Twilight angel, framed: Gay Ann Rogers, designer

This was a gift to my friend Terry who lives in England. I mailed it to her with frame and she had it framed herself. This way it limits the risk of receiving it damaged.

Twilight Angel: Christmas gift for Terry

Here is the project that I will be stitching for you, Terry, for this upcoming Christmas. Will blog my stitching so that you will be able to see it coming to life :-)

Flag Tag (A Name Tag), Gay Ann Rogers, Designer

Another finishing that I have done yesterday is the one designed by Gay Ann Rogers. Here are previous posts, one and two, showing the work in progress.

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Gay Ann had some real easy finishing instructions here, just use a running stitch to sew the two pieces together. How difficult is that? I never had it so easy in all my life (big grin).

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I now need to bring it with me when I go to Office Supplies and find a plastic name tag holder the right size and just slide my stitch name tag inside and mission accomplished.

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Now, why am I stitching so many name tags, as I have quite a few others waiting for me in the wings, when I don't really need any? I don't go to seminars and things like that. I suppose that we just never know now, do we? They may come handy when I get old enough that on some days I can't even remember my own name. All I have to do then is grab one of those and put it on myself and that should do the trick, that is, if I remember where I have put them :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Miniature Georgian House and Garden Gate: Gay Ann Rogers, designer

Once in a while I try to do a bit of finishing and this morning I decided to tackle those two miniature projects that I have stitched a while back. They are: Miniature Georgian House and Miniature Garden Gate, both designed by Gay Ann Rogers.
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I simply finished them by using those Metal Finishing Forms. It makes finishing of little ornaments so much quicker and easier. Have added a bit of padding underneath, green fabric on the back and made some cording and that was it. Can't remember where I have ordered them initially, but there are some here. I know that you can find them at lots of places.
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I already have some miniature ceramic ones that I love to put on my Christmas tree and this year I will add those too. That should be cute :-)
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On another note, I have been watching "Le Tour de France" since July 4 and that has been distracting me quite a bit from my stitching since I never multitask, prefering to give my undivided attention to whatever I am doing.
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For those of you who do not know what Le Tour de France is, it is the biggest and most grueling cycling event that currently exists lasting for 3 weeks. The big question that all the fans are now asking themselves is which of the two will win the Tour: Lance Armstrong or Contador :-) How many stitchers are watching this, I have been wondering ..................
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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Roof added

April assignement has been completed with the addition of the roof on Hollyhock House. A good thing that the wallpapers and furniture have not yet been added as we have been having lots and lots of rain recently with a few tornadoes here and there just to keep us on our toes. The last tornado, an F4 touched down about 25 miles from where I live. Lots of hurt people and also a mother and her new born babies have died. I think the baby was only 7 weeks old. What a tragedy.
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I have told my husband that this one is my own house and if he is really really good he can come to visit me at times (grinning). He won't have to pay property taxes on it, nor do any painting and gardening. It is all on me. He can just come to visit and relax. Seems to me like he is getting a great deal here.
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Thinking of it, why not have this beautiful house on an island with great weather year round. Have been to Hawaii and just loved it, so I think that this will be Hollyhock House new setting. Flowers all year round, surrounded by oceans. Can you imagine me sitting on my porch, looking at the ocean in front of me and just stitching away? What a life! Can't ask for much more than that.

Just added a close-up photo of the roof.

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I have stitched 38 pages of instructions so far and there are 145 pages total, so there is still a long long way to go before this piece can go to the framer. Next assignment will be about stitching the two angels that will be protecting my house. Can't wait to get going on that.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: All bricks done

I have noticed that whenever I take a photo and that the center of that picture has not been stitched, then I have all those wavy lines. I tried and tried with this one and this is the best one I could take.
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Having now stitched the last brick, this is completing my March assignment with the stitch-along group. Will now put this project aside until April 1st when we get our next assignement for that month. This will give me time to work on my other projects. At that time we will be working on the roof, chimneys, angels, ribbon and not sure what else.
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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Facia board & more bricks

