Cross-stitch the novel

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!

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.

Half way through my current rotation

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

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!

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

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.