Monday, November 26, 2012

DMC Spiral - Finished!


Finished this yesterday and I AM happy it's done. All the DMC colors (barring the eight or so that are listed as complete duplicates by DMC) stitched in numerical order starting from the center. After the first color there are six stitches of each color done with two strands of floss on 18 ct. Aida.

Now that my numerical order projects are done I'm going to put my floss back in the order I like. I still keep the colors separated out, but I had each color in numerical order so I could find things. Now I can obsessively put it in shade order. Oh joy.

No idea what I'll stitch next. I might not work on store patterns until after Christmas, as I really should get some more work done in my wisteria project. I've finished enough of it that I would hate myself if I didn't complete the thing.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

DMC Spiral - WIP 04

Well I've picked this up again! I'm a little over halfway through, I think.

In the last month I knit eight pairs of slippers (though three were for children). I've also been doing a lot of baking. 

Cold weather, hot fresh bread, and cheese are pretty much my life. This is not necessarily a good thing, given how much cheese I'm capable of eating.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Four Animals - Finished

My four, sweet animals are all done. I don't mind saying that the mouse is my favorite. 

The pattern is now for sale in my Etsy shop.

The pattern is quite large when stitched on 14-ct fabric (almost 11 inches wide!) and I really didn't want to use Aida as I wanted a softer look. Around here finding linen or Monaco in smaller than 28 ct is difficult, so I just stitched over one thread instead of over two. I was worried that the finished dimensions would just be too small, but I think it's actually a good size.

No idea what I'll be working on next. There's one thing I need to stitch for a Christmas present and something I need to finish knitting for a birthday in a couple weeks. Really I need to focus on doing a good thorough house cleaning now that I'm not saying "But I have embroidery to finish...."

Friday, November 9, 2012

Four Animals - WIP 02

Here's the second animal for this pattern, a lovely deer. I made a mistake around the tail, which wasn't so major that I wanted to unpick so many stitches but it does annoy me.

With this pattern I've managed to make most of my tweaks before stitching those parts, other than changing one thing around the ear and horn after finishing. 

In general, I think I'm getting better about that. At least I feel like I'm paying more attention while stitching and really before starting to stitch as well. Go me.

I've been feeling a general sense of accomplishment for having most of my Christmas shopping finished. The few things still to do are crafty things and shouldn't be too onerous.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Four Animals - WIP 01

Here's a peak at my new project.

It will eventually be a set of four animals, the bear plus a deer, mouse, and rabbit. I'm stitching them on monaco cloth, but only going over one thread. The deer will be the bear's right and it (and the mouse) will be stitched in a slightly lighter brown.

The designs all come from art deco and traditional Japanese motifs.

I'm happy the weight of the election of over with. My anxiety level was really skyrocketing. Yesterday was my nephew's birthday though, and that was a wonderful distraction. I can't believe he's four!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Rainy Umbrella


All done with my umbrella! The pattern is now for sale in my shop.

It's certainly been rainy enough here to justify it. Halfway through stitching it I thought I should have done a black umbrella and rainbow raindrops, so I photoshopped a picture to show both black and rainbow and black and light blue drops.

Next up with be some groups of animal patterns, based on traditional Japanese motifs.

Today I'm especially happy to be done with that piece because I think it's a good day to make bread. I tend to give the bread away fairly quickly, otherwise I will happily just eat bread and butter all day long. Heck, I'll eat plain bread dough pretty happily too.