Are there ANY finishes in sight?

Ok. I'm really frustrated with my pile of WIPs.

Over the past few weeks, I've been stumbling back and forth between Celebration Santa, Hannah Thornbush, and Potpourri.

On top of that, I've just received the instructions for the EGA correspondence course Cleopatra's Cat and the kit for the first project in Tricia Wilson Nguyen's Gold Master Class.

Aaaaacccckkkkk!

I need to get a few things finished and out of the seemingly bottomless pile of projects in progress. I'm deliberately choosing a few pieces that haven't seen the light of day in a while, in hopes that they'll each inspire me to stick with them long enough to finish them!

Here's the list:

• Plum Blossoms by Margaret Kinsey
• My Way by Carolyn Mitchell (to get this done before my next class with her!)
• Blackwork Band Sampler by Rae Iverson of Moss Creek Designs
• my Pastel Hardanger
• Overture II by Kay Stanis

Anyone want to join me in finishing a few projects from their own WIP piles?

A right-handed stitcher, stitching left-handed

(Updated to make the picture clickable!)

Thanks for all of the well-wishes on my carpal tunnel surgery. I'm now back to typing with both hands, but I can't lift anything heavy (as in >1 pound) or do much grasping or pulling with my right (dominant) hand.

As a result, I'm obviously slightly challenged in the stitching department! This situation rules out:

• Anything that requires the use of a laying tool – and I use a laying tool for everything that calls for more than one strand.
• Anything done in hand. (Thank goodness for my handy Elan lap stand!)
• Anything with less than tight tension on the ground fabric, since my left hand isn’t as sensitive to stitch tension.
• Any fancy stitches that require manipulation of the thread and needle separately.

This means that all of my canvas projects are on hold, as well as all of the in-hand stuff I was avoiding due to the carpal tunnel, and complicated areas on samplers.

What’s left?

Well, I guess I could read a couple of books that showed up in the mail last week (Samplers by Rebecca Scott and Stumpwork Medieval Flora by Jane Nicholas). I do want to write up reviews on each of these soon, but I want to stitch, too! So I’ll be picking up these books in between stitching sessions for the next week or so.

I tried to work on Hannah Thornbush, since the section in progress is a simple stitch in one strand. Unfortunately, I discovered that the Soie de Paris used on this piece (a very loosely twisted filament silk) wouldn’t  cooperate with my winter-rough skin. Even a sugar scrub wouldn’t help.

Back to the WIP pile. Oh, how about this? It’s my affectionately-nicknamed Ninja Squirrel Sampler. Mostly just simple cross stitch with one strand of twisted silk. That will work, especially since I recently laced the very limp linen to the sides of the scroll frame, so linen is now fairly tight, which lets me get decent stitch tension even with my “dumb” left hand.

Even with one hand, I’m slowly making progress on this piece.

I have a feeling I might want to work on something else soon, though. Does anyone see any candidates in my WIP list?

Carpal tunnel surgery today!

Just a quick note today to say I'm finally getting my right hand fixed! I should be able to get back on the computer by tomorrow evening or Thursday (or I may just resort to left-hand only typing) to let you know how it goes.

How to recognize an impossible deadline

Have you ever started stitching toward a deadline, only to realize, as the date creeps nearer, that you're not going to make it? What do you do?

A few weeks ago, I posted about dealing with deadlines, explaining that I try not to set deadlines in stitching. Occasionally, though, a project comes along with a deadline. I've had two such projects in the past month.

The first was my How Great the Blessing sampler. This deadline was of my own making. I was trying to finish by the end of the year since I had already stitched the date on the sampler.

The second deadline was on a piece that I hadn't started until just over a week ago. I was reminded this past fall that I needed to submit my step two canvas project for EGA Master Craftsman certification by April 1. (There's really no reason why I hadn't finished this long before now. I've only had the instructions for five years.)

