Goldfinch happy dance!

Yippee! I finally finished something! First 'proper' stitching finish of the year. Actually, I don't think I finished any C&G pieces yet, did I? Can't remember. Suppose I might have.... Yes! I did one on 2 Jan, according to previous posts. Anyway, here are the goldfinches. Started 24 March 2008 in Amstersdam airport and finished last night at about 11pm 18 February 2009. It was the least 'important' of all the things on the go at the moment, in that it's for us rather than an either overdue gift or an overdue C&G sample, but it feels good to have something finished. I plan to have a go at washing out both it and four other XS pieces that have got browned around where the frame was, or have got funny marks on. There's a really yacky, oily looking mark on the bluetits pieces.=( Anyway, let's see how well Ecover's hand washing liquid deals with those.=) Pattern etc has gone into my 'For Sale or Trade' folder on Webshots, if anyone's interested. 'Bluetits' is still there too, although I sold 'Chaffinches' on E-bay a while back.

Nothing done really on the C&G front. I meant to put in full days on in Monday and Tuesday of this week, but ended up under the weather again, (a colleague asked yesterday what the weather had done for me to be under it, but I suppose we all are, in purely logistical terms, aren't we?) Anyway, feel better now and should be able to get on today and press further forward tomorrow as well as next Monday and Tuesday. The substitute teacher we have at college at the mo, (ours had an accident on the ice, poor thing!), recommended that both I and another student whose just come back from 7 weeks in New Zealand where her daughter lives (and has recently had a baby!) and is as behind as I am on balance, just get on as quickly as we can, work small and simple and start to enjoy it again when we're caught up. I certainly agree with her small and relatively simple idea, but I do want to enjoy it as far as I can, even though I'm pretty clueless on most of what I'm doing, so I might take it a bit slower, but it won't matter greatly if I do. So, I want to get the bits of bobs of the old line and colour modules finished ASAP, do the sample from last week's class (today is half term, so no class - phew!), and finish the project I started last week by the time we go back next Thursday. It's quite a lot of work, but it may be possible - IF I get on with it!!!

Had a funny experience the other night. I was wasting time answering silly questions on Yahoo Answers. Later on I found one had been selected as the Best Answer, so I went back to look at it. The poser of the question had been really insulting and stupid in his response saying something like, 'I'm only doing this for the points anyway' and then putting some insulting quote, (that made him look a far bigger prat than he intended me to look!!) as his reason for why what I said was dumb. What cracked me up was that he said he only wanted the 3 points he got from selecting a best answer, but he had to pay 5 to ask the question in the first place. I earned 2 from answering and 10 for being voted as best. So, he ended up with egg on his face both by publicly proving himself narrow- and small-minded and by losing an overall 2 points whereas I gained 12!! HA-HA-HA!!! In yer face, pal!ROTFL! Hope he realises too..... I'm not at all a vindictive type, but I enjoyed this one!!! Tee-hee!=)

Postzusammenfassung in Deutsch:

So, mein Kreuzstich Distelfinken sind endlich fertig. Ich hab' diesen Projekt am 24. März 2008 angefangen (im Flughafen Amsterdam!) und gestern hab' ich es fertig gemacht.=) Schön, nö? Es ist auch schon gewascht und wartet jetzt auf einen Rahmen.

Musikstudium geht ein bißchen besser. Der Bach ist ein bißchen besser geworden (ich lerne Bratsche zu spielen) und die verbunden gespielte Tonleiter auch. Aber die Theorieprüfung ist am 5. März und hab' ich noch nicht genug studiert. Morgen, morgen!!=)

Hab' kürzlich überhaupt keine mehr Berufschularbeit gemacht und momentlich interessiere ich mich nicht so viel für das. Ich liebe Stickerei, aber wenn ich malen und sticken muss, dann ist das ein andere Sache!!

中文：

刺绣课程最近作得不好。因为最近常常生病了，所以没办法画画，设计和绣等。
我把金翅雀十字绣绣完了。我已经把全3个这个系列的飞鸟十字绣洗好了，等买框锯。

刺繡課程最近作得不好。因為最近常常生病了，所以沒辦法畫畫，設計和繡等。
我把金翅雀十字繡繡完了。我已經把全3個這個系列的飛鳥十字繡洗好了，等買框鋸。

Goldfinch update

This is what the goldfinches look like right now. I've finished the background half-cross stitching and put in the top stitching on the birds. There's just the top stitching on the thistles to do now - a few details on the leaves and then the old gold thistledown details. Should have that one done very soon now.=) It'll be nice to finish something. When you have such simple WIPs hanging around for months on end, you feel like you're never doing anything, despite having done all sorts of other things.

