WIP update

I know I've been "quiet" here on my blog lately.  Life seems to have a way of taking up time.  Nothing major, just little things here and there.

For instance, I would usually spend most of a Saturday afternoon/evening in my craft room.  Nope, last Saturday when we were expecting the "storm of the century", hubby and I headed south to Portland, OR for a trade show.  It was great to attend even a small, regional one finally.  We used to go to our annual convention in Las Vegas every year, but when the economy tanked in 2008, we didn't have the extra money to do it.

We got to look at the new machine we're planning on getting for our trophy shop and got to talk to a couple of suppliers so it was worth "braving the storm".  Since the storm was supposed to hit in the early afternoon, we made sure to get to Portland early so we could leave before the storm got to us.  BTW, the storm didn't make landfall here so we just got some significant rainfall:  3.04" (7.72cm).  We're used to that since we average over 65" (165.1cm) of rain a year.

Well, I finally got to do some stitching last night and I managed a page finish!  The piece in my rotation this time was God Speed.  Here's my progress photo:

...and we have a face!  Next time I work on this, I should be working on the top of the knight's helmet.

Now I'm back to my La Belle Dame...  I've already put in a few stitches on page 24 which is a partial page.  That means a row finish is coming in the near future!

I won't get much stitching done this weekend.  Hubby and I have a booth (indoors!) at the Fall Garage Sale in Chehalis, WA this coming Saturday.  If you're in Western Washington, come on by!  There are over 300 vendors inside the fairground buildings.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

2 HAED progress photos

Hey Everyone!

I never thought I'd say this but "It's too hot!".  Well, not yet, it's still early in the day as I write this.  I don't live on the beach, but I am near the coast.  That means we don't really have seasons, just rainy and not-rainy.  So when we do get warm weather, it's rare and usually brutally humid.  Today's high is supposed to be 78°F (26°C) with 84% humidity.  It's just supposed to get hotter through the weekend.  Ugh!

The heat hasn't stopped me from stitching though!  I've been working on 2 HAEDs at the same time.  One of them is a QS (quick stitch) and only uses black so I can stitch on that during the day while I'm working.  I don't consider it part of my "official rotation" because it's the only one I can work on during office hours.

Here is my first page finish on QS Dragonflies:

The fabric is 28ct. Cashel linen called Monet from Picture This Plus.  I bought mine at 123stitch.  I'm stitching this 1x1 (one strand of floss over one fabric thread).

In my rotation, my latest project was my focus piece La Belle Dame Sans Merci.  Last night, I had another page finish!  Woo hoo!

Next up in my rotation is Floral Finesse, finally!  This is a new start so no progress photo...yet.  I'll post one in a couple of days when I do my monthly HAP SAL progress report.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Answer #3 - Rotation

I have gotten this question multiple times so no specific credit to be given on this one.

How do you do your rotation?

Over the last year, I've finally gotten my rotation "tweaked" to perfection - for me at least.  ;-)

I pick one project to be my main focus.  My current focus project is La Belle Dame Sans Merci.  The reason that I have a focus piece is so that I actually get a finish!  As you can tell by my list below, I tend to do LARGE projects!  La Belle... has 40 pages to the pattern!  Okay, the 8th page/row and the entire bottom row aren't full pages but still.

Then I have all my other WIPs:

PTP Floral Arrangement - HAED
Rapunzel (Dawe) - HAED
The Sistine Chapel - HAED
God Speed - HAED
Floral Finesse - The Heart's Content
Heirloom Nativity Sampler - The Victoria Sampler - I have everything ready, just need to put the fabric in the scroll frame

Normally, I would have 8 projects listed in my rotation, but I put an ornament on my 8th scroll frame and I work on it while watching football (American, specifically the Seattle Seahawks) games.

Since La Belle... is my focus piece, I work on it every other time I rotate.  My most recent switches were:

La Belle...
God Speed
La Belle...
The Sistine Chapel

The way I choose what to work on between bouts of La Belle... involves an app.  Yes, there is an app for that!  I have an iPad, and the app I use is called Random Master.  I made a list in the app of all my WIPs except La Belle because I know when I will be working on that one. When I finish a round with La Belle..., I have the app select a random item from my remaining WIPs.  The app keeps track of what it has been selected previously and won't select the same ones again until all of the others have had a turn.  That's great because it gives me some randomness in my rotation but still makes sure that ALL of the items get worked on equally!

Now regarding how much time I spend on each project.  All of the HAEDs get worked on until I finish a page.  If there is a page that is smaller than a full page, I will sometimes do that at the same time.  For instance, on La Belle... the pattern is 8 pages wide but the 8th page in each row is only 33 stitches wide.  Normal pages are 77-80 stitches.  When I got to page 7 on the top row, I also stitched page 8 as part of my "page".

For my non-HAED projects, it can be a bit different how much I choose to do.  For Heirloom Nativity, I will probably do as many bands of the pattern I can until I need to roll the fabric in the frame.  That seemed to work well when I was doing the Heirloom Christmas Sampler.  When I'm working on Floral Finesse, it will probably also be a case of finish one page and move on.  I do know that the first 3 pages will be an exception.  They are all quite small and all use the same color key, so I'll do them as a single session.

