Flower Patch Finished

After 3 years, I can finally say that I finished stitching Flower Patch. This design is from Papillon Creations.

I originally started this piece to take with me on my trip to San Francisco. I had just been hired at my current company and they were sending me there for training. It's also been to Calgary when I was there for the Stamped.

Flower Patch is stitched on 32 count Jobelan Lambswool, which is my favorite fabric. I decided to stitch it 1 over 1 because I didn't have enough of the fabric to stitch it over 2. I love the effect, but all those leaves became tedious to stitch over 1.

I also made some changes in the colors. I didn't really like the pale green in this pattern. Actually, every time someone would see me stitching this piece, they'd tell me it's out of place. It was too late to do anything about the octagons, but I could at least change it in the leaves. I switched it out for DMC 3052.

The thing I love about stitching over 1 is the back. It looks almost exactly like the front of it.

Best part of all this, is that I reached one of my goals for this year :)

Project Updated

I haven't posted an update on my projects in a while, so here it goes.

Spirit of the Southwest is almost done. The string art was all finished last weekend (no pictures of that yet) and I started on the outer border right away. Here's a picture of where I was at Sunday afternoon. Since then I've stitched the second layer of cross stitches and have started the last layer of long stitches.

Flower Patch is almost done. I haven't taken pictures of it since finishing the roses, but there isn't much to see until it's all finished. I'm on the last side of pale green leaves and I should be able to complete it this week. I've been stitching this for 3 years and will be happy to move onto something new.

Knitting... So last week I said I would buy another type of needle (I got circular needles) and try again with the mystery thread. That didn't work out any better, so I left it alone. Yesterday, I received the book that contains the pattern I want to knit and decided to try it one more time before crying help. This time I pulled out a ball of thin baby thread that I had and tried again.

I tried casting on using the two knitting needles like they show you in the video and was still having a hard time. The bamboo needles are too long and awkward to hold, and the wire part of the circular needle keeps folding on itself. That and my tension is horrible. The last time I tried knitting, I did the cast on with one needle, it was awkward but I was able to get to the next step. Right now I feel like I'm floundering.

Tonight, I'm going to the Nutcracker Market to visit La Maison Tricotee's booth. I want to pick up another pair of scissors (You can see the pair I picked up last year in the picture below). They are hand made and feel very comfortable in my hands. The tip is also perfect for Hardanger. The person who makes them retired last year I think and they had a few of his scissors left. While I'm there I'll see if they can help me with my knitting issues.

Stitching Outside Inspires

We had what was probably the best weekend of the summer. It was so good I spent all of Sunday in my backyard, going in only to have lunch. I decided to take my stitching outside, hoping the good weather will help me progress on Flower Patch.

Here it is in action on our swing.

By the end of the day, I had finished stitching the dark green vines. About time, I say! I've been stitching this WIP on and off for three years. I was supposed to finish it last year, but got distracted by other things. But I am determined to finish it this year.

Dark green vine finished

I think I'm going to start on the roses next, just to get a change from all that green (I really hate DMC 3051 right now lol).

Halfway There

I've been in sort of a slump lately, I don't really feel like stitching my WIPs but I really need to at least make some progress on Flower Patch. So last week I decided to stitch an hour or so every day. Which is how it went from this:

2014/08/22

To this:

2014/08/12

I feel so proud of myself lol. I've been stitching it while re-watching The Master's Sun (which is an amazing Korean drama for those not into k-dramas). It's subtitled, so I have to keep looking up in order to watch it and understand. But since I've already watched it I don't mind missing a line here and there. I will admit that sometimes I will stop stitching for a few minutes in order to re-watch my favorite scenes lol.

I also worked on Spirit of the Southwest, I'll post pictures later (I need to retake one of the pictures). All in all, a very productive weekend :)

Flower Patch is Back

After over a year of no stitching, Flower Patch is back. The last time I touched it was back in April 2013 and only to put in a few stitches.

2013/04/08

2014/08/22

One of my goals for this year is to finish this WIP. In order to encourage me to accomplish that goal, I can't start the Hardanger piece until Flower Patch is finished. Let's see how that goes ;)

Over the weekend I also worked on binding my new wooden hoop.

In a previous post I had ordered one hoop, but there are two hoops in this picture. That's because I liked the one I had so much I ended up ordering a bigger one (10") for an upcoming class I'm taking. More on that in the coming month :)

Off to Korea

Tomorrow my sister and I are flying off to South Korea for a two week vacation =D

I've already made a list of things we will want to see as well as stores (yay! New stash!) we would like to visit. I will try to upload pictures, but I will probably have limited access to my blog while there.

As always, whenever I go on vacation, I take a cross stitch project with me. Usually I start something new before leaving and just work on it on the plane. Last year, I took Flower Patch. I still haven't finished (below is a picture of what it looks like currently), but I decided to start a new one anyways.

Which is why I kitted out the Bramble and the Rose last month. The one color will make stitching on a plane easier.

Here's a floss toss. I had bought this super cute 6" x 6" Q-snap (my third one now, I just couldn't resist) super useful for the flight. It's small enough to fit my new project bag. I also needed something for the hand-dyed floss. I've seen some stitchers use rings made from mother of pearl, but since I can't find anything like that here in Montreal, I decided to look for other alternatives. I found a bag of Boye Cabone Rings at Michaels which will do the job very nicely. I actually have no idea what they're actually used for, found them in the knitting and crochet section, but it works.

I always start the projects before the flight. It's always easier to continue a project than to start a new one in an environment like that. My progress so far!

One thing I'm finding hard is doing full cross stitch instead of doing the legs in one direction and coming back and doing the other leg. I hate having a messy back, sigh!

Flower Patch Update

I've been neglecting this project for a while now. Since this project is small, I only work on it when I'm sitting in front of the TV because I can't move my lap stand (It's so wide).

So I sat down yesterday and finally finished stitching the border in gold.

You can see below that I also started stitching the vines in dark green.

Almost Done!

I finally finished the inside of all the octagons :) I've been pushing back uploading a picture on the blog for Flower Patch because I really wanted to finish all the octagons. All that's left is the border around it.

I can't wait to finish this so that I can start something new. I've also been working on Castle in the Air part 6. I think I might take a break from it once I get part 6 done. There is so much white in this part I'm going crazy. Maybe my mood will change once I switch colors.

My mom has been pushing me to finish it thought. She wants to turn it into a table cloth for the living room coffee table. We'll see how it turns out in the end.

Happy Canada Day

Another long week-end here for us. This time for Canada Day. Don't you just love long week-ends! I didn't spend as much time cross stitching as I did during the last long week-end. If you call 15 hours not a lot lol.

Here are the results:

I will be going on vacation soon. I'm going to Calgary to attend the 100th Stampede. I was interested in going until I found out that the Embroidery Guild is ALSO having a demonstration there, so now I'm really excited to go there =D

I will try to get some pictures to share.

Happy St-Jean Baptist

It is the end of the long weekend for us here in Quebec. I put it to good use working on a project I had put aside to work on the Lucky Bag.

It is called Flower Patch and is from Papillon Creations. I had put it aside a few weeks back because I got bored with using the same 6 colors over and over, lol.

So it went from this on Friday night:

 To this after about 16 hours of work: