Ten Years of Blogging - Year #5, 2009/10

Welcome to Year 5.=)

The first two months of this blog year were devoted to getting things finished off and cleared out prior to packing most of our stuff into a storage room and heading off to Taiwan for a year.  Here's the band sampler that I'd been working on ad hoc for most of the previoius year finally finished up and displayed against the back of a co-ordinating jacket!!

We flew out late August and started a year of Chinese language classes.  Not a new language for us, as many readers may know, but it was good to learn so much more at a higher level and also to 'get back into' using it so often.  I'd got a bit lazy and lapsed increasingly into English with Chinese friends, so it was helpful to get me re-motivated.

A month or so before departure, I created a travel blog, originally called 'Made in Taiwan', but re-named 'Brauns on Tour' when the Taiwan part was no longer relevant.  This is still going, although we travel so little these days =( that it doesn't get much attention anymore.  The first post was our trip to London to get the visas sorted and I lost most of those photos as my camera disk corrupted, waaah!

Here are a few shots of Taiwan:

Here's a hardanger piece that I started before we left the UK and worked on in the temporary accommodation we had, finally finishing it in our 'own' apartment.  It was a belated tenth anniversary gift for an old friend in Taiwan.  This was a very frustrating piece to photograph as the thread is pale lilac, pale pink and white variegated.  The colours just would not show up!

I'd taken a couple of the DMC stumpwork kits with me and worked the bee one.  This turned out to a very popular post getting featured on some Turkish site or other and attracted a LOT of traffic.

I also stitched this hardanger needlecase, but I don't think I finished it up at that time.  I can't remember...

And a couple more shots of our time in Taiwan.  It was about the time of the first of these photos that I realised that I found it hard to stitch without a specific goal in mind, i.e. a gift or course etc.  Deadlines provide quite a motivation to work, unless you're a self-starter (which I'm not really....)

In May 2010, I started a general topics, goals and so on blog called Fluffy Little Idiot, which is still going and to which I've posted quite a few times this year as I've been using it to do a photo documentary of my possessions downscale.

I also turned the blog I'd set up a while before to trial layouts on into a place to post about any paper-based art I did: Art Excursion.  I hope to get more into that one by taking some on-line drawing and watercolour classes next year.=)

This cute cross stitch is the last piece I completed this blog year and I made it up into a scatter cushion cover for a Taiwanese friend who'd tried hard to help up with various things.

This blogging year finished with us still in East Asia, having a couple of new counted thread projects in progress and Sew in Love being given a craft blog award by Rachel.

Japan, Korea, Germany and home coming up in Year 6....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015

Ten Years of Blogging - the fourth year, 2008/9

Year four of my blogging career started off with quite a number more of the blog awards, Helen M Stevens' 'Ornamental Pool' design being finished for my mother-in-law and her hub's 20th wedding and starting out on the band sampler that was to run in the background for the next year.

I finished up another pretty hardanger scatter cushion for friends' 20th wedding anniversary.

In September, and with only a day to go before the start of the programme, I decided to spread my embroidery and textiles wings and start the City & Guilds Level 3 certificate at Harrogate College.  Knowing that I mayn't be in the area longer than a year (as Sir was making obvious moves towards some time in Taiwan), I had originally hoped to fast track the course, but a combination of health problems and workload quickly put the kibosh on that little fantasy!

I got a fair number of samples worked, learned a lot of new techniques and got a chance to put some of the glut of Derwent pencils you saw in the third year's post to use.  I always felt that I was rather 'bottom of the class', but here are a few of the things I was pleased with.  I can see their merits better now there's nothing to compare them with.=D  You'll know what I mean, I'm sure!  C&G work dominated my blog for several months and I ended up having to buy quite a sizeable quantity of supplies needed for it.  That was quite frustrating as we were trying to save money for an impending international move and I had to keep buying in stuff to use once.  I think some of the class thought I was a complete cheapskate, but I felt other circumstances were more important, especially as it was becoming more and more evident that I wasn't going to be able to finish.

In the interests of improving my writing skills in Chinese and German, I started mirror blogs to this one in both languages.  However, I found it rather a pain to keep up to three blogs and the two satellite ones didn't last long.  I even tried to do post summaries in the other languages here, but it soon fell by the wayside.  Shame, really.  Maybe I should try something like that again sometime.

