Dragon Rambles

I’m getting very close to finishing the wedding present for my brother, which means I’ve been starting to think about what next to work on. There are of course a couple of cardis I’m close to finishing, so they’re on the list. And I’m really looking forward to continuing with my winterkist quilt, and starting my space invader one (though I still need to order the fabric). And of course starting to quilt moonglow (once I order the batting and figure out where to baste it).

But I’ve also been feeling the urge to start stitching again. I used to do a lot, but haven’t really done any for quite some time now. Steadily, over the last few months, I’ve been thinking about dusting off a WIP and putting some time in each week. But which one?

My oldest WIP, back when I was a one at a time girl, is one I still love. And really, what’s not to love when a dragon is involved?

Or my second oldest WIP back when I convinced myself that once I opened the door to two projects, I’d limit myself to that. Plus, this mandela based on the Alhambra really called to me, especially after having visited the Alhambra in person. I love the jewel tones.

Of course, I could pick something that I know will be the fastest to finish. Although, I think I need to order more gold beads for this one.

But there’s also the one I started right before I downed my tapestry needle. This is a square design with all four corners being mirror images of each other. I do love the intricate design paired with the simplicity of wine on grey.

Or there’s the piece I started when I first moved to Cardiff, while all my possessions were still on a ship on their way from Australia. I can see this becoming the centre on a red and white quilt. I’ll probably use some of the motifs as inspiration for the rest of the quilt.

Decisions, decisions. Maybe I’ll end up choosing more than one.

Wow, two posts in two days and five in a week! Do you get the feeling you’ve come to the wrong blog?

NOTE: I thought a lot about posting this post in it’s entirety as I know some of the content might offend some people. But since this blog is supposed to be about my hobbies, including my thoughts and the journey involved, Rather than just a place to post pretty pics, I decided to leave it all in. If you are one who does not like controversy with your blog reading, just skip down to the last paragraph and picture.

Last year I posted about two stitching projects: Blue Faery and Rhapsody in Red. Well after my post about Blue Faery, I had an email conversation with Michelle from HAED and she recharted that section to give the faery her butt back. I wasn’t sure I liked the fix but it was hard to tell off the screen, so I got her to send the new chart to me. I figured I could use the new edge and play with the colours from that rehion of the original butt to get something I liked. Unfortunately, it had been charted with a whole new symbol set. When I told Michelle, she said she’d send it redone with the old symbols within a couple of days. When I still hadn’t received it a week later, I decided to just go with the new symbol set and try and figure out the overlap to the old chart section myself. Problem! The chart may have been charted with a new symbol set, but the OLD symbol key was provided. Emails about this to Michelle were ignored so Blue Faery got put in the discard pile.

At the same time, when I had first mentioned the disappearing butt problem, I had also mentioned some charts that myself and friends had bought where the colours were totally different from the artwork (eg, Gargoyles of Notre Dame – the charted wings were blue not purple). I received an email about a month after that saying she had recharted them and to let my friends know to contact her for the corrections. My response was of course, thank you very much, but I also told her which of the charts I had. Like before, this email was ignored.

All this negativity really turned me off my stitching. At first I thought it just turned me off all things HAED. But I couldn’t make myself want to pick up any piece at all. So I switched to knitting, for those odd bits of time, for several months instead.

Well I had the Sat and Sun off work at Easter and finally got the urge to stitch again. I decided to clebrate this with a new start of a chart that I had been wanting to do for several years: Black Lace. I got a lot of stitching done that weekend and have found moments here and there where I can pick it up and put in some more stitches. Despite being stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct linen, this is a fairly easy project since it’s monochrome, so I don’t have to think about what colour goes where. I had trouble getting a photo of the true colour of the thread – it’s a deep wine colour. And actually I’m going to have several spools extra as I had originally planned to do this 2 over 2. So I’ll send a spool to the first two people to comment with a “yes please”.

Well I haven’t been doing much stitching for the last few months, but when I have had 30 min or so to pick something up, I’ve wanted something easy (both to the mind and eyes). So I’ve been working on Rhapsody in Red, Part 1 (the sampler).

I started this piece when I first moved to Cardiff two years ago. Obviously from my progress I haven’t worked on it too much, but it’s progressing. This is being stitched with Vikki Clayton’s silks – similar colours to the charted ones.

Back in Jan I started Blue Faery (art by Marc Potts, chart by HAED). I’ve loved that artwork for some time and had been hoping it would be released back when Marc Potts art was released the first time. Looking at the chart though, I was a little concerned about how it might turn out. So instead of starting in the top left corner like I normally do, I started in the bottom left. Right from that first page I wasn’t sure I was going to like how this turned out. The colours in the frame were all wrong. Instead of mostly grey tones it was mostly mauve. Odd given there are plenty of greys in the DMC range. But I continued, and I’ve posted pics here. Working on the mushrooms, I thought the colours were too dark, but persevered. Even when some of the mushrooms disappeared into the background because chunks of them where charted as black. Then I hit the faery. Uh oh. Not good. Here’s the original artwork.

Now here’s the stitched piece. If you compare them, you’ll see the faery is missing part of her behind. It bugged me to begin with but I continued into the next page hoping it wouldn’t look too bad. Unfortunately it did. The more I looked at it, the less I liked it. You might need to click on the original to see the large version to see what I mean.

Here’s a close up so you can see just how much of her behind has disappeared. It should be curved down to the border (suggesting the frame covers some of it) and right up past that lower leaf. Nope, instead someone has taken a big bite out of her butt.

