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!

Two small finishes

Red long stitching on the matting done!

I'm still regrouping myself and trying to get back on track. After my last post I decided to get out the Chinese project and finish it off. All that needed to be done was long stitching the Chinese characters on the matting. That only took an hour or so to do so that project is now officially finished. So I'm posting photos today of the two small projects I've finished.



The two parts of the Chinese project. I may have to cut them apart to position them under the matting. This project comes with matting but nothing else for framing. I'm going to try and get some glass and clips from a glazier to frame it. I'll never find a 7.5" x 7.5" ready-made frame.



Close up of half of the project



And the other half of the project



Life is a Journey finished. Luckily this one comes in a kit with matting and glass so is all ready for me to frame it.

I've now gone back to Verandas. I've undone a couple of the stained thread sections but not all of it as I found it hard to locate the ends. I'm stitching the palmetto tree in front of the house. I'm hoping to get to a craft shop today to get more 762 so I can fix this project and feel happy and motivated about it again.

Today I'm going to finish the machine quilting of my daughter's flannel quilt--the one that's been sitting in the machine for a few weeks. That one hit a snag when I ran out of quilting thread and it took me a few weeks to get to Spotlight to get more.

If you want to see what nicotine staining can do just have a look at the comparison of the stained white DMC on the spool with a new skein of white next to it in the photo below.



My son Jarrah is gradually healing from his oral surgery last Friday. This is a photo taken of him on Saturday with his 'chipmunk cheeks'.

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.

An early start to the next rotation

Huge progress on Cottages at Oak Bluffs--I finished the cross stitching on the first house a week and a half into the rotation! I was really surprised that it went so quickly but once I started in on it I was able to see progress and that encouraged me to try and finish it off.

As I got close to finishing the xs I had to decide whether to then start the backstitching right away, go on to the second house (which is a separate project but on the same piece of Aida) or to go on to the next piece in the rotation. I couldn't face backstitching because I wanted to have a break so that I felt I had 'finished' something. For the same reason I couldn't face starting the second house. So I picked up my next rotation Verandas where I'm also on the last house which I should finish this rotation as well. Then I'll face the same question--backstitch now or go on to the next rotation?



This is my Daydreams 'handbag' project Life is a Journey. It stays in my handbag for the times I'm waiting somewhere and have a few minutes to pick something up. Always having a project on hand has been a great idea and I have a new project picked out to take its place.

Thanks to everyone who answered my question on the CountedCrossStitch and xsers forums about length of backstitching. It was both the Daydreams project and LaTrobe Terrace that prompted this question plus the fact that I'm now or soon will be backstitching on five projects! Some of the Daydreams border is backstitched over 2 stitches and I've decided I like this so will leave it. It wouldn't have looked good in the main part of the project so I'm glad I'm now sure in my mind about bs over 1 square.

I have four! new projects waiting in the wings for me to start very soon. I'll be replacing LaTrobe Terrace with another Juniper Designs street scene--Strahan, Tasmania.



My new handbag project will be Juniper Designs Stonehouse with Settle.



I have a second Lanarte Chinese themed project to replace the first one.



And I'm going to start a baby xs for my 9 year old daughter! This one is called New Baby and can be viewed here: http://www.abcstitch.com/designers_php/feature.php?id=85 Why do one for her now? Well I thought she should have one as her brother has one made by my SIL in his room. His is this design as well.

So of my rotation list only the New England Sampler is not near completion.

Yesterday I finally went through my stash to see what was waiting for me. I have three WIPs waiting. Two were my mother's and are close to completion. One is that horrible Australia map that is so difficult.

I have eight Barbara & Cheryl Charleston patterns, 4 of these are what I've termed 'small' --ie 2 pages or less. I have three remaining Juniper Designs kits--two street scenes and one individual house. And I have two large Chinese landscapes. so large that I don't know if I'll ever do them.

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.

A small finish and a major section of another completed

Going well with the rotations with some help from it being school holidays and Easter! I finished the second small cross-stitch on the Chinese project in less than a week. This left me with the second week of the rotation on the project free. The project comes with a patterned matting (but no glass or framing--darn) and there is some weaving of thread to do on the matting. But I didn't feel like doing that. I felt like cross-stitching. So I decided to go on to the next project a week early and maybe spend 3 weeks on it.



Well one week on with the New England Sampler and I've finished the botttom panel. I did the whole right half of it in one week. This included a number of long days of cross-stitching. Easter Sunday was the day I spent the longest on it--about 10 hours. It's worth it though to have that part done. I'm now going to work on the bottom border and see how long that takes me. If I'm enjoying it I'll stick with it, maybe doing some of the side borders, next week. If I'm ready for a change then I'll go on to LaTrobe Terrace.



I think it's time to estimate the completness of my projects:

Cottages at Oak Bluffs II--5% (this one has a lot of colour changes and is fiddly)

Verandas of South Battery---90% (looking good)

Chinese I--97% (only matting to do)

New England Sampler--55% (over half way!)

LaTrobe Terrace--70% (but could finish it off in one rotation)

With the quilts:

Jade's flannel quilt--85% complete (need to get back to this)
Houses wall hanging--75% (partly taken the front apart to straighten out the rows--fiddly!)

This is the first time with the rotation system that I've gotten so close to finishing most of my projects. So there could be a major turn-over of projects with new ones starting and I'm beginning to think which ones I'm going to bring in to replace completed ones. There are a few waiting.