February saw the completion of the third of a set of lovely Derwentwater Designs cross stitch kits of British Birds.  I'd done the chaffinches and bluetits ones before and now I'd finally completed the triptych with the goldfinches.  I'd always meant those to be framed and hung in our bedroom, but I'm still waiting seven years on!  I hope it comes off in our next home.

In March we had a long weekend in Frankfurt, where I bought some French, Italian and Spanish embroidery magazines from the newsagents in the main railway station concourse (German railway stations are GREAT for international publications). Then in early April I took and passed my Music Theory grade 3 exam with 96% and a few days later saw the confirmation of my expectation of leaving the country in the form of the first sentence of an important letter shown here:

After that, naturally, it was all focus on that.

Then in late May/early June with me being was busy with exam invigilation, this was the only exhibit I could enter into the C&G students' end of year show.

It's an awful photo as I was using a poor, cheap camera that was only any good for outside shots because the one I'd been used to using (Sir's old one), had gone thoroughly kaputt.  Mercifully, our tenth wedding anniversary followed in June and I got a lovely new camera (which I'm still using - even still learning to use!), making blog photos much better quality again.

This is the sampler I mentioned at the top of this post, as far as I got during with it this blog year.  It wasn't finished up into the final bellpull until August 2009 (see Year 5)  I remember putting in the last stitches and doing the beading whilst invigilating in a special circumstances exams.  There were two invigilators and one exam candidate, so it wasn't exactly your standard environment!  Afterwards, the student told me it was the most relaxed exam she'd ever sat and then came over to have a look at what I'd been doing!!

That was a good job.  I got loads of things finished, some like this and some that were just low concentration, dull jobs (like filling in plain backgrounds) for exams with several people.

A big blogging highlight for me during this fourth year was getting a mention on Needle'n Thread when Mary featured my post Some Finishes.  One of the three projects I showcased in that post was the dragonfly you met in the Year 3 summary.  A friend had loved the stitchery when she saw it on my old, long-since defunct Webshots album, and I'd been looking for a way to give it to her.  She got engaged and Stitch magazine featured a casket project, so I braved the sewing machine, which my C&G teacher was forever teasing me for being hesitant with, and made it up as an engagement present (filled with chocolates) for her and her fiancé.

At their engagement party, I also handed over a card to another couple and snapped this shot of the initial reaction to it!LOL!=)

I'll leave you with Viv's jaw drop and see everyone again in tomorrow's Year 5 post.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015

Ten Years of Blogging - Year three 2007/8

Welcome to the third year of ten in our blog review series and thanks again so much for all the nice responses that have come my way so far.

I wonder if some who remember the dog portrait, but aren't sure they were following back then may have seen it in later articles.  I'm kinda proud of him, so I don't mind giving him the occasional airing on blog. =)

There were two weddings in fairly quick succession.  Above is the completed bedding bale for one couple (handover for which was a tad late, er-hum!  Blame all the class prep. I had to do at the time, grrrr!) and here also is the framed picture in it's presentation box for the other couple.  I also had the pleasure of helping one of the grooms' sisters to make a stitched gift as her pressie to her brother during August '07.

Mid autumn 2007 saw me deciding to give up class teaching as I was finding a lot of the work too stressful for me to manage, given that my health was rapidly going downhill, so I quit.  I remember buying quite a lot of stitching goodies around that time as retail therapy! Here I am with some of the original class members after a Chinese meal out together for the last class.  I can't say I remember anyone of the students having the nerve to order in Chinese, but it was a good excuse!!  I wonder how and what they are all doing these days...??

Probably the most major stitching project of this blog year was the 'Branches of Your Life' card that I made on behalf of the whole department when our teams' manager moved on to another job, late January 2008.  It took a couple of weeks of fairly concentrated stitching to get it done on time, but I cracked it - despite running out of a key thread part way through working the tree trunk, calling in at a good LNS in York on the way home from a week away to get some, finding none and finally placing my one and only telephone order to Sew and So, only to find I'd missed that day's post anyway!  Quite a stressful piece all things considered.

