A BB in a Boxcar

 After finishing the Little Pilgrim Hornbook, I was planning to put more things together. Actually, I had visions of getting to the bottom of one of the finishing baskets, which somehow rose to the top of the stash boxes.

What didn't rise with it was the box with my fiberfill and batting.

I need fiberfill and batting to complete most of the projects in the finishing basket. I have a practically full bag of fiberfill, and I bought a queen-size batting years ago so that it would take care of all my batting needs for the rest of my life. So, I don't want to buy more.

When I couldn't find the box, I started bouncing from one thing to another, like a BB in a boxcar.

I started working on the first of the projects for the online stumpwork class I was taking when the Big Move loomed over me.

The berries are made by wrapping wee tiny wooden beads with either ribbon or a single strand of embroidery floss. This was fiddly, but sort of satisfying in a Zen kind of way.

The head and legs for the bee weren't a problem, just a little bit of surface stitching with a strand of floss.

Then there is the body.

The cursed body.

It's done in turkey work--so you make loops of thread on the surface and later on, when you've filled the area with loops, you cut them open and then shape the area. It's supposed to give you a very fuzzy surface that looks like fur. 

I do not enjoy this stitch.

Actually, I hate it.

It's great if you want to give a squirrel a big, fuzzy, fluffy tail, or adorn Santa's coat with fir. You may notice that I have yet to stitch either a squirrel with a big, fuzzy, fluffy tail or a Santa's coat with fur. 

I did as much as I could stand, then moved on to something else.

I have several projects from workshops I've done in the last year or so, and I pulled out the Flame Stitch Huswif that I took from Jackie at Salty Yarns last year.

This is as far as I got with that:

There was a minor counting error in the original chart. I had forgotten about that. When did I remember? After I had stitched this much, of course, Luckily, I was able to find the email with the pdf for the correction. I just haven't gotten up the energy to rip out and restitch.

So, then I moved on to one of Amy Mitten's new Casket Keepsakes. I was working on the ground for the caterpillar  earlier this year when I realized my brain, addled by the problems I was having with my thyroid at the time, could not handle the chart.

Apparently my brain is still addled, so I figured out a way to sort of cheat at the changes in the colors of the ground, and almost got it stitched before I went to bed last night.

So, what do I do today?

Not a clue. I may work on one of these, or I may look for the fiberfill/batting box, or I may grab something else.

Or maybe I'll take a nap.

Happy World Cross Stitch Day!

 To celebrate, I mounted the Little Pilgrim Hornbook piece. I have a finish!

And I have unpacked about a dozen boxes of my needlework books and put them on the shelves in my stash room. There are many more to go. Actually, I think I have more books than I have shelves. This may be a problem.

I believe I will do a Scarlett, and think about that some other day.

Happy Day!

There are times when it's good to stitch a project that can be done in a couple of days.

Little Pilgrim Hornbook
Barbara Jackson/Tristan Brooks
Shining Needle Society online class

 

Letters and more letters

So I worked on Barbara Jackson's Littlest Pilgrim Hornbook yesterday.

And the first three major bands are almost all letters. Which I do not enjoy stitching. And then I made it harder for myself.

No, I didn't work them reversibly, but I did try to avoid carrying the thread across the linen in the back. The darkest blue is very dark, and I knew it would show through when the piece is mounted on the hornbook. This meant a lot of pin stitches to start each letter, and a lot of foul language when the pin stitches pulled loose--so I grabbed a sharp needle--which resulted in more foul language when I stabbed myself. Anyway the sharp needle did the trick, no more stitches pulled loose, and now I can move on to a fun band with very few letters.

Barbara Rakosnik of Periwinkle Promises designed a sampler that said "I Already Know My Alphabet" in place of the alphabet. This is one of the few designs of hers that I somehow missed adding to the stash, but I have often thought of it. Major unicorn sampler . . .like everything else, if I'm meant to have it, it will come my way.

Having unpacked 21 boxes of books--no exaggeration, even though they were not huge boxes, they were still heavy--I believe I am going to spend the rest of the day stitching. And I believe I will work on Littlest Pilgrim again.

I'm halfway! If Dearly Beloved can be talked into cooking dinner tonight, I may have another piece ready to assemble tomorrow.

Roses and Leaves

I really thought I could get the whole button pouch that goes with Gardenesque stitched in a day.  I really did. So I took a day away from unpacking boxes and stitched all day.

It was wonderful.

But I didn't get the whole thing stitched.

The rosebuds did me in.

As usual, everything takes longer than I think it should. The rosebuds, which I have stitched so many times on this project that I no longer have to look at the chart, took longer than all the counting involved in the outline.

But it's done now.

Now I just have to locate the sewing box that everything fits into, and I can start the finishing process. It should be in one of three places. I can get to two of them--the third is blocked off by more boxes. This may mean that I will be unpacking boxes to get them out of the way and won't be assembling anything today.

Anyway, last night I decided I could start a new, new project, and Barbara Jackson's Littlest Pilgrim Hornbook came out to play.

I started to write that I bet I could get a lot of this completed today if I stitched all day. 

Isn't that how I started this entry?

Oh, so clever!

 I finished the stitching for the needlebook for Gardenesque last night.

I wondered why one rose bush was right side up and the other was upside down--then it hit me.

No matter which way you open it when it's assembled into the book, it will look like it's right side up. Clever, clever, clever!

I have only two bits of this set left to stitch, so I'm trying to avoid temptation. It's hard. It's really hard. I have a LOT of temptation floating around. I'm trying to tell myself that working on my online classwork should count as another project, but I keep thinking of it more as a learning process.

And I'm really afraid to start unpacking the stash boxes--that will only throw more temptation in my path!

Getting back to a routine . . . maybe

 We have made great strides in the unpacking of boxes. Basically, Dearly Beloved is looking for a specific book he wants to read, so he has become obsessive about unpacking the book boxes. I'm down to about three kitchen boxes.

We're not discussing the stash boxes, mainly because I set aside several with things I want to work on. We moved those bins, so I know exactly where they are, and they didn't get buried with everything else. The rest can wait.

At least for a little while.

Anyway, I decided that August 1 would be the date I would start seriously stitching again. I will continue to unpack, but it's no longer vital. We still have boxes, but now it doesn't feel like we're camping out. We also have floor space instead of paths.

Today I transferred the designs for Term Three of the two Deep Dive classes I was taking. When the term started, the deadline for the move was looming, and I had stopped stitching. Luckily the instructional parts of both classes were taped, so I can rewatch each and start working on them.

So here's the design for the stumpwork class:

And the design for the goldwork class:

I need to sew the linen to a muslin backing before I start stitching. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go full speed on one class, then work the other one, or alternate the two. I may flip a coin.

Gardenesque has not been neglected. I have part of one rose bush planted, and the forget-me-nots are blooming on the needlebook.

And now that I'm stitching again, I also plan to blog more frequently--because I'll finally have something to say!

At least, I'll have something to say about stitching. I've had plenty to say about moving, and none of it was pleasant.

If you can't say something nice, then it's better to say nothing at all.