Sunday, September 09, 2007
Well I should be painting the trim around my entryway door as its sunny , but hey I just finished my breakfast and dont feel like painting yet! so I'm doing this instead...... I finished some little finishes that I have done over the last week or so.
This first one is an old Freebie by waxing moon designs that I stitched while dh and I were out driving on a logging road along the north Fraser river one sunday.
I finished that one the same day and started on the dragonfly one that night as well , they are both stitched on 14 count lilac aida cloth and I am going to either make a card out of the flip flop one or frame it for my friend Kim. she wears flip flops all the time so it will be a good choice for her.
This first one is an old Freebie by waxing moon designs that I stitched while dh and I were out driving on a logging road along the north Fraser river one sunday.
In spite of the rain it was a good day. Ate our lunch up at a little lake, but we had to sit in the van as it was pouring rain LOL
Not sure what I am going to do with this yet, might make a little card out of it for one of my DIL as I have seen some cards recently that stitchers have made and it has really got me interested in doing some, stay tuned!
This next one of the little grapes is a free design from Pam Kellogg that I stitched on a little piece of cream colour aida. Wasnt sure what to do with it when I finished but again I think it will make a nice little card.
it's not very big only about 2 and a half or 3 inches across the width.
Right after I finished this I started a DMC free chart called Orange flower, that was on a monday but I got my first order from the Sanman Originals that same day and pretty much ditched the orange flower project and started immediately on a little designs with flip flops on it.
Not sure what to do with the dragonfly one yet, its probably a bit to big for a card might just frame it or make a wall hanging or something out of it. Hmmm maybe something for the bathroom, I dont know!
This last little one, I did last thursday, I 
was supposed to start the Sanman September installment of the SAL but havnt yet,,,, I know I will regret it but "oh well" This one i stitched on 18 count aida in sort of a bluey gray colour and its small enough to make into a card. there was another butterfly charm with it but it was tooooo big on this count of fabric so I will tuck it away and use it on something else in the future. This one I will be giving to my friend Diane who is a huge fan of butterfly's! she will love it !!!
was supposed to start the Sanman September installment of the SAL but havnt yet,,,, I know I will regret it but "oh well" This one i stitched on 18 count aida in sort of a bluey gray colour and its small enough to make into a card. there was another butterfly charm with it but it was tooooo big on this count of fabric so I will tuck it away and use it on something else in the future. This one I will be giving to my friend Diane who is a huge fan of butterfly's! she will love it !!!When I finished this one off I managed to force myself to get back to the DMC freebie and work on it for the rest of the evening. It's not quite done and I needed to get some red floss #321 to finish it off tomorrow. I AM going to start the stitch along chart tomorrow, I am!!! Honest LOL
In between working on all these little projects I am of course working on my main project which is the MiB sampler which was a free online mystery sampler a few years ago on a french designers website. It is one that has a little chart for each month of the year . I started this 2 years ago on a piece of 32 count ivory linen and it took me awhile to pick out my four colours of floss, it was one where you picked your own colours and I have seen a lot of versions in many different colourways! which only makes it harder to choose. In the end I picked two purples #550 & 553 and two olivey greens #730 & 733 and they work well together so I am happy with the choice I made. when I picked this up last week I had just a bit of September left to do and as of today I am into October. i do a 20 hour round on this project mainly because it is quite large and I figured with less time each round it would just take tooo long so 20 hours seems about right. My only dilemma this time is I have been able to manage about 2 and half months stitched in the 20 hours which would put me into December when the time runs up, soooo I think I am going to just finish it off this time even if I go over my "allowed" time , then I get another new start! always fun to do that dontcha know!
anyways off to do some painting (last coat??? we'll see) also have a couple of spots around the doorknob on my main door to touch up.
Need to list a few more knitting books on ebay today, I have sold 8/8 so far in the last week and made 90.00 bucks!! thats okay have 12 listed right now and 6 have bids so hoping that the other 6 sell as well!
using a digital camera is sooooo easy compared to a few years ago when I listed some, using the scanner took forever so its a much quicker process now.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
WELL WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!
couldnt get anything to work here in the little window thing that you type in! seems to be going okay now but I I may have published a blank post Oh well!
