Part 2 of St Petersburg finished

I figure I have to count the parts as finishes or I'll never see the end. And since I'm trying to whittle down my WIP's (cos that's worked really well every other time I've tried), and only starting a new project if I finish something, I can use the parts to break it up and get to stitch other things sometimes too.

And all the other projects I found while photographing the other two

Something has changed with St. Petersburg. I have actually finished the first part (including beads and crystals) and am working on the second part.

Other projects are my Boo-Lah-Dee-Dah box lid - did I tell you about that before? I don't think I did. Boo-Lah-Dee-Dah is something our EGA chapter is doing on the 5th Saturday each month (so yes, the next instalment is the end of this month), and we are making a Halloween box, appropriate since I think the last 5th Saturday this year is Halloween. Except that every time I see or think the name I start singing Boo-Lah-Dee-Dah, la-da-de-da, la-da-de-da (from the line in the song in the L&P advert 'there ain't no place I'd rather be, la da di da', which after looking it up is apparently called 'Counting the Beat' by The Swingers).

It appears I also haven't shown you Winter Scenery from Stickideen Von Der Wiehenburg / Wiehenburg Needlepoint - this is one that we are working along together with at our ANG meetings every couple of months or so through this year.

And My Heart's Garden which is a monthly, or bi-monthly project for EGA. We've had two parts so far - our next part will be next week-ish.

There was also another EGA project - a little blackwork pincushion - I've finished the stitching, and just need to put it together.

And yet another EGA project - a little felt needlebook.

And a bunch of teacher bookmarks have been stitched too - but I won't bother with a picture (yet) because they are just the same as all the other ones over the years.

Those small projects have been really good for stitching during Scouts. And if it wasn't for Scouts they probably wouldn't have much progress on them.

And when I was pulling these things out to photograph them I saw the project from my beading workshop sometime last year - I don't think I've ever shown that to you either. So here is my progress on Pagoda by Mikki Ferrugiaro.

(see that paw going towards the ornament - that's why there are only these two photos and not a lot more to choose from to get a really good one - by the end of this photo session I had two very interested cats - they don't normally take such interest in my needlework)

I think that's all my current projects - if I come across more I'll post them.

Long time, no pictures

Sorry about that. I kept meaning to do a couple of updates but just never got there. Though that means that the good news is that I get to share a finish instead of just WIP pictures :)

This is my latest quilting class (well, actually two as we did the piecing and layering in one and the binding was another class). I'm not showing the back as, well, let's put it this way, it's a learning piece, and one thing I learnt was I need to get a walking foot for my machine (or a whole new machine, but that's another debate I'm having with myself *). I'm also thinking a 1/4" foot would be good too as I make my seams too narrow resulting in squares being bigger than they should be and then points get cut off. So having the quarter inch marking above and below might be beneficial. My current machine is metric so has no inch markings at all.

Anyhoo... the pictures, that's what you really want isn't it?

The finished product:


The squares before I sewed them together:


And just because I'm feeling generous - my latest progress on the pirate quilt - not much more than last time, but I have only stitched one more session on it due to various things (including the above quilt), and now that my machine is in the shop for three weeks and the Friday morning quilting bees are having a break it might be a few weeks before it gets any further either.


Now for those of you who think I have stopped stitching - IT'S NOT TRUE :) And here is proof.

I have been working hard on Serpentine, I was hoping to get it finished before the end of September, but I don't think that's quite going to happen. The reason(s) I wanted it done by then is I have a pilot class to stitch and I promised myself I'd start that at the beginning of October, and also because Serpentine is a class and I'd like to hit the assessment window for it (which is early October).


Now I'm also going to give you a little peek at Tempest since I have been slowly plodding away a few stitches at a time during swimming lessons. Suddenly he feels like he's actually getting somewhere.

I've been thinking about taking the squares in the bottom right corner out as I'm not sure I want them right around the border, I think I'd prefer to leave it with just the single line of stitching. However, they have been there so long I'm a bit afraid of what the fabric will look like if I do. So I'm leaving that decision until I really need to make it.


Oh and I mustn't forget St. Petersburg. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I've been taking this piece (and O' Jerusalem but you can't really see any change in that so I'm not bothering with a photo) to the first Friday stitch-ins at my LNS since it (they) are nice and portable. It does make me want to stitch more of it.


And lastly - I'm taking another finishing class on Saturday (before heading straight off to an overnight camp with the kids - I feel exhausted already) on stand-ups with Susan Cluck. I've gone through my finished pieces and there aren't really that many that fit the bill. So I'm going to take Charlie's First Landing and Twas the Night Before Christmas (although I think that would be better with the cube or flat method we did last time. I think Charlie is going to be it).

*I'm not thinking of a new machine just because I want the extra feet or the inch markings. It all started because I was making another dress for DD, this one with button holes down the front, and the button holes came out funky so I showed them to my tutor (who also teaches sewing and some other crafts) and she suggested I take the machine into the shop to get looked at. So I took it in and they went 'hmmm' and are assessing it at the moment. They did tell me the basic service will cost around $90, and if there is something that needs fixing it will be more. So I started wondering what a new machine would cost as mine is also a 220V machine which means that I can't take it to classes (I have to use a transformer) and so have to borrow a machine there. I started out looking at a Brother online for ~$150, but when I went back to the shop I think I now want to spend 10x that amount and get a Bernina lol At least I know I have no interest in machine embroidery so that cuts out a lot of the really expensive all singing, all dancing models.

St Petersburg

And here we have the last of the new starts that I can show you. St Petersburg from Chatelaine Designs.

St Petersburg

I'm going to start soon St. Petersburg from Chatelaine Designs. I measured out the fabric yesterday. I didn't realise it was going to be so big. I mean, I knew it was big, but just not so big. I'm doing it on 28ct rather than the recommended 32ct as the colour I wanted didn't come in 32 so it's 5 inches bigger than the original at a grand total of 30" square. With all the other large designs I want to do I think I've got enough to last me quite a long time.

Here's the fabric:

Japanese Octagon Box

And the latest on this one - haven't really done much on it recently.

Japanese Octagonal Box

Still on the first panel for this one:

Japanese Octagonal Box

A bit more work on this:

Japanese Octagonal Box

And the little bit of progress on this - definitely not going to make it by the finishing class at the end of the month:

Japanese Octagonal Box

Here is my latest progress on this:

Japanese Octagonal Box

I've made a bit of progress on this - inspired by the fact that the finishing class is at the end of March. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have it finished for then.

Japanese Octagonal Box

Again - an overdue pic - not that it looks like much:

Japanese Octagonal Box

The first few stitches taken last night.

I stopped because I decided I needed to get a frame for it as there was too much fabric to hold as I'm doing all the pieces on one piece of fabric.

Japanese Octagonal Box

Finally a scan of the fabric:

Much better than the photos but still not perfect. Best I'm going to get though.

Japanese Octagonal Box

I got the fabric back for this yesterday. I got it custom dyed as I didn't want to use Belfast and didn't like any of the 32ct evenweave colours. Here is a not very good picture of it. It's really a sort of 211 purple with clouds of blue.

This is the best photo I have so far. I'm going to try scanning it too, to see if that turns out beter.