Here's the recipient taking his first good look at it.  I was so disappointed that he first saw it with his back to me, as I didn't get to see his very first reaction, but having said that, he was a fairly reserved sort of chap, so there was probably nothing to see. =)

I'd been ooh-ing and aah-ing over this design in the 'Anchor Beginners Guide to Freestyle Embroidery' for years, and finally decided to go ahead and stitch it.  It then sat in a box for a while until I could think of what to do with it (see Year 4!)

At this point, blogging awards were beginning to make the rounds (remember those?  Where you nominated your favourite blogs and they got to display a logo?) and I decorated my blog with them for a while.=)  Thanks again to all those kind enough to nominate me back then. xx

Spring 2008 saw me beginning to stash all manner of Derwent art pencils too and I posted about 3 different lots of them on blog!!

In March/April Sir and I went for a three week trip to Taiwan, the first visit there since we'd met there back in 1997, both doing a year studying Chinese at the same language centre.

I loved these cute purses so much that I bought a load of fabrics etc and sent them back to myself to have a go at making them myself.  Shameful to say, but I've yet to try...!

In May of this year, I started the first of my other blogs that has survived to this day: A Polyglot (in Training).  I won't say my dedication to it is admirable, (except to someone who thinks blogging a total waste of time - which viewpoint I can see a certain amount of validity in!!!), but it's still there, and I still post to it from time to time.

I finally got a Victoria Sampler design 'Child of Spring' finished up into a scatter cushion cover after two big fails at it.  I'd actually started this the previous blog year during the early summer, but it was almost a year before I was happy with the sewing up of it.

Finally, in June I took my viola prep test (a music 'exam' pre-grade one) and Theory of Music grade two, which I later found out I'd passed with something like 98%.=)  That became my very first level one qualification (on the QCF scale).  Everything else I had was level two or above.

That's it for this year.  Tune in for year 4 tomorrow.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015

Ten Years of Blogging - the second year 2006/7

So glad readers are enjoying this review so far. I'm loving your comments - keep 'em coming! Welcome to Year Two - from 26 June 2006 to 26 June 2007!  The biggest finish of this year has to be the dog thread painting, especially as it took just over three-quarters of the blog-year to complete.  I got him back into commission in mid July 2006 and worked on him in fits and starts - mostly whilst we were on two country cottage holidays.  The first thing was to stitch the eyes (which took two tries) and then I began to build up from there.

This next shot shows how far I'd got by the time we returned from the first trip in November '06.

After that, I worked on it bit by bit until it got to this stage, when I took it on a second holiday in June '07, expecting to get no more done than just filling in the nose area.

However, I was wrong there (THANKfully!)as I just kept on and on going and came back with the finished portrait!

I also stitched this stumpwork piece for Sir's 8th anniversary card.  It wasn't the most romantic of designs, but he's not the type of guy who'd be worried about that.  We were on the trip where I finished the dog for the week including our wedding anniversary, so this piece is very much a contemporary of the bow-wow above.

On 1 January I posted my first stitching review of the year, which I've kept up most, if not every, year since.

As a courting couple we knew seemed pretty close to engagement, I thought it was time to fish out the failed hardanger cushion design and crack back on with it.  This time it went without a hitch, although it did take a while.  It was re-started in September and the engagement happened in the following February.  That gave me an extra push to finish the cover and it was completed and handed over early March.

As well as a few cross stitch and small hardanger pieces, I also had my first go at ribbon embroidery.

And made a little baby quilt.

In 'other news' this year, we got on with lots of decorating and sorting out of the old flat, which got halted over the summer whilst my hubby finished his MA dissertation, but got going again in September '06.  Sir re-painted the kitchen and bathroom and got on with the living room, which was finished just in time for over-night guests in October - the new carpet even having been delivered that very morning.  Poor Sir worked the whole night through wall-papering!

I began to learn to play the viola in the February of 2007 and here's me playing in an adult learner's concert only a couple of months later!!  Note the grown out fringe here!!  I also started my first secondary blog at this point, supposedly to document my progress in learning music, but I soon deleted it.

Martin graduated with his second Master's degree, this time an MA (his first one is an MSc) and I stitched him this cute Margaret Sherry design for his congratulations card.

And I started class teaching at the University where I'd been doing a workshop style class for the previous few years (as well as an absolute quantity of marking).  I found, to my surprise, that I was quite good at it, but I also found that I was losing my strength again.  NOT good.  How did all that pan out?

