Finished the cross-stitching on Verandas

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

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!

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!

A bit of a hiccup

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.

Working on 5 projects now!

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.

Coming to the end of my Verandas rotation

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

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.