Catching up!

I was doing SO good at keeping up with a monthly post but part of that was actually having enough to share! But as work has continued to return to mostly normal (i.e. very hectic and busy) and I'm going into the office four days a week (still working from home most Fridays) I haven't had all that much time to stitch or blog. But I do have a few things to show now, so I figured I'd go ahead and write a post.

FFOs

Part of what inspired the finishing frenzy from earlier this year was that I wanted to have the Tower of London finally framed by the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 (see this previous post for more background) and I sort of managed to do it. I have the piece pinned to foam core and I did a test fit in the frame but I haven't actually laced the stitching yet or mounted it in the frame. But I did snap a picture of what the final object will look like!



And I managed to fully finish a couple of smaller projects: "Nevermore" by Satsuma Street - which I had hoped to finish before Halloween but didn't quite manage to - and "Pizza Slice", another of the million Mill Hill kits I have. "Nevermore" is meant to be a hanging ornament but I decided to make it a magnet instead.





WIPs

I've been keeping up with Temperature Tree so here are the updates through the end of September and October. You can see we started to get a little taste of fall by the end of October, but the really nice, cool weather will start to show up in the November branch.





New Start

For some reason I was really itching to start something Christmas-themed, so I started this "Charlie Brown Christmas" pattern that I bought last year and then spent too long trying to figure out what fabric to use, so it didn't get started until this year. This week I've managed to stitch the little tree and Charlie Brown's hat:



Haul

I had managed to hold off on any shopping sprees for a few months, but I did need a few things and we all know that thread (and beads) cannot travel alone so... (and yes, of course there are some Mill Hill kits in there)



Other hobbies!

I also have finally started dabbling in another hobby that I've been wanting to try for a while and have begun restoring my old Apple IIgs computer! I started with de-yellowing (aka 'retrobrighting') the keyboard and mouse you see here, as well as the 3.5" and 5.25" disk drive cases (which weren't as stark a contrast, so I didn't bother with pictures). Next will be the CPU case and then finally the monitor, assuming I have enough room in the retrobright box I made. In the irony of all ironies, even though I live deep in the heart of Texas, it is basically impossible to get direct sunlight on my patio, so I had to come up with a way to retrobright indoors. I lined a plastic bin with tin foil and then covered the inside top with UV rope lights and then placed the plastic parts (coated with peroxide cream and cling wrap) inside for several hours. I'm pretty pleased with the results!





That's it for this round-up! I'm hoping to get a fair amount of stitching in over the Thanksgiving break and I guess with the fact that there are only six weeks left in the year, I should start thinking about 2022 plans! I bought my usual day planner that I've used for a few different things over the past couple of years, but this time I think I'm going to mostly use it as a combo general journal and stitch journal. Here's hoping a have a lot of stitchy things to write down in it!

FFO-frenzy June!

Even though I took a week of vacation in June, I didn't actually get much stitching done because I DID ALL THE FFOs!! Well, not ALL, but a whole lot of them. That 'bin of shame' that's been sitting under my bed for a while now finally got to me and I watched all of Vonna Pfeiffer's tutorials (re-watched, in some cases) and got cracking on finally doing something with all of those stitched projects. So most of my 'haul' for the month was stuff to help with finishing, such as a cord-maker, fine-tip glue bottles, a little bit of backing fabric (because I somehow managed to not have what I needed in my stash!), etc. You get the idea. I've only framed two of the projects that I want to finish that way, but I've mounted 4 or 5 more on foam core boards that are odd sizes, so I'll probably order some custom frames for those over the next year or two (they often aren't cheap!). Once I get the frames, I'll lace the needlework and post pictures of them as FFOs.

WIP

I'm going to put off the progress photos of the 'start-itis' projects from the end of May, but I did want to go ahead and post a photo of Temperature Tree through the end of June though so here's that update (still haven't made it into the hottest few colors! - yay!):



FFOs

Alrighty - let's get into all the FFOs!

These first few are re-finishes of old pillow ornaments that I wasn't too happy with - you can find the first versions in old posts. I'm much happier with how they came out this time!





And this one was a partial re-finish - I took off the ribbon hanger and added my very first handmade cording instead.



The rest of these are in roughly reverse order of when the sttiching was finished:

I finally got the charms through Etsy for the little fairy cottage that I finished stitching last year (after a failed attempt to get them all from Ali Express last fall... never got them so I had to get refunds). I was struggling over how to FFO this one but then I looked at it in a hoop frame and that seemed the best fit. At first I just had it in the bare wood hoop but I realized that it would look really good if I painted the hoop black, so that's what I did. I was happy to find that my hand was still pretty steady for painting the front edge, although my wrist was screaming by the end (thanks carpal tunnel!!). I just had a few flecks of paint on the fabric edge that I was able to scratch off with a pin when it was dry.



And this little owl was also stitched last year. I had fun picking the backing fabric for this one!



Now here's where we start getting into some much older finishes!

I finished the stitching on this one back in November 2013. I think part of the reason I stalled on the FFO for this one was trying to figure out what to do with it. I ended up with a pillow, which allowed me to try to scrape a little rust off my sewing machine skills and try doing some curves and irregular shapes. It's not perfect, but I'm still pretty happy with how it came out!



