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.

*********************************
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!

Happy Dance: Examplar IV

After the trellis motif took so long, I never imagined I'd be completely done with Catherine Theron's Examplar IV by this time!

The strawberry motif worked up fairly quickly. The leaves are all done in detached buttonhole with return. The stem uses long arm cross, diagonal cross, and colonial knots, and the strawberry itself is in tent stitch over 1 with occasional cross stitches for the seeds.

The caterpillar (who seems to be heading for that strawberry!) is also done in tent stitch, and the crown in the lower right corner is in rice stitch.

After these, all that remained were the corner motifs in double-running and diagonal queen stitches, and the personalization.

Catherine had the great idea of personalizing her sampler with both start and end dates. I wanted to do the same, but also wanted to add a bit more detail. After a bit of thought, I ended up with "2007 Mid-Eastern Region EGA" to commemorate the seminar at which I took the class. The "SMH" in "SMH 2009" stands for Strong Memorial Hospital, not that I'll readily forget where and when this piece was finished!

As of tomorrow, I'll once again be working on Joan Thomasson's Celebration Santa, which DH brought in today!

***********************************
Pregnancy ticker: 34 weeks, 1 day.
Less than 1 week to go!

Examplar IV progress

This motif is one of the simplest on the entire sampler, but it is so elegant! I can see using it when I need a little something on other pieces. The flower petals are just long laid stitches, the leaves are made up of tied stitches (like very shallow fly stitches), and the center is yet another spiral trellis.

Over the past two days, I've also been working on the strawberry motif in the upper right corner. This motif should be finished tomorrow.

The sampler is getting there! Thank you to Catherine Theron for a design that's doing a great job in distracting me as the days seem to be getting longer here in the hospital!
******************************
Pregnancy ticker: 33 weeks, 5 days.
The doctors tried to confuse me this morning when they made some mention of inducing me on Friday. I pointed out that I'm sure they meant next week. It was pretty funny to see three doctors all spinning around to look at the calendar (with my ticker written on each day) and do a double-take. Oh, yes. Next week! :-)

More flowers on Examplar IV

After lots of over-one stitching, the flower trellis in the lower right corner of Catherine Theron's Examplar IV. This motif took a lot more effort than it appears at first glance. The green bars are outlined and filled with chain stitch. All of the flowers are tent stitch over 1, with backstitch over 1, and the yellow flower centers are tiny spiral trellis with one strand of floss.

This has kept me busy over the course of the weekend! Here's the entire piece so far.The next few motifs should work up a bit more quickly.

************************************
Pregnancy ticker: 33 weeks, 3 days.
Sorry. I know some of you worry when I don't post for a while. Everything's fine. It's just that I've been taking it really easy over the last few days, and didn't want to drag out the laptop. My blood pressure seems to go up considerably when I'm up and about, so I waited 'til DH was here this evening to get the laptop out.

On the other hand, today was the first time the doctors seemed to think that making it to January 30th (35 weeks) was a likely possibility! We're continuing to hang in there!

Examplar IV again

As I mentioned in my last post Examplar IV is now the piece keeping me busy during my days here at the hospital. At left is what it looked like when DH brought it in to me.

The good news is that this piece has lots of detail in it to keep me from getting bored. The bad news is that this means it moves pretty slowly, so there's not much to blog about! In the last few days, I've finished the spiral trellis stitch in the pink flowers next to the butterfly, and I've made some decent progress on the diagonal trellis area on the bottom right. The centers of these flowers are spiral trellis, too!********************************
Pregnancy ticker: 32 weeks, 6 days.
As of this morning's ultrasound, BJ is up to 4 pounds, 4 ounces! We're still hanging in there!

Happy Dance: Tudor Purse

Two finishes within a week! Never mind that I actually finished a seminar piece within 6 months of the class.

The spangles went on fairly quickly. I'm a little disappointed that they look more silver than gold, but they're cheap plastic spangles. I'll save the expense of metal spangles for a piece that will be displayed or used more frequently than this will.

Mary mentioned something about the openwork look of my plaited braid. The gold thread I used is referred to as "No. 7 gold passing thread" in the kit instructions. The thread might be a bit thinner than what might authentically be used for plaited braid in this situation, but it's not completely baseless. In the collection of photos of historical pieces studied in the class, Chris Berry included a close-up of this panel. The peapods in the center are similar to mine. The plaited braid used on those leaves was somewhat open too, though not quite as much.

The assembly of the Tudor Purse was a bit more complicated than that of the Blueberry Pocket. There is a layer of thin quilt batting between the outside and the liner. Both the outside layer (inside out) and the liner (with batting attached) were sewn up the sides. The outer layer was turned inside out, then the liner was inserted. The top seam allowances for both layers were folded in and stitched together. Handmade braid was used to trim all of the seams, with handmade tassels attached at appropriate points along the bottom. More braid was used for the strap. Yes - that braid took a long time. It's made of 5 strands of purple and gold thread.

The time it took to put this together was worth it in the end. I hope you agree!

On a related note, I need to reply to Annie's question about the Jane Zimmerman Elizabethan piece. Sorry, Annie, but those instructions were only available during Jane's Christmas sale that ended on December 28. It was a bit cruel of me to post a picture after it was no longer available. :-( UPDATE: Jane Zimmerman is offering this again through March 31! See her site for details. (And thanks to Megan of Elmsley Rose for letting me know!)

***************************************
Pregnancy ticker: 32 weeks, 4 days.
Yes, DH brought another project in to me. Hopefully BJ can hang in there until I finish Catherine Theron's Examplar IV, which really won't take too long!