses I've done and teaching handouts from classes I've taught. I started with the filing cabinet then progressed to numerous boxes stashed all around the place. I'm still not finished but I can only do it sporadically as I fill up the recycling bin quickly! I've also gone through the kids clothes and given away heaps to the bushfire appeal.

A couple of weeks ago I got out my stitching and started working on it. I'm going to rotate my pieces like I was doing before as I think that is a way to make progress and prevent boredom. I started with my smallish Golden Gate Bridge by Debbie Patrick. It was going so well that I kept with it for 2 weeks. Now I've just switched to the Verandahs of South Battery from Charleson. I'm working on my third house and in just one day have done heaps. I'll have to take photos as all the pieces have advanced from the last photos on this blog. I don't know which project I'll rotate into but I'd like to stick with the Charleston piece for a couple of weeks and possibly finish the third house.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog!

It's been a while but I've been stitching

2007-06-19T10:26:00.000+10:00

Yes it's been a while since I've blogged but I have been stitching. I'm doing weekly rotations on three main projects--Verandahs, the Australian map and the New England sampler.

I also have the Golden Gate Bridge in my DMC carry bag and bring that with me when we go out and I think I'll have a chance to stitch. I usually work on it regularly on Friday afternoon while my son is having his tennis lesson.

I've just finished a rotation on the New England Sampler and am so excited that I started doing one of the objects on the sampler--a whaling ship--as I've concentrated so far on the word bands above the centre of the design.

The previous week I worked on Verandahs and I don't think I got very much done. I am working on one of the two larger houses so hopefully the next house won't take so long. Now that I'm rotating projects I have to drop the system of trying to finish one house per month that I was planning on doing. This way is better though as I get to work on more projects and finish off a few!

I am going to be doing some quilting over the next month as I am planning on making some lap quilts as Christmas presents. I bought an extension table for my sewing machine to make quilting easier so I hope that this will prove to be the case.

Much Progess Being Made

2007-05-06T09:02:00.000+10:00

It's getting to be a busy time of year at both work and uni but I am continuing to keep motivated with my projects.

Cross-stitch

Most of my focus has been on cross-stitch. I have finished the cross-stitching of both of the Cottages am well into the backstitching of the first house.

I've also made a good start on the Verandahs and am well into House #4 in the middle of the design. It is the biggest house as well so once I have finished it I will be well on the way. My goal is to try and complete one house per month. I have until the end of May to finish this one. Here's hoping!

I've also decided that I need another small project to take with me when I'm out so I've chosen to work on Debbie Patrick's Golden Gate Bridge which I bought when we were in San Francisco. It isn't a big project. I've cut out some pale blue Aida cloth, bound the edges and copied the pattern so it is all ready to go.

One of the least glamorous things I've done this past week is to go through my whole DMC collection and to organise everything. My late mother's thread box, which holds a complete DMC collection, had lots of skeins of loose DMC which wouldn't fit on the spools in the box and my DMC collection is in labelled individual glad snack bags which are in numerical order on rings. I went through my mother's loose skeins, put them in order and then either added them to her spools or to my glad bags and I made up new glad bags for colours I didn't have. Then I created a set of colors on rings for Verandahs and put a set of the rings with colours I'm not currently using away. All of this took me hours and hours but I'm really glad I did it now.

Quilting

My flannel fabric for my nephews' quilts from the States has arrived. I bought thread for them this week but have decided to wait until I have more time in June to start working on them. For now I want to complete the China quilt--which still hasn't been touched--and label the quilts I've completed over several years.

Bits and Pieces

2007-04-26T09:32:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I decided to see which of my completed quilts didn't have labels. There were quite a few! I typed up about 6 of them and printed them off on t-shirt transfer paper. Then I ironed two onto calico and sewed them onto the quilts--the flannel quilt I had just finished and my daughter's cot quilt which I finished in 2001! I plan to make up and sew on the rest of these labels. How could I be so bad as to not finish these quilts off??