So I have some WIP updates to do that I have finished up working on in the last week.
The first is my map of Australia by Heritage Stitchcraft and this is after another 15 hours work for a total of 30 so far!
I am gong to finish the border and outline of the country and then go back and fill in the details last, I got quite a bit done on the last round . did the top border from the yellow flower to the whit e one, bottem border got the whole bottem section and up the left to just under the little bird you can see. on the outline of the country got a bit along the bottem coast and top coast done.
probably will give this to my oldest son for a present to commemorate the year he spent there about 5 years ago. Except for the massive amounts of colour changes in the border and the funky little half cross's that heritage likes to use (although a pain to do they do make the picture great) I am quite enjoying stitching this and its coming along pretty good, but I hve no set deadline to finish it by either so that makes it nice.
Moving right along without wasting any time I switched gears and projects to do a 10 hour slot on my care Bears Christmas stocking; this is for my Granddaughter Daphne so I do have a deadline and when it comes up again I think i will just have to soldier on and get it finished.
the poor little yellow bear had no face before this session so I finished that off, his hat, the pink bear and the rainbow from down beside the yellow bear up to the edge. I had hoped to get all the rainbow in that section done but didnt quite get there.
Back to the start of my rotation now for 20 hours+ on my MiB french Sampler. I only have 3 and ahalf months left to stitch before its done, so I may just continue past 20 hours and get it done.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Well was I right? I am a slacker when it comes to posting !!
The budget thing is going good, I havnt spent any money on stash since I started !! Only a couple skeins of DMC that I had run out of on a project I was working on. Not sure if I mentioned that for the odd skein of floss that I buy as I run out I am not going to add that in to my spending. Only if I hit a big sale and buy a bunch of floss at one time.
so I am going to try and put in a couple of pictures of recent finishes ...... ahem. drum roll please
This is called " I Pine for You' and is by Sanman Originals designs. I finished this on the 9th of August and its part of the 2006 12 Days of Christmas SAL that Sandy of SMO's put together last year. Some of us from the board she runs didnt get a chance to do the SAL then and are doing the 12 charts one month at a time this year.The brown lettering actually shows up much better in real life than the picture , but you get the idea!
I changed the thread colours in this from the charted ones and used overdyed floss instead.
Oh and its on 28 count linen, probably going to make a little banner thing out of it.... still working on that process in my head.
The next design is from the same designer and is the August installment of the stitch along. I looove this one!! It just works so well when you live in moose country.
I worked on this little guy for about 3 days total and finished him off on the 20th of August. He is just sooo cute, I really enjoyed working on him. another stitcher who did this had used the plastic lights instead of stitching them and I blatantly stole this idea, freely admitted!! But it just works so well, dont you think?
I have a few mondays and thursdays free to stitch some other small items before starting the September chart, yikes its nearly september already... god where did the summer go? oh wait, we never really got one here, had a couple of warm days in July but thats a bout it, sad!
While I have been turning out these small designs I have been plugging away thruough my rotation.
Finished up another 10 hours on my Mini Cottages by Michael Powell, another round will see this one done.
His designs are so fun to stitch, this is the second one I have done, and would like to do more, but the kits are sooo expensive, but some of the designs are coming out in chart only form which is nice.The painting in the entry way of my house is moving at a snails pace, but moving it is! I'll save more of that till tomorrow.
But I really should ge t outta here now and get ready for the gym and for work .
Monday, August 13, 2007
SLACKER that I am.....
I haven’t written a darn word since last Thursday and even then that was days late! So I am going to try to get caught up today and tomorrow and even try to figure out how to load some pics on the thing.
So stitching wise I made a big decision to drop out of the 50-project challenge. It was basically done with other stitchers on a couple of stitching boards where you finish stitching 10,25 or 50 items before buying any new stash. You could have some exemptions to cover things like subscriptions; gifts etc and most people purchased floss as needed to finish things.
