Tale of a Shooting Star…

Warning: Photo-heavy post ahead!

I have yet to have any takers on my Not-So-Crazy January Challenge. As it turns out, most people don’t seem to have the huge finishing pile that I do. Go figure! 😆

I’m still determined to plod ahead on my own, though. I have laid out all of the pieces that I know what to do with onto the bed in my spare room. There are more than 15 pieces laid out and that doesn’t even include the Pagoda Pincushion I just finished stitching and the biscornu I’m going to make out of the two Hearts & Flowers pieces.

I have my work cut out for me:
1. Paw Prints by The Stitchworks – stitching finished in 2005

This will be finished as a flanged pillow. The fabrics are shown behind the piece.

2. Hardanger Embroidery Emery Cushion by Roz Watnemo – stitching finished in ????; I have no record of this finish

I still haven’t decided what to do for the back piece yet, so this may or may not get finished in January.

4. Nantucket Basket Topper “Butterfly” by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2008

I even have the basket for this one… somewhere.

5. Blue Rose Teacup by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2008
6. Heart to Heart (teacup) by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2008

Cording needs to be made; otherwise, these are ready to go.

7. Jingle! Tin Topper by Just Nan – stitching finished in 2009
8. Jingle! Biscornu by Just Nan – stitching finished in 2009

9. Happy Wishes by Shepherd’s Bush – stitching finished in 2006

Cording needs to be made; otherwise, ready to be finished into a (large) scissors fob or pincushion.

10. Sarah Belle Scissor Case by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2009

I need to pick/find lining fabric for this one. I’ll check my stash, but I think a trip to Joann is needed.

11. Sarah Belle Needle Keep by Lorri Birmingham (bottom left) – stitching finished in 2008
12. Butterflies & Hearts Decorative Tin Cover by Lorri Birmingham (top left) – stitching finished in 2008
13. Sweetheart Decorative Tin Cover by Lorri Birmingham (top right) – stitching finished in 2003 (yikes!)
14. Sweetheart Decorative Tin Cover by Lorri Birmingham (bottom right) – stitching finished in 2008

#14 is a re-stitch because I thought that I had lost #13. Fortunately, I have just enough Altoids tins for both of those, plus #12. The tiny tin for #11 came with the kit and needs to be emptied of its mints and cleaned out. I had to heavily modify the design for #11 because the charted design didn’t even come close to fitting on the top of the tin.

15. Star of Wonder (Punchneedle) by Homespun Elegance – stitching finished in 2008 (this is attempt #2; attempt #1 was horrid and thrown out, I believe)

I have the overdyed perle cotton by Weeks Dye Works, the WDW felt and I found a papier-mache star ornament at Michaels the other day that I can use as the form. I had originally purchased a wooden star to use as the base, but when I dug it out, I discovered that one point of the star was rather irregular and would be very time-consuming to fix.

16. Barnabee’s Quest by Just Nan – stitching finished in 2008 (as well as the sewing, I believe)

You might feel like this one is cheating, but adding the cording and the tassel has been lurking about as a seemingly daunting task, so tackling it deserves some credit, if I manage it.

17. A Very Merry Summer by JBW Designs – stitching finished in 2009

I had a frame for this one and then I accidentally used it elsewhere. It works out better this way, though, because I couldn’t hang a framed piece in the fabric of the boat cabin as it would be too heavy. A matboard ornament finish will be much more usable.

18. Acorn Nantucket Basket Topper by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2003 – (another yikes!)

There is a kit for this laying about somewhere. I know where the basket is, but the finishing bits are still in the bag with the chart. I’ll have to go digging for this one.

19. Irish Needle Roll by Lorri Birmingham – stitching finished in 2009
20. October Birthday Needleroll by The Victoria Sampler – stitching finished in 2009

These two should make up pretty quickly.