Next up is this adorable witch kitty that I finished the stitching on back in May 2012. This was a early finish in this FFO frenzy so I just mounted it on cardboard with batting and did a felt backing.



Then we have to go back to September 2011 for the next one! I'm not 100% happy with the corners on this one, but I'm not unhappy enough to pull it apart and re-do it.



And this one from August 2011 - my first harganger finish! (I did a test stitch of some hardanger before, but this is the first that has become an FFO). This was just a simple pillow with a beaded hanger. The one thing I did do a little differently was to make the slit for stuffing through the middle of the backing fabric instead of along the edge to give that technique a try. (For some reason I didn't bother taking a photo though!)



Now back to July 2011 - this is a finish I'm really pleased with. This was my first attempt at 2-color homemade cording and although I wish I had made it slightly tighter, I'm still quite happy with it.



A framing finish! This is one of the few things that I could mount onto a board for a standard frame size and I happened to have a frame in my stash that I liked for it. The stitching was finished on this one in August 2010.



Now we go back to September 2009 for this finish! I just did a pillow for this, but I'm thinking about adding a pom-pom trim to it. If I do, I'll post an update photo.



And we've reached 2008 for a few more finishes! This cute little pumpkin was stitched in August 2008 and is another that I'm quite happy wih the backing fabric that I chose for it. I think it came out really good!



Another framed finish! This colorful dragon was from a Heritage Stitchcraft kit and I finished it in May 2008. It appropriately lives on a shelf with my Welsh history books.



This cute little cottage was stitched in April 2008. This was another that I had fun picking out a backing fabric for. The cording gave me more trouble, but then I found this one at Joann's and I think it came together well.



This is my first full-on Vonna Pfeiffer style flat fold! Stitching on this one was also from April 2008. I found the perfect backing fabric for it from a batch of Halloween-themed 10" quilt squares.




And finally, the oldest of this round of finishes - this freebie from Teresa Wentzler that I finished stitching in December 2007. This is another that I struggled with for a while and ended up just doing a pillow finish with a beaded hanger.



That's it for this month! I have one more flat fold that isn't quite finished yet (I'm having issues with the decorative trim) but I'll post a photo of that next month. I'm sure I'll have some actual stitching too, beyond Temperature Tree.

January check-in!

I want to do at least monthly check-ins this year but I realized I didn't actually do any stitching in January. Most years I would get dissappointed in myself over that BUT this time I'm not because instead of stitching I was working on other crafts! Neither really fall under the "whatever else I stitch together" but - eh - close enough. :)

A few years ago I bought a few Metal Earth kits and started into the Hubble Space Telesscope model only to realize that I needed to start with something a little more simple. So I bought a couple more kits and... they all sat in a bin for a few more years. But I decided this was the year I was finally going to do them! And once I got into a groove (and bought a nice little tool set) I managed to finish all four of them. I got a better as I went along too!

The first kit I finished was The TARDIS which ended up being my "learning experience" kit. It came out okay, but I broke the part on one of the doors that allows them to open and close. So now that it's on the shelf - I'm not moving it! But, lessons were learned.



Next up is the Hubble Space Telescope that was the one that I originally started with but hit PAUSE on until I got a little better at these kind of kits. And you can see in this photo that one of the big drawbacks to the Metal Earth kits is all the fingerprints you end up with on your model! Another lesson learned on this one was to be careful with the thin parts that stick up - I broke one of the antennae off (which would be a big problem if that happened to the real Hubble!).



After Hubble, I did the Neuschwanstein Castle kit, which I was pretty pleased with. I had an issue joining the main two sections and getting them to lay flat on the base, but isn't too noticeable. And I didn't break anything on this one!



And last but not least - the final one I did was the Millennium Falcon! Not surprisingly, it came out the best since it was the fourth one I put together. There were still a few tricky bits and I'm glad I saved it for last since I was able to take into account things I learned from doing the other ones. Getting curvy parts into the right shape is - at least for me - the hardest parts of these kits so if I do more of these eventually I'm going to have to seek out some tips and tricks for that. (I suspect that molding it around another object might be the key.)



The other thing I finally tried was diamond painting! Bought a little kit in the middle of 2020 but I didn't actually start on them until right the end of the year and I completed them about a week into the new year. When I went shoppping for a starter kit I kept finding all of these huge projects that I really didn't want, so I ended up with the ones you see below, which are actually meant to be stickers. I put them on index cards and I'm going to glue felt and magnets to the back and put them on my fridge eventully. I couldn't resist this kit of mostly Marvel characters with Supes and the Bat from DC thrown in randomly. I enjoyed trying diamond painting and I'll probably do some more eventually, but probably not any of those huge pictures I see some folks on FlossTune doing. These little things are more my speed (and what I have space for!)