I started my challenge about the middle of last September and finished off 32 projects in that time. But I was getting really antsy to buy some charts etc and when Sanman had some really cute little girl designs on sale for a $1.00 last weekend I caved big time LOL and bought 8 (they should be here this week)
So I decided it was time for a change and decided to become a stitcher on a budget a.k.a “A Moderate” whereby I set a limit of how much I will spend per month on stash based on income etc.
I have set myself a limit of $50.00 (Cad) per month which seems a reasonable amount, based on income it should be $44.00 but I thought $50.00 seemed a nice round number, some would say $40.00 is a nice round number too but its MY budget, not theirs!
This amount will cover anything over and above the odd skein of floss needed to finish something. For instance if I run into a good floss sale and go nuts and buy 50 skeins because its such a good price, that will come out of my budget but one skein of DMC 433 to finish something, well I just can’t be bothered to add that in LOL
I have a spreadsheet all set up to track my budget, cause I love lists and things like that, kinda obsessive compulsive on that score! And I plan to try really hard for the next couple of months not to spend anything to save more dh’s and my trip to Ontario at the end of September. But the siren song of new charts is singing in my ears so we’ll see what happens, maybe when my stuff from Sanman comes that will be enough to plug my ears for awhile!
I haven’t written a darn word since last Thursday and even then that was days late! So I am going to try to get caught up today and tomorrow and even try to figure out how to load some pics on the thing.
So stitching wise I made a big decision to drop out of the 50-project challenge. It was basically done with other stitchers on a couple of stitching boards where you finish stitching 10,25 or 50 items before buying any new stash. You could have some exemptions to cover things like subscriptions; gifts etc and most people purchased floss as needed to finish things.
I started my challenge about the middle of last September and finished off 32 projects in that time. But I was getting really antsy to buy some charts etc and when Sanman had some really cute little girl designs on sale for a $1.00 last weekend I caved big time LOL and bought 8 (they should be here this week)
So I decided it was time for a change and decided to become a stitcher on a budget a.k.a “A Moderate” whereby I set a limit of how much I will spend per month on stash based on income etc.
I have set myself a limit of $50.00 (Cad) per month which seems a reasonable amount, based on income it should be $44.00 but I thought $50.00 seemed a nice round number, some would say $40.00 is a nice round number too but its MY budget, not theirs!
This amount will cover anything over and above the odd skein of floss needed to finish something. For instance if I run into a good floss sale and go nuts and buy 50 skeins because its such a good price, that will come out of my budget but one skein of DMC 433 to finish something, well I just can’t be bothered to add that in LOL
I have a spreadsheet all set up to track my budget, cause I love lists and things like that, kinda obsessive compulsive on that score! And I plan to try really hard for the next couple of months not to spend anything to save more dh’s and my trip to Ontario at the end of September. But the siren song of new charts is singing in my ears so we’ll see what happens, maybe when my stuff from Sanman comes that will be enough to plug my ears for awhile!
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Long weekend
Friday
Didn’t’ get to much stitching done on Thursday due to working then instead of Friday. Had to take the cat to the kennel and then had an appointment with the orthotics guy to tweak my left insole. Right from there to work and spent most of the evening packing etc for my trip to Grande Prairie.
As Thursday is my day to stitch on smalls , the little bit of stitching done was on “I Pine for You” by Sanman Originals. Finished off the 3rd pinecone, some pine needles and a bit of the border.
Up early for a walk/run, new lift thingy in left shoe feels okay, no pain anywhere etc even running! Keep your fingers crossed.
Bus left at 9:15 am and I got a fair amount of stitching done on Mini Cottages I by Michael Powell while riding the bus and listening to a book on my mp3 player. Also did some regular book reading and even dozed a bit! DH picked me up at 3:45 in Dawson Creek for the one hour trip to Grande Prairie. No more stitching gotten in while visiting with son , dil and granddaughter.
Saturday
No stitching done as we had an afternoon wedding to attend, It poured buckets right up until we got to the church and then you could see the sun coming through the windows and that was the end of the rain for the next couple of days! The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time dancing and partying at the reception!