My college work (C&G stuff) is horribly behind and I don't seem to be able to find the uumph to get on with it, despite how much it stresses me out! I'll no doubt feel much better once it's done, but I just don't want to. Oh, how contrary we can be! I've been lusting after a C&G course for years and now I'm doing one.....

Actually did some viola practice yesterday and will do more today. Something is moving forward at least and, well, I do have a nasty cold! Thanks for all the kind well wishes and, yes Von, I will try and be sensible and recover fully. Nothing really strenuous (except a bit of housework) or demanding this week, so shouldn't be too bad.

Hier sind meine Distelfinken - fast fertig! Es gibt nur ein bißchen 'Langstich' übrig, dann ist dieses Bild endlich fertig.=) Ich bin im Moment stark erkältet, aber lebe noch!!

我快把我的金翅雀十字绣绣完了。这个画是在3月开始的，可是挺简单绣的。可以说学院的事阻止我早一点把金翅雀绣完。 我现在感冒了，很麻烦啊！

我快把我的金翅雀十字繡繡完了。這個畫是在3月開始的，可是挺簡單繡的。可以說學院的事阻止我早一點把金翅雀繡完。 我現在感冒了，很麻煩啊!

Goldfinch progress report

Here they are as they are after quite a lot of work on them over the past couple of days. I finished the actual cross stitching on 31st, I think, then spent several hours listening to audio dramas and doing much of the background half stitching. There's just the left hand area, a bit to the left of the top bird's head and a layer over the top from the right hand side of the top bird over the back of the right hand one. It's hard to tell the 2 blue shades apart, but the one I'm doing now is slightly lighter than what's in place in the top and right areas. Should be finished with it very soon as there isn't much backstitching to do beyond facial features and then there are the thistle bits that look a bit like shuttlecocks to do!!! What's the proper name, someone?

Nothing else to show or report. Haven't touched my C&G work, or wanted to. I'm wondering if the fact that I'm rather conscientiously avoiding it is contributing to the horribly unsettled feeling I have at the mo...=( Oh well, C&G's loss is the goldfinches' gain!!!

Backwards, forwards and right here and now!

Oof, another year all but gone - one and a bit more days and it's 2009 already! DH asked me what I thought of the year last night and, whilst I won't go into most of what we talked about here (not 'on-topic'!), I did mention that I felt I'd hardly produced any proper stitching this year! 'Tis too true!=( All I've done is 5 things (2 very small), plus finished off one left over from last year and made up a cushion/pillow cover also left over from last year and got 2 counted thread pieces in progress, (<- here's the current status on the Goldfinches BTW). That's not counting my City & Guilds samples, of course, but I don't really count them that much as normal stitching, but as college work.

So, in detail, what did I do?

Finishing from 2007:

* Finished off 'Bluetits and Seedheads' cross stitch (see here)
* Made up 'Child of Spring' cushion/pillow (photo here)

New in 2008:

* 'Branches of Your Life' card (finish pic here). I did a couple of tiny bits on this in 2007, but it was mostly an '08 project.
* 'Rose Arch' ribbon work, finished into a thank-you card (view here unmounted)
* A simple goldwork dragonfly, (see here), which I still haven't used for anything and is rather too big for a card.
* Helen M Stevens' 'Ornamental Pool' piece (link here)
* Hardanger 'Flowers and Leaves' cushion/pillow (pic here before making up)
* 8 City & Guilds samples

Started this year, but still unfinished:

* 'Goldfinches and Thistles' cross stitch (see above for photo)
* 'Silver Frost' band sampler design (see 2 posts ago for latest WIP pic)
* 2 or 3 more City & Guilds samples (plus more not even started yet...)