In the process of working toward these two deadlines, I've come to the realization that I can recognize when a deadline is impossible. It's a simple thought process, really:

• Identify how much stitching needs to be done. This can be done by estimating the time needed, or by counting areas to be stitched (the number of bands in a band sampler, for example).
  
• Divide the amount of stitching by the number of weeks until the deadline.
• Consider how much you stitch in a given week, and determine if you can possibly stitch the amount needed to meet the deadline.

That's it. In my case, I started the Master Craftsman piece a little over a week ago. This is a canvas project that has 21 areas to be stitched. I figured that I needed to stitch two areas a week to get the piece finished by mid-March so it would arrive on time. After one week, I had one area completely done, and one barely started - and this was with all other stitching set aside and only one newsy blog post.

Wait a minute. I stitch for enjoyment! And I very recently got back into the habit of writing several posts a week, and I don't want to give that up. I wouldn't make the deadline even if I did give up both of these, due to time limitations. (Eventually I'll learn that I can't finish things as quickly as I did pre-motherhood!)

So, what do you do when you realize you're not going to make a deadline?

• If you've already put a date on a project and that date is looming, you can always put another date on the project. Both dates are correct, in terms of when you stitched the project! (That's my plan for the sampler.)
• For an outside deadline, see if there's a way to postpone it. In my case, I wrote to the master craftsman program chairman to ask what it would take to re-enroll in the program. For correspondence courses, often the teacher will extend the deadline.
• In the case of gifts for special occasions, find a creative way to package an IOU. I've heard of people wrapping the project in progress with a little IOU poem.

What about you? Are you able to recognize when you're not going to make a deadline? What do you do about it?

As for me, I'm back to working queen stitches on my sampler, and plan to have an update posted soon.

Issues with thread color conversions

If you're like most stitchers, when you've started a project, you've used a color conversion chart to change to a different brand of floss from the one called for in a project's instructions. There are plenty of these conversion charts online, allowing stitchers to change from DMC to Anchor floss, or from Soie d'Alger to Needlepoint Inc silk, or even to switch from cotton floss to silk or vice versa.

These conversion tables work well, at least most of the time. The simple fact is, though, that each brand of floss has its own range of colors. It's rare (perhaps impossible) to find exact matches to the original threads for any project within another brands range. Fortunately, it's not typically necessary to find exact matches. It's more important to find colors that work well together and have the right amount of contrast to each other as needed in the project.

It's this last point where I ran into a problem when trying to finish my How Great the Blessing sampler. In the original sampler, Catherine Theron used Soie d'Alger from Au ver a Soie. The class kit only included the linen, and each stitcher had to supply her own threads. For convenience, Catherine did provide conversions to several other brands of floss, including DMC.

Of course, I wanted to convert to a brand not on Catherine's list. For linens 36ct and higher, I really like using Hand-Dyed Fibers from Vikki Clayton. The nice thing about this is that Vikki redesigned her colors a few years ago to specifically correspond to the entire DMC line. She also has color conversion tables right on her site, so I could type in the Soie d'Alger or the DMC color numbers, and know what color to order from her.

Here's what I ended up with for the reds in my project:

• Original colors: AVAS 2911, 2912, 2913, 2914, 2915, and 2916.
• DMC conversion: 3713, 761, 760, 3712, 3328, and 347.
• HDF conversion: The "Gandy Dancer" series: 1101, 1103, 1105, 1107, 1109, 1111.

Catherine called these colors very very light red, very light red, light red, red, dark red, and very dark red, respectively. (Actually, I think they're more coral than red, but it's easier to refer to them as red.)

This conversion had been a success, until I reached the lighter flowers in the border of my sampler. The flowers call for a border of very light red, with petals of red and very very light red. In HDF, this means I should used 1103 for the border, and 1101 and 1107 for the petals. As seen at right, when I added the 1101 to the 1103 border, though, it didn't have any contrast. (Part of this might be due to the slight variations within the hand-dyed threads, but it wasn't working for me!)