Empty Scroll Frames

(Gasp).  I know, it's almost a sin to have empty scroll frames isn't it?  I must really be sinning 'cause I have 3 empty at the moment.  Oh, wait, I just put an ornament on one so that means I'm not quite so evil with only 2 empties.  ;-)

I've been considering what to add to my rotation.  Part of the decision has already been made because I have one wide and one narrow frame available.  For the narrow frame, I've already decided to do Heirloom Nativity Sampler from Victoria Sampler.  I bought the thread packs for this when I bought the pattern, so I know I have everything I need.

For the wider frame, I'm considering doing this:

This is Floral Finesse from The Heart's Content.  It uses 390 DMC colors.  When it came out, that was every color available!

I've had this pattern for awhile.  After all the work I've put into my HAEDs, I know I'm comfortable working over one so that's not an issue.  I don't think I'll use white fabric though.  I'm thinking more ivory.  If I dig through my stash and find a dark blue though, I might use that.

Well, the Seattle Seahawks game is almost ready to start, so I have to go!

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

A thoughtful post...

This post is full of my thoughts while stitching.  In particular, with regards to TW's 12 Days of Christmas.  As my loyal readers know, 12 Days has been the focus piece in my rotation.  Every other time I've rotated, I've switched back to this one so that I would eventually get it finished.

Well, 12 Days got it's turn again last week.  It was time to work on Day 10: 10 Lords a Leaping.

Since the borders are done over 2 using blended colors, I've been cutting long lengths of each color then threading 6 needles with all the blended strands.

I started by doing the borders for Day 10 and had threaded needles sitting there so I thought: 
"I find doing the borders boring, so I'll just do as much as I can on the Day 11 & 12 borders with these threaded needles."

When I finished using up the pre-threaded needles, I thought:
"I'm so close to finishing the borders, I might as well get them done.  I'll backstitch them too 'cause I hate backstitching."

After I'd finished the borders, I thought:
"The holly in the corners is easy to do, so I'll do the holly on all three remaining days."

With the holly all done, I thought:
"If I stitch the 'of Christmas' for each of the 3 days left, I can discard that page of pattern."

After I threw away the "of Christmas" part of the pattern, I realized that I didn't enjoy the lettering due to all of the backstitching, so I thought:
"If I get all the lettering done, I'll only have to do the inside area for each day.  That will speed up my progress when I rotate back to this project."

Once I'd finished all of the lettering, I started working on the center of Day 10.  It was going along so quickly, I thought:
"Hmm, why don't I just finish the other 2 days as well."

After all that thinking, 12 Days of Christmas is DONE!

Now I'm heading back to my craft room to see what my next rotation project will be.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Ooh, mail call and Rotation update.

I just got a HUGE envelope in the mail!  Seriously, it was ginormous!  I know that's not a word but it gets the point across!  hehehe

 I had placed an order with The Stencil Company for some quilting stencils.  I have to say that they were great to deal with!

One of the stencils that I wanted was on back-order and they emailed me promptly to let me know and to give me options on how I wanted to proceed...I decided to wait for them all together.

I got a bunch of 5" stencils for a Christmas quilt top so that now I can work on quilting it.  The quilt is 10 blocks x 10 blocks and I got 12 different stencils so that there will be a bit more randomness in the finished quilt.  The stencils that I got for this quilt are:

• Angel
• Bells/Holly
• Candy Canes
• Holly Berry
• Ornament #2
• Ornament #3
• Poinsettia
• Santa
• Snowflake #3
• Snowflake #4
• Snowman
• Continuous Holly

For the borders, I got a 6" star border stencil.

I also bought two stencils for a Bullseye quilt top that I have.  The borders will be done in a continuous loop pattern and the bulk of the quilt top will have a rose stipple pattern.

I was planning to start on the Christmas quilt as soon as I finish the String Block quilt I'm so close to being done with.  Now I'm thinking that I'll do the Bullseye quilt first since it's more of a lap quilt/wallhanging size.  The Christmas quilt is quite large - I think it's about 120" square.

Rotation update:


The Randomizer app I have chose La Belle Dame Sans Merci from HAED as my next project.  I made a start on it last night.  Now I'm on page 9 of the pattern which puts me on the first page of the second row!  That bright spot by the horse's head is near the bottom of this page.  


Happy Stitching!!


Stacy

Updates/Rotation

I haven't done much stitching or anything else in past weeks as I was spending time with my father who had brain cancer.  He passed away June 21 and his memorial service was July 2.  I miss him but am glad that he's gone to be with the Lord.

Now for some stitching updates.  I just finished the third page of the Sistine Chapel from HAED.  Here's a progress photo.

I've also decided to change up the way I do my rotation, slightly.  Since I want to eventually finish something, I've decided to have one focus project (FP) and rotate the others.  What that means is that I will be working on my FP, then a random WIP, back to the FP and so on. 

I chose my 12 Days of Christmas from Teresa Wentzler as my FP.  Since I finished a page on the Sistine Chapel, I've now gotten back to work on 12 Days.  Days 1-4 are completely done and days 5 & 6 have all the border work done.  I'm going to finish the centers on 5 & 6, then rotate to a different project.  The next time 12 Days comes up for its turn, I'll do all of day 7 then switch to another WIP.

For the WIPs, I will still use my randomizer app to choose which one is next.  The only difference now is that 12 Days will get worked on every other turn.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy