Fanfare please!

THE HARDANGER CUSHION COVER IS FINALLY COMPLETED AND SEWN UP!

You can see more detail in this photo which I took this of the cover alone, (i.e. not on the cushion), and left it full size so you can see more clearly what it really looks like. It's a Mary Hickmott design called 'Delicate Dreams' and was originally intended to be done with mid-pink flowers and yellow gold beads.

Other news is that I've decided to give up my German classes and officially withdraw. I passionately did not want to do the assessments and the course content is simply not what I need. I need to be able to deal with everyday life and chatter better, not to put the world to rights. Yes, linguistics, climate change and so forth are very interesting to me, but that's not what I want my German for. I need it for personal interaction with my German friends and family, so to be able to get stuck into domestic matters, general interests, what we and they have been doing and so on. I have having wasted the money, but as DH says, put it down to experience and consider more carefully before enrolling on courses! It may be £124 wasted, but I do feel a lot lighter for it! Funnily enough, my baby sis in Germany said that she feels her English is inadequate for chatter. She will have spent the last few years talking about issues and writing academic pieces on them and gets great marks, but lacks some social interaction stuff, so I guess it's par for the course with higher level language classes!

Started Beading

Gosh! Thanks for all the lovely comments that you've made! One even came in whilst I was preparing the WIP photo for today's posting, 'Just a mo, I'm about to update....' LOL!!

So, I've started on the beading. There are 788 altogether and I've done 108 of them. It took just about 90 minutes, so that's 13.7% done at an average speed of about 1.2 beads per minute. Should take 11 hours in total, 9½ to go!!!! Bead-o-math!!!!LOL=) Here's a close-up of the mostly beaded corner:

Pleased with Rapid Progress

The cushion cover is coming on well. What do you think so far?

I'm a bit ahead of schedule now, thanks to being able to do a lot yesterday. I couldn't go to work as I was really unwell, (feeling quite a bit better today for the rest, I think, but still under the weather and a sinus headache too, yack!), but managed to be well enough later in the day to finish the back stitch, then do the cutting out and finally to wrap all 4 large diamonds and 13 of the smaller areas. Just 7 of those to go (you can see them at the bottom and bottom right), then square filet filling (also nice and quick), then onto the beading. NOT looking forward to such a lot of beading, but I'll have about a week to do it all in, about 100 per day.....

As always with me, this photo was taken first thing in the morning, so it excludes the day's work which I will start on sooooooon! Just wish I could manage to get nice photos that don't show all those horrid lines on the fabric....=(

History of a Hardanger Cushion Cover!!

The Hardanger cushion cover is very much back in progress, despite the eternal dog not yet being finished. He'll have to wait a little longer as some pressing things are coming up! Anyway, I started this piece in November '05 and was making it as a wedding present for someone I know in Germany. I made a real mess of it though and ended up having to frog about 75% of the work I'd done that far. In sheer exasperation, I asked myself just why I was tying myself up in knots making a wedding gift for someone who I'd learned to no longer like very much and who probably wouldn't walk across a room to say 'Hi' to me? So, once it was frogged to within an inch of its life, I put it on one side.

Later on I decided that I would make it for someone I do like instead and as she was courting at the time, I thought it would do very nicely as an engagement present. As she showed me her ring yesterday, I thought I'd better get on with it, quick smart!!!!! So, here's what's been added of late:

Not much as you can see since late September when I posted the last up-date, but I've been doing the green back-stitch stuff over the last couple of days. I've now given myself 2 weeks to get it completed and finished up into a cushion/pillow cover (pillows only go on beds in the UK, but I know there are US English speakers out there too......!!!!LOL!!). Given the 888 beads that await me smugly in their little packets, I wonder if I'll manage to meet the goal, but either way I'm going to jolly well try!

Two late updates!

Has it really been more than two weeks? Yikes!

OK, so here are some WIP updates. The first is very late as it was done more than a week ago, (although it's been only a week since I completed moving all the books etc back in, which you can't see on this lil' pic), and it's the living room from more or less the same angle as I posted about 3 weeks ago. I thought it would make more sense that way! It's been really just renewing in here. No big changes like in other rooms, just keeping things the same so as not to have to buy new furniture etc. Wait 'til you see the hall when it's done....

The second is the latest on the hardanger cushion. I haven't been able to do much on it lately, but as you can see, I've completed all the satin and cable stitching. Next is the backstitch which will make the flowers seem more complete, then it's on to the cutwork, which won't take long as there isn't much and it's just wrapped bars and square filet filling - both the fastest going. Then is the eternal beading - 888 beads to go on this baby! Eeeeeek! I plan on doing those for the flower centres in purple and those for the buds in turquoise blue. Nothing more done on the dog as yet, but I think I shall take him to Ireland next week and work on him there. He'll have been in 4 countries then!!!