I tried darkening up the border to 1105 (light red), but then I found that I needed to go to 1109 (dark red) on the other petals to get enough contrast between the border and the darker petals! See the picture at left.

Then it seemed that these flowers weren't light enough. To the stash! I found a very pale pink Splendor silk. It's just slightly more pale than the 1101, though that's hard to see in the photograph with only one stitch. Here's how it turned out with all of the light petals complete.

Now, I've just got to make a decision: which of these flowers do I go with? That's a topic for another post!

How about you? What have your experiences been with color conversions? Have they all been successful, or have you needed to play with things? Feel free to answer here or on your own blog!

First Christmas Ornaments

MIL's:

Beautifully stitched and finished, hanging on our tree.

Mine:

That's right. Not even up on stretcher bars yet. I didn't even order it until the week of Thanksgiving. What kind of mom am I?

Never mind that it's not even going to be the next one I start. That honor is for my EGA master craftsman piece that's due the end of March. (Didn't I say recently that I try not to stitch for deadlines? So much for that idea.)

Hopefully I can get the first Christmas ornament done before next Christmas!

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A long-overdue Erin update: When we first learned of the difficulty with Erin's hips, I had hoped she'd be crawling by Christmas. And she was - backwards. For almost a month, she'd get up on hands and knees, look at something she wanted, and move away from it! Finally, on Christmas, she figured out how to move forward!

I'd like to ask a favor. Our local newspaper has a "Meet the Babies" section every year. The cutest baby (partially determined by online votes) wins a prize! If you're so inclined, please vote for Erin. Her picture (a cropped version of the photo below) should be up tomorrow (12/31). I'll update this post with a direct link once it's available.

It's up! You can vote here.

You can vote via your facebook account (if you have one) or by entering your email address. I've been assured by the newspaper that the email addresses are not being saved for any other use than to keep only one vote for each address for any given child. (You can vote for up to nine babies, but unfortunately you can't use all nine votes for one baby!)

Thanks! And if I don't post tomorrow, Happy New Year!

Drawing inspiration from reality

In my last post, I expressed my frustration with the small, even blocks in the background of Cinders. I thought that they should be more irregular, more in keeping with the actual construction of a medieval castle or manor house.

Edy commented, "Why not change the bricks into stones...a bit larger and not so regular...sort of like a stone wall? Just a suggestion, not that I'm one who should second guess Marion."

(Actually, based on the couple of classes I've had with Marion, I think she wouldn't mind being second-guessed. She, like most great teachers, encourages students to make a design their own.)

Regardless, I was already thinking along the same lines as Edy. Rather than potentially adding something more inauthentic, though, I turned to the internet. I learned that medieval construction did actually involve shaping roughly rectangular blocks out of rock, so I used Google Images to get some visual inspiration. Surprisingly, I found plenty of construction with small blocks, but rarely were these as evenly spaced as on the original Cinders.

Two images in particular helped me decide how to "build" the wall behind Cinderella. This photo shows that the blocks were often of similar heights, but surprisingly long blocks were interspersed with much shorter blocks. The front of this manor shows similar dissimilarities between blocks, and also shows that each row of blocks might be a different height than neighboring rows.

With the exception of the upper right corner, where I'm still ripping out the little blocks, I've applied these lessons to Cinders. After the upper right corner is done, I'll reevaluate to see if I need to fill in any of the blank areas.

I like the new look much better. Isn't it wonderful that we can do small research projects like this with a minimum of time thanks to the internet?

What about you?  Have you made changes to a project (or even designed your own project) based on images found online? How did it turn out?

Hannah Thornbush begins

Though the instructions for the first two bands for Hannah Thornbush were posted last Monday, I didn't actually put the first stitches in until Thursday.

