Equilibrium

I am feeling this week like my optimal balance is out of whack. The weight of life and family commitments is drawing on my resources. You know, all that stuff you don't really want to do but have to do! Despite having a fairly sizeable and weighty stash on one side of my balancing act the other side keeps weighing me down to that hum drum side. I keep adding stash to try and compensate so I can make it to the woo hoo side ....but it's not working!!!!!!!!!!

All those Mum's out there will know just what I mean when I say that there's four of us in this family, so that's three people wanting my attention all to themselves, those three people see only one person....as for me.... it's all three at once and no fourth....you'all know who that fourth is right?

Consequently the vast majority of what I have achieved this week seems to be prep with a little peek of a newbie I have been working on for a couple of weeks. 

First up, the ongoing saga of Mountmellick. Whilst seeming fairly easy peasy and stress free this part 4 border involves a reasonable bit of time just cutting, pinning, stitching and pressing. I have never done hour glasses before and thought the cutting was quite clever. Four squares of fabric, a light and a dark each with right sides together and on top of each other. Cut corner to corner diagonally and voila four triangle groups with each colour to make four hour glass squares. Nifty.

The four hexie flowers for the four corner border squares. Aren't they sweet!

And here they are placed on the fabric ready to be stitched and cut into squares. This is the only hand stitching for this border.

Two piles of hour glasses....two to go....

Here's the next lot awaiting stitching...they've been waiting there a few days now!

I am so hoping to finish this up in the next week, the rest of this week is not looking flash for time spent in my studio though.....darn it!

Now I also did a teeny tiny but of prep for a future project. The tracing is done. Guess what I am going to try my hand at....never done this before! Loving those cute as little balls of Valdani 3ply! This is Manor at Strawberry Hill by the amazingly talented Brenda Gervais.

The other project that has been going a couple of weeks is also something never before attempted by me in either traditional of modern style. It isn't going too badly and I am loving the result. 

I am adoring the french vanilla look of this design. The threads and beads are cool to work with. Dancing Threads is a great name for this project.

Can you tell I am winging it....I have learnt the basics of needle weaving and can see now that I need many more warp threads but I am still loving the outcome.

Winging it with a little bit of help....ok...a lot of help....

.... from Hazel's new book! Hazel, your designs rock and crewel is cool.

Off to do some more balancing....have  a great week 

Rae

The Climbing Of Mountmellick

At last, Mountmellick Part 3 has been 'knocked off'. The pinnacle has been reached and the steepest part of the mountain climbed. At times it flelt like a vertical rock face. That part 3 border sure was a trek into the upper echelon for me. It seemed to go on forever but at the same time was a totally rewarding and utterly satisfying journey. And the result, well the result just speaks for itself....

Broderie perse is challenging, extremely time consuming and a whole lot of gorgeous fussiness. I love it! Not sure I would want to do it all the time though!!!

I feel like the journey up Mountmellick has plateaued as I head into Part 4. Part 4 is simple, not many hexies and no broderie perse....aaagh, I should have this border wrapped up before the next issue of Quiltmania is released in September. Better get on with cutting those hour glasses!

After all that applique was done I managed to squeeze another Patchwork of the Crosses block into the end of the week. Here's my latest combo....

Hope you have a fantastic week.
Rae

FNwF and Goodbye Procrastination

Last night was my first night joining in with the Friday Night With Friends (FNwF) ladies over at Gone Stitchin

It's kinda nice sitting in on a Friday evening knowing that there are other's sharing their comfy stitching chair with you. I'm sure going to enjoy visiting the other blogs over the weekend to see what everyone got up to.

Thanks for sharing your time with me ladies.

So onto sharing my accomplishments for the evening. I worked on a couple of projects last night. One was an actual finish, the last step for that project and the other was another small step in a very big and very long project.

The Finish....now anyone who follows my blog will know that things don't move very often from the WIPs to the Finishes label. I tend to work on larger projects that take an age and I have many on the go. This finish all up took me only around 48 hours to complete, that's the accountant in me keeping a rough tally of the time spent each day on a spreadsheet, I just knew that career choice would be handy for something I actually like doing...lol. But you need to know that I actually started this project on the 1st January and it is now the 1st of August....7 months for 48 hours work....an indication that my project rotation is rather large....but it was worth the wait....

The Winter Casket Keepsakes is finished. Once I finished procrastinating about starting the jolly finger braiding and did a test sample in a thicker thread, it turned out there were only 8 steps to the pattern and 3 of those steps were tensioning. What was I worried about! Oh, and Amy Mitten's written instructions were as easy to follow as ever and I didn't need a video. BTW, thanks so much to all those of you who sent me a link to a video of the finger loop braiding. I did look at them and they were most helpful for basic understanding however the pattern was specific to the project and so I returned to Amy's instructions.

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Now back to the finish....Here's my sample braiding done the previous day....

....and here's the for real braids x 2 that I did Friday in preparation for my FNwF stitching in my comfy chair....

All I needed to do last night was to thread the braid through the eyelets ....

....and voila....

Aren't they just so darling. A needle keep and a thread winder keep. These are designed as casket toys and only measure a teeny 3 inches from top to toe. Thanks Amy for another cool design. Next is Spring Keepsakes and a truckload of needlelace petals.

So with Winter Casket Keepsakes duly completed I picked up the next project....my Patchwork of the Crosses. This is what block #4 is starting to look like. I am loving this project and getting to actually use my stash in imaginative ways is way cool. PotC is very addictive!!! 

So that was my Friday night....how was your's?....off to make a cuppa and check out what fun the other FNwFers had.

Rae