Sunday
Up latish, and then out for Sunday brunch with the kids. Home for a nap LOL and then out to the gift opening at some property the brides parents own about a half hour drive SW of Grande Prairie. Beautiful day , one thunderstorm went thru but although we could hear it and see the clouds it missed us and we had a sunny afternoon.
I managed to do some stitching both on the way out and home again, working on the middle house which is the biggest one and is mainly white, white, white!
This project I had classified as one of my small ones, which would have 5 hours each round stitched on it. But I only did that much the first round and I could see that it would take forever doing it that way, it really should have 10 hrs each rnd. With that in mind I decided to do 15 hrs this rnd and get it up to the 20 hour mark and then it will probably get finished on the next ( 3rd ) round . Spent the evening playing with the baby and watching TV with the kids.
Monday
Left GP just after 11 their time after spending the morning hanging out with the kids, packing up etc. by the time we gassed up and hit Timmies for a coffee it was close to noon.
Beautiful day for driving, sunny but not to hot, some strong winds near Chetwynd though, rocked the van around somewhat!
Got back to PG about 5 pm and started right into the laundry **sigh** it never ends !
Worked on my Sanman project while driving and in the evening at home, got quite a bit done, pretty much the whole left side and made a good start on the 2 pinecones on the right hand side. Thursday of this week might see this finished.
Friday
Didn’t’ get to much stitching done on Thursday due to working then instead of Friday. Had to take the cat to the kennel and then had an appointment with the orthotics guy to tweak my left insole. Right from there to work and spent most of the evening packing etc for my trip to Grande Prairie.
As Thursday is my day to stitch on smalls , the little bit of stitching done was on “I Pine for You” by Sanman Originals. Finished off the 3rd pinecone, some pine needles and a bit of the border.
Up early for a walk/run, new lift thingy in left shoe feels okay, no pain anywhere etc even running! Keep your fingers crossed.
Bus left at 9:15 am and I got a fair amount of stitching done on Mini Cottages I by Michael Powell while riding the bus and listening to a book on my mp3 player. Also did some regular book reading and even dozed a bit! DH picked me up at 3:45 in Dawson Creek for the one hour trip to Grande Prairie. No more stitching gotten in while visiting with son , dil and granddaughter.
Saturday
No stitching done as we had an afternoon wedding to attend, It poured buckets right up until we got to the church and then you could see the sun coming through the windows and that was the end of the rain for the next couple of days! The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time dancing and partying at the reception!
Sunday
Up latish, and then out for Sunday brunch with the kids. Home for a nap LOL and then out to the gift opening at some property the brides parents own about a half hour drive SW of Grande Prairie. Beautiful day , one thunderstorm went thru but although we could hear it and see the clouds it missed us and we had a sunny afternoon.
I managed to do some stitching both on the way out and home again, working on the middle house which is the biggest one and is mainly white, white, white!
This project I had classified as one of my small ones, which would have 5 hours each round stitched on it. But I only did that much the first round and I could see that it would take forever doing it that way, it really should have 10 hrs each rnd. With that in mind I decided to do 15 hrs this rnd and get it up to the 20 hour mark and then it will probably get finished on the next ( 3rd ) round . Spent the evening playing with the baby and watching TV with the kids.
Monday
Left GP just after 11 their time after spending the morning hanging out with the kids, packing up etc. by the time we gassed up and hit Timmies for a coffee it was close to noon.
Beautiful day for driving, sunny but not to hot, some strong winds near Chetwynd though, rocked the van around somewhat!
Got back to PG about 5 pm and started right into the laundry **sigh** it never ends !
Worked on my Sanman project while driving and in the evening at home, got quite a bit done, pretty much the whole left side and made a good start on the 2 pinecones on the right hand side. Thursday of this week might see this finished.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Busy!!
I got a little caught up in some tidying, and decluttering over the weekend and actually got dh to let go of some old things, namely the desk that had been in youngest sons room but was missing two drawers and was basically ready to let go of life! I got this desk for my 14th birthday, yes thats right an eon ago LOL
and it owes us nothing so its gone and also a really old metal kitchen table that has been downstairs for a long,long time is also gone (never thought he would let that go)
what started all this was finally getting the sidelight window by our door fixed, it had been cracked and covered with plastic for....... well since we moved in really ( ahem, ahem cough, cough in 1990) dont want to rush into anything!! so I've been saying for years that when that window is fixed I will paint the entry way, which needs it badly after 15 years of three boys dragging, bikes, ski's etc up and down the stairs :)
so the baseboard is ripped off, paint is purchased and have started to wash the walls and fill the holes.