Plans for 2009 stitching wise are:

* Finish all WIPs, including C&G stuff
* Get my C&G work done in time, (mid-May for this year's work)
* Do a hardanger cushion for my Taiwanese friend
* Stitch something for my 2nd sister before she goes abroad for a year, preferably something with practical use.
* Take several kits with me when we go back to Taiwan in late August/early September, should all go according to plan, that is!!!
* DH's 10th anniversary card - probably a CQ heart.
* Do some small pieces that I want to do. No more obligation stitching!

Here's my first ever acrylic painting that I had to do as part of the eternal C&G work. I can't say that I'm over-enamoured of it, but it'll do as a first time with the paints and the colours worked out OK. The edges of the colour variations within the petals are nothing short of awful, but, as with most art courses, you get given a subject and a medium and just told to get on with it, you don't get any instruction on how to use that medium! I've now borrowed a book from Leeds City Art Library on acrylics for beginners, so I have an idea how colours can be worked together. I would say that, in the main, I enjoy the course, but I still rather wish I hadn't started it (I knew this would happen.....) as it's just so much work and I feel quite bogged down with it at the mo. I just don't seem able to keep up well at all, even though many of the others do. There's at least one who struggles more than me to keep up, so I'm not the furthest behind, or wasn't at last count anyway!!! Anyway, here's the current state of the stitched piece this will be. It's to be cut-back appliqué, so here are 4 layers of fabric tacked together and waiting to be machine stitched. You can just see the blue markings on it if you look closely. I'm rather nervous of my machine though as it goes so fast....

More soon, I hope!=)

Dyeing to stitch

We had a go at Procion dyeing in class this Thursday. I didn't have much in the way of interesting fabric to hand and wasn't really in the frame of mind (or body!!!) for anything adventurous, so I just did some random space dyeing with ultramarine, turquoise and a green mixed from ultramarine and lemon yellow. I thought they would be useful for sky and greenery backgrounds and I should be able to use one or two of them in my samples soon.




The weather has been so grey here that it's barely been light enough to take photos, but trusty Photoshop has enabled me to correct the colour casts and show where I am with the band sampler and cross stitch pieces, both of which you can see here.


Jane of Craft Therapy has kindly nominated me in the latest 'Kreativ Blogger' awards, which I've added to the rest of the accolades down the sidebar!! Jane's blog is quite varied, although her main interest to date has been a number of papercrafts. She's done some pretty scrapbooking layouts, greetings cards and ATCs and is planning on branching out into more artwork - drawing and painting.

Thank goodness for cross stitch!

I've come to the conclusion (yet again!!!) that I'm sometimes quite nuts when it comes to my stitchery. For instance, if I want to stitch something, but I have outstanding City & Guilds work to do, unless I'm going to get on with that work, I don't stitch, I do something else instead. Now that's mad as, often, my college works needs a lot of thought and even energy as I'm doing new stuff almost all the time, certainly always using my own designs and it takes a lot more than just relaxing with the 2 counted thread projects I have on the go at the mo. So, I decided that, esp. whilst I'm still recovering from the 'flu-like thing I've had, I can be a bit more sensible and get on with some of the others. After all, the whole thing is meant to be fun, not another thing in life where 'I ought to....' Man!

So, above you can see that I've added another 3 rows to the top of the band sampler last touched about 4 weeks ago and to the right here you can see a good half of the second bird added to the 'Goldfinches' cross stitch that I last worked on in late July! If I'm feeling up to it, I'll get on with C&G samples tomorrow and so on, but if not, I'm not going to fret about it anymore. Also, if I don't quite get my work done in time for the assessment session on the last Thursday before the winter break, I'm still going to take the full winter break and not work on college stuff over that fortnight. So there!!

Thanks for the well wishes, by the way. Susan, you're welcome to go stash shopping for me. Are you paying too???=)LOL!

A bit on the goldfinches

Not a lot, admittedly, but it's something. I finished the second seedhead, then started on the next bird's head. Did this on Friday evening and hoped to have some more to show by now, but I just didn't get chance to do any more over the weekend proper. Ooof! And here's me about to apply for a half-time job this week too. Dread to think how much (little!) time I'll have to stitch then.....

