Stitching Thursday: January 26, 2017

Here's my progress on various and sundry things this past week:

I put about 900+ stitches into my Decorating the Wreath by Heaven and Earth Designs.  It now looks like this:

I watched a really helpful tutorial on YouTube by Pam of Pam's Crafty Corner about working a single color of thread cross-country per page, and the lightbulb went off for me, so I'm going to try working the remainder of the page in this fashion.  It seems to speed up the stitching (or at least it appears that way), since you aren't changing out colors and starting/stopping threads as much this way.  I figure it's worth a try to see if I can make some more focused progress on this piece.

I'm also thinking of switching up my rotation going forward in February, and making this my focus for a finish piece by working on it during Fri/Sat/Sun of every week, and then keeping the other 3 projects I've got going on a weekly rotation for the other 4 days.  It will mean those other projects won't potentially get finished as quickly, but it will mean I will finish this one up faster (that's my hope anyway!).  I'm going to give it a bit more thought, but I'm leaning towards that.

This week in my current rotation was time to work on The Drawn Thread's Winter Garden.  When I last worked on it, I had finished page 1 of 3 (with a bit more on page 4, but not a full page), and here's where I am on it currently (about halfway through page 2).  The center of the design is the middle of the red door (located over the word "winter" pictured below).

I'd thought I'd get through most of page 2 while it was out for rotation this week, but the house is taking a lot longer to complete than I thought it would, so likely that won't happen.  I'll have another day or two to work on it, but then it'll go away for another couple of weeks until I rotate back to it in February.

Next week part #2 of the Under the Sea SAL comes out on February 2nd, and this Friday the next clue in the Welcome mystery SAL will be released as well, so I'll have those to work on here in the short term.

Stitching Thursday: January 19, 2017

This week, I've been working on my Decorating the Wreath/Heaven and Earth Designs project.  I'm going to be switching up my weekly rotation a bit, as I've decided to participate in Terry/Stitching Petunia's challenge #2, and will be working on this full-coverage project a bit every week.  I calculated that I would need to work about 325 sts every week from now until the end of 2017 in order to have this project finished (which I really want to have happen!), so I'm going to put this in at the beginning of every week's rotation and try to stick to that.  I'll then work on whatever other project I have earmarked for rotation that week for the remaining days.

So... Decorating the Wreath now looks like this, and I'll be focusing on it for the rest of this week - thru Saturday.

Last week, I finished up the 2 clues that were released for the Tempting Tangles Welcome SAL, so that is caught up until the next clue releases in another week.  I'm loving the thistles!

I also finished up block #1 of the Village of Hawk Run Hollow, and I recharted the bits of block #2 I wanted to personalize, so I'll be ready to start that in February.

For next week, after I finish up my 325 +/- stitches on Decorating the Wreath, I'll pull out my Winter Garden piece from the Drawn Thread and put some time in on that one.  (Here's where I was when I put it away in December.)

Stitching Thursday: January 12, 2017

Last week, my New Start for the New Year piece, Village of Hawk Run Hollow was up in my rotation to be worked on.  I started this New Year's Eve, and worked on it pretty steadily for the first week of the year, to get me to this point on block 1.

My plan was to try to stitch up one block a month from this piece (there are 12) over the year, but this is one of the simpler blocks and I wasn't able to finish it, even with a lot of focused attention, in a week, so I may have to rethink the plan for this.

This week for my rotation, I opted to work on my 2 SALs - Lakeside Needlecraft's Under the Sea and Tempting Tangles Welcome mystery SAL.  Under the Sea started on January 2nd, so I had the pattern downloaded and ready to go.  This month's motif is a little octopus chasing a fish.

I'm using the called-for DMCs, except I substituted a handpainted cotton from Colour and Cotton for the lightest green, and for the backstitching color.  I also added a blending filament in with the DMC for the seaweed vine to give it a bit of sparkle.  This block is essentially done.  The only thing not completed are some little white "bubbles", but I think I'm going to place those out with clear or white/pearlized size 11 beads.  I'm going to wait and see what the other blocks look like before I decide on that.  I can always go back in and add those.

For the rest of the week, I plan to work on the Tempting Tangles SAL and get caught up on that.  (I've already got clue 9 and clue 10 releases on Friday.)  If I've got time left then between now and Saturday, I'll go back to working on Village and see if I can get that finished up before rotating on to my Decorating the Wreath project.

One thing that I have decided to do is personalize the Village piece.  I am going to be changing out the names of things in the Village to match names of my grandmother's family in their little area of central Pennsylvania, including changing things from Hawk Run to Moose Run (as that's the creek that runs through the area, and the name of the road they lived on).  So I need to plot out the changes for block 2 to customize that before I get there in February.

Stitching Thursday: January 5, 2017

Trying to stick with my 2017 goal of reviving the blog a bit, I'm kicking off a new set of posts: Stitching Thursday, with details on the stitching projects I've got going right now.

I've set up a weekly rotation schedule that seems to be working fairly well for me - I spend a week (Sunday thru Saturday) working on a specific piece and then switch off to a different one.  I'm focusing on 4 projects per month (or close to that anyway) and a week seems to be a good amount of time.  I stay motivated and focused and get a fair amount done, but I don't get bored or burned out on any one thing.

Right now I've got the following going:

The Village of Hawk Run Hollow

• Pattern by Carriage House Samplings.
• Fabric is a 22-count Hardanger from Picture This Plus in the Legacy colorway.
• Called-for threads from DMC.

This was a new start on January 1, 2017 and I'm planning on working on a block (there are 12 in total) a month.  This is block 1 so far and what I'm working on for my January Week #1 rotation project.  I'm stitching this 1/1.

The Winter Garden

• Pattern by The Drawn Thread.
• Fabric is a 32-count linen in colorway Smokey Gray.
• I'm using Gentle Arts threads for this (my own conversion).

I've got the first page finished on this design.  I'm stitching this 1/2 and this will be up for Week #2 in January's rotation.

Decorating the Wreath

• Pattern by Heaven and Earth Designs with artwork by Scott Gustafson.
• Fabric is a 28-count undyed linen.
• Called-for threads from DMC.

I worked on this the last week of December and finished up a page (the upper right portion of the image) that included the little pinecone and the bow.  This will be my January Week #3 rotation piece. I'm stitching this 1/1.

Welcome SAL

• Pattern is a mystery SAL by Tempting Tangles.
• Fabric is a 32-count linen from Picture This Plus in the Wren colorway.
• I'm using Gentle Arts threads for this one (my own conversion from DMC).

This is currently through Clue #8.  Clue #9 came out the last weekend of December, and there'll be another clue released on the weekend of January 15th.  I'll get caught up with those 2 clues for my final week of January's rotation.  I'm stitching this 2/2.

I'm also planning to start the Under the Sea SAL from Lakeside Needlework.  I have the SAL fabric and the threads ready to go.  The first clue came out January 2nd, but I am planning on working the 2 SALs the same rotation week, so I'll be starting this one once I finish up the next 2 clues in the Welcome SAL.  I do have the DMC floss called for in the pattern, but I think I'm going to switch it up and use some handpainted cotton threads from Colour and Cotton instead.  At least for the first block, I've got all but maybe 1 color that'll match pretty closely to the original colors.  (And if I need to, I can sub back in the called-for DMC).