Oh Happy Day!

It's finished,

all 9 shelves, 18 brackets,

and 99 bottles worth...

Ink Circles' 99

Started:  Dec. 22, 2013

Finished:  March 19, 2015

Just a couple of close-ups:

The bottles were 10 stitches by 25 stitches

at their widest and tallest points.

Moose Drool Beer is depicted

by the middle bottle.

You know I had to show a bottle with a dog.

The middle bottle is

Laughing Lab Scottish Ale

(although it's from a Colorado brewery).

I'm so happy this is done.

I enjoy finishing projects much more than starting them!

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

October Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the tenth of the month, so it's time to post our progress for the Turtle Trot SAL.  

Each month we post progress updates on the ten WIPs we chose at the beginning of the year.  Claudette of BAP Attack is our Head Turtle/ringleader.

This month, I'm afraid there's not too much to show.  I did make some progress on Ink Circles' 99:

This is where I left off last month...

...and this is where I'm at now.

I was hoping to get the entire 4th row done,

but the best laid plans, etc.

And last (already?!) but never least,

we have Perseverance Mates:

...last month...

...and this month...

The casual observer might think

that this piece is almost done.

Would that it were.

I estimate at least 2 to 3 more months of

stitching on it a little every day.

Not my definition of "almost done."

That's it for this month--short and sweet.

Visit Claudette's blog to check out her progress

and that of the other Trotters.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

September Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,
 
It's time once again for the Turtle Trot update.  Claudette over at BAP Attack hosts this SAL.  We chose ten WIPs to work on at the beginning of the year, and post before and after photos of our progress each month.  This update will be short, since I worked on only two pieces since last month.

First up, we have Ink Circles' 99.

Here's my progress as of last month:

And here's where I'm at now:

As I was working on "The Bottles" this month, I couldn't help but think of SoCal Debbie, who was working on this piece for Turtle Trot, too.  For those of you who don't know her, Debbie was a stitcher and blogger who passed away suddenly at a very young age last month.  We all miss her bubbly personality and cyber-friendship.

And the other piece that I worked on this month?

Of course, it's Cross My Heart's Mates.

Here's where I was last month.

Here's the latest.

I feel like I've just been trudging along

on this piece this month,

but progress is progress.

The rest of my stitching time

has been taken up with some small pieces.

More on those in another post.

And as if I don't have enough to stitch,

I've enrolled in Tanja Berlin's

Blackwork Lovebirds cyber-class 

which starts this Friday.

This should be fun--I'll keep you posted

on my progress.

By the way, Tanja's blackwork elephant 

is to die for!

That's all from here.

Hope you are enjoying your September.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

August Turtle Trot: A Milestone

Hey Blog Buddies,

How's your weekend been going?  It's been cloudy here all day but no rain, so I'm not complaining.  The clouds are probably keeping the temperature down, which is good, because I like the cooler weather we've been having.

It's time for the monthly Turtle Trot update, organized by Claudette over at BAP Attack.  We all picked ten WIPs to work on at the beginning of the year, giving monthly progress reports about them on the 10th.  The reason that I keep showing only the same four is that four of my original TT pieces are finished, and the other two are just not calling to me now.  But I do have my hands full with these four because they are all large projects.

First up is (let's get this one over with) my hardanger table topper, Pristine by Cindy Valentine.

 

This is what I did last month--I filled in this triangle with all the eyelets that you see in the photo.  I'm doing these little slices of the project because if I took a photo of the whole piece, it would be hard to see what's been accomplished.

 

So this month I did another triangle's worth of eyelets.  Quite a bit harder to see!  I'm somewhat embarrassed to be putting these photos up because this project is a hot mess.  I started it on 2006 and wasn't going to do the eyelets at that time, so I started cutting.  (Any eyelets in a project like this should be done before the cutting starts, but oh well.  Nothing "bad" has happened yet!)

Second is Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself:

 

Here's where I was last month.

 

And here's this month.

I love all the rabbits and birds in this one.

And the Quaker-like trees.

And the Native American saying.

Third, we have the bottles.

 

Yes, it's 99 by Ink Circles.

Here's where I was at last month.

 

This month, I put up another six-pack.

I certainly hope they don't "happen to fall"

before I can get the shelf constructed!

Sorry, my corny sense of humor

got the better of me.

Finally, I'm still plugging away at Cross My Heart's Mates.

 

This is last month's photo.

Has anyone been wondering about the "milestone"

in the title of this post?

Well, here it is...

 

Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about!

I'm so excited, you'd think I was done with the whole piece.

But Wolfgang is all done.

There is not one stitch missing--that I can see--

in his slightly menacing face.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on Wanda, though.
(Of course I've named my wolf friends!)

I'm beginning to think that this project

will actually be finished sometime in 2015.
We'll see.

So that's it from here.

Hope you had a fun weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

July Turtle Trot

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the 10th of the month, so it's time for the Turtle Trot report.  What's Turtle Trot?  It's a stitch-along hosted by Claudette of BAP Attack.  Everyone who joined picked 10 WIPs at the beginning of the year, and we report on their progress monthly.  And this month I've been turtling along slowly again.  Here's what I did on four of my pieces:

This is Pristine by Cindy Valentine.

