Big Progress on Two Projects

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!!!!

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

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.

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.

More photos

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.

On the mend and slowly crafting again!

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.

Moving on to a new project

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!