Carol Harper's most read articles

Can't really add anything to my report that wasn't already detailed in my WIPocalypse report. During the past week, I completed bands 8 and 9 on the Mystery Band Sampler, stitches Stitches 106 and 107 (Cretan Looped and beaded Cretan Looped stitches) for the Take a Stitch Tuesday series, and finished my April Crazy Quilt Journal Project block. Coming up in the next week are stitches 108 and 109 for Take a Stitch Tuesday, blocks 6 and 7 of the "Save the Stitches" (I hope to stitch on them n…

With this past week being both a WIPocalypse and International Hermit and Stitch check-in week, you'd think I'd not have a lot to report today. And you'd be right! Apart from the finishes reported for these two milestones, all I've managed to do is get a few more stitches in the the Roll Your Own mandala "Reloaded": Still plugging away on the fifth color... The third lesson for the finishing class from Funk & Weber is now online and I'm still on lesson 1! What I get for all these onlin…

Another completion! Here is my Crazy Quilt Journal Project Challenge 2014 block for the month of June: As in the previous five months of blocks, the fabrics, trims, floss and beads are all based upon a Hoffman Challenge focus fabric. And after six months of working in the same color palette, I have learned two things: 1) I need variety to keep up my interest and 2) patterns are harder for me to incorporate into crazy quilting than solids and batiks that read as solids! Hey, lesson learn…

A busy week, but not for stitching! After last Wednesday's report from Georgetown, South Carolina, we headed north to Asheville, NC for the American Hemerocalis Society national convention. First day was spent touring the Billtmore Estate: where I bought a little "souvenir" kid to stitch while I waited for the other 300+ people to finish with the gardens and the winery tour: This pretty much wiped out the day. Next day was a bus tour of three gardens, all daylilies, although one ha…

This month's question for discussion is: "What newer designers and product creators (fabric or floss dyeing, etc) out there have you discovered and recommend?" Well, given I have taken over two years "off" from stitching, I have to say I am not really following designers/stitching products these days so I haven't discovered anyone/anything new, nor would I dare to recommend any. ~~~~~ In March, we were challenged to do one stitch a day minimum, every day and I decided it would be one…

It's that time again --- time to check in and confess that it's been ages since I last stitched on anything. I did try on a soon-to-be UFO back in February - all of 50 stitches before my hand, and patience with the backstitched letters, gave out. And all my good intentions have been stymied by lack of motivation. I really don't LIKE that WIP and the other BIG one I have in "progress" is all blackwork which I can't face right now (I KNOW my hand won't stand up to that frame...). I have been conte…

Question of the month: What SAL’s are you participating in this year? Well, for someone who hasn't stitched for nearly a year, I was overly ambitious. I signed up for four SALs, in addition to WIPocalypse! I thought maybe they'd keep me diverted from my BAP UFO/WIPs and allow me to get in some practice on linen/evenweave. SAL #1 is the Stitchonomy Year of SALs . It appealed to me because it came in small installments over a two month period for each SAL, with the first one - "Homel…

The discussion topic for this month is: " Half-year recap: How are you doing with your goals so far this year?" ​I'd laugh if it weren't so sad. No progress. Not a stitch. Even my attempts at organization ave stalled out at the bin of DMC floss that needs putting away. I'm really having difficulty getting motivated. Heck, I have even spent several hours this weekend updating out financial records, which I absolutely HATE to do. And in two days, I have brought six months of arrears in my en…

Midnight Garden, a blackwork piece designed by Elizabeth Almond: and a close-up showing (barely) some of the beading detail:

"Reloaded", the second mandala in the Roll Your Own series designed by Tracey Horner, is now complete. I stitches it in the Tropical Seas color palette on Silkweaver's Iris Garden (32 ct Jobelin). And here it is next to it's "ancestor" the original "Roll Your Own": Only seven more to go! Next up, "Bride of RYO"! But first, I have to catch up with other pieces!