Plant Life and Pool

This is how far I got on the Goldfinches up to Thursday evening. I had hoped to get the right hand thistle totally done, but those thistle heads are quite 'bitty' and take a lot longer then working on the birds or the leaves. Anyway, it's coming along nicely, but will slow down a fair bit now as I'll be concentrating on the Ornamental Pool design instead. Will still do some here and there on the birds, but I need to get gift stitching done in time and the birds are for us. I also need to get DH's anniversary card done, which should be the blackwork heart design I'd planned for last June. Well, we'll see how that goes. I don't like having too many things on the go at once, although two large-ish projects and one small one isn't exactly a lot, is it? I know some have a dozen or more on the go at one time and rarely, if ever, finish anything. I remember one lady telling me she'd never finished anything in her life! Can't quite see the point in that myself, but, well, each to her own, huh?

I got the fabric, front and back, prepared for the Pool cushion/pillow last night, including tracing on the design, as you can see here. It's too big to work even in my 12" hoop, so I've put it in the 14" R&R Craft Frame and hope that that will work out OK. It's a tough thing deciding if R&R Frames or Q-Snaps are best. As an American lady once rightly said, the British product is better quality (DH said so too, that the Q-Snap wasn't well machined - the edges were rough etc), but I like the fact that the clips on the Q-Snaps are longer and therefore hold a better tension all over the piece than the R&R ones. They're also a bit tighter, I think, but that might just be the ones I have as I've had the R&R ones longer and have used them more. They also have a very handy 14" size, which the Q-Snap doesn't. I've got 8" and 11" Q-Snaps and 9", 11", 14" and 17" R&R Frames as well as 4", 5", 6", 7", 8", 9", 10" and 12" wooden hoops, so no-one could accuse me of being short on working frames!!!! I think they're very important and I hate working anything other than a cross stitch bookmark piece (or something equally small, like one of those Textile Heritage needlecases, like this, this and this) 'in hand'. I find it quite painful after a few minutes as well as harder all round. The frame holds things nicely and I just can't imagine doing a larger piece without using a frame and moving it around, if need be. Not that I can see myself doing one of those 3 metre hardanger tablecloths, like!!!!

Oh, I did go to the marlet yesterday and found a fabric stall, but as I didn't have a sample of fabric to match with me, I couldn't seriously look for COS backing stuff. I did go and look at the outdoor produce stalls though and, how cheap are they? I bought a few thing for just over £5 that would have cost me about £10-11 in the cheaper supermarkets! DH and I have decided to become market shoppers instead and I've just made a note of all the farmers' markets in Leeds as well as that might be even better value - local stuff and cutting out the middle man. We can save about £150 a month, which we can put towards something more interesting!=) No, I really don't need any more stash....

I think I've worked out what made me lose my uumph stitching. It seems to have been mad dash stitching for wedding pressies last year along with the job-related problems that just took away a lot of pleasure in a lot of things. Now that's all history and I have a decent amount of time to do the things I want for this summer, I feel much more like doing it.=)

Goldfinches moving ahead apace!

I've really got myself on a roll with the Goldfinches piece, look at all this progress in just two days! I'm really pleased that it's coming on so well and I expect I'll be able to put in all the rest of the plant life over the next few days. Being home with yet another pesky virus helps a lot to get on with stuff like this!! It has it's advantages, although I really ought to be in bed....=( It's 'my' exam on Friday too, (i.e. the class that I take as part of a whole module has its exam - an hour long Chinese listening test), so I'll have to do as I did yesterday and go out when I ought to be home resting, but at least then that's it for this academic year, (save about an hour helping to mark any resit papers in August). It's been a really awful year too, so I'll be glad to see the back of it!

One good thing about having to be out and about yesterday was that I was able to go to Taylors and get a few things needed for the Ornamental Pool cushion. I got the backing fabric and stocked up on iron-on interfacing (needed for anything other than the lightest of embroidery on relatively delicate fabric, so anything thin or silky) in both black and white as well as got a zip for the finished product and some fabric that may do to back COS, although I'm not sure about that yet. Can't seem to find something I'm happy with! Perhaps I should root around in the market on Friday after work.

