Two Chatelaine updates

I've got two pictures this time!

One is my Japanese Octagon Box which I am SAL-ing with Tash on, and this is my progress over the weekend - my first tree, with all its branches:




And here is Mystery X, almost half done, except for the beading. I will do that at the end - I just did one section to see what it will look like! I couldnt get a good close-up picture though, sorry about that. They just turn up blurry due to the amount of glitz. The beaded flowers look like butterscotch - its all a bit easter egg coloured isn't it!



I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and happily adding flowers. Now to get it done before the 1st so I'm up to date!

Having fun with part 3

No photos, though they might be fun - maybe tomorrow.

Because part 2 ended up being so monotonous near the end, I've been having fun with the largely detail-stitched part 3. Its basically an overlay over what I've already stitched, with some detail on the corners and little rectangles of beads as borders around this central swirly design. Finally it's starting to look properly victorian, and it's gorgeous! Martina is so clever.

So far I have:

• two of the corners done (a little tiny bit more green - 3 stitches per corner, six silver algerian eyelets and some purple on the outside)
• one of the four purple boxes done - the top one, and the second one started
  
• six beads in the purple box just to see how they looks - the two coloured beads arent the same size and it creates an interesting effect
• the pink tulips in the top right hand corner complete with stems and leaves
  
• the stems and leaves for most of the inner section in the TR corner done (3 big and 3 small to do)
• 3 tiny tiny Jessica stitch flowers in the same section

Generally, I'm just playing. But its fun. Its a quick part to stitch up, I give it a week at most to get done.

...next time I take this in to school, I am going to blow my craft teacher's socks off. FUN!

Part 2 Finally Finished!

It's DONE! That neverending green is DONE!

See?



The photo doesnt in any way do it justice though, it's so sparkly and beautiful, but it gives you some idea. The holes in the green create a lacy effect, and they'll all get filled in with beads to make flowers this part. Four kinds of flowers this time: jessica stitches, beads, satin stitch-type things and ones done in backstitch. Sounds like fun!

I'm so glad to get this done, it's beautiful but it's been hanging over my head and getting in the way of my doing any other stitching, pretty much. Now it's done and I can get part 3 done (much smaller part) and I'll be up to date and stitching on something else!

Muffins!

The weather today looks something like this:

And I had no meds last night, so had to pick some up today and didnt think it safe to go to school given that.

So, I made these:

Kiwi, lime and coconut muffins.

...actually that's only half. The other six vanished hot out of the oven!

Im keeping these 6 for dessert tonight, but they taste too good to leave alone.

Not stitching related, but mm...good.

Now back to my regularly scheduled Chatelaine!

Mystery X WIP again

Here we are, almost 3 weeks since the last update. I love, love, love update photos - this green is driving me NUTS! Its so good to see that I've actually made progress.

When I get this bit of green on the left done, I'll be 3/4 done as far as the green is concerned, yay yay yay! All the colours are done except the green, and the beading for part 1 is done (all the pearl coloured beading in the centre) and I'm using the gold beads as incentive - I get to bead 10 beads for every length of thread that I use. My beading needle is bent though - what does everyone reccomend for beading needles? I'm just using a 28 petite at the moment, but its a bit short.

Anyway, I love it but it's frustrating. Can't wait to do part 3, with all the specialty stitches and beads - and what's more, NO MORE GREEN!

From the Ashes after Challenge SAL #3

I did a few stitches on periwinkle yesterday, but my mood was very very down and it was hard to focus on anything. Mostly yesterday I read, which was the only thing I could focus to do. I'm much better today though - not 100%, but better.

Helped Troy out with iambic pentameter for a creative writing lecture he has today last night - that stuff is confusing! Finally we sorted it out and he wrote his prescribed piece of 2 stanzas, 8 lines. His was about an eagle.

Anyway, I realised that I hadn't posted a picture of my weekend's progress on From the Ashes. I tried a cross country method this time, except for the wing in which I used my usual method - it's confetti so it made sense. Basically, I filled in all the secondary colours - all the random dots that there weren't much of any colour of, and then started filling in the background. I didn't get to finish filling in the background this time, but at least that will be an easy bit to start with next time I pick her up. I think I'm going to learn to hate that one colour of browny-yellow...there's so much of it!

So here she is:


From The Ashes - (c) HAED and Teri Rosario
Stats:
Started: 12th January 2007
Total Stitches: 166,600
Stitches Done:

• 12/3/07 - 2613
  

2 Dresses in Potentia...

Okay, so I went to spotlight.

And spent way too much money.

I don't use spotlight usually, except for dress fabric - I like to support LNS's but where on earth do you buy dress fabric other than spotlight!?!

So, I bought that black flannel. And it looks like this:
(a little washed out, thanks to the flash)

And after much calculation, we got 3 metres of it, and measured it so I can cut the sleeves with the edge of the detail for the cuffs. Going to look gorgeous. Here's the detail:
(a little blurry - no flash!)

