Leap Year List - June Report

Hey Blog Buddies,

This month things got finished, moved along, and there were even a couple of new starts, too (no!!).  Make yourself comfortable and get ready for lots of photos.

Our old friend, Autumn Logs

by Needle Delights Originals.

This is where I was at last month.

Finally, it's finished!

We can bid this project a fond farewell,

but first a couple of close ups...

Onward!  Last month Dawn Chorus

by Long Dog Samplers looked like this...

I didn't think it would get finished this month,
but lo and behold!

Yes, my framer is really fast.

And the farewell close-ups...

Moving on, here's what Tanja Berlin's

Blackwork Horse, Haflinger Breed looked like

last month...

The clock is ticking on this one.  

My self-imposed deadline is the end of this month.

I'll make it if I stick with it.  Here's what he looks like now...

There'll be a little more definition in

the head once I do the stem stitch outline.

That will be done last.
The mane has a lot of dense stitching,
so that will probably take a while.

Way back at the beginning of the year

I showed this piece as part of my list,

and you haven't seen it since.

This is The Missing Piece by Jennifer Riefenberg.
Quite apropos, no?

It was last October's class at my local ANG chapter.

As you can see, there are rectangles

(each one a different stitch and a different thread)

and the puzzle piece outlines kind of overlay them.

The reason I hadn't started this piece

is because I had to draw all that on the canvas,

and I procrastinated because I thought it would be
a nightmare.

I finally took the plunge,

and the drawing of the canvas went a
lot more smoothly than I had anticipated.
This piece is designed to be an exercise in compensation.

Here is a small seasonal piece
which is not part of the Leap Year List.

I started and finished this piece in May.

Red White and Blue by Lizzie-Kate.

I finished it as a small picture,

instead of the pillow it was intended to be.
The fabric in the background was
included in the kit to be a pillow backing.

This past month, I also started my
EGA Chapter's mystery sampler.

The basting is completed,
and one of several borders is stitched.
The four sections will depict the four seasons.
That's I all know about it so far.

Finally, as a reward for finishing Dawn Chorus,
I started yet another piece this month.
Frequent readers of this blog will not
be surprised to learn that it is
The Prairie Schooler Alphabet.

I was fiddling around with the colors a lot.
I started out using the called-for DMC,
but most of my colors appear a lot darker
than the photo on the leaflet.

The color on the left is the "red" that was called for.
The color on the right is the red I ended up using.

As you can see, if I had used the called-for "red," 
the B would not have been distinguishable.
The gray-green on the pie pan is too dark as well.
You can't really see the design very well.
But I'm not ripping it out.
I substituted a lighter shade for the door.

This has been put away for now,
but I can't wait to start the A.
(I did the B first because it was in the middle of
my three-across row, and I like to start in the middle.)
The biggest difficulty so far has been
rolling the 70 inches of fabric onto my scroll bars!
It was a challenge getting it tight enough,
but now this project should be smooth, if lengthy, sailing.

That's it from here for this month.
Thanks, as always, for visiting.

Leap Year List - May Report

Hey Blog Buddies,

We had a very cold and gloomy end to April, but the sun's out now so May seems promising.  I missed most of that gloom because we were out of town last week; the weather where we were staying was nicer--more on that in another post.  I took four projects with me for stitching in the evening.  Ha, ha, what was I thinking?  I got a little bit of stitching in on the trip (Autumn Logs), but not much.

On to the list...

First up we have the afore-mentioned Autumn Logs 

by Needle Delights Originals

Here's where I was last month.

And this month.  So close--the border stitches up quickly.

Here's Dawn Chorus by Long Dog Samplers, as of last month.

Here's this month's progress.  The end is in sight!

But there's still a lot left to stitch.

We met this fellow last month:

Tanja Berlin's blackwork horse.

I did get the stitching started!

Tanja's model is all black,

but I'm turning my guy into a bay.

Last but not least, I finally started this piece.