On saturday after taking all the junk I cleaned out to the dump or recycle or thrift store , dh put up the two new outside entry lights that I got in a clearance bin at home depot for $10.00 , they look awesome!!
All this home improvement activity of course cuts into my stitching time, but I did manage to finish up the 15 hour slot on my Acorn pillow by Donna Vermillion Giampa. I am loving how this design is turning out, the colours in the picture are so dull but on the fabric they pop so nicely!
the next project up is Michael Powells mini cottages I, which I had only done 6 hours on before but am thinking to do 10 hour slots on this one, its small in size but is fully covered in stitches. Gotten in about 6 hours on it so far this round, that includes ripping the white out of two houses I had started as I had done them in DMC 5200 instead of regular white.
Mondays (and thursdays) are the days that I stitch on smalls and right now I am working on the monthly SAL with some ladies on the Sanman board. The designs are the 12 days of christmas from last year and some of us who didnt get them done or started even , are doing them on a monthly basis this year. I just started the July chart "I Pine for You" and made some decent progress on it. I have gotten a little bit behind due to 2 wedding samplers that I had to stitch and then June had two charts and I spent a bunch of days working on the second one and not making much progress and finally I have laid it aside, it just wasnt working for me, didnt like how it looked so I may do it later on perhaps on a different piece of fabric.
On monday evening my DIL Rejeana and granddaughter Venessa 5 mos, left to fly back to kingston, ont. they had been here since near the end of May, so it was very sad and teary monday evening after their flight left (not much stitching when Igot back from the airport let me tell you!) but they arrived home safely!
my youngest son will be back with them in about 10 days after finishing a summer of military training at a base in New Brunswick.
so my coffee is nearly done and I have a ton of stuff to do today, so I better be off for now!
I guess the next thing is to figure out how to post pictures!
I got a little caught up in some tidying, and decluttering over the weekend and actually got dh to let go of some old things, namely the desk that had been in youngest sons room but was missing two drawers and was basically ready to let go of life! I got this desk for my 14th birthday, yes thats right an eon ago LOL
and it owes us nothing so its gone and also a really old metal kitchen table that has been downstairs for a long,long time is also gone (never thought he would let that go)
what started all this was finally getting the sidelight window by our door fixed, it had been cracked and covered with plastic for....... well since we moved in really ( ahem, ahem cough, cough in 1990) dont want to rush into anything!! so I've been saying for years that when that window is fixed I will paint the entry way, which needs it badly after 15 years of three boys dragging, bikes, ski's etc up and down the stairs :)
so the baseboard is ripped off, paint is purchased and have started to wash the walls and fill the holes.
On saturday after taking all the junk I cleaned out to the dump or recycle or thrift store , dh put up the two new outside entry lights that I got in a clearance bin at home depot for $10.00 , they look awesome!!
All this home improvement activity of course cuts into my stitching time, but I did manage to finish up the 15 hour slot on my Acorn pillow by Donna Vermillion Giampa. I am loving how this design is turning out, the colours in the picture are so dull but on the fabric they pop so nicely!
the next project up is Michael Powells mini cottages I, which I had only done 6 hours on before but am thinking to do 10 hour slots on this one, its small in size but is fully covered in stitches. Gotten in about 6 hours on it so far this round, that includes ripping the white out of two houses I had started as I had done them in DMC 5200 instead of regular white.
Mondays (and thursdays) are the days that I stitch on smalls and right now I am working on the monthly SAL with some ladies on the Sanman board. The designs are the 12 days of christmas from last year and some of us who didnt get them done or started even , are doing them on a monthly basis this year. I just started the July chart "I Pine for You" and made some decent progress on it. I have gotten a little bit behind due to 2 wedding samplers that I had to stitch and then June had two charts and I spent a bunch of days working on the second one and not making much progress and finally I have laid it aside, it just wasnt working for me, didnt like how it looked so I may do it later on perhaps on a different piece of fabric.