And I also bought another dress...inspired by the photo I posted in the last entry. Here are my colour choices - this one was much cheaper! 2m-ish total between the two fabrics, but the fabric is much wider, and it's a heavy calico. The pale colour is for the hem and cuffs.


I also bought zips, flannelette for a petticoat (pale purple) and thread, but it's the boring kind of thread so I'm not taking photos of all that. You can see it when I post pictures of the in progress - or finished! dresses.

My grandmother's coming over soon, so fingers crossed I get my pattern soon, and can make them!

Wheee stitching!

Okay, I did a lot today.

Basically, I've had a basket in the corner of our living room with in progress projects that aren't cross stitch in it for years. This has included clothes that need altering, most of a quilt that just needs the blocks sewn up and borders added, varying small cross stitch projects/pre-discovering linen projects, doll clothes, etc etc.

We're getting a floating floor to replace the carpet that the mould ate. It's going to look beautiful. But we had to take the skirting boards off so that they can put the floating floor in, because they wouldn't do it for us. So that's what dad did today, while Troy knocked the nails out of them once he'd prised them off. And I organised this 'basket' - really a basket, a large box, and the surrounding floor.

Here's what I got done today:

• Put cloak (made, needs hem stitched - on panne velvet (both sides) so will take a while) away in room to be done later
• Decided that beautiful full white skirt with gold leaf design on it that rats got to is not ruined, even though i thought it was 12 months ago when i first put it in the basket. Hung it back in wardrobe, to be worn soon - I LOVE this skirt! It has a few holes, a bit moth eaten, but it's *so* full that you can't see them unless you look.
  
• Ripped a ragged hem on blue dress that got eaten by the rats about 5cm from the bottom because mum moved my rat cage over near the wardrobe - I'd never worn the dress, and she was so apologetic that she went out and bought me a new one - different though. Ripped a ragged hem on the underskirt too, to match. It looks great over jeans (a little short for me to wear it otherwise, comfortably) and I will take photos.
• Finally gave up on altering the bodice on a white tiered dress with bands of crochered lace between the tiers with drawstring at neck and waist. Basically, it looked like a nice skirt that fit my waist well, and a sack up top. Pinned and pinned and pinned and finally decided there was no way of altering it, so cut the bodice off and am now wearing it as a beautiful white skirt. Will also take photos.
  
• Dug up a beautiful Australian sampler that I stitched on 14ct aida back a couple years ago - beautiful, but I never finished stitching the backstitched border. It's 3/4 done! However, I can't find the thread so I'll go to cherubs tomorrow and pick up a skein of 988 to finish it with, then wash it and show it as a happy dance *grin* It really is gorgeous, even if I *did* have to unpick and restitch those parrots and trees a thousand times...
• Folded and repacked large amounts of fabric that I've collected - silly things, like a large rectangle of bright blue panne velvet that I was given but have no use for, and a huge (like 3m) piece of sheer mottled blue fabric - originally curtain fabric, that I bought at spotlight a couple years ago for $1/m and I always meant to use it as overlay on a dress but never got around to it.
• Fit everything left over into my basket and threw out the extra box!

So now what is left in my basket is:

• The aforementioned fabric
• All the pieces cut for a victorian dress for a doll I made forever ago *except* the bodice and a sleeve, which are currently somewhere - location unknown. Last I knew it had been washed because someone got pie on it - dont ask, but after that I havent seen it in a while. It will turn up. Or I will buy new fabric. One of the above.
• The blocks, and a few rows sewn up of a quilt called Moonshadow that I started two and a bit years ago, all grey and black fabric but with jewel tones that leap out. Looks stunning, just needs some dedicated space to lay it out in and a couple spare days to sew it together in. Maybe in the holidays after easter? Might be able to ring in a few family members to help me!
• Random felt that is there for goodness knows what reason
• Stencils of bugs that I bought a couple years ago for a specific project and am keeping, for reasons unknown - I guess in the off chance that I might want to use them again.
  
• A pair of harem pants that are missing the bells that tied one of the cords - mum found them when washing but they've since disappeared and I'm not throwing them out until it's been a year since they were lost.

The sampler that I did ages ago (the year on it says 2005) is hanging up to try and hang the creases out, and I'll wash it with orvus very carefully when I've finished the border. It's white, but it got carted around a fair amount and so it's grubby. I nicknamed it my teatowel while I was working on it, since the dimensions are about the same! It's actually part of a pair of samplers - they were supposed to be stitched on the same piece of fabric but it would have looked horrible, and I started the matching one but never finished it. I dug it out too. I might try and finish it - make it a requirement to work on it for five hours every time I finish a milestone on one of my other projects maybe or something. I'm getting the first one framed anyway, since it looks fine on its own, and when I finish the other one it will be framed to match. It's all cross and back stitch, but the charting is magnificent - especially in this one section that has four trees in it, all different kinds - one looks like red autumn lace! Beautiful, even on aida.

