Bennett & Hillside Samplings

Eileen Bennett: Trinity Sampler

Eileen Bennett's Trinity

Finished! Finally, after all these years.  I  left in the old expected to have finished date of 2002.   

In a hundred years when someone might be wondering what the scraps of thread might mean on this old cloth, 11 years will mean little.

This is a small finish, but it is a finish.  My finish for February.

 Hillside Samplings: Peace on Earth 2000

 An ornament released in 2000, started in 2000, finished in 2013 because I couldn't deal with over 1 on 40 in a full cross.

But this, much tinier finish than Trinity, is also finally finished.  Tiny as it is, it still counts as my March finish.  Hopefully, not my only March finish at least it will keep me 3 for 3 on my 12 finishes for 12 month goal.

Teresa Wentzler & Eileen Bennett

 Teresa Wentzler:  Above the Clouds

 TW made a recent announcement about her old pattern publisher allowing her to make her older patterns available digitally via Patterns OnLine.  In some cases, she is converting her older hand drawn charts into computer generated symbols and updating previously confusing backstitch line charts.  Major happy dancing about that announcement.  It made me go through my TW wips.  It made me want to stitch them!

ABC is what I picked up.  When I put this down - however long ago I do not remember - there was barely one wing mostly done.   I am learning to focus because I stayed with this project for most of January.  

TW Above the Clouds

I have about 1/4 of the pattern left to go: it's all the rocks and the part of the tail.  It was finally the rocks which drove me to another project.  

I can't believe I got that much done on this!  

Of course it might stay this way for years, now.


I finally got rocked out and looked for something different in my WIP stash.

Eileen Bennett  Trinity Sampler

Another long napping wip was the Trinity.  It was started with an SAL back in 2006.  I know that because I stitched in the date at the top.  I must have had I had high hopes of finishing it.  It is not that big.  But it is with 2 strands of cotton in most places.  The shredding of the floss is getting to me.  It was not as noticeable with the TW piece because I work with shorter lengths due to the blending and confetti and do not frog - who is going to notice 1 misplaced little confetti stitch?

A band sampler is something else.    The lengths are not that much longer with this piece but I have had to do more frogging.  The problem is not the pattern, but the color notations for the pattern. I hate DMC floss.

The pattern symbols differ from the color numbers in the text notes which are also different from the picture of the sampler which is why there was frogging.  It makes me wish I had stuck with the SAL.   
 I have gotten a few more bands finished.  There are not too many to go.  I hope to finish this this month.

I have not decided what to do with the original 2006 date.  Leave it and add 2013?  I am leaning that way.

Shepherd's Bush & Ann Bowers (sort of, mostly)

Shepherd's Bush Home (sheep)

Without the 'Home'.   This was my New Year's Day stitching.

Shepherd's Bush Home

 I did not backstitch in the Home above  the sheep.  My house does not look like that.  I added some minor textured stitching and some beads in place of single flower stitches.  

It's the photo which is crooked, not the stitching.  

Ann Bowers (an adaptation)

Sort of.   The kit I ordered way way back when was for 35 count. I received 40ct but I started it anyway.  I stopped after I got a couple of inches down.  It was just too intense, too tight for my tastes.  I put it away for 10 years (more or less).  10 years napping time for my WIPS seems to be average for me.

I picked it back up when reading about all the other Ann Bowers stitchers starting across the web this year.   I changed the cloth to 35 ct of the same color from the same manufacturer, restarted and really got into it.  Close up pics will follow as I get further along.

Ann Bowers, many changes

The basic template is from The Exemplarery's pattern of Ann Bowers, the motif shapes and general order of the bands.   A couple of the alphabets will be, too (with the scandalous unperiod addition of the historically missing letters J and U.)  

I know the historical reasons for the omissions.   I am not stitching this to the period inwhich it was originally made.  There are and will be other changes: the alphabet used in the verses, the verses themselves.   The verse I added in place of one of the alphabets is from a later period than the original sampler stitcher's life.

I do not stitch reproductions.  I fall in love with enough elements in old patterns to make it worthwhile for me to purchase them then I do what I want with the materials when I stitch them.  Sometimes  I am close to the original patterns.  In this case, not as much, especially on the inner alphabets and spacing of motifs.