On monday evening my DIL Rejeana and granddaughter Venessa 5 mos, left to fly back to kingston, ont. they had been here since near the end of May, so it was very sad and teary monday evening after their flight left (not much stitching when Igot back from the airport let me tell you!) but they arrived home safely!
my youngest son will be back with them in about 10 days after finishing a summer of military training at a base in New Brunswick.
so my coffee is nearly done and I have a ton of stuff to do today, so I better be off for now!
I guess the next thing is to figure out how to post pictures!
Friday, July 27, 2007
PS: I figured out how toupdate my profile!! arn't I clever?
I'm Baaaaack!!!!!
after a couple of years of having absolutely nothing to say i have decided to get back on the blog wagon! I still have nothing much to say but will ramble on about my stitching, sewing, quilting and my granddaughters!!
I need to update my profile on here but as of yet cannot remember how to do it...... sigh*** once i figure that out it, it should be a cinch to figure out how to put in a list of my wips!
I had an AHA! moment yesterday, this is worth noting , because they come very few and far between for me.
anyways I have had a love hate relationship with stitching frames and am always on the lookout for the perfect one that will do all the things I want it to.
One of the things I have found that I love about frames is being able to stitch with one hand above and one in the back of the stitching, much faster ( at least if feels faster to me )
well , humph, that appears to me what I like most about frames.... thought there were more but I cant think of any at the moment.
what I dislike is having to loosen knobs to flip it to the back to finish off a thread, a huge pain in the butt especially when there are a lot of colour changes.
sometimes they are awkward to use , depending on the chair thats being sat upon!
and they are definatley not as portable as just a hoop, or q snaps.
so obviously there are more things that I dislike about frames than like, but the faster stitching thing really does outweigh nearly everything else.
I got a frame a couple of months ago , it is a frame that sits on the chair with you..... what I mean is two upright supports that on either side of your legs with the wooden scroll frame attached between them. Seemed like it should work not to bad, I didnt have to loosen any knobs to flip it over and although it wasnt really all that stable it worked for the first project I had on it.
next project was a bit bigger though and things started going down hill so I got my dh to build a special rod for it that would replace the lower scroll rod in the frame. the special rod had up right dowels in it so Icould put my project on q snaps and then just rest it on this special rod and the top would rest against the rop scroll rod.
well this was not too bad at all, in fact it worked just great with one small downside. It wanted to tip towards me all the time, but if I sort of had it propped against my stomach it worked.
moving on to a smaller project I got it all set up on the q snaps and special rod etc and it was extrememly tippy and because it was somewhat smaller , the stomach thing did not work. well I spent hours with a screwdriver loosening and tightening bars and rods trying to find a good configuration on things to make it work. well I couldnt and went back to holding the snaps in one hand and stitching with the other.
This brings me to the aforementioned AHA moment! bet you thought i would never get to it ?
so I had been thinking, I had something to rest the top of my q snaps against I could stitch two handed.. and bingo I was sitting and looking at my living room yesterday (wanting to rearrange things) and noticed the frame sitting on the floor and thats when it hit me! I could take out the scroll frame completely and just put a rod from one upright to the other and could adjust the height to where I needed it by whichever holes I used on the uprights. Well let me tell you it is the best of both worlds, when I need to flip it over to the back I just turn it over,can stitch comfortably two handed and the top of the q snaps doesnt slide off the rod because the rods have the no sew stuff on them to attach fabric to the scroll rods. I am a happy camper :)
So I should just be zooming along now on all my projects! I only have about an hour to go on the current wip, which is Donna Vermillion Giampas Acorn Pillow. Should be able to get that in this evening after work. Then move on to my next one, always exciting-almost like starting a new project!
