Sometimes Finished is Enough

The back of the quilt. Yeah, I uploaded the pictures backwards. Just keeping it real!

There is so much wrong with this quilt that the light from right will take 10,000 light years to reach it. I decided a few weeks ago that finished would be good enough. I started this quilt when my now sixteen year old was five. Many of the novelty fabrics are very representative of his childhood and tv addiction and the once WWF which is now the WWE. I think it's kind of cool that mixed in with Bob the Builder(which he never watched but I was in need of a few more squares) and SpongeBob are The Rock's and Stone Cold Steve Austin's logos.

Every block in this quilt was hand traced and cut out with scissors, the top was has handpieced. Yeah, eleven years ago I was terrified of the sewing machine and to this day I have a love/hate relationship with the beast. I happen to be one of those rare people that enjoys handsewing. I like the slow pace, I'm never in too much of a rush when it comes to sewing. I think that's why the slowness of cross stitch has never bothered me too much. I know a lot of people find building a picture with X after little X torture, but I don't. I also don't find building a quilt top one block at a time frustrating. I enjoy it. Along with my loathing of the sewing machine I also dislike the rotary cutter. I bought my first one twenty five years ago and just recently started to feel a little comfortable with it. I like tracing and scissors, the magic and fastness of the rotary cutter is only just now starting to impress me.

The binding is a mess and I decided to tie it so that I could call it done even faster. I'm not sure I did any of the tying right, and I know the binding is wrong, I just wanted it DONE. FINIS! So this weekend I sat down, figured out how to wind a bobbin on my sewing machine and grabbed my packages of Wright's quilt binding and went to work. It took me two days to get the binding handsewed to the back.

My intention had been for this to be a sort of I Spy quilt and one that he could drag out in the yard to play on, build a fort with, read a book under a tree with surrounded by his favorite cartoon peeps. The backing fabric is a fishing lure print I found at JoAnn's many, many years ago and is a reminder of how much he used to love fishing at our pier with his dad. When I bought this fabric they were fishing almost every weekend, then we had Hurricane Ivan, lost our pier and only over the last couple of years has it been rebuilt and reopened and is now the longest pier in Florida if I have my facts right. Now he's too cool to fish with dad so it's kind of sad thinking about those days so many years ago when they'd spend hours waiting for a bite and now he just doesn't have the patience and has better things to do. But that's ok. His dad doesn't make it to the fishing pier too often any more either.

The binding is awful! I'm not showing this because I'm proud of it, I'm showing because sometimes finished is enough. Finished is good, and even when finished poorly, it gives us permission to move on to the next project. To take the mess from the finished project, the knowledge gathered and mistakes made, to the next project and know that we can do better. To know where we need the most patience, to slow it down and do it right or more right. While sloppiness or poor workmanship is nothing to be celebrated, finishing something is and knowing that the finished product is not perfect, but knowing that next time, and yes there will be a next time the maker will take the time she needs to do it right. Or at the very least to be aware of what she previously did so very wrong is also something to celebrate. Each finished object is an educational experience. I have determined that I love piecing but hate with a passion the quilt sandwich and binding it! But they are part of the process. I have another very ugly quilt top, I pieced it twenty one years ago, all by hand, and my stars, is it fugly, but I plan to pull it out and use it for sandwich/binding practice before attempting to sandwich and bind the top I made for my oldest son.

So celebrate with me my finish knowing that I absolutely know it sucks! But yes, sometimes finished is enough.

Update From Wrinkledy McWrinklerson and Froggy McFroggerson

Other wise known as my February WIPocalypse Update:



First up Wrinkledy McWrinklerson a.k.a. Sarah Elizabeth Brooke:

Sarah Elizabeth Brooke

The Scarlett House

36ct light examplar linen

DMC, Crescent Colours

You can find out more about Sarah Elizabeth at: The Scarlett House

Tanya has some exciting things in the works. So check her blog out often!

If you know me you know that I obsess over finding samplers with family names and Sarah fit my criteria, Sarah Elizabeth was my sainted great grandmother's name and Brooke, without the "e" and add an "s" for Brooks is my other great grandmother's maiden name so I thought it was pretty cool that both great grandmothers were represented in the name of this sampler. I also love the red house and the verse and it's just an all around perfect sampler.

I thought I would be showing you a finished SEB today but that so did not happen as you can see. I think the only thing I accomplished was completing some of the grass. I'm a sad panda. But there's always February and of course my March update so stay tuned!

