Orange Rug Yarn Musings

Diamond Iris

Sunshine Makes Me Happy

Exodus Breastplate

Midnight Garden

I've put a lot of work in this past weekend on the traditional folk heart that is the center of my Oksana's Sampler. Unfortunately, I did almost as much frogging as stitching. A lot of this stitching was on Saturday during "Stitch in Public Day." I stitched on the lightrail to downtown to run an errand and in a local coffee shop.

I'm starting to get into a rotation of sorts. It's not a strict rotation, but I am moving from project to project with what feels like the beginnings of regularity and order. This image, and several forthcoming ones, are from my literally tossing my work on the scanner when I had to scan a work document. They aren't beautiful photography, but they do document my work.

I'm starting to form a rotation. It's not entirely formal, and I'm not sure I want it to be. Sometimes I just pick something up because it will fit in well with what I'm doing right now.

Currently in my semi-rotation:

Sunshine Makes Makes Me Happy the January/February education project for Cyberpointers, designed by Meg & Tory Shaffer. For reasons that will later become clear, I'm also including the dragonfly from this month's WOW meeting with this project.

Oksana's Sampler - an EGA Correspondence Course taught by Judith D Gulick, who also taught the great Winterspring course I took a little over a year ago.
Initial basting done, starting to stitch Folk Art Heart

Exodus Breastplate - basting done, mounted on frame, need to start on jewels. I'm a little behind from the class. I'm missing 2 of the threads needed.

Options ... in Hardanger - started making blocks. Still also looking at threads - I'm doing a set of samples based on the colors of the Finica Mardi Gras Sampler (Finica colors 1062, 1325, 2240, 2699, 3560 & 4350). Today I found a fabulous Caron Watercolors (093 Painted Desert) that contains all 6 colors.

Star of Hearts - just finished gathering materials. This counts as being in the rotations given how much time I spent on this. It took 2 visits to my LNS; time there and at home online trying to find appropriate thread conversions; hours online trying to find the threads - finally ended up with the original threads - no appropriate conversions found, other than where two options given, some no longer made, but still available through some larger online outlets, blah, blah, blah; two different online stores - one of which is Nordic Needle who has practically everything, but still did not have everything I needed for the project.

Need to bring into the rotation:

Midnight Garden (Cyberpointers 2009 SAL #1) - need to paint my canvas and get threads

Casalguidi and Lavender - ready to baste, need some DMC threads for the next step

Currently Secret Cyberpointers 2009 SAL #2 - getting permission from copyright owner, but I'm going to stitch the piece regardless

Diamond Iris - waiting for instructions, bought most materials today

Teapot Cosy - current EGA Correspondence Course but has essentially become a WISP even though I like the project

So, it's been almost a year since I last posted! I'm still here and still stitching, but I haven't been reflecting on my stitching as much (and hence blogging) as I'd like to.

A lot of my friends have posted their needlework goals for the year, and I'm going to join them. I want to blog more often - at least enough to document everything I finish and all my BE meeting practice pieces. I also want to experiment with formally stitching in rotation - ie rotating through a set of projects one per day or putting in X amount of time on each or something. I'm currently doing some research on how other people do this and keep themselves organized. My friend Meg is a very good example!

I finished my Beginning Drawn Thread GCC today. The third band was really challenging, actually, the whole piece was challenging. I'm glad my group got an extension because as we were getting close to the deadline, I thought I could get it done on time if I had to, but the third band took a lot longer than I'd expected. I'm really happy with how this turned out and how much I learned.