That barn took a while to build!

I'm stitching this on 25-count

wedgewood blue lugana, one over one.

That's it from here.

They (Google) rolled out their new

photo site replacing Picasa recently,

and this was my first attempt at using it.

I'm sure it can do many things

of which I'm not aware,

but I must have figured out the basics,

since my photos showed up in this post!

 Thanks, as always, for visiting!

Leap Year List - April Report

Hey Blog Buddies,

The calendar says it's Spring, but the weather here has been really crazy.  It certainly isn't unheard of for it to snow here in April, but on Saturday we had sleet, horizontal snow, graupel (tiny hail-like pellets) and bright sunshine in a constant rotation about every 10 minutes.  And let's not forget about the high wind that lasted all day long.  Yesterday, the temp hit 70 degrees and now it's snowing lightly again.  Spring in Chicago.

On to the stitching...

Last month I posted this photo of

Rosewood Manor's A Tree by Itself.

I know I posted a photo of the finish

a couple of weeks ago, but...

here it is all framed and hanging on my wall.

(Yes, I do still have some wall space left.)

From last month, Carriage House Samplings'

The Song They Sang.

Yes, another framed finish!

Here is last month's photo of 

Needle Delights Originals' Autumn Logs.

Here it is now.

That brown thing in the lower left corner

is the beginning of the border.

We haven't seen any progress on this one all year.

This is Long Dog Samplers' Dawn Chorus.

Here it is now.

There is the obvious progress,

and the progress that you can't see.

I ripped and restitched all of the black in the middle tree

because my tension was too tight and

too much white was showing.

That was my big roadblock on this one.

It's still not perfect, but it's a big improvement.

This piece is now back on track!

I know a lot of stitchers just love to start new projects,

but I am not one of them.

I think about it, and procrastinate.

I've been trying to talk myself into starting

my blackwork horse for a long time.

I've got the nasty part done.

I traced the outline onto tissue paper,

and basted it onto the fabric.

Then I ripped the tissue paper off.

You may notice that in the process of

removing the paper, some of the basting stitches

have stretched and sagged.

This is normal.

But then I started reading the instructions

(what a concept!)

and realized that there was a chart!

I didn't have a chart in my package.

So I contacted the designer (Tanja Berlin)

via email and received a PDF chart

the very next morning.

Now I'm thinking that I should just cut

all the red basting out and follow the chart,

because life's too short.

Wish me luck with this one.

Hopefully you'll see some actual stitches

next month.

My EGA chapter hosted a Stitch-in-Public Day
at a local library on Saturday

(the day of the crazy weather).

We had a pretty decent turnout, considering.

Here is a photo of our members' stitching

in the library's display case.

Each item is a different technique.

Next year I will wait until

the glass door is swung open

to take my photos!

(You can click on the photo to make it bigger.)

That's it from here.

Hope your April is going well.

Thanks for visiting!

Leap Year List

Hey Blog Buddies,

Hope your holidays were happy and fun.  Thank you so much for the nice comments on my end-of-year recap post, and throughout last year.  They make my day.

Happy Leap Year!  I've seen quite a few leap years (more than 10, less than 20, heheh), and in my experience, major life events tend to occur during leap years.  My parents' wedding, my birth, our wedding, the adoption of our first dog, and the purchase of our current house all happened in leap years.  Maybe I just have too much time on my hands to be coming up with this trivia?!

Anyhow, I thought I would call my rotation a Leap Year List this year.  It's a catchier name, and I don't usually stick with a strict rotation anyway.  I just stitch what I'm in the mood to stitch on any particular day.  Eleven projects that I'd like to focus on made the list this year, some old, some new.  Let's start with our old friends:

  Dawn Chorus by Long Dog Samplers.

Still haven't fixed that tree, so it's currently at a standstill.

Save the Stitches by Blackwork Journey.

Hopefully including this piece

will inspire me to get going on it.

