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.

Good progress on Latrobe Terrace

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!

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!

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

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

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

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.