Anyway, here's the 'floss toss' for the Pool design (an expression I learned from Veronica's blog) -> As you can see, I've selected mostly Anchor stranded cottons, but there are 4 each of Anchor Marlitt (for the foreground damselfly and fish, to make them really glow) and Pearl Cotton #12 (for the 'rougher' looking parts) plus 2 Kreinik cords. The next move on this piece will be, after getting the fabric pressed and backed, to get the pattern transferred on. This is always a bit of a pain, but this one promises to be a bit challenging as I'm going to gave to stretch it vertically a bit. I need it to be square, and it's ever so slightly wider than it is high. So, I'll elongate the leaves at the side or something. Will probably have to use two pieces of tracing paper put together as well, which will be tricky too. Don't like this bit!

It feels good to be back stitching and really enjoying it again. I can't think why I just lost momentum for a while, but I guess it happens to most of us at some point. I've read other stitchers lamenting about their lack of umph at times!!

The weekend's stitching

Haven't had a lot of stitching time this weekend, but I have made the most of what I did have and here are the results, i.e. progress on Goldfinches. The last post I made that showed this one had much less on the bird's wing and only some of the white stitches on the thistle head, so I have done quite a bit.

So yes, I decided to go with the Helen Stevens 'Ornamental Pool' design and have got the threads out already as well. Just need to get some suitable fabric now as I don't like the polycottons I've got in and there isn't enough of the black anyway. So, I must go and get something new. I fancy a silk effect fabric that's fully washable and that I can also with make a piping for for the edges, or can get something to match easily. Will show that and the threads when I have it to show.

Ahhhh, home again. How nice!

Mmmm, how lovely it is to be home. I'm jet-lagged to high heaven, wrecked from the yacky 25 hour-door-to-door journey and haven't got my land legs back yet, but I'm happy to be home. Whilst typing this, I'm also in the process of making the first meal I've made (other than putting together a few fruit salads) since Sunday 23 March! As the taxi driver on the way home from the aiport rightly said yesterday morning - I won't be wanting any Chinese food for a while!!!

So, here are some more photos that I took a day or so before leaving Taiwan which, while of nothing special, give some more idea of what city life is like over there (and also why it's nice to be back in quiet and relatively well spaced out northern England!). The bottom floor (ground floor for Europeans, 1st floor for others) is usually a shop of some sort. Often above that are a few floors of offices and other businesses, (training places, hairdressers etc), then come several floors of homes.

<-This is an art shop. It hasn't come out as well as I'd hoped as I really wanted to convey the crampedness of many Taiwanese shops. From the guy standing there, you get an idea of the width of the whole enterprise and you can just see the displays either side of the narrow passage from the door. There's more behind each display!!

Onto stitching topics and here's all I managed to do on the Goldfinches during the journey over to Taiwan:

Rotten photo taken in bad light in our room over there. Taiwanese apartments can be so dark as everything is so cramped together!










I think I did another 3 or 4 sessions on it whilst there and this is the current status as I did nothing stitch-wise on the way back. I just felt ugh from start to finish and watched 1½ in-flight movies and tried to get some sleep instead!! Last night whilst not letting myself go to bed too early, (although I think I could have gone anytime from 8pm really, we went about 9.30pm), I put in the top-stitching on the Blue-tits and am looking forward to getting them finally done. They've got 2 marks on them thanks to having been in progress and not well looked after for at least 9 months now, so I will need to wash that one before it can be framed.

This is some of the stash I bought whilst out there. Here you can see a large piece of light green satin fabric, (much larger than you can see here, it's folded several times), which I paid only NT$45 for (about 75p or US$1.50) and more than a dozen Taiwanese made embroidery ribbons. All but one are 5mm width (the other is a 7mm one) and they are made of nylon, not silk, but I think they're lovely and should wash and last well. They were NTS70 each (the 7mm one being NT$90), which is only about £1.20. You have to pay about £3 for most things of ribbon here and I thought they would be nice as trimmings on the bags I plan to make. I'll showcase all the fabrics I got for those when they come - we sent them back sea mail last Friday or so, so they won't be here until late May at the earliest.=(

This is the shop I bought the ribbons at, which was a 15 minute walk from where we were staying. It's a quilting shop really, who also sell sewing machines and a few other things and run quilting classes etc. One of the ladies there helped me to learn the Chinese for various needlcrafts!!=)

Here are the Chinese nick-nacks I brought back for a few friends and colleagues. Most of my friends have got so many Chinese things that I didn't think it was worth getting loads for everyone, but I did promise things to one or two and also to former Language Centre colleagues as Chinese things are more of a novelty to them.=)