Took another photo to show progress made since last post. No sun today and that changes a bit my colors. Yesterday we had almost 80 degrees temperatures, nice enough to have lunch outside on the patio and tomorrow they are telling us to expect some wintery weather. Talk about big weather changes. No wonder trees and plants can't keep up with all this foolishness. I have still not adjusted to our latest daylight saving time as I keep waking up one hour later than my "normal" time. In reality that only means that I keep waking up at the same exact time as before, but the end result is that I am an hour late with the start of my day :-(
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It will take a little bit longer before I do the little Christmas stocking finishing as I have ordered some ultrasuede for the backing, something I just did not have at home. Hopefully it won't take too long to do the finishing once I receive the fabric. At first I entertained the idea of finishing it with some fabric I had, but that would only have made my job more difficult and probably not as nice, so better wait for the fabric than do something that I won't be as happy with.
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The photo above shows the facia board. I still need to complete the bricks on the right side and I believe that will be it for this month's assignment. Need to check about that. Will post another photo when that bit is done. Next month's assignment will be to finish the roof, add two chimneys, work on the two angels, etc. so lots of fun coming up :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Bricks all stitched on left side of house

Daylight saving time began this morning and I am still not completely awake and have been dragging my body along all morning. Did not sleep all that well either, so don't think that today will be a very active stitching day. Oh well, I can always read. Have some great detective books waiting for me next to a very comfortable chair. Seems very inviting right this minute :-)

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Anyway, I have managed to snap a quick photo of the left side of Hollyhock house showing all the bricks completed. Done a few additional bricks on the right side too, so slowly moving along with the bricklaying.

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Talk to you all when I am a bit more awaked.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: More bricks

I am now getting close to finishing the left side of the house, but have been having lots of distractions lately so not stitching as much, but have managed to add a few more bricks.

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We are now having our annual meeting at ANG CyberPointers. It is hard to imagine that this new cyber group has only been in existence since October of 2008 and we are already over 300 members. There are tons of projects for us to work on and there is not a dull moment. They sure keep me on my toes with everything that is going on there. One of the project is a stitch along doing the Tony Minieri kimono that everybody is talking about and we have so many more.

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Next week, we will have our meeting at EGA CyberStitchers. We have lots of interesting National projects that we are taking as a group and also some smaller free projects given to members. We are now deciding on the different classes that we will be taking as groups.

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I am also heavily involved with projects from the Shining Needle Society. One of them is this stitching along doing the Hollyhock House.

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.......... and just in case I did not have any with these three wonderful groups, I will soon be taking another cyberclass, making a little Nugget Box.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Bricks

Just took a quick picture to show you the brick laying. We are using 3 different colors for the bricks. Each brick has two layers, the first one going this way \ and the top layer going that way /.

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Upon Ann's suggestion, our stitch-along leader, I have been using either the same colors for the two layers or using one color for the bottom layer, a different one for the top layer and alternating between the bottom and top layers, giving me lots of possible combinations and shading, which looks natural looking.

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I decide on the colors of each individual brick as I go along depending on the colors chosen for previous bricks as I try to get a nice overall look. I am quite happy so far with the results. I love Gay Ann Rogers' designs and this one will also look great once completed, but I am not there yet, far from it, but making slow progress..

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Slowly building the house

I have been so involved with my stitching that I almost forgot to stop and take photo showing what I have done since the last post.

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As you can see, I have stitched the mortar between the bricks on each side of the house, but before I actually started stitching the bricks themselves, I wanted to put some foundation to my house, which are the grey lines. I still have some more to do and then I want to put the roof and finish it off with the bricks. I have so many classes and stitch-alongs in which I am involved in that I need to focus on one assignment at a time and try to slide the finishing in-between these.

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For those of you who have been wondering if I have started working on the finishing of my little bargello pillow, the answer is yes, but not much as Hollyhock House was screaming at me to work on her :-) I have only one side out of 4 stitched on the little pillow, so nothing to show you as all we can see are both backsides of the fabric, not very interesting I am afraid :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Both vases and flowers stitched

I have finally stitched both sides of Hollyhock House and just in time too for my March assignment, which will be what I wanted to stitch all along, the bricks. We would think that I have been a bricklayer in a previous life for my wanting to do this part so badly (grinning).

