Windows into My Heart: A little more done after a 4-year hiatus

A little progress has been made on Windows into my Heart, a design by Ruthmarie Hofmann. The first thing I had to do, as you can easily imagine after a 4-year hiatus, was to reread the entire project instructions and also all the notes that Ruthmarie gave us during that cyberclass and she was quite generous about them too. So, somewhere between reading most of it, but not quite all of them, my little fingers started itching for stitching, so stopped reading and started working on the right side of the heart. The last little section is filled with basketweave stitches. I do love stitching basketweave so much more than tent stitch. I had to refresh my memory about it as I do not work that stitch all that often. One thing that I always need to remember is that when I am going UP, I need to cover the HORIZONTAL mesh of canvas and when I am going DOWN, I am covering the VERTICAL mesh. The rest is a piece of cake, as they say.

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Next to that basketweave section, I did a vertical row of French Knots, which is another stitch that I love to do. I have a book called French Knot Pictures by Christine Harris and each time I look at it, I say to myself, I need to make one of these projects made entirely in French Knots. At first I was thinking of making those French knots using my red thread, but after I finished stitching the basketweave, I decided against it. I thought that the overdyed thread would do a better job. I used 4 strands of the overdyed and only one wrap. That makes a much better looking knot then when making two wraps. To make things more interesting, I also put together the threads in opposite direction in my needle, two on one side and the two other on the other side, which mixed the colors even more in my needle. My thinking for doing that was that it really does not take much thread to make one wrap and I was concerned that I would not get enough color change in my row. I like the end result.

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What now remains to do on this piece is the large section on the left which will be covered with free-form eyelets using the same overdyed thread that I have used for the other square eyelets and French knots. I will be adding lots of beads and French knots in that section.

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After that is completed, the only other section left to stitch will be the narrower vertical section close to the middle of the heart. There I will need to make some serious decisions. I will still be using the same overdyed thread, but not sure what stitch I will use. I will leave that decision until I get there. By then it will be much easier to see what will look nice and what will be a no-no.

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There is a little bit of news about all of you who loves Tanja Berlin of the Berlin Embroidery website in Canada. Tanja has decided to start a Gallery to showcase her customer's completed designs of hers. She contacted me not long ago to ask if I wanted to participate. She knew about my completed work because I had taken advantage of her Free on-going critique. I sent her photos of the two projects that I had completed and they are now there with many from other stitchers around the world. I thought that was such a neat idea in more ways than one. Anne Stradal does the same thing on her website where she has a special Guest Gallery. No doubt that there are others out there. I just don't know about them.

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Better go back to my stitching as my list of projects to do is not getting smaller, but bigger all the time.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar: One corner completed

Wow, there was really lots of work to do in that corner, more than in the middle pannels. The other three corners are similar and also different, similar because they all have those four hearts in the middle of each losange, but the stitches involved in making them are a bit different and also the stitches surrounding the four sides of that losange are all a bit different. The 4-way continental, which I am not that crazy about, is the same though in each corner.

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As I said in a previous post, I will scan each section when Shalimar is all completed so that we can see the stitches used in that entire design more clearly. With the camera, it is just not as clear as a good scan, but for that I will have to remove the canvas from the stretcher bars and I really don't want to do that each time I finish a section, so will do it at the very end and explain a bit more at that time.

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I have been thinking about a discussion on blogging while stitching and I hope that everyone who feels that this is something that they would like to do won't be deterred by some of these messages.

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I remember that I did things very progressively. First, I used to post photos in Yahoo photo albums of different groups that I belonged to, then I progressed to a Webshot photo album, which I still have and always keep up to date, then one day I was talking with my good friend Terry and we both decided that we were going to start blogging about our stitching and that was a couple years ago and we never looked back.

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Like most people I did not have a clue how a blog worked and I am still learning stuff as I go along and that is OK with me. It would have made my life easier if I had known some of the things from the get go as whenever I learn new things I feel the need to go back through my whole blog and change things, which takes quite a bit of time, but that's me.

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I remember looking at blogs at the time and writing down what I liked and disliked about the stitching blogs that I was looking at and then made a few decisions for myself. One of those decisions was to keep my blog entirely about stitching, a decision that I have stuck to till this day. Another decision I took at the time was to make sure I would have at least one photo each time I made an entry on my blog, as I am very visual and hate to read lots of entries with no photos included, but then again that is just me. I created my blog according to who I am and my likes and dislikes.

