Doing Some “Over One” Cross-Stitching

I’ve had the itch to try some “over one” cross-stitching, and I also want to stitch at least one Christmas tree ornament a month, so I decided to combine the two.

Here’s what I have so far . . . it’s T-I-N-Y  ! ! !

It’ll be about 2″ x 2″ when completed. We prefer skinny Christmas trees, so I felt the “over one” size would be more in-scale with our tree.

I’m stitching this on 28-ct. Monaco (thanks to Carol at Stitching Dreams for that suggestion!), in “Antique White”. I like the stiffness of this fabric, and there’s no worry about the floss slipping underneath the threads, as with linen.

Since the fabric I’m using is lighter in color than the fabric called for in the pattern, I’m changing up some of the colors as I go, which is actually quite fun.

As for stitching “over one,” a magnifier and a good crafting light are musts!! Frogging is very challenging (which is a good reason for me to take my time and pay attention to the pattern!), and running the ends of threads underneath stitches on the backside is also quite challenging. And, for me, it goes much, much slower than stitching over two. All that said, I’m thoroughly enjoying stitching “over one” and plan to do lots more of it :-).

“Bloom” Summer Ornament: WIP (1-16-2012)

This has been feeling not so much like a needlework blog lately, so let’s rectify that!

I have some gotta-take-care-of-it deadlines on a few things right now, so have temporarily backed off on some needlework challenges in which I’d planned to unofficially participate, specifically TAST2012 and Embroidery Journal Project, and also a Color Theory Class on StitchMAP from which I opted to withdraw.

But I still have the itch to stitch something, but something without a deadline, so I decided to start on this cross-stitched-n-beaded ornament project from the July 2011 issue of Cross-Stitch & Needlework magazine.

I’m stitching it over-two on 28-ct. “Antique White” Monaco, and it’ll only be a bit over 2″ in diameter when complete.

Here’s a closer-up picture — this is a photo of the magazine page, so the detail’s not quite like it’d be if this was a photo of the actual ornament.

First I’ll do the base design in DMC stranded cotton, then next month I’ll order the various Kreinik braid and Mill Hill beads needed to complete the ornament and the tassel.

This ornament is one in a series of four seasonal ornaments. If I like how this turns out, I’ll get my hands on the other three issues of Cross-Stitch & Needlework that contain the patterns for those three ornaments. I’m making these to keep, to use as Christmas tree ornaments :-).

Our Cluckies (18 weeks old)

When I went out to gather up today’s egg (which was the same size as yesterday’s, but light brown), I took my camera with me to snap some current pictures of our clucky gals. They’re rather inquisitive, so it’s easy to get close-up shots . . . but they don’t like to pose for the camera, so you have to be quick with the trigger finger!

(As of now, the consensus is the larger photo size is preferred, so I’ll stick with that. Thank you for the feedback!)

We have seven, all females. They’re actually all in this picture, although the one in the back on the right only barely made the shot ;-).

I like this next picture because the chicken whose body is facing away from the camera gives you a good view of just how filled out their bodies and feathers are now.

Their feathers are sooooo pretty, especially when the sunlight hits them. I didn’t capture that in these photos, but maybe my sweetie can use his fabulous photography skills + his awesome camera to do that soon (hint, hint, Honey!).

We don’t have names for them anymore. We’d named a couple when they were chicks, but when their feathers started coming in it became too challenging to visually tell them apart. So we refer to them collectively as “the girls”. There is one, however, who is definitely the Queen Bee . . . but you figure that out by her actions, not by her looks. She’s the one: who is not scared of us; who is “in our face” when we’re in the garden or pen, curious about what we’re doing in or to Her Space; and who is the last one to go into the pen and the coop at night. She does things in her own sweet time, thankyouvery much ;-). I get a kick out of her . . . but will probably think differently should she ever get broody!

I love these chickens of ours. They’re beautiful, and funny, and curious, and not the sharpest tools in the shed . . . and they provide me with guaranteed-cornfree eggs, which is the biggest perk of all :-).

Poll: Photo Size

I feel like the “large” photo size I’ve been using in my blog posts is too large, and that maybe the “medium” photo size might be a better fit. Will y’all scroll through my last two or three posts and let me know your opinion, either by voting in the poll and/or leaving a comment? Please and thank you :-).

Squawk!!

Anyone who owns chickens knows the excitement of . . .

THE FIRST EGG ! ! !

It’s the egg on the right. The egg on the left is a store-bought “large”, for comparison. Our girls’ eggs will be in the “large” to “jumbo” range, but I imagine this first egg felt plenty big to the gal who laid it ;-).

I haven’t taken pictures of the girls since they were nine weeks old; they’re eighteen weeks old now. But here’s a picture of them from nine weeks ago, when they were all teenager-ish in size.

It’s funny to me to see them in that picture because they are now at least twice that size and very full-grown-chicken looking! I’ll get a new picture soon; they’re such pretty gals, and a hoot to boot :-).

Sewing Kit Additions

This week was the cut-off locally for Bastrop donations. I’d held off on sending to Shari (the outreach organizer) the knitting needles and other goodies (third picture in that post) I’d boxed up over the weekend, in case there were more sewing kit supplies donated this week. Sure enough, there were :-).

Someone, or several someones, gathered up much-needed scissors, thread, safety pins, and buttons for the sewing kits, along with more pincushions.