I’ve emailed Michele at HAED. Not sure what I’ll do even if she is able to fix the chart. Depends what ends up being fixed and how much I am able to undo. Really, the whole chart should be redone. But I don’t know if I’d start again. I’ll wait and see what she replies and let you know.

Well my aim to try and stitch at least an hour or two every day seems to have worked quite well. There were a few days I was too tired and other days where I got more done, so it all evened out. And just how much I got done! Remember these are part pages, not full ones, but yes, I’ve started on the 4th page. The pic isn’t that great as I took it Monday evening before starting work on it for Feb, but it still looks good.

Ok, so what have I been working on over the last 12 months?  Well there was a crocheted shawl for my Granny, which I of course forgot to take a photo of before I shipped it off.  Then there was the dino quilt that I posted of a few months ago.  I’ve since done a second dino quilt, in different colours, that I’ll post a pic of soon.

I’ve discovered the joys of knitting – basically because I want to do some lace knitting.  I finished off a scarf that has been in the works for ages (not a slow job, I just got bored with just knitting and purling), all I have left to do is to stitch in the yarn ends.

Now I’ve started a lace knitting project, but not just any… estonian lace.  I think I had to restart this about 6 times, but I’ve got the hang of it now

As for stitching, well I started Rhapsody in Red when I first arrived in Cardiff. This is a pic that I thought I had posted back in July/Aug last year. But since I apparently didn’t, here you go.

And HAEDs… I’ve done some work on Stella and Pumpkin Pixie.

And then the other month I picked up and old WIP, since this year I plan to finish off things rather than just keep starting them.

And at the moment, I’m working on Blackstone Garden

So that’s you all caught up. For the rest of the month, when I’m not knitting I’ll be stitching on Blackstone Garden. Looks like I might have a stitching finish this year after all.

I’ve been on holidays for the last week so that means I have had lots of time to get some stitching in.  Added to the previous week where I actually took time of an evening to do some stitching – not something I have done much of for a while.  I’ve started picking up a project on Sunday and working on it for a week, so I have progress on two WIPs to share.

First up is Pumpkin Pixie.  I got a stack done on her – mostly trees and background though.  I had to leave the very light colours of an evening because they were so hard on the eyes which is why so much of the dark tree was stitched on the next page without the first one being finished.  The photo is not the best but it shows what I’ve done.  

And to show just how much I got done in one week (ok, there was a sunday, anzac day and a good part of saturday put into this), I’ve added a photo of the chart pages to photobucket.  The dark green is all I did last week.

Then last Sunday I started Blackstone Garden.  I really wanted to do it on fabric I already had rather than buy more in – especially as I had bought some of Vikki’s linen for it but those two just didn’t work.  So I went for Pansy (see previous post).  It’s 28ct, so the crosses seem very large and it was strange stitching such large crosses after a week of 28ct over one, but it was also a nice break on the eyes.  I had to stitch some of it more than once since I apparently forgot how to count but I had great fun working on it.  Here it is after a week of work on it.  If you want to see the colours a little better, I have a close-up of earlier in the week too.

Ok, while I haven’t done much stitching in the last 12-15 months, I do have some progress. There were some days where I just went on strike and did some stitching – mostly weekends or evenings. And of course, after I submitted my PhD I was able to get a bit more time in (when I wasn’t sleeping or looking and applying for jobs). So on with the piccies….

First we have Mystery X and Cirques. Managed to get Part 2 finished just last week on the former. And I went back and put the beads and crystals in for parts 1 and 2. Even made a start on Part 3 and got a good chunk of it’s beads in too. I’m all beaded out now though, so I won’t be picking it up again for a few more weeks.

The colours aren’t too good in the pic for cirques, but at least you can see how much I’ve done and have a small idea of colours. Although, the fabric is not actually blue.

Next some HAED progress. There’s a new start this year (Drac’s Leaf) and more progress on Stella. I’ve finally reached her face.

And I’ve been buying some silks. So now I want to start Blackstone. So what colours to do. I tried to take some pics of different floss tosses, but most of the scans and photos didn’t really give a good idea of the colours. I bought mottled magpie tears (from Vikki Clayton) thinking it would be a good one (and 36ct too which is good), but it just wasn’t right. So I went through my stash looking at other colours. Here are a couple of them.

The green I’m using is Vikki’s Dragon Opal (jadeite and black) and the other is a velvet midnight/ultraviolet mix that I had her dye for me. Originally I was thinking of more of a grey blue background. The ones above are PTP pansy (left) which is obviously more purple and grey and the one on the right more green and grey/brown (not sure it’s name count or anything). Of course, the stitching show is coming up, I could always take my spools to see the gals from Stitches and Spice and see if they have some ideas.

Well I got home today and here waiting for me was a lovely gift from Nancy. Yep, the halloween exchange from Nancy had arrived. And man, was I spoiled!

Didn’t I score! I’m really looking forward to using those gorgeous threads and fabric. Now, the stiching was only done in a week. How? I’m thinking Nancy is another octopus. Here is a close-up of her beautiful stitching.

I love the cats sooo much, and I really needed a needle book, how did she guess? Here is a pic of the other side of the scissor fob and the inside of the needle book.

Thank you Nancy! I love it all

Well Vicky and I went off to the craft show last month and I came home with all sorts of goodies. Much of it I can’t show as it is for gifts and such but here are some pretty pics of all that I came home with.

First of all here is a cool little quilt package and bits that I got (buttons, etc). Some fabric for finishing and my first q-snaps.

And then I got lots of threads. A stack of Carrie’s threads and some gorgeous blue linen from Stitches and Spice and some dinky dye silks.