Now Froggy McFroggerson a.k.a. Prairie Schooler's February:

February

Prairie Schooler

32ct lambswool

DMC

I had to frog the roof of this house not once but twice because I stitched the same exact mistake twice. I don't know what was going on with me at the time but focus and that counting thing were definitely issues. All is frogged and will be restitched in the next couple of days. I hope to finish this before the end of the month, but we'll just have to see about that.

Which brings us to Berthe DuPont. Berthe is pretty darn beautiful in my very humble opinion. She is a free chart, there are 23 parts and she can be found here:

Abécédaire Berthe Dupont 1913 -1 Trésors de boites à couture

I believe the chart is available to purchase from her boutique if you don't want to search the site looking for all the parts. I converted the DMC to Vikki Clayton Silks. I love her silks.

Berthe DuPont

Tresors

40ct Creme Brulee linen from Hand Dyed Fibers
HDF silk

Now to my very slow WIP, it's a triptyche from Heaven and Earth Designs the part that you see is Dark Waters with the top most part being a teeny tiny bit of the center panel(just water and sky). The design can be viewed here:

Bright Skies [FENECH9211] - $14.25 : Heaven And Earth Designs, cross stitch, c

Dark Waters [FENECH9210] - $14.25 : Heaven And Earth Designs, cross stitch, cr

and if you really have to see the center panel just do a search for Dark Waters and the center panel will pop up, it's just more water and sky. I have loved this since I first saw the artwork. It's going to be pretty freakin' awesome when I finish it when I'm, oh, 89.

Bright Skies, Dark Waters

Heaven and Earth Designs

22ct antique white hardanger

DMC, 2x1, full cross

And I have another Heaven and Earth Design started, this is Red Silk Mermaid. I had been planning on doing my bedroom over with a red and white color palette, I started this back in 2007. My bedroom is still not red and white, it's still modern American clutter covered in cat and dog hair. But one day it will be a room de romance. Maybe.

You can see the completed piece here:

QS Red Silk Mermaid [KUIK15523QS] - $6.75 : Heaven And Earth Designs, cross st

When I started this piece my fellow HAED stitchers were just starting to embrace the tent stitch for these insanely large projects in that hopes that they might actually move from slow works in progress to finished projects. So I thought Red here would be a good test stitch for me to see how I feel about tenting. At first, way back when, I didn't really care for the tenting. It felt wrong. Now, after picking this piece back up and working on her here and there for the last week or so, I kind of like working over 1 on the 28ct fabric. I know, it's insane, right? I keep having dreams where my beloved little X comes and flogs me with floss because it feels I have betrayed it. But I have to say I never thought I'd ever be a person that looked forward to working over 1 on 28ct. And I do. I'm loving this process, I'm getting more and more comfortable with it as each stitching session passes. I will still do some of my HAED in full crosses but I think the ones without so much detail will definitely be tented.

I get asked all the time why do you want to stitch HAED, why not just buy the art, and really, what drew me to cross stitch all those many years ago was the fact that my dad could draw anything and my poor hangman didn't even make it to the noose my drawing is so bad. I saw cross stitch as a way to create art on fabric. Sure it's someone else's art that I'm recreating but I still love that process.

And at the same time I discovered cross stitch as art, I also was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and in The Long Winter she writes about Laura cross stitching. Laura Ingalls Wilder cross stitched! How very cool that information was for this 11 year old. So stitching art is something I'm not going to give up and I do believe that a HAED and reproduction sampler can happily reside in the same house. Like my hero Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!" and I plan to!

Red Silk Mermaid

Heaven and Earth Designs

28ct tea dyed Monaco

DMC, 2x1, tent

For more information about the WIPocalypse check it out here:

Measi's Musings » Blog Archive » 2012 WIPocalypse

This next project is sad yet joyful. Last year I lost a sweet stitching friend named Chelsea. Chelsea was one of the most amazing people I have ever met. She had waited a long time for a heart and double lung transplant and eventually it was her turn. She thrived, she married her long time love, she taught kids how to swim, she crammed as much life into every single day of her life that she could. In July, due to complications, she died. It was unexpected as she had been doing so well and every single day I miss my sweet friend. When I get down, when I start feeling sorry for myself I ask myself what would Chelsea do and you know what? Chelsea would grab life by the horns and make it good! So I am trying very hard to live by that. Life is short, cram as much life into every single day that you can.