These are now boxed up with the knitting needles and ready to go out in tomorrow’s post to Shari.

Kudos to my fellow local donators for all the goodies they shared for this outreach effort! We did great, y’all :-).

What A Difference A Day Makes

I was feeling hemmed in by all the Bastrop donations so decided to “just do it” and get them totally sorted tonight. First I had to de-Christmas the living room, but that went quickly seeing as how the only decorating we did was the tree + our advent calendar + our stockings. It only took me about twenty minutes to get everything put away. I’ll have to remember that next holiday season!

(As a reminder, just last night our living room/dining room looked like this.) A full night’s work later and we have beautiful organization!

 

Like has been sorted with like. I still have some detail work to do before this all gets passed along to Shari, but the brunt of the work has been done.

I’m planning to send the following items to Shari next week, as most, if not all, can be used in the sewing kits that are being made.

Y’all, there are FIFTY-FOUR sets of knitting needles there . . . and that doesn’t include the DPNs and circular needles! (I’m thinking I owe thanks for all those knitting needles to Vanessa, right Vanessa?)

It feels good to have this done and to be able to walk through our dining room again ;-) and also to have a pretty firm idea of what fine-tuning type of sorting I’ll need to do in coming weeks.

Now I’m ready to spend some time doing updates for my other blog (which I’ve neglected in recent weeks) and start on TAST2012 and the Embroidery Journal Project.

This’ll Keep Me Busy . . .

I picked up a trunk full and back seat full of Bastrop donations this afternoon, and I thought y’all might get a kick out of seeing just how much has been donated locally. (The things I’ve already sorted and sent on to the outreach organizer are shown here.)

Things I’ve already sorted are in the following photo:

Those are the things that will be hand-delivered to Shari, the outreach organizer, when she and her hubby pass through Texas on their way to take all of the donations to Bastrop. From left to right, there’s oodles of magazines, a tote filled with more totes, yarn and more yarn, a big bag of batting, two bolts of muslin with a huge yardage of fabric stacked on top, a PVC standing quilt frame, various kinds of needlework patterns, a couple bins of fabric (from yardages all the way down to scraps), various kinds of needlework kits, and an assortment of books.

My hubby and I are donating all the clear plastic containers in that photo, because needleworkers and sewists need storage, dontchaknow!

That clear container at the bottom of the middle stack of containers is full of bags containing smaller cuts of fabric and fabric scraps. Shari’s explained to me how they are sorting and organizing those, so that’ll be one of the last things I do, once I’m sure I’ve picked up the last of the donations.

Now, here’s what’s still left to be sorted:

I’ve only done a cursory look-see, but it looks like the box and bag at the front left of the photo are full, and I mean FULL, of floss. See that box right behind the clear bag full of yarn? Inside that box (underneath the tacklebox) is a smaller box FILLED with knitting needles.

I hope to sit down tonight and empty out the boxes of assorted goodies and see what I can mail on to Shari for the sewing kits they’re putting together. The next pictures I post about this outreach effort should be of organized-prettiness rather than disorganized-prettiness :-).

Photo Storage: 1997-2008 Done

This is one of the “one of these days” projects I started shortly before Christmas. All our photos from 1997 through 2008 are now in this one photo storage box. Awesomesauce!!

Pretty amazing when you consider they’d previously been stored in TWELVE photo albums!!

Every single picture in this box now has the photo’s date, event (if applicable), and names of everyone in the photo noted on the back. That was the most time-consuming part of organizing these! But it’s comforting to know that when our boys are going through all these photos at some point in the future, they won’t pick up a picture and wonder what year it’s from, or who the kids are in the picture (if it’s a picture of my hubby or me, or our parents), or (if it’s a picture of them) how old they were in the picture, or where that was we were on vacation and when, and so forth.

The photo storage box I used is this. It has twelve inserts and each one can hold up to 200 photos. I figure one more container will work for the 1996-n-prior photos, and another container for 2009-forward. And then maybe one without the inserts, in which we can stack any photos that are bigger than 4×6.

Now I’m putting this project aside for a while again, because I’ve hit burnout on writing on the backs of photos ;-). But when I’m ready to start back up again, this is what I’ll be facing:

They’re all presorted into decades; unfortunately, the further back in time they go, the more challenging it will be for me to determine specific years. And then there’s the baggie labeled “Need Help With These”, which means I need for my hubby and I to get with our respective parents and see if they can identify people and perhaps even years. But if we don’t do it, the odds that our kids will know who those people are are slim to none. So that’s good incentive to get it done :-).

I have my fingers in a lot of pies right now and am not quite ready to jump into a cross-stitch or detailed embroidery project, so I think next up I’ll see if I have enough fabrics to make a patchwork top for the cover of the artwork journal I mentioned in this post. I also have an idea in mind of how I’d like to (unofficially) participate in TAST 2012, so I’m going to experiment with that a bit — small-scale, free-form embroidery feels just right for the busyness of this month.

For the Christmas-Ideas List for 2012: Handcrafted Secret Santa Gifts

I store most of my Christmas ideas at Pinterest, but every so often a site won’t let images be pinned. This handcrafted Secret Santa gift idea falls into the latter category, so I’m storing it here for next Christmas. I’m thinking some of my nieces and nephews, in particular, would dig doing this kind of Secret Santa exchange with some of us adults!