Wipocalypse #4 recap

I have made some posts on my wip work this past month but not all of them.  I have been busier stitching than posting which is a good thing in some ways but bad in other ways because the posts help me keep track on what I have been working on - otherwise it all blends together and it feels like I got nothing done.

Old wips worked on for this reporting cycle:

Martina Weber's Egyptian Mandala:

This piece is so slow going, so labor intensive that it doesn't give  much of a sense of progress even after you spend hours  working on it.  I would love to have this more than halfway finished by the end of the year.  I hold no illusions about actually finishing it this year.

Ink Circles: Croakworth:

I reported on this in more detail previously.  I stopped at over half way because I could not make up my mind about combining this piece with the companion piece Quackworth.  I cut the cloth to put the two on top of one another, combining them into a longer piece.  

 But now, I am changing my mind.  I don't have the heart to cut that much cloth off the piece but I will have to.   I want the 2 of them stitched then framed separately.  I will feel better about it when I find something else to put on the cloth trimmed off.

  I think that was it for older pieces as I was obsessed with the Laura Perin piece - which only qualifies as an old collected pattern which had been in my stash forever.


In catching up on some of my blog reading on other stitchers I am reminded of some more old WIPS of mine which haven't seen progress for ages but look so wonderful as other stitchers work on theirs.  Maybe my old huge Prairie Schooler ABC blocks can come out to play for the next update.  It has 4 foot scroll rods.  I will need some vacation days, I think.

Or maybe just more work on Egyptian.  There is always more work to be done on Egyptian.

Laura J. Perin Lilac Collage

I had such a hard time putting this one down that I barely spent time with anything else.  I didn't want to happen what happened with Pieces of 8: I totally lost my momentum for progress on Po8 when I put it down for the challenge pieces. 

 I did some work for the next Wipocalypse report (a previous post) and hope to do some more.  I did very little on Blackbird Christmas which I think I forgot to report last month.  I did some time consuming work on the Egyptian Mandala - which can also be applied to Wipocalypse, I suppose.

But returning to the Lilac!  I can't believe it is finished.

There were  several discrepancies between the chart and the cover photo.  You have to look at both then decide which way you will go.  The good thing about projects like this is that there is a lot of fudge space.  I did clip out some areas, including the lilacs for assorted issues.  The chart came with a packet of beads which I did not put on the piece. 

I changed out the entire lilac area to restranded floss instead of all perle.  The threads fit together better.  I also added some more leafage to balance it out more in its rectangle  

I also tried to put the swiss dotted 504 in the back of the lilac but it looked too busy and I hated the ghost threads - which I could have masked in framing but I did not like the green measles look.  I tried some light patterning with a single floss thread.  I finally decided the lilacs can sit by themselves.  I added my initials and the year, lightly at the base of the lilacs.

What made this project work from the beginning is that I decided that as long as stray threads did not show through to the front that I didn't care what the back looked like.  This was the biggest reason I could work the NP on the lilacs.  I refused to put this project down for any other stitching until I slogged through those lilacs.  I knew if I ever put them down for long they would never get finished and the project would never be finished.  

Only after the lilacs were done did I let myself work on the really fun layered blocks.

So I finished Lilacs.  I started in on Lahaina Breezes as a reward.  This one should go even faster because it looks like larger scale abstract stitching even though it measures 10 by 10 to Lilac's 9 1/4 by 9 1/8.   I have only just begun it and I already encountered a discrepancy between chart and photo.

   It was fun working on this last night but I will put it down to get some progress going on the challenge pieces.

WIPocalypse Stitching with the Peepers

The weather was unseasonably summer like and the peeper chorus was loud even through closed windows.  Here is the progress that the peepers inspired.

I can never get the cloth color right in the pictures.  This is stitched on 32 ct. Waterlily linen with HDF silks.

The before picture:

The after:

I had hopes of finishing as this is just below the half way point but my small attention span too me back to canvas.  

I restarted the Laura J. Perin Lilac Collage - this time on the canvas called for in the chart.  More on that later.

In Search of More Old Pieces for WIPocalypse

Strangely, it was kind of sad to finish off the old Dragonfly row.  I'm thrilled it is finished but I am also a little sad.  It has been in the WIP pile for a VERY long time.

It wasn't alone.   I went diving into my old WIPS for some more contenders. 

Crossed Wing's Warblers 2 Bellpull.

 The cloth is actually a mocha color which my camera never seems to pick up.  I don't know anything beyond point and click so it's most likely me not setting something properly in it.