Some friends got together to make Chelsea's mom a memorial quilt. The artwork is from Hannah Disney and is titled Chelsea's Gift.

Here's a link to the art on HAED website:

Chelseas Gift - In Memory of Chelsea - Proceeds to Family [LYNN1472] - $11.25

I'm pretty sure my square is the very bottom right corner. This is my project so far and it's not as much as I would like but I'm getting more comfortable with tenting and feel less like I'm going to make a mess of my square.

Chelsea's Gift

Heaven and Earth Designs

25ct lugana

DMC, 2x1, tent

Me and the spousal unit at the beach a month or so ago.












A Kitten Darkly(Yep, I'm lame, named her Darkly from A Scanner Darkly)

This was taken in back in the autumn as you can tell.

My attempt at bokeh. The lights are supposed to be heart shaped. I need to get a 50mm lens. It's on my list!

Anyone loving Project Runway All Stars like me? I want Austin Scarlet to win. I've loved him since season 1 and thought he was robbed.

I don't enjoy 24 Hour Catwalk. I can take it or leave it.

Revenge(ABC Wednesday nights)! My favorite show. Downton Abbey(PBS Sunday Nights)! Also my favorite show!

Also enjoying Grimm(Fridays on NBC) and Once Upon a Time(Sundays on ABC).

And people, new episodes of The Walking Dead start this Sunday(on AMC) check it out on Netflix if you haven't watched it and then we discuss all the zombie craziness!

Please Game of Thrones start back soon! I think it returns in April. (HBO Sunday Nights).

I just started listening to The Final Empire: Mistborn Book 1. The book starts out, the evil overlord has won. I thought that sounded interesting and so far I'm enjoying the first hour of the 25 hours. I have several friends that love this series.

I'm reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley(hope I got the author's name correct). It's a nice cozy mystery and exactly what I needed after wrapping up Stephen King's 11-22-63. I loved that book. I will be honest, I do believe Mr. King got caught up in his world building. I think he loved late 50s early 60s and certain parts of the America that used to be. I felt like I was there, but I really, really wanted him to get to Oswald and take care of business, and there's this feeling of impending doom and I wanted it to get it over with already! I was pretty tense listening to this story. It dragged but that dragging was so very important. I didn't give up on my characters. Over all it sucked me in, maybe for ten hours too many but never the less, the ending, that final scene was worth every dragging moment of the story. Really and truly it was.

So that's my life and stitching update for the moment.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings!

2012 WIPocalypse-The January Edition

WIPocalypse-January Edition

2012 has gotten off to a very slow start for me, at least in the needleworking/crafting portion of my life. But my mojo has finally kicked in and I found myself working on Sarah Elizabeth Brooke from The Scarlett House. My intentions had been for this project to my last finish for 2011 and as you can see I was no where close on December 31st. I had also thought that my needlework would be less wrinkledy in 2012 but my iron has gone missing so I stretched and flattened as much as I could. I am stitching Sarah Elizabeth using DMC and the Crescent Colours conversion for the grass area.

Sarah Elizabeth Brooke

The Scarlett House

DMC & Crescent Colours

36ct Vintage Light Examplar

A new start for 2012, in an attempt to get more seasonal stitching accomplished, is Prairie Schooler's February:

February

Prairie Schooler

DMC

32ct Lambswool

Not much progress but I still have a good bit of time before February 1st.

I hope everyone has a very successful year of stitching and success can mean finishing that BAP or squeezing in a few stitches whenever there's a quiet moment.

Thanks to Measi and Measi's Musings » WIPocalypse: Basic Info I hope to make significant progress on many older projects and add some new into the mix. I also hope the challenge encourages me to blog a bit more in 2012.

Keep your fingers crossed that my iron shows up between now and my next post which hopefully won't be a month away.

Gettin' Freaky With Fancey

Earlier this month I finished Pineberry Lane's Fancey Blackett and the Harvest Dance. I love Fancey. She's embracing nature, the squirrels, and just celebrating the joy of the harvest season. I imagine her kitchen is well stocked with herbs for the cauldron and her witch's brew. It's a cozy place, fire going, the scent of sage in the air, a nice harvest stew bubbling on the back of the stove, her Book of Shadows open on the rustic table, bread rising on the counter, and cat or two or five curled up in nooks around the large room. And Fancey, why she's excited waiting on her friends to drop by so they can celebrate the Turn of the Wheel and sharing a Blessed Samhain.

