Focus on the Camera

Yes, I am stopping the rotation just for a few days. I need to get the camera done so I can get it to the framer to be ready to take to the shower at the end of July. So, this will be non stop until it is finished. I started by using four strands of Splendor 801, the darkest black, around the lens for shading. I also used that same thread for the little dark box in the top right corner. Above that is Splendor 888 which will be the main color for most of the camera. The top right line is 899 which will be a lighter gray for the shine on the right side. Below that is the strap attachment which will be done in 890. These four colors will be used in the entire body of the camera. I have other ideas for the lens. The canvas on this one is white with silver flecks so as to highlight the black and greys in camera itself.
Oh, and this one came from the mother of the bride. She sent me a picture of the actual camera that her son-in-law to be uses and I sketched this from that.....note the uneven lines! LOL

Stash Enhancing

Jane wants to know what Needlepoint shop I visited in Atlanta. We made a trip to In Stitches. www.institchesatalanta.com The shop is owned by Bam Coleman, a former native to my area in the mountains of NC. I did not realize that when I walked into the shop but I was warmly greeted by one of her associates who offered her assistance and provided a thread conversion chart for some fiber I was looking for. I also told her I wanted to browse a bit. I was pleased to see all the fibers on display as well as room after room of wonderful canvas. The wall of Splendor was gorgeous as were all the other threads I found throughout the shop! Liz of Tapestry Tent had a trunk show and I managed to find the above stocking cuff that I could not live without and a couple of packages of Renaissance Designs angel hair. I had a very nice conversation with Bam as well and have signed up for her newsletters for possible future classes. There were lots of great stitched samples along with a great sale rack. I hope you get a chance to stop by.

Just the basket

I am not sure why, but sometimes Blogger won't let you enlarge both photos in a double photo post. Cyn wanted to see better details, so here it is! Enjoy!

For the wedding shower

I picked up the cupcake from the framer! I think they did a wonderful job! The pink mat matches the pink frosting fiber exactly, and the gold frame accentuates the gold flecks in the canvas! This is a winner for the bride to be cake decorator!

And, for the mother of the bride who is busy planning the wedding shower at the end of July, I did a basket for her to put all her party favors in. I took an existing basket and spray painted it white. Then, I glued white ribbon all around the top edge of basket and glued white ruffle to it. Next, two rows of pink rose trim were glued to the top of the ruffle. I wrapped the handle with white ribbon. On both sides of the basket, I made small bouquets of white flowers with a large handmade pink silk ribbon rose and accented with sprays of small white pearls and crystal encrusted hearts. Last, I tied pink and white ribbons sprays below the bouquets.

Progress on Ecrusheen

All the sets of three Straight Base Sprat's Heads are worked on all four sides now. Then I started the sets of three done in the Floche again. Looks like we are building a pyramid!

We spent a few days in Atlanta--commonly referred to as Hotlanta! We went with friends of ours and visited the Aquarium, the Botanical gardens, the History Museum, Centennial Park,
some woodworking shops for DH, needlepoint stores for me!, and did some antiquing! It was a great trip! It was very hot and sunny for the whole trip! It is, however, nice to back in the mountains where it is a little cooler!

Hummingbird & Honeysuckle

I got a note back from Luan Callery today! She has given her permission to blog stitch this piece for all to see! I am very excited about this piece! The wing and some of the flower petals and leaves will be done in stumpwork. Do click on the photo and enlarge it so you can see the lovely detail and the gold spider web--and a little spider! I have made my list of supplies needed and hope to get them all this weekend!

In the mail

I received my Cyberstitcher's Hummingbird project packet in the mail! This is another design by Luan Callery. A while back I did her Fantasy Remembered piece with the lilies and butterfly. I have sent her a note requesting permission to stitch this piece on the blog. She was gracious to provide permission on the other piece so I am hoping we will share this one too!

Sparkles and shine

Tonight I worked on Ecrusheen by Loretta Spears. I finished the outside Sprats in the single strand of Floche. Then I started more Sprats to fill in the peaks using the #4 Braid. This is very shiny and I love the geometric pattern!
There are several auctions on Ebay right now for several of Loretta's mystery projects--this is one of them! Pop over and have a look if you are interested!
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/mparish1

Moving Up

I really got a lot more done tonight on the left side! As you can see I am almost to the neck on the left side as well. This picture makes it a little easier to see the developing pattern up the fronts. Looking at it straight on, I can easily see the cluster of four stitches all the way up the front. I figure two or three more sessions to finish up the front and neck. Then, one more after that to get the other cuff in and the little piece below the sash.