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I have tried to post as much as I could since the very beginning, but do not want to put pressure on myself to do so if I can't. Blogging for me is for pleasure and it also encourages me to keep up with my stitching.

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I also try to give links of where any of the projects I have stitched during those years can be located or if I can't do that, at least give the name of the designer and whatever information I have at the time so that anyone interested in stitching the same project have some basic information helping them to find it. It avoids the frustration of seeing some lovely project that I would like to stitch on a blog and having no clue as to how to find it without having to contact the blogger, which is no big deal in itself, but it makes life easier if the information is just there.

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My message to anyone who is reading this post and feel like this is something that you would like to try, go ahead, give it a shot and have fun with it. If you are like me, you will learn as you go and we bloggers who have a little bit of experience are always here to give you a helping hand.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar: 4 panels completed and one corner started

I have done a little progress since my last post. Completed the middle pannel on the left side and started one corner. I need to finish the 3 other sides of the losange and still have a few stitches to complete inside the losange like a few running stitches between the hearts and some French knots around each heart.
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This is taking much longer than I thought it would, but I always miscalculate the time needed for any project, so I may have to double the time that I thought it would take me and perhaps I will be surprised by finishing a little earlier than my anticipated deadline.
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Ever since I restarted working on Shalimar, I have been thinking of Hapsburg Lace Sampler which I completed some time back. Some similarities between the two projects, like the color and size of the canvas, threads used DMC Perle and the lacing effect of both.
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Been reading that some have framed Shalimar instead of making a pillow, so thinking about it and not completely sure what I will do with it once all stitched. Still plenty of time to think about it at the dizzying speed I am going :-(
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I finally have the supplies I need to finish Tara as I have just received the little Stanley cloth self adhesive picture hangers all the way from Canada thanks to my good friend Nicole who lives in Quebec. She went hunting for them for me. I will be finishing Tara the same way as Susan Donn explained in her Embroidery Canada Spring 2007 article. I thought it was such a neat idea, so will be trying it. Will post photos as soon as done and will explain a little bit more then.
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Slowly plugging along in my reading of Framed in Lace whenever I have time, but have not had all that much free time lately.
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Not done anything more on my brazilian embroidery rose, nor Terra Rosa, nor More Options for Hardanger and have only been looking at Windows into my Heart as been concentrating on Shalimar these past days.
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I am glad that I have decided to take the bull by the horns and finished my Elizabethan pencil box as Barbara Jackson from Tristan Brooks Designs never answered my email for help. At this point I can only speculate as to the reason(s) why ......
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My friend Elisabeth from England has shown me how to do proper links in my posts yesterday and have since started going back through all my posts to change all of them, so a big thank you Elisabeth :-) You may want to spend some time on her blog, which is marvelous.
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Better go now and keep plugging along on Shalimar.
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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar: 3 out of 9 panels completed

Since yesterday morning, I have managed to stitch a third square/panel. If only I could keep this tempo, I would be all done in, let's see now,, got 9 panels, if I take 1½ day per panel, that would make 6 times 1½ = 9 days. Hey, that would not be too bad, but knowing me, something will happen and I won't make it, so let's say I give myself 2 weeks and my oldest UFO would have been completed. Hard to believe right now :-(

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When it is all done, I will scan the new finished panels/squares so that each design can be seen better. That is what I have done for the previous photos, just before I put it back on my stretcher bars. Digital photos do not show stitches as well, sorry to say, at least when I am taking the photos.

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Going back to my stitching now. Not a minute to spare if I want to make it (big grin).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar

A good friend of mine when she saw this project called Shalimar, which end result will be a lovely pillow, strongly encouraged me to finish it.
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The photo above shows one little section that has been stitched.


A second photo shows another section with a different design.

Here with the third photo we can see the two stitched sections with some unfinished ones.

Here we have a view of the entire project. There are still quite a bit of stitching to do, but it is the kind of stitching that gives a lace effect and is quite lovely.

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Shalimar is a Carol Costello design. Some of you may be familiar with her designs. You can find it in a book called Fancy Work & Fantasies. There are two different pillow designs in the book. The other one is quite lovely too, but I prefer this one. Shalimar has a beautiful vase with flowers in the center section, little hearts in the four squares and lots of beautiful stitches.

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The threads used for this project are Medici and DMC Perle.