Find out tomorrow in Year 3...

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015

Ten Years of Blogging! Looking back over the first year.

I've now been blogging for exactly ten years, wow!  That's quite a milestone, isn't it?  It may even make mine one of the longest running embroidery blogs, although I know it's nowhere near the biggest.  My main claim to fame is that I've been going for almost a year longer than Needle'n Thread!!=)  It's worth marking the occasion, I felt, so I decided to create a series of review posts sharing what projects I featured on blog over that year, what else was going on at the time and any other blogging activity, as I have a few other blogs which I play with here and there.

If you look back through the Sew in Love archives for the very first post from 26 June 2005, you won't find it, because I had a bit of a clear out of 'clutter' posts about seven years ago.  I do remember that it was written two days before the surviving first post, had no photos and was just welcoming any readers to where I planned to document my unfinished projects, both textile related and others.

This was the very first finish I shared on blog, along with the finishing up of a cross stitched needlecase for my mum.

This was taken from a photo in one of the Country Bumpkin books ('Embroiderer's Handbook', although it's a project in 'The A_Z of Crewel Embroidery' I believe), and was made into a little cushion for friends' wedding gift.

I was also working pretty hard on this Chinese Junk cross stitch for my hubby for a while during my blog's early days too and proudly showcased the finished piece back in early September '05.

I didn't actually get it framed until last summer, as some of you might remember, but that's for the 'Year 9' post!!!

BTW, sorry about the size of these photos.  They were from the days when you couldn't put decent sized shots on Blogger and so all those I sorted for upload here were made about the size they would appear.  I'm actually using slightly larger ones here from my computer files.

During this first year I carried on doing a lot of the sort of project I'd been doing in the previous 3 years (I started stitching as a regular hobby in late 2002), and that included a good number of pieces of hardanger - cards, bookmarks and even a scatter cushion/pillow cover for an old friend.  I was especially proud of this one as it was a my first large-scale hardanger piece and also the first time I'd made up a cushion cover, complete with zip.  The hardanger panel also needed backing.

In those days, I did all my sewing up by hand and it was, I think, 2011 before I ventured to use the machine for it.

I also started on this piece, but ran into difficulties with it.  I'd got quite a bit further on with it when I realised that I'd mis-counted in the middle and about two-thirds of the work had to come out.  You can actually see many of the 'imprints' on this photo from where the original threads had been.

This photo is from a year or so later when I picked it back up again, but this is how it got left back in mid-November '05.

I also posted about a few stitch and craft shows I'd been to and showcased the stash I'd bought both there and a few mail order hauls. =)

Another project I wrestled with during this first year was the dog thread painting.  This is still the most ambitious piece of stitchery I've ever done, I've yet to top it.  Back then, when I was even less experienced than I feel now, it was over-challenging in the extreme and, once the initial enthusiasm had worn off a couple of weeks after it was started back in around December 2004, I found myself neglecting it wherever possible!!  As you can see from these two photos (how it looked first, in late June 2005 and second, in June 2006) I didn't get much progress made during that firtst blog year.

There were two other major events in our lives that year.  One was my doing a successful treatment programme for CFS/ME and enjoying my first dance in years at Chinese friends' wedding.  This is my old chum, Caleb, with me and me still sporting the hair fringe that I grew out the next year.

The other was the renovation of our home.  We used to live in social housing and the Council had decided to do new bathrooms and kitchens as well as a complete re-wire in each flat.  It took several months to get back to where we wanted to be.  Months?  Years really, as it 2008 before we'd got the whole lot done.  We had to move out during the initial few weeks of work as it was just terrible, with the whole place in turmoil!  How other residents managed to stay in their flats, I can't imagine.  We moved in to mum's for the duration and came back every day to work on the place.

Those are the highlights of my first year of blogging.  A few nice projects, terrible wiring jokes and poorly formatted posts given the limited capabilities of free blogging platforms in those days.  Is there anyone still around who remembers reading any of these things on Sew in Love?  Any long-term readers?

Year 2 coming up tomorrow.... In the meantime, what nicer way to celebrate my tenth blogoversary than to find myself featured in today's Embroidery News newsletter from the 'Inspirations' magazine team? ♥

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015