At least 1 have 1 bird to show for 10 years "work."  This is 32 ct. Mocha Belfast, worked with 2 strands of Anchor.  I used the Anchor conversion printed on the chart - which can sometimes be quite funky in pattern contrasts.  I went through a thread phase inwhich I was converting everything to Anchor.  The results were more vibrant but with not always the best shading results.

I have since become more lazy and just work with the ever more discreasing quality DMC on projects when I can't afford the high quality relatively inexpensive (for silk) HDF silks on conversions.  I still think Anchor is the better, stronger cotton fiber over DMC but it is tougher to find and the conversions can be problematic.

This is as far as I got on bird 2 because I thought I made a mistake when I couldn't find my place but after I frogged then restitched, I discovered that I had it right the first time just that my brain couldn't figure out where I should have started in again.  

The gray birds get a little depressing so this wip didn't stay out long.

I have since taken out my version of Ink Circles Croakworth & an old Lu Fuller kit whose cloth I switched out to a 40 ct.  Pictures of those next time.  If I can find my Quaker Go Away Banner, I will take pictures of that, too.  I was more in the mood to work on that than Croakworth but one Quaker style isn't that much different from any other.

WIPocalypse: Dragonfly Quilt Row A FINISHED!!!

Granted, it wasn't that large and it shouldn't have taken 10 years (or thereabouts) but it is finished.  It could have been finished years ago if I had only kept picking it up but I didn't.  I didn't even LIKE working on it at several points.  

I have loved every minute I have worked on it since picking it up for the WIPocalypse and the 2012 HAEDless stitching challenge.  It is done.  Scary part is that I'm tempted to now start another row instead of picking up another old piece to finish off.

Here are some closeups: 

 This is block 4.  The directions recommended putting some pottery shard or something like that in the medallion.  In a past medallion on MW's Bluebell mini, I put in a small crystal.  I couldn't conveniently find one I liked for this so I just stitched in the attribution information.

Some pictures of the border.

2012 Challenge: Blackbird Designs Christmas Garden

I worked on this at the beginning of February, putting it down only after stitching every single motif on the right side TWICE due to counting & positioning errors which could not be fudged.

So, not much project for actual acreage covered, but the amount of stitching is twice what you see.  This was a painful month with this design.  I hoped to pick it up again before March but I know now, with 4 days left to go in this month that that is just not going to happen.  If it wasn't for the Challenge I probably would not be picking this up in March but I will be.  See you about this then!

WIPocalypse Pieces of Eight

I had a change of projects for the WIPocalypse.  I have been bitten by the canvas bug thanks to conversational threads at The Wagon (a Yuku Board).  The enthusiasm of assorted canvas project discussions swept me up and carried me off the nether regions of my stash storage in search of canvas pieces I haven't touched for YEARs and had little intention of more progress.  I just hadn't gotten around to tossing them out yet.


It's a good thing I didn't.  I resurrected the oldest piece thanks to Marilyn, a Wagon poster who finished this piece and posted pictures.

Here is my starting point for the WIPocalypse.  This was where I abandoned it almost as soon as I started it in 2000. 


This is an embryonic Gayle Bicknell's Pieces of Eight published in a series of issues of Needlepoint Now, 1999 - 2000 with the listed threads on 18 ct. Sandstone mono canvas.


I did not have a thread stash beyond embroidery floss weights so I used the charted colors & threads.  They are not my colors, but it wouldn't hurt to have an eyeball alka-seltzer on the wall with my other pieces to wake up the visual senses.  If you have a stash of assorted size and textured threads: go for it.  This piece was designed using leftover threads from the designer's stash.   I will have a couple of sacks of weird threads leftover from this so I will be looking for more UseTheScraps Needlepoint charts.

This is where I left off 3 days later.  I clipped out the original start.  It was easier to clip out to restart then to try to figure out where the stitch sequence left off.  I wasted an hour trying.  LOL  

As Marilyn warned in her posts, there are several issues with the directions as printed.  Some stitch instructions are not adequately explained, or even properly sequenced but armed with Jo Ippolito Christensen's The Needlepoint Book and an openness to let it fly, to make something else work that will be close enough and fun enough, I jumped in.   I have made some changes in color placements and modified some stitches to better suit me.  The project just bit me in the right place and hasn't let go.  I could not put this piece down.  I referred to it as my stitching crack on the forum.  

The next octagon is another heavy thread in few holes modified Amadeus beast...actually the next 2 Octagons are like that...so my interest is flagging a little right now.  I suspect I will be returning to some cross stitching for a little while but I really don't want to put this away.  Maybe I will just work those modified smyrna borders for a bit.   Then I will enlarge the heck out of the small diagrams,  pour a big glass of wine then jump in.