Part of the delay was due to a dilemma about mounting this on my scroll rods. The rods don't have the old twill tape on them - just velcro, which means I needed to put the corresponding velcro hooks on my fabric. I'm going to need to cut off the first (and last) half-inch when I'm done to get rid of the adhesive from the velcro tape. I usually take this into account when I have my fabric cut, and allow for a 4" margin at top and bottom. This is one of the pitfalls of a kit. I can't predetermine the fabric margin.

Ok, so what do the instructions say? The first line says to start stitching 2-1/4" from the top of the fabric. If I used the velcro, I'd have less than a 2" margin at top and bottom!

I didn't like this scenario. So, I decided to make extensions on to my ground fabric. I found a piece of Aida cloth that I knew I wouldn't use for anything else. After tacking it to my linen with a line herringbone stitch in a sturdy linen thread, I had an extra 6" margin at the top and bottom. I put the velcro on the Aida, and when I'm done I'll just cut out the tacking stitches, so my linen will still have its full margin. This photo shows the join, as well as my start on band 1.

Some comments were posted to the class list about the difficulty of framing with such a small margin. The teacher/designer (Margriet Hogue of The Essamplaire) wrote back that she'll be providing instructions for hemstitching the border of the sampler. The hemstitched sampler can then be mounted for framing, and a large fabric border won't be needed. I'll decide when I get there if that's what I want to do.

Last week I promised a picture of the kit contents. The colors are lovely. The silks are all either loose Soie d'Alger or Soie de Paris spools. I've never used Soie de Paris before. It's a bit thinner and has much more shine than most other stranded silks. It almost feels like rayon, but it seems to handle a bit better.

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Erin update: Our 4-month pediatrics appointment was last week. She's up to 12.5 pounds, and 22.5" long. Relative to other (non-preemie) 4 month olds, she's in the 15th percentile for height, 30th for weight, and 50th (i.e. average) for head circumference. She's catching up! Just two months ago, she was at 5th, 10th, and 25th percentile for those same metrics.

Her hip procedure is scheduled for July 2, first thing in the morning. We're praying for a first-time fix!

Our most recent pictures are from her christening this past Sunday. You finally get to see what I look like!

Answering questions

Recent posts have generated a couple of questions from readers.

I'll address the stitching-related question first. A couple of readers have asked about Jean Hilton's ScottLee. I'm sorry to say that the instructions for this project are very hard to find. Jean taught it only twice: once for a national seminar, and once for a group of stitchers near Phoenix.

It is not available for retail sale (though perhaps her family might change that in the future - who knows?). I did not take either class, but I was lucky enough to be given the chart by somebody who took the class at seminar. I do not have my chart any longer, as I passed it on to another stitcher who admired it here on my blog. Right now, that's the only way it can be legally obtained - by gift or purchase from one of the stitchers who has the instructions from class.

Oh - and if you're one of those lucky few, I know of a couple of ladies looking for the chart!

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Erin Update: The second question was about Erin, and the next steps for her hip dysplasia. (Background: She was born with both hips dislocated as a result of pregnancy complications.)

We visited the orthopedist this past week. The X-ray only took two tries. The first try caught her in the middle of a wiggle and was blurry :-). After the second, non-wiggle attempt, succeeded, I managed to get a new diaper on with no accidents on the table!

The X-rays confirmed that both hips are still very much dislocated. Now I'm waiting for the doctor's secretary to call to set up the mid-June appointment for a "closed reduction" procedure. In this procedure, Erin will be anesthetized and the doctor will attempt to manipulate the hips into the correct position. There's a slight chance he may operate at that time if he thinks it will be a minor correction. If all goes well, she'll then be put in a cast from mid-chest to knees. If, for some reason, the hips won't cooperate, we'll wait 'til she's a bit bigger before going in for "open reduction", a.k.a. surgical reparation, before casting her.

As for the cast - don't ask about diaper logistics. It doesn't sound like fun. :-(

Update: In answer to Megan's question: the cast will be on 3-4 months (to let the muscles, tendons, etc. move into the correct position to support the hips), and yes, hopefully after that she'll be able to go on as a normal kid. The doctor says there's a chance she might need to have additional work done over the next several years, but we're praying this won't be necessary.

