Theme-alicious – Hootey

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Heather

It’s jumanji June, which means it is time to stitch animals.

I thought I would have a hard time with this month’s theme, but it turned out that I have plenty of projects that fit the bill. In fact, just this morning I finished up Mill Hill’s Hooty.

Hooty by Mill Hill

He is one of their Autumn Harvest kits for this year. These little Mill Hill bead kits are such a lovely treat. I always enjoy stitching them, and the specialty stitches (a few rhodes stitches) were a nice surprise.

As an aside, have you seen the new Mirabilia design Dressmaker’s Daughter. I absolutely adore it. I want to drop everything and stitch it!

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A Duo of Shawls

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Heather

I really love the look of shawls, even though I don’t think I can carry one off. I did make myself a wee one to wear point forward as a scarf, and also made a lovely one out of silvery grey silk that I’ve worn a couple of times when we’ve been somewhere fancy. But, I’m just not an everyday shawl-wearing kinda gal.

That doesn’t mean I don’t like to make them. 😀

First up, Topless Jazz Singer, a pattern by Kyla Hurst and named for her father. The yarn is the fabulous Wolle’s Colour Changing Cotton in colourway Redish. (I openly lust after one of her large skeins of rainbow yarn.)  This was a fun and quick knit, and it was originally intended as a gift. Unfortunately, it turned out much smaller than I expected, so it has been banished to the the knitwear chest.

Topless Jazz Singer

The bind-off is particularly nice, since it uses a little black bead every few stitches. Those beads help to add a nice weight to the bottom of the shawl. I really like it.

Next: Dorothy’s Tail Neckerchief by May Cheang. This one is crocheted from Classic Elite Cotton Bam Boo in colourway Wild Lavender. It was quick and simple, but very effective. I love it with a deep passion.

Dorothy's Tail Neckerchief

I’ve got two more shawls on the go, both of which have been languishing for a while. Sadly, they will continue to do so since I’m casting on another shawl soon as part of a knit along (KAL). I’m looking forward to having a fabulous deep purple shawl to wrap myself in, even if it doesn’t suit me. 😛

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Stitching Bloggers Blog Hop

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Heather

I love blog hops, and I love answering questions. So, let’s all do the Blog Hop from Stitching the Night Away. I’m looking forward to stopping by your blog to read your answer.

The prompt this time is:

Do you set stitching goals for yourself and how do you plan them out? (Weekly, monthly, annually?) What are your current stitching goals (if you don’t mind sharing)?

In addition to setting goals for yourself, do you have a special reward that you reserve for when you reach a stitching goal?

Oh dear… goal setting. I’m sure all my regular readers know that I try to set goals. And, well, I hardly ever meet them. Remember, this year I was supposed to work on a Teresa Wentzler design every month. That hasn’t work out too well.

So, I would say that I do work with goals, but that they are very flexible and are more guidelines to remind myself what I would like to do, but aren’t really hard deadlines that I work towards. If that makes any sense at all.

My current stitching goals are linked up there at the top right. I’ve been following along pretty well, but not perfectly. Mostly, I’m just trying to keep up with Theme-alicious and WIPocalpyse.

I don’t reward myself for reaching my stitching or knitting goals. I think that finishing the project is reward enough. I guess you’d say that I’m in in both for the process and the product. Both are equally as important to me.

 

Visit all the blogs in this round of the Stitching the Night Away Stitching Blogger Blog Hop. Find the instructions on how to participate in this round by clicking here.

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June SBQ

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Heather

Thank you very much for all the wonderful comments I received about 1,000 posts and nearly nine years of blogging. It is nice to know that I’m not just screaming into the darkness, as it were. 😀

So, June’s Stitching Blogger Question is up on Lake Stitcher. This month Lee (and Ryan Gosling) want to know:

Do you stitch patriotic/national pieces (or maybe just pieces that represent a specific place)? What’s your favorite?

I don’t really stitch any patriotic pieces. I have Victoria Sampler’s O Canada in my stash, and I would really love to stitch it. I’m also thinking about coming up with some sort of Canadian flag needle book after being inspired by the American flag one that Geeky Heather over at It’s All Geek to Me posted. And, when we were thinking about moving to Cambodia (long story there), I was planning on stitching a Canadian-themed design to take with me (I wish I could remember the name, but it was something like the shape of Canada with the flag inside and words like “Land that I love”.)

Oh, I have stitched the New Brunswick Hearts of Canada by Victoria Sampler for a friend who was running as an MP out in Halifax.

Hearts of Canada: Nova Scotia by Victoria Sampler (stitched 2009)

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Wipocalypse – Gettin’ Creativ

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Heather

Finishing up Summer/Keep Winter Keep got me thinking about my older Creativ Festival projects. I used to have a rule, before the little man was born, that I had to finish all the class pieces of the previous year before I signed up for any more classes. But, as time has become a very precious commodity, the number of hobbies I partake in has grown, and the number of classes I take has increased greatly, I just haven’t been able to keep up.

