February Ornament SAL

If you haven't figured out by now, I love ornaments.  I haven't put my own tree up in a few years but I keep stitching ornaments and I give most of them away.  Here's the ornaments I've stitched up since last month's report.

Progress on my latest ornament

Dove of Birds

JBW Designs

  Merry Christmas Deer

Little Stitcher Freebie

 'Tis REd

La-D-Da

I also did the finishing on this one

Merry Little Christmas

Drawn Thread

February WIPocalypse

Its WIPocalypse time again!  Here's what I managed to accomplish since the last WIPocalypse report!!!

The Accolade Before

 The Accolade After

ABC Christmas Sampler Before

ABC Christmas Sampler After

Other Stuff

 Heartstruck Quakers

Merry Christmas Deer

Red Threads Letter C

'Tis Red

Winter Cottage

PhotoHunt - Upper

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "upper"

The totem poles in the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec soar for the "upper" reaches of the hall.

Doin' the Page Dance!

I did manage to Hermit properly this past long weekend.  I do admit I didn't get much done on Saturday we were out and about.  However, Sunday and Monday I didn't leave the house at all!  It was lovely!

It took until Monday night but I did finish page 5 of 12 on The Accolade!  Its looking awesome!

IHSW February Long Weekend Edition

First of all last night I wrapped up my rotation on Kathy's ABC Christmas Sampler.  Its quite a pitiful display of stitching for me!  Several nights this week I was falling asleep in my chair by 9PM so I just went to bed instead of making some big mistakes!  I also knew that this block, the dove was going to take awhile its one of the bigger ones so far (up there with the Angel).  I got the gold outline put in for this block and started on the dove.

Its the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend!  This month its falling on the PERFECT weekend!  Monday is Family Day, a stat. holiday here in Ontario.  So I get THREE days of stitching!  Today The Accolade comes up in my rotation.  So here it is before I put a single stitch into it this long weekend.  I imagine I'll be doing page happy dance at some point!!!

I'm not sure how much stitching time I'm going to have once the weekend is over, I'm getting ready to go away this Friday.  I'm off on my Dominican Experience with 14 new young minds to shape and expose to the realities outside of North America and just how good we have it here.  I think for the plane trip I'll be taking a long ignored project, Cirque des Circles by Ink Circles.  Working with one colour is just so much easier when you're travelling.

PhotoHunt - Miniscule

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Minuscule"

These minuscule guys are baby spiders!  I came home one day to find hundreds of them on and around my front door!

Michael Powell Progress

Last night saw the end of my smalls rotation, I quite enjoyed the last four days working on ornaments, smalls, and I also pulled out another of my Crazies!

Have you ever stitched something by Michael Powell?  Oh is designs are just so much fun!   They are solidly stitched, with no partial stitches.  The colours are fun, bright, and downright funky.  I just love how while you're working away there's not much of a picture developing, its blobs of colours with vague shapes.  The real fun is when the backstitching is put in and the design just comes to life!

If you haven't stitched a Michael Powell, I encourage you to try one soon!

You can see the other smalls I worked on in my previous blog entry if you haven't already given it a read.

February TUSAL & More

Its TUSAL time, sorry no artistic photography this month, just a jar, that's all!  You can seem some of the reds and greens from my smalls stitching the last few days.

I've had a couple of finishes this weekend and I've done a wee bit of finishing too.

 'Tis Red

La-D-Da

2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue

Stitched on 30ct Coconut Macaroon Linen

Stitched with Caron Waterlillies Emerald

Red Threads Letter C

Rosewood Manor

Used the same fabric/threads as above since I had a little fabric left after the ornament.  I stitched and finished this on Saturday

 Merry Christmas Deer

c2012 Little Stitcher Freebie

Stitched on 32ct Dirty Linen Belfast

Stitched with Carrie's Creation Colonial Red & DMC

 I also whipped up a back for this ornament

 I finally did the finishing on this little Drawn Thread Freebie I recently stitched

How do you store your ornaments and small pieces awaiting finishing?  I used to store mine in either a big ziplock or a large zipper mesh bag.  A couple of my quilting friends use scrapbooking boxes to keep their blocks in while piecing their quilts.  I thought well, they're 12x12 that seems ideal for my ornaments/smalls.  This past week all storage was 40% off at Michaels so I thought why not, and picked two up.  I'm quite pleased with them.

PhotoHunt - Promise

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Promise"

Again, this was a tough theme for me this week.  How do you show promise in a photo?  So again I went diving through my archive and came up with this, another image from one of my Dominican Experience trips (I'll be back there with 14 more students two weeks from today). I came across this on a wall in the Slums below Simon Bollivar in the Capital of Santo Domingo.  A promise that Christ is coming soon.  Anyone who knows me well, knows I'm not a religious person, I do believe in faith and I respect each person and their faith and beliefs.  It warms your heart to see that there's such hope in such a promise in a place where life is bleak.

Belated Giveaway Result and Accolade Rotation

I promised you all the winner of my Heartstruck Quakers giveaway on Tuesday!  I slacked off, I've kinda been offline for the last few days, just didn't feel like being online the last little while.  I think that happens to all of us every now and again.  So according to random.org our winner is ....

Christine of the Alchymyst's Study a someone I've admired for quite some time!  She's a great stitcher, and a very creative crafter and a proud geek too!!!  I have been reading her blog for quite a few years now so I was happy to see her number come up!

 Last progress picture January 26th 

 As of February 6th

The Accolade came up in my wee rotation at the beginning of this week.  I've made significant progress this time and I'm seeing the end of this page!  Now I'm onto my smalls rotation.

February Stitching Goals and ABC Christmas Sampler

February is here!  Its time to see how well I did with last month's stitching goals, and tell you about what I hope to get done this month.  I can assure you, this month you won't be seeing as much stitching.  I'm in the process of preparing for this year's Dominican Experience trip later in the month and of course that week I'm away I won't really get any stitching done at all... except maybe on the plane.

Let's review last month...
January Stitching Goals

• Crazy Challenge, start 15 new projects in 15 days! DONE!
• Lizzie*Kate travelling pattern Cross Stitcher in Residence DONE!
• Stitch one ornament STITCHED 4!
• Stitch one row on my current page on The Accolade COMPLETED 3
• Finish A is For Angel on Kathy's Christmas Sampler DONE AND B FOR BELL!

February Stitching Goals

• Stitch one ornament
• Stitch two rows on page 5 on The Accolade
• Finish C for Candy Cane and start D for Dove on Kathy's ABC Christmas Sampler

I just wrapped up my rotation on Kathy's ABC Christmas Sampler yesterday while Tracey and I were having a stitchy visit with Lynn.  This rotation I started and finished C for Candy Cane.  On my next rotation with this piece I'll be starting D for Dove.

Today I start my 4-day rotation on The Accolade.

PhotoHunt "Daub"

I was hoping to have this post up this AM but the internet wasn't co-operating so it had to wait until I got home from work and my running around today.

This week's theme was a tough one!  I looked online at the definition of "daub" to help figure out what kind of picture I would select.  I went for the synonyms of smear, spread, coat, soil and came across this picture.  This is in a cigar shop in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. She is smearing some what looks like water on the tobacco leaves that have been rolled into a cigar.