21. Celtic Ice by Ink Circles (bottom left) – stitching finished in 2009
22. Peace on Earth by Indigo Rose (top left) – stitching finished in 2007
23. Angel Heart Ornament by Charland Designs (top right) – stitching finished in 2007
24. Heart and Flowers Scissors Fob by Twisted Oaks Designs (bottom right) – stitching finished in 2006

These will all be matboard ornament finishes, except for #24, which will be a stuffed diamond scissors fob finish. I just need to figure out what color of red I used so I can make the cording.

25. Christmas Hearts Bellpull by The Victoria Sampler – stitching and sewing finished in 2005

Okay, I admit that this one is a bit of a cheat as it only needs to be finished at the top and then sewn onto the bellpull, but it has been languishing for 5 years!

26. Butterfly Scissors Fob by ??? – stitching finished in ????

I can’t find any record of this little one, so I don’t know what the design is or when it was stitched, but it is old. I had finished it at one point, but something went wrong. I don’t remember what, exactly, went wrong; maybe the stitches burst because I stuffed it too full? I’m notorious for overstuffing things. At any rate, it needs to be sewn up again as a little scissors fob.

So, there you have it. My finishing lineup for January 2011. How many do you think I’ll actually finish? There are 28 finishes to be done, if you throw in the two that aren’t pictured. I’m hoping for a lot of success, but I can tell you right now that I see those two Nantucket basket topper finishes going by the wayside first, if anything.

Unless I can slam in one more finish today, I have completed my final stitching project of 2010. This is a freebie named Celtic Swirls by Ink Circles:

This one is done in teals. I will be stitching a second one in purples and then the two will be combined into a biscornu.

On Wednesday, I picked up my last two pieces to be framed by Michaels this year. I am quite pleased with the job that they did, so I have one more piece that I’ll be taking in sometime in January, when I’ve saved up a little money (because it’s large and will require a special mat cut).

First, though, I took a better photo of my reframed Frost Fairy. It looks really nice against my grey stone fireplace:

This picture better captures the color of the frame, the interior silver mat and the metallic frost being blown from her hand.

The two pieces that I just picked up are:
1. Mystery SAL by Alchemy Stitchcraft. I finished this one back in 2006. I was originally going to finish it as a bellpull, but I decided to have it framed instead.

My framer, Kathy, did a wonderful job with this one. The mat behind the piece is the same color as the main navy mat. It shows up the hardanger sections quite nicely. I wasn’t originally sold on her suggested mat color, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. This one is hanging in my living room, between the two windows and just above where my two lap stands containing WIPs sit. I realize that a couple of the rows are curved, but I stitched the piece on Monaco, back when I thought that it was a great, inexpensive fabric to work with. I didn’t realize until after stitching this piece (and Just Nan’s Barnabee’s Quest) that it’s terrible for pulled stitches. It has very little stretch to it, so the framer didn’t have a lot to work with. The important thing is that the hardanger sections are straight and square, which they are. She actually did a very nice job. The photo is just a bit askew because I had to manipulate it so much. My camera did an odd sort of fish-eye thing with it, so it took a lot of work to get it looking somewhat square and straight.

2. Twinkle Twinkle by Enchanting Lair. This piece was stitched in 2007.

I used to have a serious hate-hate relationship with this piece. That is part of the reason that it’s been sitting in my waiting-to-be-finished pile for 3 years. I bought it directly from Enchanting Lair at CATS in Hershey in 2007 as a full kit which included the threads and fabric. It’s a seriously odd piece, in my eyes. The color combinations are strange and a bit jarring. I hated it so much that when I pulled it out a couple of months ago, while going through my pile to see what I wanted to have framed, I was going to give it away to any poor soul who might want it. I decided to take it in to Kathy, though, and see if she could make me fall in love with the piece. I told her going in that I hated the piece and I wanted to see what she could do with it. She pulled a mat color that matches the darkest color in the overdyed blue thread, though it doesn’t quite look like a match in my photo. We chose a slightly off-white inner mat and frame that would complement the very pale pastel overdyed thread in her wings. The inner mat is actually sparkly, which complements the metallic threads used in the star. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the sparkles in that mat to show up in a photograph.
I think Kathy did it. She made me fall in love with this piece. I desperately wanted to like it and now I do. She’s hanging proudly in my craft room.