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I find myself with a big conflict this morning as I said that I would do the finishing of my little bargello pillow and I really want to do just that, but and a big but, at the same time I want to do some bricklaying so badly too. Life is just so hard, isn't it? Tough choices all the time :-(

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Next post will tell you which one I have decided to work on first ..................

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: Right side

We can't see much the details on this photo but that gives you a general idea where the second vase is located in relation to the first one I have previously stitched. You can see closer details on previous photos here The right side is just a repeat of the left side, so you are not missing anything really :-)

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All that remains to do to complete this section are the three flowers. On March 1st we will be getting our next assignment, so better get cracking on this. It will be brick laying time, starting the foundation of Hollyhock House. The fun will really begin then, at least for me.

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I have already gathered everything that I need to do the finishing of my little bargello pillow and will work on it as soon as the flowers on HHH are done.

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Pierrette =^..^=

One finishing done, how many more to go?

Yesterday, I decided that it was high time for me to start working on doing some finishing so started with an end-of-term examination ornament that I made using the same threads that I had used for Gay Ann Rogers' Mystery in a corner.

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For this one I decided to use the book called Sandy's Finishing Touches by Sandy Higgins and went for a hard ornament finish but with a single mat board method instead of double mat board method. You can find out all the information in her book on page 34. Then I made two different cordings, a small one to hang the ornament at the top and a bigger one for all around the ornament and finally made a knot at the bottom and that created the tassel, method I had learned on a cyberclass taken with Carole Lake.
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I should probably now be good and continue to do a bit of stitching on Hollyhock House before tackling another finishing as I will soon be getting another monthly assignment.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Miniature Georgian house: Gay Ann Rogers, designer

I see that my photo is a bit lopsided this morning. Oh well! :-(

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I had purchased two miniature projects from Gay Ann Rogers during her last online weeklong sale, the miniature garden gate and the miniature Georgian house, so now because of having two not so good day, I ended up stitching them both, which is great in a sense as they were quick and fun to stitch. On the downside, I now have two more projects to do the finishing.

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What a difference in size that will be when I go back to Hollyhock House with my 18" by 24" frame compared to the little 6" by 6" I have been using for those two projects. Not sure what I will do with myself for the rest of the day as I am not feeling that great. Will I do some finishing or will I work on HHH (Hollyhock House) or something else. No idea. Will put my leftover threads away and will give it some thought. If it was not so cold outside I would go out for a breath of fresh air. I am really getting tired of this cold weather and I am more than ready for spring. No sun outside and overcast, not a fun day.

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Will be back soon with something, not sure what, but definitely something (grinning)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Miniature garden gate: Gay Ann Rogers, designer

I woke up very early this morning, around 3 and could not fall back asleep, so got up a little before 4 and got busy with all kind of things and of course ended up rather tired so I decided to work on a little project, something that I could hold in my hands and that would work rather quickly, so thought of this little kit I had purchased from Gay Ann Rogers and "voilà un autre projet de complété" another project completed, quite easy, quick and fun to do.

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I have another little miniature kit from Gay Ann, a little Georgian house. Will keep it for another day when I don't have enough energy to tackle a BIG project :-)

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It is always a good feeling to have been able to complete a project and this one only took a few hours.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Hollyhock House: A Gay Ann Rogers' design

I love Gay Ann Rogers' designs and I have purchased quite a few from her and when it was decided that we could do Hollyhock House as a SAL (stitch along) I thought this was a wonderful idea and decided to participate as well. Ann, who is our leader/moderator for this SAL has given us 3 monthly assignments so far: November, December & January. Since I was heavily involved with other stuff in November & December, I had a bit of catching up this past week, but have managed to do all the stitching assigned and I am now ready for our February assignment.
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Here is what we have done so far.

• November: We worked pages 2 & 3 (we have 145 pages total + 5 oversized graphs)
• December: We worked dividing bands and grass (page 4)
• January: The pot of flowers on the left side of the house (pages 3 - 27)

This is a photo of the top 2 flowers:

This photo shows the bottom flower with the vase

Finally, this photo shows the whole vase with flowers and a few rows of grass underneath.

This is a really big piece. I am using some 11" by 17" stretcher bars as we were told that it was not recommended to use scroll bars for this project. I can say that working with such a big frame is not the easiest thing to do, but it is manageable. I may need some arm extension before the completion of this project (grinning).