In this particular case,  I widened the piece by a couple of stitches inorder to make the corners work more to my tastes.    I shortened the piece by a few stitches in order to make the bottom corners more to my taste.  It does not matter to the fit of the interior elements because I am not using all of the alphabets in the original, nor the verses as they are currently charted.  I would have liked to have used the alphabet used in the original charted verses but I was even more eager to get the verse I used actually stitched before I changed my mind.

 I am still thinking about how to use elements from the original verses but this is where I rest  my progress and move on to something completely different.   

I think a TW wip is up for some work next.    TW has gotten permission to go digital with many of her older patterns!  Time to celebrate by actually stitching on some of those patterns which I have already started.  I have many to choose from.  

I used to be a wanton starting slut.   My ways have changed. I have found a different path!  I still don't finish much but I am focusing on working my already starteds.  Eventually there will be a period of finishings and much rejoicing will be in the land!

  (Well, not the land of vendors as I have not been buying anything near what I used to for quite a while now.)

2013 Goals

Getting ready for the New Year.
 
I have learned to not post specific goals because they act as Anti-Goals: Things Which Never Get Touched Again.  I am hoping that since I list so few that this will be the year I break that curse.

I didn't keep up with Wipocalypse last year but it did get me focused onto WIP thinking and working which I continued for most of the year so it was a success for me even though I did not have monthly stitching. 

2013 Goals

More Wip killing!
1.  12/12: 12 wip finishes in 12 months (or more: see how many I can finish & to use that number as a goal to exceed in 2014)
2.  Keep new starts to a minimum: finish any new starts within the same year (except for any SALs)
3.  Get reacquaintedwith my wips: stitch on at least 1 wip by every designer I have already started.

Specific Goals:
1.  Tony Minieri Stars for a New Millenium: stay on track.
2.  Pieces of 8: only 5 octagons left: finish this.
3.  Blackbird Designs: Xmas Garden: finish this.
4.  SB:Sheep, my NY tradition: start & finish a small sheep piece.
5.  Permission to start 1 really good sized piece during 2013 (then try to not start anymore big pieces).

Organization:
1.  Put my stash room back together - the annual organization & clean up.
2.  Round up my NP canvases.  Catalog them.
3.  Organize my frame stash.

Oct Nov Dec Catch up: By The Bay, Periwinkle Promises

I had not realized it has been so long since I last posted.  I can't say that I have been stitching up a storm but I did manage a few small pieces.

By The Bay 

 

I love the By The Bay mural type pieces.  I have seen a lot of wallpaper murals in old New England houses.  I love them!  I have had the 2 largest triptyk BTB pieces kitted for a long time.  I haven't started them because they are huge!

I couldn't resist starting the smaller Fall sal version of a mural.  I even had a small piece of a coffee dyed blue-ish green cloth that evokes the background wall paper color (which looks more gray than blue green in the pic).  Sadly I don't have a big enough piece of it for the bigger pieces - which maybe one of the other reasons, other than size, that I haven't started it: I am not totally happy with the cloth I have.

By The Bay: Fall 2012 SAL

Here is the little Fall sal.  I really appreciate how the finished piece fit so easily into an off the shelf, easy and inexpensive to obtain, frame.  I added some textural stitched, changed the overdye (leaves) to one I had on hand.

Periwinkle Promises

 

Another small piece.  I love the Periwinkle Promises Accents.  I don't love them as pillows, though.  I have assorted little pillows completed - stitching completed, yes.  As pillows, no.  I have the finished pieces waiting in a chest for an idea of what to do with them.

To solve that problem with future unpillowed accents, I started expanding the patterns so that they fit into a 5 by 7 frame.  It usually doesn't take much work to do that.  Just some math and some repetition of bands.

My first attempt at doing this was in 2010.  I stitched on this while marathon viewing the British TV show: Kingdom starring Stephen Fry.

Periwinkle Promises, adapted

This was based on the Snowflower Accent, from Series 2.  The cloth in the kit was not big enough but it was not difficult to find a scrap of cloth in my stash.  The other joy of these is that the kit AVAS silks work well on 32 ct.  I may have added more beads.  I love beads.









The latest attempt was during a marathon streaming of Grey's Anatomy.  The actual stitching took a couple of seasons of that.  I knit during most of the rest.  This is based on Periwinkle Promises Series 1, "August," with some textural stitches added and I notice now: I forgot some layering stitching on the band of 3 thistles which I can add before I frame it.   That band must have been during some of the better episodes.

Periwinkle Promises, adapted

A side comment: Kingdom was the better written of the 2 series.  Too bad it had so few seasons.