The weekend's WIPs

Eye-eye! Here's a close-up of the dog's eyes, (although I hope that was obvious!!) I'd done the eyes proper back in July, but put in the lids and the lower surrounds over the weekend. It's getting very crowded stitch-wise in that area! I'm glad to say that the next bit of the dog is to fill in the gaps in the forehead more or less down to the eyes and that is less intense. I can even do it in artificial light, as long as I make sure the colours are selected first.

I wanted to get all the satin stitching finished on the cushion and might have done so, but that I met the frog again! I put one element one line too far over and had to take it and the three that had been measured from it out. Not as bad as having to remove about three quarters of your work, like last time with this one, but a shame just the same. Hope to get it done today as well as the cable stitching around the four large white diamonds. The green back-stitching will take a while as there's a lot of it and I dread to think about the beading....

Oh, for the day these 2 are FINISHED! 'Happy dance' won't be in it! It'll be champagne breakfasts all around and a major street party!

Last night's work

Here's what we both did last night. Sir did some work in the living room and I did some stitching, (as I didn't feel well enough to help - got a rotten bug, AGAIN!). I got on with the hardanger cushion and have now got more than half of the thicker thread (#5) surface work done. With this one, there isn't a great deal of cutwork to do, but there is a lot of #8 cotton, thinner thread, stuff going on and well over 800 beads to contend with.....=( Here's what it looks like right now:

Sir fixed the part of the living room cornicing that was damged by the electricians putting that nasty trunking across the ceiling, inserted a new piece. Today it'll be fillled, smoothed and got ready for re-painting. He also fitted the proper living room light, which may seem a bit back-to-front to do that before re-painting the ceiling, but he says that, last time he did the celing around a temporary light fitting, the ceiling rose was larger and he ended up with an un-painted patch to re-do, so he'll just loosen this one when the time comes. I'm happy anyway as there's twice as much light as before and I love light.=) As well as sorting out the rest of the cornicing, he plans to smooth down this awful patch of plaster you can see here, strip the remaining wall-paper (from walls not visible on this shot), and also prepare paintwork for re-doing.

He's also almost through with his own read-through on his dissertation, then it's my turn to proof-read. I'm shopping with Mamma this morning, out with Jen this afternoon, then taking it easy for a bit to rest this virus through. I've been doing too much on a virus and need to rest, so Saturday is home day and I'm going to have a stitch-a-thon. Look out for updates on Sunday to both the dog and the cushion cover.=) I'm trying not to start anything new until these are done and they will both take a while and provide quite some variety within themselves. Then I'll feel much freer.

Oh yes, we got verbal (just waiting for written) confirmation that the wiring issues are resolved and have been awardrd £150 in re-decorating vounchers too! Yippee! That should pay for the stuff needed for both living room and bedroom. Going to buy paper on Tuesday, right after I register for a German course at LMU (Leeds Metropolitan University). Looking forward to moving Sir's language forward again.

Quick Update Before Hitting the Road

Just want to post a quick update on the current WIPs before I head off to Germany for the week, (would rather stay home though, I must confess.....)

Dog looks kinda surreal, doesn't he??? The left hand eye is a bit too round and needs elongating, but other than that, I'm quite pleased with them.

WIP Update as of 12 July

Good morning! Glad some of you are planning on trying hardanger. Something else I should have mentioned last posting is that hardanger embroidery works up quickly. So, if you're used to, and fed up of, the sheer amounts of time needed for cross stitch, then you'll enjoy the relative speed of hardanger.

Now, speaking of which, I actually did some on the cushion last night and here's progress so far. I counted every single element meticulously as I don't want a repeat performance of my first attempt with this piece, where getting one row of things one row of holes out caused me to have to take about 70% of the stitching I'd done out again! You can even see the old holes if you look closely at the pic (click on it for a full sized version).

This is the current status on the chaffinch piece. I'll probably be taking this one to Germany with me next week to work on/finish off there and the other day I ordered its companion 'Blue Tits and Seedheads' design. Hope that will come soon too.

Haven't done much on the dog beyond taking out the few remaining stitches from my first attempt at the eyes, (I made them too round), and re-drawing in the eye area on the fabric. Might just brave that later on this morning, but knowing me, I'll bottle out!!!!! I'm still getting zero done on old overdue work and not feeling any more comfy with it, so I'm just going to have to take myself in hand. I thought of bribing myself. Any other ideas?