Thank you to Robbie and Jean for your support and sharing your stories about similar situations. I'm grateful for your caring notes!

Oh - and thank you to Carin for wishing me a happy birthday on Friday after reading through the archives! :-)

Just 15 minutes

Thank you, Mary Corbet, for reminding me that I don't need to have hours of time to actually see progress in my stitching. Just 15 minutes of stitching can mean some progress. Right now, it seems that 15 minutes is all I can find in a given day. Yesterday, I didn't even find that, but the day before, one of the flowers on my Floral Rondel went from this:To this:It isn't much, but it is progress. Tonight, I think I've even got a bit more time, if I don't spend too much time blogging!

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Erin continues to grow. Yesterday she was up to 6 lb, 7.5 oz! Unfortunately, at that doctor's visit, we found that the doctor is not encouraged that the brace on her hips will do anything. We'll get another ultrasound in two weeks to check, but it's likely that at that point we'll discontinue use of the brace. In most cases like this, the doctor says he's able to rotate the hips into position and then they just need to be held there, but in Erin's case, he's unable to get the hips into position. This likely means that she'll need surgery at 3-4 months of age to reposition the hips, and then she'll need to be in a cast from chest to knees for another 3-4 months to hold everything in place. I don't want to think about the logistics of diaper changing in this situation, but it's a means to an end, as DH keeps reminding me.

Thanks again to all who have commented and emailed, especially those who have experienced hip dysplasia with their own kids! It always helps to know the success stories!

I decided to test my camera tonight when she was waking up and not crying. :-) Here are some of the results.

Very slow progress

Well, it finally happened. No, not that! After over a month of many hours of stitching each day, my carpal tunnel and/or the pinched nerve in my neck has flared up, so I've had to resort to actually reading the book I brought to the hospital. My right hand bothers me if I do much else, even writing the thank you notes I need to write! I'm surprised to find that typing does not seem to be bothering me much, though!

Before it became apparent that my hands were getting much worse, I was able to work on a bit more of the background of Celebration Santa. I also stitched a base layer of encroaching gobelin on Santa's tree. Thanks to Jane for suggesting I do this before stitching an upper layer of longer stitches with random long stitches to simulate the tree's needles! Now I don't need to worry about having these long stitches cover all of the canvas. I will be finishing the background around the tree before adding this second layer, so the tree needles may extend a bit over the background stitches.

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Pregnancy ticker: 34 weeks, 5 days.
I've been taking longer and longer walks around the hospital over the past few days, trying to build up my stamina. If this also triggers a few contractions, all the better, so we can minimize the medications that will be needed when they induce labor on Friday.

Stay tuned! The next post will likely be submitted by DH this weekend with news of BJ!

Plaited braid on Tudor Purse

I was so glad to read that Mary Corbet of Needle 'N Thread, who executes some gorgeous surface embroidery, has trouble with the plaited braid stitch. I was feeling like a bit of a dunce when this stitch proved so difficult to tension correctly.

After several doodle attempts, making sure I consulted the stitch diagram with each pull of the needle, I finally felt comfortable enough to try the plaited braid on the little leaves at the top of my peapods. The fact that these change in width along their length just made it a bit more difficult!

All in all, I'm pleased. What isn't apparent is how long these took. I'd guess the first leaf took at least an hour (with me still checking the stitch diagram with every movement), and they took about 4 hours in all. Each leaf is only about 1/2 of an inch tall!I've also been able to finish the stitching on the back of the purse, which is an outline of the same design, executed entirely in spangles. I've only got to add some random spangles to the front of the purse, and it will be ready to be assembled! As soon as I'm done with the spangles, I'll post more pictures.
I'm sure some of you are wondering. No, folks, you will NOT get a stitch study on plaited braid from me, at least not until I try it on several more projects. I was very glad to hear that Yvette Stanton will be including detailed instructions on this stitch in her left-handed stitch dictionary. While I'm not left-handed, I look forward to reading her details "About the thread thickness, and about the spacing of the stitches. And about starting off on angles, and things like that." I really hope she makes the instructions for her sweetbag available, too.