Other Odd Bits

Not much to show for the couple of months.  I started an old Danish Handcraft guild kit with 30 ct linen with danish flower thread.  I thought for a moment about changing out cloth and threads then kicked myself for again making complications out of simply relaxing.  I started it using the kitted ingredients and have been the more relaxed because of it.  I hope to have a picture for next time - which will hopefully be in the couple of days off that I have at Christmas - YAY for time off I really need it.   It is a blessing to still have a job but the stresses that come with it are even worse now.  

Dealing with those stresses when my brain can't handle cross stitching,  I knit on my own design of a couch snuggly which is the third one I've worked on since I've started knitting them last year.  The other 2 are used by family members to wrap themselves in or under, while watching TV or reading;  as this one and the others to follow it will be.  Aside from a basic border and some dividing bands, each one is different: size, patterns, color...errors: different errors on each of them.

Other than that, I just looked through portions of my pattern collection.  That was as relaxing as stitching.

Brightneedle and a Spangler

Just a couple of things.  

Brightneedle Designs: Ezmeralda's House

 

I was pushing myself to finish Ezmeralda's House as I did much more than I originally planned but my interest in continuing with it dropped off.  I pretty much wasted a week of (non) stitching trying to push myself to finish, pushing myself to only work on Ez until done. 

Brightneedle Designs Ezmeralda's House

 It didn't work.  I spent a week not stitching because I just didn't want to work on it for more than 1 needle full of thread.  I would have gotten more done on something else had I only given up and moved to something else.  

Maybe I will finish Ez the next time I pick it up, whenever that may be.

HAED Storykeep: Spangler's Autumn

 

In the meantime, taking advantage of my sudden love of working on canvas which I really used to hate, I started a test Heaven and Earth Designs' pattern on congress cloth.

 I originally took out my Spangler Train of Dreams, a pattern I love as I love all of Spangler's little dragons.  I didn't get much progress, made a major mistake whose situation I worsened by trying to pick it out.  It was the too loosely woven 22 count hardanger which was causing that most recent problem.  That was also one of reasons for so little progress over so many years.   I cut apart the Train cloth.  So much for that for now.

I still loved the pattern.  I loved all the HAED's I have but there is no way they were going to be done on the cloth I thought I was going to use.  I needed something stiffer.  With encouragement from posters at the Heaven and Earth Designs Message Board at Yuku, I decided to try out a smaller HAED on a canvas.  In this case a 24 ct congress cloth I dug out of my deep stash.

HAED Spangler Storykeep Autumn

The progress doesn't look like much but it was a lot more progress in a few days time than my Train of Dreams on hardanger ever had over more time.  I still have to fine tune some stitching techniques on it but I am so loving the continental stitch, 2 ply on 24ct.

Congress cloth comes in a small selection of colors, some of them dark so I won't be limited to stark white.  It also comes in a 55 inch wide selvage so I won't be limited to small projects.  I can order congress cloth just like I did cloth. 

My short attention span may be ready to wander again now that I know the 'test' worked.  I am looking across the room to a Martina Weber stacked against the bookcase.  It has been too long since I have had a really deep immersion stitching session.

Another really old piece had a wake up!

Brightneedle: Ezmeralda's House

Another project started so long ago, probably not too long after the pattern came out.  Working from the top down, I got most of the bedroom done before I put it away.

This past week I finished the bedroom and started on everything below it.

When I first thought about this project I did not want to do this over 1 but I still wanted it to be small scale stitching and since it was Halloween I was leaning towards something funky: thus the tiny uneven cloth 44/48.  It has a beautiful dense hand to it.  I hope I have some more buried in the stash somewhere.

Joane Wallwin

More work on Wallwin.  Making my way across the second band.  

That third band area with the snake is going to be nasty.  The colors are alternating on all motifs there including that diagonal. There is no neat way to make the trip.  The colors will sometimes not alternate.  Also the thickness of the snakes waxes and wanes

Fortunately I am not a purist about sampler reproduction because I would not have made it past the first band where I miscounted, making the sampler wider than charted then adapted everything below.  The snake band colors will alternate as they end up alternating and I am not going to compare that with what is charted other than to marvel if I just happened to match. 


That's it until next week.  I don't know what projects will be inprogress then.  I am still poking through older wips.  I would like to finish all of Part 1 of Wallwin before I put her away.  I had planned on only doing the kitchen on Ez's House but I'm having enough fun to continue to the porch and her foyer so we'll see.