Fancey Blackett and the Harvest Dance

Pineberry Lane

mystery linen-I think it's a 30ct R&R

DMC

I also had another finish this month, Hands To Work's My Beloved Tennessee. I've been feeling a bit homesick recently and this chart called to me. Even though I spent most of my life trying to get out of Tennessee, it's home, it's where you will find all my family and occaisionally I miss it so much it hurts. I love Florida but over the last couple of years I realize more and more that I will never be a true Florida girl, I will always be a Tennessean.

My Beloved Tennessee

Hands to Work

32ct antique white linen aged by me

DMC

Future Projects

With the beginning of the 2011 holiday season my mind is drawn to 2012 and all the projects I hope to start and WIP I want to finish. 2011 so far as been a bit of a fail. I haven't had near as much stitching time as I would like and my project finishes have been few and far between. I know it's not a race but there are so many things I want to stitch, I want to "Stitch all the things!" Totally taken from this Hyperbole and a Half post, scroll down to see "Clean all the things!"

Hyperbole and a Half: This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

These days I spend a good bit of time sorting through charts, making lists of future projects, supplies needed, and then squealing when I've kitted something up and it's sitting there waiting on me to put in that sacred first stitch.

There are so many people that don't understand the call of needle, thread, fabric, and a crisp new chart, I feel very sorry for them but then again they may not understand why sticking to the kitchen floor doesn't bother me in the least and they just love the smell of Pinesol and Soft Scrub. Hmmm, no I still feel sorry for them. Give me a comfy spot and some good solid hoop time and I'm a happy girl. I do get concerned at times that one day I'm going to wander into the kitchen for a little snack and the floor will refuse to give me up. Now that I think about it maybe I should keep that bottle of Pinesol within reach.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Halloween. May your pumpkin patch be sincere and may the Great Pumpkin shower you with gifts.

She Blogs!

I think I remember how to do this thing called "blogging". Over the last few months I kind of ran out of things to say here on the blog. Do you ever think "that blogging thing is kind of pointless" I think I just felt I didn't have much to contribute so opted out for a bit. You know a summer hiatus, I love that word, so very tv.

I have been doing some stitching. Not as much stitching as I would like but my current project is The Scarlett House's Sarah Elizabeth Brooke. I've been dying to stitch this since Tanya acquired the sampler. My great grandmother is Sarah Elizabeth and Brook without the "e" is a family name. I was destined to stitch this sweet sampler.

I got a new camera and am still learning. Michelle is right, the best camera in the world is no help if you don't have an eye for the shot. I kept these simple and used the light box the spousal unit put together for me a few weeks ago.
I decided to go with DMC instead of Belle Soie so my sampler is a little different than the one you see pictured on the chart. I wanted to start Sarah sooner rather than later so I pulled the DMC, unkitted a piece of 36ct vintage light examplar, and jumped right in.

I did tweak the DMC conversion a touch. The flowers in the border are stitched with DMC 304 instead of 3721. I wanted a deeper red and I'm very happy with the 304.

I also swapped out the color for the house. Instead of DMC 355, I decided to go with DMC 347. Again I wanted my bricks just a little redder.

It's been so long since I blogged, I do believe all pictures can be clicked on to make bigger.

I tent or half cross stitched the verse. It was such a relief to discover that the over 1 in a half cross is not a nightmare. I've had Jane Atkinson in progress since 2009 I believe and part of the reason I quit working on her was the over 1 verse. I just couldn't face it, the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. But thanks to Sarah and just doing it, I can now face over 1 but only as a half cross. I think if I were forced by the stitching police to do a full cross at this time, I'd just have to stick my needle in my eye.




Last weekend Tropical Storm Lee dropped in for a visit. He came bearing(baring?) the gift of much needed rain. He was also kind enough to stagger the showers that there wasn't even a lot of flooding around here. I could go for a few more weekends just like that. I like being in the house. No guilt about not going anywhere, I'm actually being a good citizen by staying home. Really!

Here are some boats in the mists. OK the ghost boats are really in the pouring down rain but I love the eerie feel. Ghost Pirates! Check out South Park's Halloween Ghost Pirates episode with KORN. One of my favs. I think you can view it at South Park. If not there, then I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix.