That's it for the January round-up! I have already done some stitching in February, so I expect to have a few things to show in the next check-in. I'm now all caught up with my Temperature Tree for the year so far and once I saw what the temps were starting to look like, I decided to switch to the "Hot Temps" color scheme so I will probably get to use all of the colors. We've had a few days where the high was below the lowest temperature color, but I don't expect we'll have a whole lot more. We're expecting another cold snap next week, but I still think that will only mean 2-3 days with the coldest color leaf. We went through a cold patch a few weeks ago (and had 2-3 inches of SNOW!) and then quickly rebounded back into the 60s and 70s. And I have a feeling I'll be using all of those 100+ colors once we get into the summer months! Of course, with my luck, we'll end up having a polar vortex blast in Dec. 2021 and I'll have a completely pink branch or something. But I'll have photos of Temperature Tree next month, along with a few other things!

Welcome to 2020!

I really meant to write more about what I was stitching last year *during* the year but I never got around to it, so here's a 2019 round-up and a little about what I'm going to be working on in 2020.

First up - I finished the IT Crowd I posted about last year and framed it! And it's hanging in my office at work (and has even drawn a few chuckles and "Oh I love the IT Crowd!" comments). Here's the final version before I took it to work:



I also tried my hand at hoop framing some older projects and one new project. As often happens to me, the first couple that I did came out great and then the third one wasn't as good. (I have the same track record with Thanksgiving turkeys and my grandmother's pecan pie recipe). Here are the pizza penguin and Castle Coch, both originally stitched many years ago:



And this is the one that I wasn't as happy with the framing on (and this is also hanging in my office at work... for no reason whatsoever of course...):



And I framed this other old project and hung it up in my bedroom:



And I stitched up this little Celtic swirl card kit that I threw in my basket when I was shopping for some other supplies (I actually left of some backstitching in this because I thought it made the design a little too busy):



And this one was supposed to be my final finish of 2019 but I technically finished it two days into 2020. I had a pre-finished bookmark that I got in a grab bag I bought ages ago and I had saved this bookmark pattern from "The Cross Stitcher" magazine in 2008. I started on this in the fall with the original intent of finishing in the fall, but the fall ended up too busy:



And last but not least, here's a photo of my thread ends and leftover thread from a kit:



So what's up for 2020?

I've got a few projects that I've been stitching on for a few years now that I'll probably keep plugging away at, but of course I had to start a few new projects! I did a few stitches on another kit that I threw in to a supply order (that is actually one of the main ways I acquire small kits) but I have trouble with my left hand cramping if I stitch on something 'in hand' for too long. So I also have a couple of things on q-snaps that I can use on my lap frame.

I've signed up for the Wonders of Space stitch-along, which is my first SAL! We don't have the first part yet, but I'll try to post some progress photos of it as we go along. I don't know how well I'll be able to keep up through the first few months of the year, but I'm going to try!

The thing on my frame right now is something that probably shows how nuts I am, but I'm re-stitching the second large-ish project I did when I first started stitching 30 years ago. I've learned a lot since then so I'm curious to see how it comes out! I don't have the first project I did because it was TERRIBLE (I had no idea what I was doing....) but the second was Lichtenstein Castle, from the book Medieval Castles from Jeanette Crews Designs and you can see the first version of it here. Technically I'm getting a bit of a head start on the 30th anniversary of when I really got in to cross stitch since that didn't happen until the summer of 1990, but I know it's going to take a while since I have a lot less stitching time than I did back then!

Catching up on a few completed projects

Time for an update! (Actually, it was time for an update a few months ago, but today is when I finally got around to writing up the post.)

I went through a finishing binge back in May when I took a mini-vacation from work and here are photos of the pieces I worked on:



This is a mini log cabin quilt that had been waiting for me to put a binding on it for YEARS, which I finally managed to do a couple of months ago.



And I finally framed this cross stitch of Hever Castle that I stitched ages ago. (And to preempt any questions about the chart - I bought this as a kit at the castle gift shop when I visited in 1998 and I no longer have the chart from the kit. I'm not sure if they still sell it, but you might contact them if you really, really want to stitch this design.)



This is one I finished stitching, but haven't framed or made into an ornament yet. The picture is Castle Coch in Wales, stitched from The Cross Stitcher's Guide to Britain - Wales. This castle is one on my list of "places I must actually visit" - i.e. places that I've driven by or walked past but didn't actually go in to for one reason or another. (Other places on this list include the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Lord Leicester Hospital, and the Liberty Bell. One place that used to be on the list that I DID make it back to visit properly was Tintern Abbey.)



And now for something completely different... This is a bookmark I did of the Arecibo Message.



Only one Christmas ornament in this round-up. I finished stitching this back in 2011 and just now got around to making it into an ornament.

And all of the rest of the projects that I finished were fall and Halloween designs (I think all of these came from various Halloween issues of Just Cross Stitch magazine.) I realized long after I took the photos and cropped them down for posting that I should have also taken photos of the backs so you can see the coordinating fabrics I used, but I'm too lazy to do it now. But I'll try to more in the future, especially since I now have a bunch of cute Halloween fabrics to use on the many remaining Halloween designs I still have to finish.

















That's it for this round-up! I have another beaded Christmas ornament that I'm getting close to finishing, so maybe there will be another update sooner rather than later. :)