I've also begun cross-stitching the Verandahs of South Battery BAP that has been a UFO for maybe close to 8 years or so. It is great to pick it up again and, as I did with Rainbow Row, I am going to set myself a target to complete each house. With RR (which dragged on for 18 months or so) I set a target of completing one house per month. The Verandahs pattern has only 7 houses but some of them are quite large. Still I would like to try and meet the same target. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could finish it this year? I'm still working on the back stitching of Cottages and am alternating working on the two projects. With the two of these plus the hand stitching I am doing putting labels on my quilts I have a lot to do in the evenings in front of the TV.

I am also eagerly awaiting the two shipments of flannel fabric from the States for the two quilts I am going to make my nephews for Christmas. I think I should set myself the goal of finishing all the labelling of my completed quilts--and finish my China quilt as well--before I start on these new projects. Yes, the China quilt. It is sitting waiting for me to handstitch in the replacement central squares. I then need to re-quilt that area of the quilt. I don't know why I am procrastinating with it. I need to write a letter in Chinese to go with it when it is ready to be sent. I think I need to get on with all of this as well!!

A quilt finish and the xstitch is getting there

2007-04-21T07:34:00.000+10:00

I finished the flannel quilt last Saturday (14 April). It looks great and is so warm! It was a breeze to quilt it with the quilting foot instead of the free motion foot I have been using for all my quilting. I still have to label it and am not sure whether I should use plain flannel or regular cotton fabric for this so I'm dithering. I also finished all of the cross-stitching on the Martha's Vineyard houses last weekend. In all a productive time.

This week I've done little or no craft work as I've gotten swept up into fall cleaning--taking curtains down and cleaning window frames and windows. Quite tiring with all the up and down ladders involved. I have planned the flannel quilts for my two nephews and purchased fabric for these online. Now for the wait. In the meantime I am cutting and putting side seams in some new continuous shear curtaining for the TV room.

I need to purchase a new free-motion quilting foot so I can finish off the China quilt. That WIP is almost becoming a UFO again! Can't wait to get that done and sent off and also finish the Martha's Vineyard houses so I can get onto something new!

Progress and Set-backs

2007-04-11T15:05:00.000+10:00

Well the Easter long weekend is over. I made some progress on the flannel quilt and cottages x-stitch but things on the quilt didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

Flannel Quilt Firstly I had to purchase another piece of polar fleece to use as wadding because the piece I bought on Thursday wasn't long enough. So on Saturday morning I had to go out and buy another piece. This time I made sure it was sufficiently long. Before I went out I laid out the quilt top and back on the kitchen floor to check their widths. It was then I discovered the top was a few cms wider than the back. This probably happened because I didn't trim the borders before sewing them on because they didn't seem to need it. They were 1/4" wider than was stated in the kit pattern so the extra width may have been due to this. Anyway, without any extra fabric for the back I had to improvise something so I decided to use the leftover pieces of border sewn together and cut in half and add these to either side of the back. After I had the polar fleece I taped the back of the quilt to the kitchen floor and laid out the polar fleece wadding and the top and pinned the three layers together.

On Easter Monday I sat down to do the machine quilting using my 'Big Foot' walking foot. After completing one stitch in the ditch line the quilting foot broke at the screw so progress ground to a halt. I popped out to Spotlight, not even sure if it was open on a holiday. It was but they didn't carry any sewing machine parts so I decided to try a sewing machine centre in Camberwell. They were actually closed but the owners were in the shop cleaning up and told me when I phoned that they would let me in and serve me so I quickly hurried over there. Not only was I able to get a walking foot so I could continue with my machine quilting, I also learned that the foot I was using was the wrong one for stitch in the ditch and I could more easily use a straight walking foot which would make my job easier. I finished the machine quilting of the flannel quilt by early afternoon. The back is not as tight between the quilting lines as I would like but there are no puckers and it all looks good. So the next steps will be to trim the edges, sew on the binding and hand stitch the binding--then finished! I will do more work on this later in the week.

Cross-Stitch In the evenings I've been forging ahead with my Cottages x-stitch. I am completing the details to either side of the narrow yellow house. I don't have much more to go then I have the back-stitching of both houses to finish.