I went to spotlight the other day looking for fabric for a dress pattern that I ordered - I wanted to make a simple, old style dress - long skirt, fitted waist with ties at the back, button/zip down the back, square neckline and long sleeves but moderned-ed up a bit. But do you know how hard it is to find dress fabric these days? Out of everything in that store, there was *one* bolt of fabric that would be warm enough for a dress, that wasn't hideous or obviously designed to be mens pants fabric. And it was on a rack that said $7.70/m which isn't too bad. Black flannel, with an embroidered detail around the hem about 30-40cm wide in autumn variegated colours, and plenty more in the plain black above where I'd have to cut it for the skirt to make the bodice and sleeves out of.

...get to the counter and ask for 3m of it, which should be plenty, and the assistant said 'you do realise that this is $27/m' don't you?

$27/m!!!!

*dies*

needless to say, I didnt buy the fabric.

*but* on the radio I heard that they have a sale on on tuesday, so I might go back if they still have the fabric. They should. I hope anyway...

It still ends up being $64.8 for the fabric, but I guess I could live with that. I've bought dresses for that amount before, and they were summer, cotton ones. It's just so frustrating that there is no decent dressmaking fabric around anymore, and when you find it it's so expensive.

Here's one version of the dress, though I won't have the contrasting colours on cuffs and hem:




I plan to make it with the black fabric, and ask Troy's mum to dye me some ribbon to match the colours in the embroidery to use on the cuffs and waistband, and maybe the collar if it needs it, to break up the black.

Seeing it done in the calico makes me want to do one in a lighter fabric too, with a flannelette petticoat underneath to keep warm with or something. It's gorgeous!
I just realised that this post was enormous, so I should probably shut up now.

Periwinkle Fae - week 1

Look! Periwinkle :) She's back. And now on a hand-dyed 32ct jobelan which I *love* from silkweavers, thanks to Anna.

I love her eyes - that one eye took me 3 straight hours of stitching and has about 20 colours but it's worth it.



Periwinkle Fae QS (no background) - (c) HAED and Nadia Tate
Stats:
Started: 1st March 2007
Total Stitches: 20872
Stitches Done:

• 8/3/07 - 1078
  

Look at this!

I have a lovely pile of floss...


and here's a side view:


that's everything I need for Sara Butcher's Truth, Temptation and Autumn. And now my fingers are itching to start them, but I'm going to have to be good - at least I don't have fabric, or I might have!

EDIT: silly me, I forgot to say - that's thanks to the lovely Nicole, who picked it all up for me :) Floss fairies are wonderful. Thankyou Nicole!

In other fun news, Tash and I are starting a Japanese Octagon Box SAL on Mondays as soon as I get my kit. Can't wait - more silks! Mmmmmm....

Goals review and new goals

March's goals:

Stitching:

• keep up with Mystery X (even with that enormous part - eek!) - didn't happen. still working on it now, though getting close - just a bit of the dark blue&green, and the pale green to stitch - and the beads
  
• stitch beads for part 1 - this didn't happen either, though i'm starting to stitch the beads now along with the threads I'm working with (I rotate through the colours, a length at a time so I don't get in a rut)
  
• stick to rotation - sacrificed this one to try and keep the other two. I'll try to do better this month.
  

Life:

• get all homework done, on time - yes! For the first time in my life, it's week 5 and i'm completely up to date. Week 6 actually, and I haven't missed any assignments.
  
• not miss meds AT ALL - yep. Not having a repeat of what happened to make me make this a goal last month!
  
• start taking my lunch to school - no, not this time. Which is frustrating, but it will happen, eventually. Eventually being the operative...
  
• get a bedtime, and stick to it - heh. well, bedtime I got. sticking to it is the hard part. Stitching gets in the way especially.
  
• clean my room - nope, though Mel's said she'll do it for me when she comes up Tuesday.
  

This Month:

Stitching:

• catch up the Mystery, with part 3 done
• stick to the new rotation
• stitch along with Tash when I get my JOB stuff
• not start anything new except JOB
• stitch in the HAED QS SAL with periwinkle at least twice this month
• stitch in the 2nd weekend SAL with From the Ashes
• experiment with cross country on From the Ashes
• think about getting new fabric for frogs...anna and waychie (who have actually seen them), do you think they're worth starting over on jobelan with white silk? Or should I just stick with them as they are?
• not buy ANYTHING else!
  

Life:

• keep my room relatively clean
  
• actually pray my rosary at least once each week
• get fabric together for quilt for school (find it all!)
• get fabric for quilt that's still needed (solid colour fabrics)
• keep up to date with school
• try to get to bed at a reasonable hour each night