I need to move on with my monday/thursday project as well, not loving the one I am doing, found myself actually prefering to do some deep housecleaning instead of stitching yesterday!! what the heck is up with that?? and then when I did stitch on it was kind of lethargically stitching and looking for excuses to get up and do something else! Trust me that is not me , I am not a clean freak and would much rather sit on my butt and stitch the day away! so I decided to put that piece away for awhile and on monday I will start something new.
probably the july installment of the Sanman Originals SAL ( the unloved project was "over the river" also by SMO ) and I can go back to the other one some other time.
but now its off to work for the day, love my part time job but would rather stay home today and stitch!!
after a couple of years of having absolutely nothing to say i have decided to get back on the blog wagon! I still have nothing much to say but will ramble on about my stitching, sewing, quilting and my granddaughters!!
I need to update my profile on here but as of yet cannot remember how to do it...... sigh*** once i figure that out it, it should be a cinch to figure out how to put in a list of my wips!
I had an AHA! moment yesterday, this is worth noting , because they come very few and far between for me.
anyways I have had a love hate relationship with stitching frames and am always on the lookout for the perfect one that will do all the things I want it to.
One of the things I have found that I love about frames is being able to stitch with one hand above and one in the back of the stitching, much faster ( at least if feels faster to me )
well , humph, that appears to me what I like most about frames.... thought there were more but I cant think of any at the moment.
what I dislike is having to loosen knobs to flip it to the back to finish off a thread, a huge pain in the butt especially when there are a lot of colour changes.
sometimes they are awkward to use , depending on the chair thats being sat upon!
and they are definatley not as portable as just a hoop, or q snaps.
so obviously there are more things that I dislike about frames than like, but the faster stitching thing really does outweigh nearly everything else.
I got a frame a couple of months ago , it is a frame that sits on the chair with you..... what I mean is two upright supports that on either side of your legs with the wooden scroll frame attached between them. Seemed like it should work not to bad, I didnt have to loosen any knobs to flip it over and although it wasnt really all that stable it worked for the first project I had on it.
next project was a bit bigger though and things started going down hill so I got my dh to build a special rod for it that would replace the lower scroll rod in the frame. the special rod had up right dowels in it so Icould put my project on q snaps and then just rest it on this special rod and the top would rest against the rop scroll rod.
well this was not too bad at all, in fact it worked just great with one small downside. It wanted to tip towards me all the time, but if I sort of had it propped against my stomach it worked.
moving on to a smaller project I got it all set up on the q snaps and special rod etc and it was extrememly tippy and because it was somewhat smaller , the stomach thing did not work. well I spent hours with a screwdriver loosening and tightening bars and rods trying to find a good configuration on things to make it work. well I couldnt and went back to holding the snaps in one hand and stitching with the other.
This brings me to the aforementioned AHA moment! bet you thought i would never get to it ?
so I had been thinking, I had something to rest the top of my q snaps against I could stitch two handed.. and bingo I was sitting and looking at my living room yesterday (wanting to rearrange things) and noticed the frame sitting on the floor and thats when it hit me! I could take out the scroll frame completely and just put a rod from one upright to the other and could adjust the height to where I needed it by whichever holes I used on the uprights. Well let me tell you it is the best of both worlds, when I need to flip it over to the back I just turn it over,can stitch comfortably two handed and the top of the q snaps doesnt slide off the rod because the rods have the no sew stuff on them to attach fabric to the scroll rods. I am a happy camper :)
So I should just be zooming along now on all my projects! I only have about an hour to go on the current wip, which is Donna Vermillion Giampas Acorn Pillow. Should be able to get that in this evening after work. Then move on to my next one, always exciting-almost like starting a new project!
I need to move on with my monday/thursday project as well, not loving the one I am doing, found myself actually prefering to do some deep housecleaning instead of stitching yesterday!! what the heck is up with that?? and then when I did stitch on it was kind of lethargically stitching and looking for excuses to get up and do something else! Trust me that is not me , I am not a clean freak and would much rather sit on my butt and stitch the day away! so I decided to put that piece away for awhile and on monday I will start something new.
probably the july installment of the Sanman Originals SAL ( the unloved project was "over the river" also by SMO ) and I can go back to the other one some other time.
but now its off to work for the day, love my part time job but would rather stay home today and stitch!!
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]