Summer in November

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Heather

Yesterday Teresa Wentzler released Miniature Summer Sampler, the final design in her miniature seasonal sampler series. I was lucky enough to take a class with her back in 2006 at the Creativ Festival, where she started the series with her Miniature Autumn Sampler.

Miniature Autumn Sampler by Teresa Wentzler

I’ve also finished her Miniature Winter Sampler.

 

Miniature Winter Sampler, Teresa Wentzler

The Spring sampler is still in the queue, with all the supplies ready. But, I think once I get some gifts out of the way, this new Summer sampler with be my focus project for the upcoming cold months. Maybe I will start today… I mean, what a better way to start November than by thinking about the summer.

For those who’d like to know what specialty fibres are required for this design, it calls for Gloriana Silk in colour Bluegrass, Mill Hill beads 42010 Ice, and Hand Dyed Fibres ribbon (2mm) in colours BeLeaved, Steepes of JewelWeed and UltraMarooned.

 

4 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch | Tagged ,

Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Heather

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Baby Man and I attempted to do a Halloween craft, but sadly it didn’t work out so well. That’s what I get for buying a craft kit from the dollar store.

Foam by Numbers Witch

Anyway, I hope your night is filled with treats rather than tricks (like that silly foam kit).

1 Comment | Posted in Crafts |

Black Socks

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Heather

Knitting black socks isn’t really all that fun. The stitches are difficult to see in anything but bright light, and, well, black can be a little bit boring. And when you are knitting men’s socks, all that black can seem like it is going on forever.

Right now I’m working on Hot Stuff! Socks from Wendy D. Johnson’s book [amazon_link id=”0307463850″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Toe-Up Socks for Every Body[/amazon_link] using Berroco Comfort Sock in colour Black. I picked the largest size, even though my husband has very narrow feet (sock sizes are generally done by foot and leg circumference, since the length is easily adjustable). I knit tightly, so I figured there wouldn’t be a problem. I could use a small needle size and it would work out great.

Hot Stuff Socks (WIP)

I’m sure you can guess what has happened. After turning the heel, and before beginning the colourwork, I asked my husband to try the sock on to see how it feels and to make sure it was long enough. The length was great, but the sock is just a bit too loose.

Now I need to decide if I press forward and hope that the sock will still be comfortable for him to wear, or do I rip out all that work on a black sock and start again using directions for the next size down. If I was using cotton yarn, I would just leave it, since I know that it will shrink a bit, but Berroco Comfort is acrylic and micro-fibre, so it isn’t going to change size at all. 🙁

Right now the socks are in a time out. If I am going to rip them out, I need to distance myself from all the work I’ve put into them for just a little while.

 

Also, if you haven’t had a chance, please vote in my 2012 Monthly Project poll, which you can find in the right hand sidebar (if you are reading through a reader, you will need to actually head over to my blog). So far, Halloween ornaments have a very narrow lead over small Teresa Wentzler projects.

1 Comment | Posted in Knitting | Tagged ,

TW Collection Complete?

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Heather

Last week I managed to get my hands on the last few patterns I needed to complete my Teresa Wentzler collection.

Final TW Designs for Collection

The chart for Peaceable Kingdom came from eBay, and the lovely Christine lent me the three JCS issues.

And then it came to me: I missed some of TW’s Creativ Festival classes. 🙁 My collection isn’t complete. Off the top of my head, I know I am missing a small wool cross design and a bargello design. On the bright side, I have managed to track down every publicly available chart. Not a bad accomplishment, really.

And, here’s a TW finish to celebrate: Merry Christmas Cat from the December 1990 issue of Just Cross Stitch. It is stitch on random fabric using the white DMC colour scheme.

Merry Christmas Kitty by Teresa Wentzler

And, please, if you haven’t, vote in my poll for which monthly project you’d like to see me tackle next year. Halloween ornaments have a small lead over small Teresa Wentzler designs.

[poll id="2"]

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TUSAL – October 2011

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Heather

Wait, what? Yesterday was the new moon? Seriously?

TUSAL - October 2011

Lots of bits and pieces added this month, some yarn, some floss ends from the Creativ Festival projects and some from the ornament of the month. Not too bad. (Terrible picture!!)

The other container in the picture is a little thread catcher I made to take with me to the Creativ Festival. It uses a fat quarter of fabric and a 4″ embroidery hoop. And the best part is that it folds down like this:

Thread Catcher

Pretty neat, eh? You can find instructions from Red Hen Fabrics here (link to pdf).

In other news, if someone out there found an iPod touch with a lotus laser etched on the back, please let me know. We lost it on the way to the doctor yesterday, and I’m heart-broken. (Yeah, I know. I don’t think any of you are in Toronto, but it doesn’t hurt to throw it out to the Internet. I’ve tried Craig’s List too.) Baby Man is really sad, too. 🙁 Thankfully, there was no personal information on it (other than my contact info on the lock screen, and some pictures), but it had lots of games for the little man to play, and some other things I’d like to have back. Yesterday was not a good day.

3 Comments | Posted in Cross Stitch, Memes & Collabs | Tagged ,

Creativ Festival – Day 5

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Heather

Whew! Sunday! After four long days, the fifth and final day had arrived. The end was in sight. I was sad, since I love all the creative inspiration and friendship at the Creativ Festival, but I have to admit that I was a little relieved because it was really starting to take a physical toll.

Anyway! Sunday began at 9am again, with another class from Jennifer Aikman-Smith: Treasure Them Now or Eat Them. It features a dragon mommy dealing with her six little baby dragons. Super cute!