The formerly neglected A Tree by Itself

by Rosewood Manor.

I worked on it most of last month and

I'm still working on it!

Here's the photo I took at Christmastime.

Notice the treetop with no trunk next to the

rabbits at the bottom left.

Now it has a trunk and flowers.

I count each completed motif as a mini-finish.

Woo-hoo!

Here is Autumn Logs by one of my favorite designers:

Kathy Rees of Needle Delights Originals.

I have done a lot of her pieces,

and have quite a few more in my stash.

This is my ANG chapter's SAL.

Anticipated completion date:  end of June.

Kindred Spirits by With My Needle.

This is the workshop I took in Shipshewana, IN,

in October.

It's true that most of these are smalls,

but taken together,

it's a good-sized project.

I showed these four sides of the pin cube a while ago.

This project has been neglected ever since.

This one is brand new (to me):

The Song They Sang by Carriage House Samplings.

I bought the chart a few weeks ago,

and it just elbowed its way onto the list

(and I even started it!).

The verse starts out:

"It was early, early in the Spring..."

so the drab colors are appropriate for how it looks here in March.

Can you tell that this is my new favorite?

I'm so fickle...

This was an ANG class that I signed up for but missed

because I was out of town at said 

Shipshewana workshop.

The design is by Jennifer Riefenberg.

I haven't started it yet.

It's not huge, but it's tricky because

I have to transfer two designs

onto the canvas: the puzzle pieces and the

overlapping rectangles containing the various stitches.

This one will need some study

before I'm able to start stitching it.

This is a rare (for me) painted canvas:

Chicago Collage by Lynn Deininger.

This has been kitted up in my stash

for at least four to five years.

I have a stitch guide by a third party (not Lynn)

which is complete gibberish to me,

so I'll have to make my own stitch decisions.

I think that a lot of the areas 

will get the tent stitch/basketweave treatment.

Here's another one that hasn't been started:

Blackwork Horse by Tanja Berlin Designs.

Transferring the design to the fabric

will be a challenge with this one.

I won't elaborate here but, trust me,

you'll hear about it down the road.

This one has a deadline, too:  end of July.

I had actually planned to start the

Prairie Schooler Alphabet on January 1st,

but I decided that postponing that start

would be the prudent thing to do!

I have all the charts, and they

keep beckoning me.

So, to satisfy my desire for a PS project,

I plan on starting this one:

It's a much more manageable size,

and I think the verse is very appropriate

for this leap year, too.

Instead of starting the PS Alphabet on January 1st,

I did the sensible thing and finally put some

stitches into this one:

Angles by Debbie Rowley.

I finished the Spratt's Head stitches

--I love that name--

in the upper left corner (Area 1).

For the longest time all I had

was the one blue Spratt's Head stitch.

Area 2 contains the large upright

rice stitches on the diagonal.

Area 3 is made up of four Amadeus stitches.

They are a kind of Rhodes stitch

for those of you not familiar with them.

Only 79 more Areas to go.

Seriously, the chart is 105 pages long

with two additional fold-out sections!

But it contains detailed diagrams of

all the nutty stitches that make up this piece,

so I'm not complaining.  Much.

This is my ANG chapter's challenge project.

If I finish this piece by the end of June,

I'll get rewarded with a tote bag.

If not, I'll owe the chapter's treasury $10.

Gotta get busy.

I have a couple of smaller projects

that I'd like to finish this year, too, namely,

Eastern Bluebird by Tanja Berlin

Yes, the bird is actually finished!

I have to be in the mood to do

the last blossom and all those leaves, though.

and 

Ruby of the Forest by Marsha Papay-Gomola.

This one is from 2011.

Both of these were EGA-sponsored classes.

That's part of how I get into trouble.

And you know that  later on this year, 

something new will

come along and catch my eye

that I'll want to start right away.

It always does.

Wishing everyone a happy,

healthy and stitchy New Year.

Thanks for visiting!