6 April 2007--Good Friday

2007-04-07T08:17:00.000+10:00

Today is Good Friday, the first day of a 4-day weekend. This year we are not going away because Paul wants to paint the timberwork at the front of the house. So I've been really looking forward to being able to make some progress on my crafts. Yesterday I bought some polar fleece to use as the wadding of the flannel quilt, only to discover today that it is a tad (10cm or 4in) short. Luckily the shops are open tomorrow so I will have to go out and get another piece cut. In the meantime I've just finished sewing the two borders on the quilt. The back is already sewn together so I'll be ready to go tomorrow on laying out the layers and pinning them together. Gee I love all that crawling around on the floor!!

This morning I got out all of my projects in waiting and photographed them and put them up on the photo website. This is great because now they are there to remind me where I have to go and how much I have to do. Most of my PIW or USOs are cross-stitches as I tend to buy fabric for specific quilt projects at once rather than build up a stash of fabric. My quilting fabric stash is mostly bits and pieces left over from quilts I've made. I haven't bothered to photograph it because of that. At some stage I will put up photos of my finished quilts and cross-stitches.

I am making plans to make flannel quilts for my two nephews aged 6 and 8 for Christmas but there is no suitable fabric here in Australia for that. The flannel sold here is mainly light colours for pajamas and doesn't have the dark colors or cute themes for boys that US sellers have. So I will have to decide what type and where I'm going to get their fabric.

So for the rest of today I've got some clothes-mending to do and later I'll work more on my Martha's Vineyard houses.

Starting Out--2 April 2007

2007-04-02T07:24:00.000+10:00

I confess to being a novice with websites but as I have recently joined a number of craft groups I thought this was the time to set up a blog so I can display photos of my craft work. I am hoping that being a member of craft groups and having a blog to update will encourage me to forge ahead with my crafts and bring a number of them to completion.

I am currently working on two quilts and actively working on one cross-stitch. The quilts are the one I call my China quilt which I'm making for my daughter Jade's former foster family in China, a flannel quilt kit my sister Bobby-Ann sent me and the cross stitch is a Debbie Patrick design called The Cottages at Oak Bluffs I and features two cottages on Martha's Vinyard.

I started the China quilt about 3 years ago. At that time I completed 6 12" blocks and the flying geese border. My intention was to personalise the quilt by adding blocks with photos on them using iron-on transfers. I picked up the project again at the start of this year, completed the photo blocks, made 4 more 4square blocks for the corners of the quilt and completed the quilt to the point of handstitching the binding. Unfortunately, while the quilt was sitting folded waiting for me to stitch it, one of the photo blocks cracked right through the middle and I was faced with the dilemma of how to repair or replace it. Last week I managed to 'unquilt' the two centre blocks and to unstitch and remove them. I have replaced them with two fabric blocks which I am in the process of hand-stitching in. I then need to requilt them. I am going to do some special quilting on those blocks as well as doing stitch in the ditch. The quilting will say 'China' and 'Australia' in Chinese. I am also about half way with handsewing the binding on so this quilt is in an unusual position with regard to finishing.

The flannel quilt is a kit my sister sent me for Christmas a year ago. It is made up of beautiful bright coloured squares. So far I have rotary cut the squares to 9.5" square and stitched them together. I have also stitched together the two sections of the back of the quilt. I have to add the two borders to the top and then put the layers together. I have decided to use polar fleece batting for warmth. I haven't yet gone out and purchased this yet.

My cross-stitching efforts go in waves. About mid-2006 I intended to start work on a chart I've had for quite a few years. It is Verandahs of South Battery, a scene from Charleston, SC. As the kids and I were going to the States to visit my Dad and sister I thought this was something I could take along to work on. It's a biggie though and when I looked at it I decided it was too unwieldy to work on while travelling. So instead I started to work on a Debbie Patrick design my sister-in-law sent me called Cottages at Oak Bluffs I. I did a good bit of work on this during the trip. (But when I wasn't flying also enjoyed doing some knitting. Can't do this on the plane because knitting needles aren't allowed.) I am now doing the second house of this design. Both houses are on the same piece of Aida and I plan to frame them as a pair with a strip of matting between them. I will post some photos when I figure out how.