Here are some surfers. I don't normally criticize surfers for surfing during a storm because that's their thing. But I noticed the guy in the middle was kind of teaching the chick here on the left. And sorry dude, a tropical storm, even one as whimpy as Lee is not the time or the place to teach someone to surf.

That's about all the news from the Redneck Riviera. I have a few more projects going and maybe I'll have a finish in a few days. Or maybe not!

Thanks for reading!

The Happs

The title is kind of misleading as not much is going on around here. But I did make this cover for my Nook: The Original Padded Nook/ Nook COLOR/ New by BirdifulStitches I highly recommend this pattern. The directions were easy to follow, any wonkiness or poor quality is all on me.

Nell, my Nook, stored in her handmade padded cover. Much nicer than the tacky crochet thing I whipped out when I first got her.
These are the pockets. I made a few mistakes but it had nothing to do with the pattern or the instructions. It had every thing to do with my sewing machine being possessed and I think I told it to "Suck My D___". Use your imagination. It's one of my favorite lines from The Hangover and as the Spousal Unit says, "It's funny because I'm a girl". Of course, the sewing machine, every the nasty ho, told me it was thinking about getting it's bartender's license. I know makes no sense but I was terribly frustrated that day because of an uncooperative piece of machinery.

Here's the full frontal view of the inside of my Nook case. I'm so glad I finally got around to making this. I've had the pattern forever. I'll make another one as I figured out my machine issues and am more comfortable with the process.

I've been working here and there on my WR2107 Pokey Dots Throw. I'm attaching blocks as I make them. Sure it slows down the fun part, the block making, but when I'm done, I'm done, well I'll have to add edging but the blocks will all be together. No hours and hours of putting them together when I'm already sick of it.

This is my progress such that it is on Lisi Sloboda 1828 - Cross Stitch Pattern. Sorry my pic isn't better Margaret. I'll take another one when I add a few more colors. I'm converted the DMC to HDF and decided I'd use those instead of the WDWs as charted.

All crafting has been slowed considerably due to the stack of books you see in the pic above. Our library system has it's kinks. Sometimes you can request 20 books and they come in one at a time weeks apart, other times you get all of them at the same time. That's what happened to me. I'm trying to read through this stack as fast as possible. I don't enjoy pressure reading and it's my one complaint about the library but what does one expect for $0.

We have been in the middle of a major drought. Storms reach the Florida/Alabama border and run north instead of east. These clouds were a happy sight last Saturday. I hope I was able to catch the weird bright green of the water. I honestly can't tell on this old computer.

Hope everyone is enjoying these early days of summer. Thanks for stopping by!

Cool Waves and Dark Waters

I've had a productive day or two. I managed to finish crocheting an afghan started many months ago. Just in time to welcome in Summer. DOH! I also pulled out a HAED project, Dark Waters. I'm actually stitching a triptyche of art, but started with the bottom piece, Dark Waters, an ocean of mermaids, there's a center which is just water and sky and the top piece is a sky full of angels. Not a lot of progress on Dark Waters, I'm trying to fill in areas of confetti which is wonderful for the detail of the piece but doesn't really show much for several hours of stitching. But I love this art and it's going to be freakin' awesome when completed. If it's ever completed that is.

Here's my Cool Waves throw stitched with the same exact colors as in the magazine because I'm unimaginative that way, actually I love these colors and I had them all right here in the stash so I went with what worked. Please ignore where Pineapple the cat has clawed up my wicker. She's evil. This pattern is from a Crochet Today special issue, Quick and Easy Gifts. The yarn is good old Red Heart.

I have more afghans planned, some using the exact colors from the magazines because I'm trying to deplete the Red Heart stash and mostly because I happen to like the colors the original design was created with. I suck at the color thing, when I attempt my own interpretation it's usually catastrophic, at least to whom ever is unfortunate enough to gaze upon it.

This is my current progress on Dark Waters. I love the detail in the fish to her left. That makes the confetti stitching so worth it. Yes, my fabric is dirty and believe me, over the next ten years of stitching on this I suspect it will get even more dirty. Such is the life of a slow work in progress.

Have you seen Tanya's new designs? Head over to The Scarlett House and show her the love! They are wonderful!

Hope everyone is able to spend many hours with the little X this weekend! Especially the Americans who have a long weekend, that's 24 extra stitching hours!

What are your stitching plans?