Adding a new one

I am adding a new piece to the rotation since I dropped the cupcake at the framers and the Diamond Iris is on hold. This is going to be the piece for the shower at the end of July. I did the cupcake for the bride to be as she is a cake decorator and loves cupcakes. He is a:

Photographer! This is a camera sorta like what he uses and below are the threads I have pulled to stitch it with! I did the cupcake piece on offwhite with gold flecked canvas. As you can see this is white canvas with silver flecks. I will do the camera in the black and grey Splendors and the letter will be done in the white and silvers. The Marlitt colors will be the reflections in the lens!

Last of the Leaves

I finished the last of the leaves on the Diamond Iris by Dorothy Lescher. I used the Byzantine stitch to finish these with three strands of floss. The last step in this section is to outline but Juli has advised us to wait until after we do the background to outline. This piece will now be "on hold" until the July meeting of the Cyberstitchers.

I guess I will put the next project together tomorrow and add a new one to the rotation.....or maybe two since I dropped the cupcake off at the framers today.

I also have archived the former blog as Yahoo is changing everything around. The new address for the old blog is now:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/

Once you get there you will have to click a couple of pages to see the old entries. The bad news is is that it is not as easy to navigate but if you are looking for something, you will be able to read back to August of 2006 when I started blogging.

The Guardian Angels are finished!

I finished the rabbit of the Guardian Angel Dogs tonight. We made braided gold cord from 032 Kreinik and covered the seam for the front and the back. I glued mine braid down and only stitched by the closure loop. The ends of the braid are in between the two pieces of foam and the loop is an overhand loop in the remaining cord.

I finished this one the night before last. The canvas front piece is wrapped around crafting foam and the back is oatmeal felt, also wrapped around the foam.

I have wrapped them in tissue and placed them in a foam mailer. Tomorrow the post office will start them on their way to Chilly Hollow and then the ANG auction.

Good luck little dogs.....I hope you earn lots of money for ANG!

Thanks again to Kandice Merric for the design, permission to blog stitch the pieces, and for designing a new one to add to the collection. Also, thanks to Jane in Chilly Hollow for the idea and coordinating all of these!

The Final Touch

Yes, all great cupcakes need to have sugar crystals! I added pink and iridescent beads to represent the sugar on this cake. This is all ready to take to the framer. I am thinking pink mat.....

Sprats around

Tonight is Ecrusheen night. I am working on Lesson Two and I used a single strand of Floche to create the flat base Sprat's head stitches on the left side and top of the square, so far. I will continue these to have them all the way around the square.
I also did the braiding for the first of the two guardian angels that I am finishing for the ANG auction. I did the hand sewing of the front to the back already, so I am ready to do the last of the finishing on the pieces. I have to get these in the mail to Jane in Chilly Hollow by the end of the week. Jane stitched all the braid to her pieces due to a glue and hair issue which we cannot discuss here! LOL. I am going to glue mine down but stitch the top section shut as that is where the hanger will be. I will post photos when I have them finished and ready to mail.

Inch by Inch

I did another two inches on the left side of the center front on the Kimono design tonight. I am finding that this pattern works incredibly slow for me. I am wondering if anyone else is working on this section and is finding this a slow go as well.......At this rate I will be all month getting this one done. I will stick to it and eventually it will be all filled in.

A few leaves

I really feel like I got a lot done tonight! I finished the center leaf in the encroaching gobelin first. then I did the same stitch in a lighter shade on the underside of the right leaf. I then started furthermost left leaf in the byzantine stitch over four instead of three as in the petal. I started the center leaf but did not quite get it finished. That one and the the very left leaf will be for next time!

Plum Tray

This beautiful tray is 18 inches long and 12 inches wide. It has sides that are 2 1/2 inches at the top of the scallops. My mom finished this piece recently and now it is mine! I have rearranged the dining room table so this is now in the center.
We had a camping group birthday party tonight, so the stitching had to wait until tomorrow, and then I will be working on the Diamond Iris piece.

The cupcake is finished

I finished the frosting on the cupcake! I used the two shades of Flair and the white Frosty rays. I also switched from the wave stitch to the bargello to get the bigger swirl in the frosting. I like this one. I hope she does!