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It has been such a long time since I have stitched on that project that I won't even try to guess when it was. Yes, it was that long ago. That makes it quite a UFO, doesn't it? I think that this is my oldest one, when I think of it, which means that I will probably have to have some kind of celebration when it is all completed :-)

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I am having some bad Spring allergies these days and it is making stitching much more difficult, but not impossible.

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Have started working on my brazilian embroidery rose the other day, so it is progressing slowly.

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Still reading my Monica Ferris book called Framed in Lace. Hey, that is probably why I have just picked up Shalimar as it looks like Lace. I had not realized that until just now. I think that I may be pushing that thing a bit far by doing some crewel work when reading Crewel World and now wanting to work on Shalimar because I am reading Framed in Lace. The next one on the list is called Murderous Yarn, does that mean that I need to start knitting something? I have not knitted since I was 12 years old probably :-(

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Oh, well, enough chatting and better get myself moving on my stitching.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Elizabethan pencil box

I have never been very patient at waiting for answers, so decided to take the bull by the horns and do the finishing right away.
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First thing I did was to lace my finished project on a piece of cardboard that my husband precut for me. Once it was all laced properly, then I inserted it in the opening and it fit snuggly, not too tight and not too loose, just right.
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The inside of the box except for the cover was all covered with a dark brown felt, so I went looking into my stuff and found one piece that was very very close to the same shade of brown that Olde Colonial had used, so I was really happy as it avoided me a trip to the store.
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My husband who is very good at making technical drawings made some calculations so that the felt fabric would go down inside the cover and then up the side and then cover the top of the inside box where the cover meets the bottom part. He then made a drawing with all the proper dimensions on a white piece of paper.
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The next part was to use that drawing for my cutting pattern and cut the felt. After cutting, we tried it to make sure the dimensions were right and then glued the whole thing with a glue gun. It almost looks like a professional job and it did not cost me anything :-)
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I will be using the box to put the pens/pencils that I use the most for my embroidery and won't have to keep looking for them each time I need them.
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Last evening I decided that I was going to start a Brazilian embroidery project, a lovely rose. It is not a terribly big project so I should be able to post a photo in a few days time, at least I hope so.
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Pierrette =^..^=

Elizabethan pencil box all stitched

I forgot to include a photo showing the whole design in my previous post so here it is :-)
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A few comments about this kit. The instructions were very good and had good diagrams explaining the stitches. Another thing that for me is very important is that the threads included in the kit were plentiful and at no point was I concerned that I would run short if I made an error and had to start over.
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Below is a photo of the box in which the finished stitched design will go into. It came as you see without anything more. Have written to Barbara Jackson from Tristan Brooks Designs, the designer and seller of this Olde Colonial Designs box to make sure nothing had been forgotten like finishing instructions, little cardboard or something, but have not heard back from her yet. She may be out of town teaching or something so will put the finishing on hold for now and see what happens.

Now, moving on to some other projects. Need to think which one as I have quite a few already started and lots and lots not started yet but begging to be, so will see :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Elizabethan pencil box: third and last section

Completed the stitching of the third and last section of my Elizabethan pencil box design.

Pierrette =^..^=

Elizabethan pencil box: middle section

I have done a little more on this crewel project by adding some strawberries and a little bee to what I had already stitched.

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Talking about crewel, yesterday I finished reading Monica Ferris' book entitled Crewel World and I have enjoyed it so much that I have already started reading another one of her book called Framed in Lace.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Framed

My Gracie has just came back from the framer and here is a picture of her. We made the decision not to put a glass over this time around, so I will be able to play with her whenever I feel like it (big smile).

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I was happy to hear back from the framer, especially today as I am having one of those days where nothing seems to work just right. Bet you all know what I mean. Anyway, Gracie has put a bit of sunshine in my sorry day.

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Been working on my Elizabethan crewel project this morning, the one that will go into a pencil box when finished. Going well so far. I checked the box I purchased with the kit and to my surprise there was no finishing instruction at all, no cardboard included or anything, nothing to attach it in position, so just wrote to Barbara from Tristan Brooks hoping that she can give me a bit of information as to how to go about putting everything together. I have purchased boxes before, not from Olde Colonial Designs though, but there were always finishing instructions with them, so will see what happens with this one. Still have a little bit of stitching to do before getting to that finishing part, so I am hoping to hear back from Barbara soon as I love to finish my projects as soon as they have been stitched.

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Now, back to my stitching :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=