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Next assignment will probably be about stitching some bricks, which will make a nice change after working the left vase and flowers before we have to work on another vase for the right side of the house.

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What is interesting with this SAL is that after the assignment is completed for the month, we have time to work on other projects as well, so will go back to them now. I am working on another project at this time but can't blog it right now as it is a gift and I don't want that person to see it before the proper time :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament ready for finishing

What a relief, having finished my Challenge Ornament before Gay Ann's deadline for the Certificate of Completion, which is only available for those of us who have completed both projects, this Challenge Ornament and Mystery in a Corner which I have completed a while back.
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Many times while stitching Challenge Ornament I wished I had the use of more varieties of threads to work with, but one must work with what she has, so I did. I did not quite follow the progression order that Gay Ann gave us in her written instructions as I wanted to concentrate on certain areas first and then see what color thread would fit in other areas, not an easy task to do, at least in my case, but I am slowly learning.
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I have taken two photos of the completed ornament, the first one above is how the ornament will look like when finished and the second photo below is how I was working it on my stretcher bars.

Now, I need to read Gay Ann's instructions and answer the different questions she is asking us and send to her with my photos and I will be done.

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That was a fun project and looking forward to making the other one using Chrismassy colors.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament: A little bit more done

Yesterday's stitching went rather well. I had to undo two little sections because they just did not look right to me, so I redid them with different threads and it made a big difference.

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There isn't much left to do with this ornament so I think I can safely say that it should be completed today and a photo sent to Gay Ann for evaluation.

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It is not really the stitching itself that takes a lot of time, but the planning part of it. Sometimes when I am not entirely sure about which thread to use next, I just put the ornament aside for a little while and then comes back to it later and by that time everything seems a lot clearer in my mind.

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Next post will show the completed ornament, not the finishing yet as I am not sure that I have quite enough thread left to do it, but will check to make sure.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament: Designed by Gay Ann Rogers

On Saturday I rushed to finish stitching a little bookmark so that early Sunday morning I could start working on Challenge Ornament, which is a little end-of-term examination ornament after having stitched Mystery in a Corner, but things did not really start as smoothly as I had expected.
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(Photo showing what I have managed to do so far)

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When Gay Ann started talking about Challenge ornament, I thought I would use the same threads that I had used for MIAC (Mystery in a Corner), then later on as the holidays were coming closer, I thought it might be nice if I used Xmassy colors instead, then thought about it some more and went back to my initial decision to use the same colors as MIAC. Some may think that I have too much time in my hands, but that would not be true :-) The main reason for using the same colors is that it would be easier for me to have some idea of how those colors would look like when deciding where to put each one in my Challenge Ornament, and as this is after all a small ornament, I can make another one after with my Xmassy colors. Seems, reasonable, right!?
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So, yesterday morning I started looking for my MIAC leftover threads as I remembered that they were all in a little baggy. I looked everywhere I could think of (inside my home of course), but just could not find them. I had no choice then, but go to Plan B with my Xmassy colors. I got all my threads out on my working table and selected lots of reds, greens, gold, grey, sparkling white, etc. My desk was literally covered with them, then my eyes looked sideways and what did I see? Yes, you are right, my MIAC leftovers threads in a little baggy and they were exactly where I had put them, imagine that, so now I am back to Plan A. I put all those reds, greens, etc. in a big bag for the second ornament which now of course I absolutely need to do later as I certainly don't want all those efforts to go to waste.
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I then put my canvas on stretcher bars and worked on it on Sunday until I got too tired to be able to think straight anymore, not a good place to be when I had so many "important" decisions to make, so put everything aside for the day and this morning took it out again with a new perspective, at least that is what I am telling myself.
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This ornament is really becoming more and more of a challenge because on top of making all those decisions with the MIAC leftover threads, which are limited in themselves, now I am starting to run out of some. When I wrote a message yesterday in the classroom saying what else could possibly slow me down and somebody wrote back saying "NEVER ask that question", well she was right as running out of threads with an approaching deadline is NOT good at all. I will have to become very creative. Will I manage to rise to the challenge? Next post might give us that answer.
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Be right back!
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Pierrette =^..^=