A Snowman is a Star

I am still doing more finishing work.....remember how much fun it was to stitch all those pieces and then set them aside?.....Now they all get finished! This Cheryl Schaeffer piece is all ready to give to Scott. I finished this one by cutting foam to the star shape for the front and one for the back. The back is covered with blue Moire. After gluing the front around the foam, I then glued the front and back together. Then, I glued gold wired edged ribbon over the front and back edges and tied a bow at the top. I think he is cute!

Some Finishing

I finally did some finishing over the weekend. This is one of the Kick Back and Stitch pieces I stitched a while back. I cut this piece out leaving about 1/2 inch from the stitched edge. I then creased all the sides to the back. I cut a piece of finishing foam to match and then covered it with gold lame. I placed the stitching on top of that and then......glued all the edges down! Next I placed that on top of the box...after the glue dried, of course, and then I glued this to the top. A little while later I came back and glued the gold trim all around the outside. Since this paper painted box is not destined for the Needlework Hall of Fame, I did not feel it necessary to worry about archival finishing. It will be a welcomed gift for a friend in August.

Another square

In Lesson two, I have now completed step one by finishing the Modified Rhodes stitches all around the outside. This returns the piece to a square shape again. I also finished the first spool of the #4 Kreinik 205C braid,

I started step 2 at the very top left of the square by completing a Straight Base Sprats Head with a single strand of the Floche. This is a smaller version of the pattern worked in Step one.

The right side

I finished the right side of the front clear down to where it ends on the front. This is not the bottom of the design, but rather where this pattern meets the next one. You can also see that I used almost the rest of the Kreinik thread by coming back up from the bottom. The pattern is supposed to be worked from the top down, so I cheated, but I did not want to bury the thread just yet. When next I work on this piece, I may go ahead and get the other cuff in and then resume from the top down. Also the June SOTM is out and it goes in the top left section as you are looking at this.........hhmmm....maybe to break up the over and over???

Adding green.....

The stem under the iris is stitched first by padding it with two long straight stitches. Then using the same four strands of DMC, I covered those with the satin stitch. The very pale under stitch on the right also has a long 4 strand straight stitch and then is covered with vertical satin stitches. Last I started the dark green doing the Encroaching Gobelin to finish the leaf on the right. I started the leaf on the left, but did not get it done. These two leaves shift to the right. I think I am pretty close to being on track for completing this before the July 1st deadline.

Answers: Jane asked where I came up with the line sketch on the cupcake and is the frosting a bargello pattern. Since my mom is the artist and I cannot draw stick people, I went to the coloring books! LOL. Amazing what you can find there! Sometimes the simplest shapes can be embellished a tad to look like what we want. I looked at a lot of gorgeous cupcakes on line and they were beautiful, and made me hungry!, when I realized that the coloring book would have the most basic ideas. The frosting is going to done in the Wave stitch, which looks a lot like a bargello stitch.

The liner and a dab of frosting

I finished the cupcake liner using the diagonal Gobelin stitch with the two shades of Gold Rush 18. I also started the very bottom row of the Wave Stitch using dark pink Flair. I am working this piece on an offwhite 18 count canvas that is flecked with gold. I will not be working an additional background behind it as I like the canvas very much like it is as it offsets the liner.

The stitching rotation is working out pretty well for these four pieces. Ecrusheen and the Kimono are both very monochromatic pieces and I hope you are seeing the depth of the fiber combinations in each of those. The iris piece is becoming even more interesting as we start to add the leaves and I am now sure that the leaves will be done before the July meeting starts and we begin the background for it. I think this piece will be a quick finish as well.
Hope you stay tuned!

Back to a square

I started tonight by finishing out the square with more of the Perle Cotton sprats heads in all four corners. This completed Lesson 1.
I then started Lesson 2 by using the #4 Fine Braid and worked Modified Rhodes stitches around the outside of the square. I got a little more than half way around.
I also reshot the picture of the Kimono from last night and reposted it. The black background is difficult to get the images to come up in the true color, but I did get a better shot and when you enlarge it, you can see the actual stitch details.

Some progress, some not

When I stitched on this last, I posted my photo and realized that I had done both the cuffs going in the same direction--wrong! Each one points in the opposite direction. So, I did the ripit stitch first and took out the right hand cuff to rework it later. I then moved down the right side on the front a little more. Don't set your timers by me on this one!