Finally got a good start to The Rocks

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!

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.

Latrobe Terrace oh so close!

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

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.

End of Latrobe Tce Rotation

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.

Latrobe Terrace half finished

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.

Completed a quarter of Latrobe Terrace!

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!

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.

Started Latrobe Terrace!

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!

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.