#2 - Hardanger Cushion

Here's the hardanger cushion that I started on back in November. I got a lot further than this, then realised that I'd miscounted at the centre and had to frog it to what you can see here, i.e. not much left!! It's now ready for working on again and is mounted in one of those mammoth 17" snap frames. I've never worked with something that big before, so I wonder how I will get on with it. Should be able to comment on that tomorrow, all being well. I don't feel too ill, so I should have a reasonable day's work.=)

I frog, you frog, she frogs, we frog, they frog.....

Or how about some compound tenses in the conjugation of the verb 'to frog'? I would have frogged, you will have frogged, she should have frogged, they had frogged.... Is the German imperfect tense ich frag?? Or ich frogte?? Ich habe gefrogt! J'ai frogé. Yo he frogado. Wo frog le. What's the tone on the Mandarin??
OK, getting a bit silly now.......

So, I realised that it was the fact that I'd put one of the white, kloster block diamonds in the wrong place that gaffed it. I moved one diamond one row over, then realised that I had moved the wrong one, that that one had been in the right place and that it was the other one that needed moving..... As the other motifs were lined up with that, they're needing to come out to. So, I frog, I have frogged and I will frog as I didn't finish ripping out all my lovely stitches before going to bed last night, but almost all of the work so far has to come out.=(

Current WIP Status:

Did quite a bit of stitching on Tuesday evening and this is how far I got with the 2 things I'm doing at the mo. Hope to get some more done over the w/e, at least to finish the satin stitching on the cushion cover. It's not as nice to work as the last one, but that might also have something to do with not particularly liking the person I'm stitching it for.....!!!!!!! Still, I know that there are regular readers out there who like to see the progress, so just for you: (Thanks for the cheer-leading, by the way!=)


Nothing else remotely interesting to report, unless you count that lots of people I know are feeling like they're getting or have already got colds and that that makes me feel better as I have a swollen throat and tongue, a headache and feel very sleepy and wooly headed. Believe me, when recovering from almost 4 years with CFS/ME, these things make you panic!! I feel better it they're poorly too!!!!!!!!

Regular Tuesday Update!!!

Or so it seems, anyway!!!!!

Here's the progress on the latest hardanger cushion, i.e. not much really. I'm finding this one hard to get into, but I've done the kloster blocks on the 4 big white areas and worked in some more floral bits. This one is not as nice to stitch as the first one was and just wait until I get to the beading! If I calculated correctly, there will be 880 beads on this baby! Yeech!

I started another Textile Heritage bookmark kit in the car on the way to Nottingham on Sunday. Not much worth looking at yet, but borders never are inspiring, are they? I'll put in more on this as and when I can't quite face the hardanger, which in turn is done when I can't face the dog portrait, (i.e. all day, every day!!!!!!!!)

Finally, I won 2 lovely stumpwork kits by Coleshill Collection on E-bay over the weekend. Here they are too. I dread to think when they'll get done, but I might just take one on holiday with me next month..... There are a lot of contenders for the 'holiday stitching' spot. In order to not add more to it though, I decided not to go to this year's Knitting and Stitching Show. Yes, I know, it's sacrelige to miss it, but I just have SO-O-O-O much stuff and there's not much I really need that much that I must pay a tenner to go to the Show. I'll go to one of the others in the spring.

Photos Galore!

Lots of photos to share today! The first one is a card that my friend, Yang Liu, gave me the other day. I thought it was absolutely delightful. Here it is:

Next up is the stitching complete on the L*K piece. As anyone whose familiar with the original pattern will know, I've changed it a bit. As it will eventually be framed and hang outside our flat, I just put 'Welcome' on and centralised it rather than the whole 'Welcome all Seasons' bit. I changed a few colours too. For the lettering I just used GAST's 'Fragrant Cloves' as that had a lot of colour variation in it and I thought orange would be a nice change and stand out from the rest of the piece. I also made the strawberries dark red, (used GAST 'Buckeye Scarlet' in the end as the KK thread was really too bright for the whole tone of this piece), and the yellow flower 'Daffodil' instead of the duller shade prescribed. Anyway, we're pleased with the finished result and look forward to having a bit of cash to spare for framing! Here it is un-framed for the time being:

Last is the new WIP, another hardanger cushion/pillow cover. This one is a bit 'bittier' than the last one as the satin stitch blocks are a fair way apart and so there's a lot of stopping and starting. A few colour changes again in that the pink the designer used is being done in Anchor Multi-colour Blue Hawaii, one of my favourites and the bead work won't be yellow/gold, but will be that nice iridescent lilacy shade you can just make out in this photo:

Updates soon....