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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Sampler Socks

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Heather

Socks, Socks, Sock! Honestly, I do make other things – I’ve got two shawls to share soon!

I’ve finished off the Sampler Socks I shared with you the other day.

Sampler Socks

The yarn is Yarn Hallow’s Summer Love (that is, Crystal Palace Panda Cotton) in colourway Santa Fe. The pattern is a combination of Wendy Johnson’s Toe Up Socks with a Difference and Sampler Socks from [amazon_link id=”1603425799″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders[/amazon_link].

Sampler Socks - Cuffs

I made both cuffs different, and took some liberties with the pattern because I changed them to toe-up.

Next up: a sweater.

No, just kidding! I’ve got to finish up those awesome My Vampire Boyfriend socks. Man, it is going to hurt to give those away.

3 Comments | Posted in Knitting | Tagged , ,

Wonky Blocks

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Heather

Oh, ONS why must you disappoint me? Orders should not take upwards of three weeks to ship. And if they do, you should send out emails to let your customers know. Honestly, if I hadn’t sworn off buying stash, I would be too annoyed to shop with you again any time soon.

On a happier note, yesterday I was able to lug out the sewing machine and transform the dining room into my sewing studio. (Delusions of grandeur, I haz them.) I got, more or less, caught up on the Craftsy Quilt Block of the Month class.

May’s lesson was log cabin blocks, but with a twist naturally. The first block is made more or less like a traditional log cabin block, except that the size of the strips used varies.

Modern Log Cabin

The second block is a wonky take on the log cabin. Strips of random colours and widths are sewn in, and the are trimmed at an angle to get a sort of five sided square.

Wonky 5-sided Log Cabin

It took me a little while to get the hang of this block, which is why the “centre” is so far off to the side. But, once I got going, I really fell in love with this method. I’m planning on making myself a lap quilt made up of only this block once this quilt is done. And, I’ll be using my carefully hoarded collection of Hello Kitty fabrics. I still need to find a few more fat quarter or half metre cuts to have enough, but I think I can manage that. 😀

You might have noticed that I haven’t posted April’s blocks yet. Well, they did turn out nicely, as the pictures below show. The method of the month was English Paper Piecing, which is essentially cutting out wee bits of fabric, lacing them around a paper shape, carefully sewing them together, and then removing the paper shape. You can either sew a whole bunch of shapes together as your quilt top or you can applique them to your blocks. Since this is the Block of the Month class, we took our shapes and did the applique method.

Hexi Stripe Block

Lovely, eh? But there is a problem. Since my fabric stash was in such a mess, I grabbed black broadcloth rather than black quilting cotton. They are not the same thing. Thankfully I noticed before I trimmed the stripe block! (And my fabric stash has now been tamed.)

Hexi Block

Also, I noticed before the block above was actually complete. I haven’t yet had the heart to pick out the stripe block and applique it to the proper fabric. I’ve promised myself to get to it before the end of June. I’m much less annoyed with myself about it now, so I’ll probably do it shortly. Next month is the modern nine patch, which I am really looking forward too.

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