It's a rather large handanger table topper,

so I'm only going to show what I've worked on.

I had started stitching eyelets in one of 

four large triangles last month.

My progress this month.

No, I didn't wash the piece.

I just photographed it in direct sunlight!

I told you it was white!

Next is Ink Circle's 99.

My progress as of last month.

Here's where I am this month.

When I started this SAL in January, I had one shelf completed.

It's taken me until July just to finish the second shelf!

Next are my old and dear friends,

Mr. and Mrs. Wolf,

better known as Cross My Heart's Mates.

Here's where I was last month.

This is where I'm at now.

Would you believe that this is

40-50 hours' worth of stitching?

But despite my relatively slow pace,

 I remain happy with the progress on this one

and I'm surprised that I'm sticking with it.

Finally, at long last

I dug out Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself.

This is where I left off in September, 2013.

 Not a whole lot of progress,

but I intend to change this from a UFO into a WIP,

with some progress made each month.

Well, that's it from here.

Hope you're getting some time to stitch.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!

June Turtle Trot--More Turtle than Hare

Hey Blog Buddies,
Claudette over at BAP Attack is hosting the Turtle Trot SAL.  At the beginning of the year, we were to choose 10 of our WIPs, and then do progress reports on them on the 10th of each month.   This year many of the WIPs that I chose were BAPs that I really wanted to make significant progress on this year.  I worked on five of them this month which, for me, is really good.  We'll start with the "Turtles":

 Here is Ink Circles' 99 as of last month.

And here's my progress this month.  Yes, only one bottle!

And it's the simplest bottle so far.

I'd love to get the second shelf finished by next month,

but I make no promises.

The wolves are back!

Here's where I was last month with Cross My Heart's Mates.

 And here's my progress this month.

His second eye is started,

hiding in plain sight among all the confetti.

I didn't get much time to stitch on this piece this month,

hopefully more substantial progress will be made next month.

 Here is Cindy Valentine's Pristine hardanger table topper

as of last month.

This is actually white, as is the background of Mates, above.

The eyelets in the triangle on the right

were all I did last month.

Here's the progress this month,

another small triangle of eyelets...

...and a start on one of the large triangles of eyelets.

Here's the entire piece, to give you a sense of scale.

There are over 1,100 eyelets in this piece!

If all I do is finish stitching the eyelets by the end of this year,

I'll be happy.

Ah, yes, our old favorite Needle Delights Originals' Winter Logs.
I was pretty close to a finish last month.

And I did finish it.  Woo hoo!

No surprise there, as it's already been documented.

Last but not least, Debbie Stiehler's Autumn Pumpkin Patch.

Here's where I left off last month.

A month ago I decided to spend
the vast majority of my time and effort

on this piece and went straight into "Hare" mode.

Yay--another finish!
I'm really glad this one is done.
All of the smaller sections were 
repeated five times,
and there was so much laying of
4, 5 and even 6 strands of floss
that it was driving me crazy!
If you've never had to lay threads,
I'm here to tell you that it really slows you down!

One last close-up.

It's at the finisher's as we speak.

Hopefully I'll have one more photo, that of the finished pumpkin,

to show you next month.

That's it from here.

Hope you're getting some stitching time in.

Thanks for visiting!

May Turtle Trot Update

Hey Blog Buddies,

The Turtle Trot, in case you're not familiar with it, is a stitch-a-long hosted by Claudette at BAP Attack wherein the participants choose 10 WIPs at the start of the year to work on at their own pace, often slowly, sometimes not.  We report on our progress on or about the 10th of each month.  I threw in that "or about" to give me a little leeway 'cause it's the 11th today.

So, on to the progress updates!

This is what Needle Delights Originals' Winter Logs looked like last month.  I was a little behind my schedule.

Here it is this month.  You'll notice that I belatedly decided to add the optional border.  It's a wee bit busy, but adding the border will make it the same size as the other seasonal log designs, and I intend to stitch all of them!  (The intervention didn't work...)

Here's Debbie Stiehler's Autumn Pumpkin Patch as of last month.

I wasn't happy with my progress on it,

so I promoted it to the Vitamin Designation (once-a-day).

 

 And here it is this month.

The Vitamin Designation is working!

 Photos of the project as a whole can't show detail

and are very boring, so here are a couple of close-ups.

The partially completed section in the middle of the photo

is stitched, as you can see, with metallic ribbon

that is couched down with orange DMC as is it laid down.

(That's not the tricky part!)

 After all the ribbon is couched,

the sections between each ribbon are

backstitched with two strands of embroidery floss.

Light green and dark green are alternated.

Those little holes are very hard to see!

But it makes for an attractive section.

Last but not least here is Ink Circles' 99 where I left off in March.  I had just finished frogging a good part of the second bottle on the second row, and believed I had fixed the problem. I was blissfully unaware that the neck of the bottle was lopsided...

...a fact that I discovered after I had stitched most of the bottle on this go-round!

Here is my progress this month.
Yes, I did fix the neck on that second bottle!

I worked on only three of my Turtle Trot projects this past month, 
but I'm happy with the progress on them, even the "bottles."

That's it from here.
Hope everyone in the US is having a wonderful Mother's Day,
and everyone else, a fun weekend.
Thanks for visiting!