My pile of Creativ Festival kits has now grown so much that it has taken over a drawer and part of my work basket. It seems like every time I go to look for something I trip over one of the kits. And, given that the class brochure for this fall is due out sometime in July, I figured that I had better make an attempt to finish up a few more.

So, I gave the piles a stir and out popped I am a Creative Soul, a design by Jennifer Aikman-Smith from the 2011 Creativ Festival. She created the chart so that is was like a collaboration between her and the stitcher. Some parts of it have an assigned colour, but most are labeled things like “wild over-dyed silk”, “bead of your choice” or “light over-dyed silk”. It is charted with several specialty stitches, but she provides suitable substitutions if you happen to not like what she picked. I’m really excited to be working on it again.

I Am a Creative Soul by Jennifer Aikman-Smith

My fabric is a hand-dyed from Enchanting Lair. (Yep, I use her fabric a lot because I really do love it. If you haven’t tried it, seriously, head over there and buy some. Not affiliated, blah, blah.) The silk is Dinky Dyes, and Hand-Dyed Fibers, the light-coloured heart is Threadworx, and the black is good, old DMC.

I’ve still got quite a bit left to do on this, but I expect it will see lots of attention over the next little while, and be the focus for this month’s Wipocalypse. Of course, I’ve still got that pair of socks to finish in the next little while, but I just can’t put my stitching needle down for long.

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1,000

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Heather

This marks the 1,000th post here at Reflections in the Pond.

I started this block back in July 2003. Seriously. Back then, it was all written by hand. There was no CMS to handle all the formatting and posting. Just me, a text editor, and an FTP program.

At some point we switched over to Movable Type, and stayed with them for many years. At that time this was a Pagan blog. I wrote about my spiritual journey, Tarot cards, and other things like that. Some of those posts are still in the archive, but the majority of them have been migrated elsewhere, and essentially mothballed. (This means, of course, this isn’t really the 1,000th post, but it is the 1,000th currently live post. 😉 )

At some point in 2008, I believe, I started changing this blog over into some place where I could share all my crafty projects. At the time I had just given birth to my little man, and I was making a lot of changes in my life and how I chose to spend my time. Unbelievably, 2008 was an incredibly productive year for me. I finished a pile of cross stitch projects and learned to knit. I promise, I didn’t neglect the little man too much. 😉

So, this July will mark nine years of blogging for me. I’m actually really amazed at how long I’ve stuck with it and with just how much I’ve written. (Check out my main site to see some of my other blog posts, essays and articles on non-crafty things, if you are interested.) Hopefully I will stick with it another nine years, and another nine after that. Goodness knows what the internet will look like by then!

My other big accomplishment today is finishing up the My Vampire Boyfriend Socks. My goodness where they ever difficult! The pattern was great, but all that cabling in cotton yarn was hard on my hands. I’m going to take a break for a few days and start a new crochet project and do some cross stitching. After that, it’s one more pair of socks for someone else, and then never again (unless I chose to give someone a gift.)  Whhhheeeeeee!

My Vampire Boyfriend

(I’ve finished 34 pairs of socks and only kept 15 pairs for myself. Of those 15, four pairs have worn out, and two are just about too, and one shrunk so I can’t wear them.) I have three pairs on the needles right now, two for me and one for the husband, and one pair of commission socks remaining.)

 

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Wedding Announcement and Theme-a-licious

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Heather

Obligation stitching. Who doesn’t love it? Yeah, me either. But, I love my mom and I love to stitch.

Wedding Announcement from JBW Designs

This is Wedding Announcement by JBW Designs. It has been discontinued, but I was able to hunt down a copy at my LNS. (I checked online first since I figured they wouldn’t have a discontinued chart. After a fruitless search on the interwebs, I was so happy to find it in my own backyard, as it were.)

It is stitched in the spring colourway with the called for DMC. I changed the metallic thread to PTB, and I substituted another Mill Hill treasure (12018) for the light pink heart that was supposed to be at the top. I also left out the small over-one stitches in #12 perle cotton that gave the piece a polka-dot sort of a look. I dropped the word “and” down one full row to make everything look a little more balanced. The fabric is 28ct. white Lugana. (Although I love linen, I think lettering looks much nicer on evenweave.)

This was a pretty quick stitch. I worked on it for a very short time over several days, but I suspect you could get it done in a weekend easily. The chart is very, very tiny, but it blows up nicely. I think this is a design that I will stitch again for a quick and pretty wedding gift.

Today is supposed to be Theme-a-licious posting day. Well, after finishing up Winter Keep/Summer Keep, I switched over to another old Creativ Festival kit. I’ll share pictures of it a little later. Right now, here’s another look at my Theme-a-licious finish for this month, just to make everything all official like. 😉

Winter Keep/Summer Keep by Teresa Wentzler and Jennifer Aikman-Smith

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