Treasure Them Now... by Jennifer Aikman-Smith (WIP)

Jennifer had been having draws all weekend for some of her old models, and I kept joking with her that she needed to pick me. Well, my name was the very last name drawn, and I was lucky enough to get the model that I had been eyeing all weekend. Thank you so much for your generosity, Jennifer. I know that each of us who won are very excited to own something stitched by you.

Castle in the Clouds (needlepoint version) stitched by Jennifer Aikman-Smith

After class, my mom and I poked around on the show floor for a little while. I priced out mid-line sewing machines while she looked at beads. In the end, I picked up a beginner quilting kit and a couple of beads, while she bought a few beads and got a fabulous little free package of beads and whatnots from a booth.

Sunday's Creativ Festival Shopping

My final class of the weekend was Christmas Biscornu by Kim Beamish (who has been published in A Needle Pulling Thread). It is a lovely design that has a little flap of lacy stitches that overhang the biscornu edge. I really like it, but I think I’ve come up with a few extra embellishments for it. What can I say, the Creativ Festival is very inspiring.

Christmas Biscornu by Kim Beamish (WIP)

After class: more shopping! First, some Christmas red Swarovski beads for the Christmas biscornu, and then a little canvaswork kit from Carolyn Mitchell. It is a lovely little holly ornament that is a compliment to a design that will be featured in the Festive 2011 issue of A Needle Pulling Thread.

Holly Berry ornament by Carolyn Mitchell

And my last purchase: a new sewing machine. After shopping around, I settled on the Brother Innov-is 80. It has 80 different stitches (including a block alphabet and 10 different one-step button holes), an LCD screen, and about a million features my basic Kenmore doesn’t have. And the price? Well, it really was fabulous. (Singer had a machine I was looking at. They said the $300 show price was great. Amazon sells it for $180. o_O )

Brother Innov-is 80 relaxing in its new home (the dinning room table)

So, my final haul from the festival was pretty good. Below is the picture of Friday’s purchases, which I haven’t posted yet. I’m not sure about all the projects in my future, but I know that I am very well prepared!

 

Friday's Creativ Festival Shopping

As a bit of an aside, I thought I would let you know what was going on in the hall right next door to the Creativ Festival show floor.

Strange Bedfellows Indeed

It was a very interesting mix of people coming down the escalator, as you can well imagine. And, I wasn’t always right when I guessed who would be going into which show. The juxtaposition even made the front page of our local rag newspaper, and the more, uhh, respectable paper even had a piece about it too (warning: the article is not for the prudish once you get past the paragraph about strange bedfellows).

I’m glad the weekend is over, but I’m also missing it all already. I’ve already got next year’s festival written in on the calendar.

3 Comments | Posted in Crafts, Cross Stitch | Tagged ,

Creativ Festival – Day 4

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Heather

This Saturday just past was my fourth day in a row at the Creativ Festival, here in downtown Toronto. And, really, by then I was starting to feel pretty exhausted. Even still, I was having a great time. It is wonderful to catch up with people I only see once a year, like Dale from Bermuda or Andrea from Ohio (who actually missed last year because she got married; not a bad excuse).

In terms of classes, Saturday was pretty quiet for me. At 9am I had an intarsia class with Charles Voth (StitchStud on both Ravelry and Twitter). He taught us two different methods of working intarsia in the round. And, while it was a bit confusing at first, I eventually caught on and I think I’ll be using at least one of the techniques in the very near future to knit a wee robot design from Danger Crafts.

Intarsia In the Round - Method 1 (Large Areas of Colour)

There are some pretty obvious mistakes in the above picture (like a couple of stitches in completely the wrong colour and terrible tension), but the join itself is actually very sound, and looked much better after some practice.

Intarsia In the Round - Method 2 (Small Motif)

 

My second class of the day was a lecture by Jennifer Aikman-Smith on how to involve kids in crafting. I found it very interesting because Baby Man is now at the age where we can start to work on simple craft projects together. He is also part of a generation that is totally digital. He doesn’t watch TV, he watches YouTube. We read books on the iPad, and use it to learn how to write letters and do math through various apps. The way he relates to the world is very different, but, thankfully, he has already shown some interest in the crafts I do. Jennifer gave me a lot of ideas, but I also learned that the most important things are art supplies and time.

And speaking of supplies, after the lecture, it was time for me to do some shopping. I bought a copy of Nicky Epstein’s [amazon_link id=”1933027673″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Knitting on Top of the World[/amazon_link] for a very good price at the clearance book stall (I’m following Mary’s blog, where she is knitting every pattern in the book). I also picked up a couple of more bag kits from Quilt a Bag, some fabric from Len’s Mill, got a free back issue of A Needle Pulling Thread and bought another issue, and bought an inexpensive pair of dressmaker’s sheers.

Saturday's Creativ Festival Shopping

After shopping, it was time for the gala dinner. As usually, it was stuffed chicken (this time with wild rice) and a little custard dessert. Nice, but not fabulous. The speeches were mercifully short this year, which was wonderful. Next stop was a fashion show featuring designs from final year students at the Toronto International Academy of Design. Unlike previous years, the show was fairly short and featured a lot of really lovely (and reasonable) designs. I can honestly say I really enjoyed it.

At the end of the show we received a small gift from Create Your Style with Swarovski Elements. The collection of beads was much more useful and pretty than the items from the last few years, unfortunately though, many of my pieces were  broken.

Gift from Create Your Style with Swarovski Elements

Saturday was a long day, but it turned out to be much more enjoyable than I was expecting. Onwards, to Sunday!

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