Blackwork Quilt - finished!

Well, I had a few days in a row last week when I wasn't able to get any stitching done, so this did take longer than expected.

Here it is though, finally all finished and the pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop. I plan to do two or three more patterns with different quilt designs.

It is quite a lot of stitching, especially the background which took one and a half skeins of floss. I wish you could see it all in person, where the colors are more vibrant and the whole thing looks neater. Blackwork is just hard to photograph, I find.

Blackwork Quilt Motif - WIP 04

Well, hello! Look at this piece with half the background stitched. That's a whole skein of green 935 on there. Now of course I'm out, so it will be at least tomorrow before I can start again. I will eventually outline the entire outside edge as well, just to neaten it up a bit.

At 4:30 the sky got so dark I couldn't use only natural light to stitch! We just had a massive storm, and it's still raining, so it might pick back up again. We're all excited about tomorrow, as the high temperature is *only* 87. 

This is me dying of heat exhaustion. This is me realizing that even my cold water felt a little warm at 9:30 am! This is me praying that some nice person in Scotland would like to adopt me.

I've got a few new patterns to start and I'm feeling rushed and overwhelmed, like I never accomplish anything. I've certainly been ignoring the housework in favor of embroidery. 26 craft projects completed and 90 books read isn't so bad for six months work, I guess, but it's hard to keep that in mind.

Speaking of books, how much do I recommend A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel? A million times! A billion times! It's about her life as a kid in a very small town (pop. 300) in Indiana, and she writes it from the perspective, and in the voice of, her kid self (up to about age nine, I think). It's SO good and I especially recommend the audio edition, which is read by the author.

Crafty Mother Fucker

Well, I finished this gorgeous pattern, which of course I can't photograph well since it's on black Aida. This is the best I could do, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I am pretty happy with it. If I were being really picky I'd redo Crafty in a different color, but I don't mind too much. The pattern is now for sale in my shop, and soon there will be a second picture with a very different color scheme.

My new project is a blackwork pattern I designed. It's all blackwork, but the design is a traditional quilt motif. It's hard to explain, but really awesome. This time I need to be extra careful about color choices though. There will be some variegated thread, for sure.

pretend quilting

I finally present to you the completely finished (and framed) color-fade blackwork piece. It's not exactly what I wanted, because I didn't start with a large enough piece of fabric but it does look pretty. 

Plus it gave me a lot of ideas for color fade pieces which I could then do properly. Before that I need to bulk up my thread collection. I have a ton of embroidery floss, but not enough oranges and not enough blues and missing some important reds. It feels like I never have the colors I want.

I got a new computer, as mine was getting run down (especially in the touchpad department) and I'd like to have a backup that still works normally. The new machine is running Linux because holy crap I hate Windows 7. I thought I just disliked it, but having to use it for more than two minutes at a time amped the dislike right up to despise. 

We used Linux on all the computers at my high school (a tiny boarding school) so I'm not completely unfamiliar with it (though even if I was Ubuntu is SO intuitive that it should be easy for anyone to use). The best part for me is downloading all the free applications. I got a geography lesson program and can now identify all the countries on all the continents and a number of island nations. When something big happens in Moldova or Togo I'll know just where they are! I'm beyond psyched about this.

So thank you, Microsoft, for completely screwing up the operating system I grew up with and liked using. You even managed to make networking my two computers a pain and not workable. Now that's talent. Change for change's sake is always a bad idea.

moths and daleks

Well there's news all around. I finished my moth piece. Again, it comes from Leslie Wilkins' Traditional Blackwork Samplers, though I've removed a lot of the little elements which I felt took away from the lovely moth. I'm fairly pleased with it. Not thoroughly pleased but I'll give it to someone so I don't have to look at it any more.

Also, someone will be stitching my Dalek pattern on stage in a play they're in! It's the play The Great Fire, being performed in Chicago at the Lookingglass Theater (which just won an award for Best Regional Theater). So hundreds of people will be witnessing my pattern being stitched whether they know it or not. Too bad you can't send business cards with a .jpg file! It's a nice warm feeling though.

I have been so lazy with the crafts though. I resolve to start work on a new funny pattern tomorrow though. Perhaps a Tom Lehrer quote.

color fades for the win...

Oh how neglectful I've been! I had a house guest and then I left my camera at my sister's house. That's the pain of having an adorable nephew (and niece), you leave your camera a lot of places.

Anyway, here's my new piece. I had yellow on it but the fade from green to blue was so perfect that I wanted to redo the yellow to get a nicer fade into the green. This all means a trip to the needlework shop (there's a lovely little local place) and it's just so annoying having to leave the apartment.

On the plus side, how gorgeous is this?! Oh I'm so happy with how it's turning out. It is my first art piece. Well, I did that cross stitch of Obelix so we'll just say this is my first abstract art piece. Hopefully I can eventually frame it and give it to la madre. It just looks so quilty to me and quilts make me think of her.

Was there ever some tiny piece of information you would do anything to get? Any tiny bit of someone's thoughts you would die to know? I have something like that, and I dream about it and that person so often. Once a week, sometimes more. The dreams alternate between good and awful. Sometimes the truth is wonderful and perfect and sometimes it's so soul crushing and hurtful. I would rather know though, no matter how painful it might be. I'm not good with matters requiring that sort of courage, but I'm working on it.

hours of flowers

I came up with a set of flower motifs and geometric but somewhat floral looking things. Two irises and two pansies which I prefer to roses, but I think the rose turned out better due to the half stitch filling. I should use that more, as I always like the effect.

Anyway, this set of motifs is now for sale in my Etsy shop. There are nine separate designs, all fairly small with the largest being no more than 2 1/2 inches in either direction (probably not quite that). It would be fun to do a huge score of pansies in different colors hanging in clusters on a wall.

I just recently re-read four of Juliet Marillier's books. She writes fantasy novels but they're very different from the usual fantasy rubbish. There are no pet dragons or unicorns, it's not an alien world, and the romance is limited and is not the main plot device. They are set in ancient Ireland and Scotland and are historically accurate as far as it goes (we don't know all that much about the Picts, honestly). The fantasy element is that you take for granted that most of the folklore is true. 

I don't really like most fantasy books and I don't generally seek them out.  However, Marillier is one of my favorite authors ever. There aren't very many authors who are writing in the same sort of genre and I highly recommend reading her Sevenwaters trilogy and the two Children of the Light Isles books (which are set/based in Orkney, the first being about vikings coming to Orkney).