On a similar note, I ordered the instructions for Jane Zimmerman's The Art of Elizabethan Embroidery project during her Christmas sale. Goodness only knows when I'll get around to doing it, but I couldn't resist this lovely project!
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Pregnancy ticker: 32 weeks, 1 day.
Getting past 32 weeks is a VERY BIG DEAL in terms of maturity, according to the doctors. While there still might be some complications, most of what needs to happen now is growth. We'll have another check on BJ's size next Wednesday during my next ultrasound.

Color play on My Way

As I mentioned in the last post, I'm now going back to finish at least 1/4 of each block I have started on My Way. In working on Block B, I was very pleased with how most of it came out, but when I reached the little quarter-circle in the corner, I didn't really have a good thread. The directions call for a metallic ribbon in the lightest value in the neutrals family (my blue-grey). Well, I don't have such a thread. I started by trying Petite Frosty Rays by Rainbow Gallery in a very pale gray, but it looked very stark against the rest of the piece. It actually looks a lot better here in the picture, but trust me, when viewing the entire project, it just doesn't work.

This block is in one corner of the project. In the other corner, I have the beginning of Block E, which I featured in my last post. I thought the two roughly circular areas would balance each other out. Well, since block E uses a medium turquoise in its quarter-circle area, I thought that perhaps a medium burgundy would work here in Block B. Right now, all I can say is that the color works better than the light gray. I might have to adjust the beginnings and ends of stitches so it covers the canvas better, or perhaps I'll basketweave the area and do the woven stitch over the top so the canvas "dandruff" isn't so obvious. What do you think?

I'm really enjoying this piece, but unfortunately I need to put it away for a bit. I really would like to turn in the Summer Dream GCC for evaluation, and since it's due in early January, I need to spend some time on it! That's what I'll be working on this evening.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween! I'll be sitting here stitching away on Summer Dream (which I started last night), completely out of season, while waiting for trick-or-treaters to ring the doorbell.

It's very strange. I love the variety of Halloween stitching designs available, but I've actually only ever stitched one, a small bellpull. I just can't see spending a ton of time stitching pieces (no matter how much fun they are) that can only be displayed for one week a year! Other holidays seem to have a longer display period, so if I'm going to stitch for a holiday, I'm going to consider that! To make matters worse, I tried to find the Halloween bellpull, but it's nowhere to be found. So not only can I not display it much, but when I do want to, it's packed away somewhere unknown!

Am I the only one with this line of thinking?

Ok, back to enjoying this spooky evening, ready to help kids of all ages defer sleep by handing out too much chocolate!

Happy Halloween!

Cinders - plodding away

I'm slowly plodding away on Cinders. I don't know why, but I've been procrastinating when it comes to stitching on this. There really isn't that much left to be done, but it was 9:30 last night before I got to it, and then I only added the handle to the coal scuttle (a.k.a. "the bucket).

I think part of my hesitation is that I'm not really satisfied with some of the patterns/colors I've used, and I don't know how adding new patterns/colors will alter the piece. I know I should just try something, but I end up putting it on my lap stand and staring at it in dissatisfaction.

I restitched the vest. I had originally tried it in a light yellow, but it just didn't show up enough. I've now tried a medium green from the wall, and I'm debating if it's still too light.

I've added a bit more to the hair, but I have to be in a "random mood" to stitch the hair, or I over-analyze it to death! Sometimes my engineer's brain is not helpful when it comes to stuff like this.

These are all the thoughts and feelings that go through my mind when I pick up this piece. It's just not fun for me right now, but I really do want to finish it, just so I won't have to deal with my frustrations on it any more!