It felt like a really really good week. I got three pieces off my WIPlist (TAST #83, Bling it On! and August BJP butterfly) and actually got in some cross-stitching - and the Ajisai blackwork "Puppy Dog": All other items in my work bag were ignored but since there is an October butterfly to take the place of the August one (and September hasn't even been designed yet!) and an October Crazy Quilt block coming up as well, I'm really no closer to clearing the decks than I was last week.

In addition to my weekly wrap-up, this is also report-in day for WIPocalypse! Wipocalypse question of the month: "Am I a Halloween or Christmas stitcher?" Well, I'm not either, really. For a while, I stitched a lot of Halloween things, mainly ornaments. I have several dozen Christmas ornaments that decorate two artificial tress each season. I need more --- one of the trees is a little sparse and I calculate I need about 4 dozen more --- 12 of which are "underway", but these twelve are my…

Thanks to International Hermit and Stitch Weekend for December, I finally got in some stitchery! I sat down at the sewing machine and stitched together the last three blocks of my 2014 Crazy Quilt Journal Project: All it needs now is a border (or two, quilting and binding! Yeah, right, ALL it needs! LOL I have two other tops in the same stage of assembly --- requiring borders, quilting and binding. Think I'll get them done before the end of the year? Not likely! But at least I made so…

In this month's report, we are to answer the following questions: "What SAL’s are you participating in this year? and If you are participating in the Olympic Stitching Challenge, what challenge are you accepting? What are your goals?" I partially answered these questions on January 7 in the initial blog of the year but I will restate: The only SAL I have on schedule this year is WIPocalypse. However, I am collecting the bands from the Linen & Threads Mystery sampler and I reserve the rig…

The question for this full moon was: "What designs or themes do you really wish you could find? What do you think is missing among stitching designs?" Well, I have to say I'm a rather eclectic stitcher and can usually find something to stitch without looking too long or hard (heck, my stash of charts, magazines and books is large enough to net a fair number of $$$ in a garage sale should I ever get around to setting one up). I can't offhand think of anything I can't find... I'm more of the…

It seems a shame to use a blog post to report on nothing but... I haven't done any stitching since I reported in on Sunday about International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. I did do some papercrafting, entering challenge #7 of the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge and clearing the decks of six unfinished cards from May 30 and the Create 2014 event, and have posted them on my Carol Stamps blog. Otherwise, it's been a mad whirlwind of appointments, catching up with plumbers, building inspec…

In this past week, I have completed Stitch #133 for Take a Stitch Tuesday (the Triple Chain): finished the outline for "Bride" in the RYO mandala series from Tracy Horner: assembled the basic block for my October Crazy Quilt Journal piece: and kitted out my October Bead Journal piece. Not bad, considering my ailing stitching mojo and the ever-present frog on"Bride'! I also completed a can't-put-it-down darn-it-it's-a-cliffhanger-ending book by Deborah Crombie ("To Dwell in…

My September butterfly for the Bead Journal Project. I call it Autumn Leaves but, as my husband so kindly informed me, I put it on the wrong background. This butterfly has assumed camoflage!

These stitches are the Beaded Vandyke and the Bullion Vandyke. I know I can do Vandyke. I've done it before in TAST and I did it here: But ask me to put beads on it and it goes all wonky: and as for bullion stitches on it (especially since I hate bullion stitches - I think my fingers are just to big and clumsy to handle all those winds around the needle), even wonkier still: Still, I completed this assignment (with a lot of grumbling, to be sure - ever try to frog a bulli…

Over the weekend, I pieced the basic block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project challenge for August and sketched out my Bead Journal Project atc/ornament for the month as well. I also got out the "Biltmore" kit and sorted and identified threads according to the DMC color chart (some were so close in color, I couldn't be sure which was which!). Then, on Sunday night, I finished up the Crazy Quilt Journal piece: I had a blood draw on Monday for my semiannual check-up, and since I was in the n…