I decided to take yesterday off. I didn’t touch the computer all day. I spent hours stitching. I napped. It was lovely. I’ve actually been stitching a lot the past couple of days. We had to rush to get most of the house clean for Terry’s parents’ whirlwind pre-Christmas visit this past weekend, so I’ve been sitting on my rump now. Sure, there are other things that could be done before my parents arrive tomorrow, but I need a break and I just don’t care.

As a result of all of this stitching, I’ve actually finished up a couple of little things that have been hanging out in my stitching bag for a while now.
The first is the bottom piece of my second Pagoda Pincushion. Anna will recognize this piece, as I’ve dragged it out at Stitching at the Ford for months and it’s taken me forever to get anywhere.

This will get a backstitched border and be joined to its mate during my finishing challenge next month.

The second is my second copy of Hearts & Flowers by The Sweetheart Tree. The first run was stitched using the kit and included lovely flower beads in the corner and center. For this run, I substituted stitched flowers in the corner and skipped the center one completely. This is both a start and a finish.

This, too, will get a backstitched border and be joined to its mate as a biscornu during my finishing challenge next month.

I’m working on another WIP now – Celtic Swirls by Ink Circles. It’s a freebie that I’m doing in teals and will do again in purples and make into a biscornu.

That’s it, for now. I’m cleaning out my project bags nicely so far and am starting to gear up for all of the finishing I’ll be doing next month. I haven’t really gotten any takers on my Not-So-Crazy January Challenge yet, but I’m hoping that at least a couple of people will join me. If not, then c’est la vie. It won’t stop me! 😀

This is going to be a quick, drive-by post. I’m busy trying to keep up with the tail end of the live photo blog of Coldplay’s performance in Liverpool and the associated thread on coldplaying.com. It’s all very thrilling to get things second- and third-hand, you know. 😉

Anyway, here is Nan’s second bookmark. I just squeaked in the finish on this one Thursday night (they arrived on Friday):

Again, this is the March bookmark (no actual design titles were used in the leaflet) from the Leisure Arts leaflet entitled Bookmarks Galore.

Yesterday, I picked up the piece for my mother again so that I could get it finished. I actually put the last beads into it while I was talking to her on the phone today. It’s Just Nan’s Sparkling Iris and I stitched it on the recommended fabric with the recommended DMC threads:

As usual, the colors are not correct. The scanner interprets them too brightly and washed out the fabric, which is actually a pale purple opalescent linen.

And here it is in its framed glory:

Too bad the front of the frame is actually not square. It makes my stitching (and interfacing) look wonky. 😥
Unfortunately, the picture shows neither the lovely purple bling just above each of the tulips nor the beads. Someday, I will take some photography classes or find time to really work hard at taking better photos. Someday…

Now to find dinner for us and the pups. And maybe do a little stitching just for me!

You’ve probably heard of the Crazy January Challenge 2011. You know, the one where you start a new project each day from January 1st through the 15th. If not, you might want to check it out. Be forewarned, though, it truly is a crazy challenge. So crazy that I almost took it on and then I thought better of it. If you saw my WIP list, you’d understand why I’m opting out.

Instead, I am going to propose my own challenge. My Not-So-Crazy January Challenge of 2011 is to take 15 finishes from your waiting-to-be-finished pile and finish-finish them. They can be framed, made into ornaments, sewn into bellpulls, hand-stitched into biscornus, whatever strikes your fancy. My goal is to clear out that finishing pile in which some pieces have been languishing for years. If you choose to frame any pieces, you can either complete the framing yourself by the end of January or take them into a framer by the end of January, your choice and either one counts.

If you decide to join in with me on the challenge, you will need to post a photo of each of your 15 finishes by the end of January. I hope that at least one person will take me up on this challenge so that I’m not alone!If you interested in joining me, please leave a comment with your blog URL so that I can watch your progress.

I would appreciate mentions of this challenge on other blogs, even if you don’t take it on yourself. Thanks!