Stitching Wednesday - June 28, 2017

At some point, I will finally be caught up on the bulk of my deadline knitting projects and can perhaps show y'all some of the knitting things, but until then..... I bring you Stitching Wednesday.

I've got a handful of projects on the go and I'm participating in the Ivory Needle Challenge, which is to work on 5 projects with some focus, dedicating 6 days each month to work on those.  So while I am doing that, I'm also spending a bit of time on some other projects that I'd like to get finished for various reasons.

First up, right now, my 6-day rotation (which will take me to the end of the month on June 30th) is working on Village of Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings.  I've finished blocks 1 and 2 of the 12-block pattern, and I'm working on block 3.  I'm making some tweaks to the originally charted design, and adding in some family information from my mum's side of the family - my grandmother's family, many of whom still live in Centre County, Pennsylvania.

These blocks take a deceptively long amount of time.  The brickwork/stonework sections in this are amazingly time-consumptive, but I'm plugging along on it.  I've got the city hall building bricks and foundation left to finish, the flag, the birds in the upper left-hand corner, and then I have to go back through and stitch in the lettering in the sign.  I'm not 100% sure I will have this finished by the time Friday comes and it moves out of rotation, but I'm putting some time in on it every day.

I've also been working on a full-coverage piece: Star Weaver with artwork by Tom Cross and charted by Heaven and Earth Designs.  This is one of their "storykeeps", i.e. bookmark sized pieces, so it's relatively small (ish) for a HAED.  I finished page 1 up earlier in the month and since I'm focusing on finishing this one this year, I'm trying to put in an hour or so on it in the evenings when I can.

After slogging thru almost an entire page of mostly the same color, I'm finally on to some different colored blues and am going to try to get at least to the middle of this page by the end of July.  The entire design is 3 full pages and then 1 row of approximately 720 sts or so to finish it up.

Finally, I've been working on a Mill Hill kit, the Pike's Peak Santa a bit here and there.  I've just finished all the plain cross-stitch parts, so I've got beading left to finish up on this.

Planning to gift this to my DH as an Xmas gift this year, and I think I'll be able to get it finished up over the next month and have it ready to go when we get to the end of the year. 

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).