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The stitch for week 33 was Pekinese Stitch and I realized that I had used it before but didn't know that was what it was called! Check out those swirls, and the border of the rusty-colored circle bottom right: Anyway, here is what I stitched out last

In the Janet Perry Mittens & Mini-Socks bargello "club", I finished the "Japanese Maple" set for August. and On 18 ct canvas, I used DMC Variegate 106 for the "Japanese Maple" strip and DMC987 for the background. DMC 500 is the cuff. As is my

Catching up on "smalls"! Take a Stitch Tuesday, Week 34, was the "Linked Double Chain". I did it as both a straight line and a meander, using perle cotton: Color Through The Ages, Lesson 6, was "Colors of the Amish" and took the form of a log

WIPocalypse update for August's Blue Moon"! What did I do this past "moon"? Well, there were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Cast On stitch, Pekinese Stitch, Linked Double Chain, and sheaf stitch, shown here: along with the completed "page"

Since this week included a WIPocalypse report, there isn't a whole lot new to report today. But I did get in more stitching on "Birds of a Feather" --- past the half-way mark in the dark blue in the center:

We've been given a break to catch-up --- and if we are caught up, we are to take 3 – 6 of the stitches we have have done so far and create an interesting visual piece that will encourage new hands or busy hands to learn and to “catch up”. In other

Except for completing the eye-candy challenge for TAST and printing out the new charts for Janet Perry's Stash Buster and Mittens & Mini-Socks series, all I did this week was stitch on "Birds of a Feather". Progress is slow but it is progress (two

And have a few completions to show for it! First, the Take a Stitch Tuesday for week 37, which was the "pistil" or long tack knot stitch. I'm sure there are uses for it besides being the pistils of flowers but I wasn't think very imaginatively

This weekend is International Hermit & Stitch Weekend for September and I am stitching on "Birds of a Feather", which is here right now: So, in order to have the weekend clear for "Birds", I decided to finish as many of the outstanding small

I put in a total of 2032 stitches in on "Birds of a Feather" this weekend and only have two more DMC colors to go before I have to start on metallics, speciality stitches and beads! So it was a good weekend!

I continued on with "Birds of a Feather" and actually got started on the metallic threads! Maybe you can see some of the bling in the right-hand and top borders? I suppose I could have continued but my conscience was bothering me --- so many pieces

I struggled with this one --- somehow, the color choices didn't resonate with me, even though MOST of them were used in other blocks. I suspect the black and gray are the culprits, although I am getting a tad tired of blue and orange! LOL The color

First of all, I finished week thirty-nine of Take a Stitch Tuesday - the Knotted Buttonhole Stitch: Here is the page with the September stitches: And I also stitched the September installments of "Kimono- Revisited": In all, a pretty

What did I do this past "moon"? Well, there were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Pistil Stitch, Drizzle Stitch, and Knotted Buttonhole Stitch; and "Autumn Break" sampler, and the completed "page" for September. • The September Stash

The stitch is the Beaded Hebedo Edge and while it started out logically, I ended up melting down last night when trying to actually do the Hebedo part of the stitch. Not a hardanger person here and I simply couldn't picture what I was doing. MANY

A day without internet, thanks to a gardening husband and his sharp little spade adn a very close encounter with the internet cable! But I have to give him credit --- after finding out from customer service that it wouldn't be until monday after 5 PM

Two finishes for the Janet Perry Mittens & Mini-Socks bargello class... Autumn Trees, completed October 10, 2012, using all variegated threads (except for the tree trunk): Threads used - DMC 3031 for trunks; DMC 4126 for cuff; for tree leaves,

I haven't touched "Birds of a Feather" in over two weeks, and TAST - week 41 is barely in progress. It's been a busy week off the needle and all I have accomplished, really, is completion of a Mitten & Mini-Sock. But I can share the latest update

This week, the stitch was the Knotted Loop Stitch and while it wasn't that difficult to do, I couldn't get to it until last night (lots of late nights - Girls Night Out on Tuesday, Quilt Guild on Friday - and early mornings - volunteering on the NPR phone

Week forty-two's stitch was the Italian Knotted Loop border stitch. Here is my attempt, five ways!

It was a week of challenges; not all in the stitching camp however! This is the week our roof is being torn off and replaced so of course, it's raining,. Not heavily but enough to keep the roofers away. Of the five work days this week 9adn it was

I put in roughly 9 hours of stitching over the three days of ISHW and finished all the corner squares in the border of "Birds of a Feather" and started on the backstitching (the top right and right center blocks are all backstitched now)... - not that you

This week's stitch is the buttonhole wheel cup. I tried it twice with two strands of GAST and the second step kept distorting the buttonhole wheel and the buttonhole stitch didn't "stand up" but rather formed a web inside the rim (see the picture on the

A lot of time spent this week, avoiding the banging on the roof (the roofers are done; today it's the gutter people)and trying to get posts through to a forum that had suddenly gotten fractious and wasn't behaving nicely. So, except for TAST, all I

What did I do this past "moon"? Well, there were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border, and the Buttonhole Wheel Cup. • The October Stash Buster from Janet Perry (the very last

I was having a mental block on color choices for this one --- the examples shown in the instructions didn't resonate with me, somehow, perhaps because of all the Chinese "stuff" we accumulated in Beijing, a lot of which was on white backgrounds and even

This week's stitch was a fixed-base needle-woven picot stitch: and here is the "page" for October which includes the Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border, Buttonhole Wheel Cup and the fixed-base needle-woven picot:

This week, I caught up on the pale blue fan stitches in the border for "Birds of a Feather": Completed the latest assignments of Color Trough the Ages and TAST 2012, picked fabrics for the November Color Palette Challenge: and started on the last 13

The finished piece is 15" X 18" on 24 ct. pale blue Congress cloth (24 ct), using various ThreadWorX, DMC (cotton, rayon *and* metallic) and Carrie's Creations (Black Cherry) threads and several shades of Kreinik #8 and #12 braid. The color scheme is

This week it was the Open-base Needle-woven Picot stitch --- not a whole lot different in execution from the previous week's Closed-base Needle-woven Picot stitch: A wider base is all, I think. Here is mine:

This is a Hillcroft House design --- a name shield based on interpretation of the meaning and origins of a name:

In the past week, there have been a few "completions"! The first, and biggest, is "Kimono - Revisited" which is now ready for the framers! The second was the weekly TAST - the open base needlewover picot stitch. The third was the Hillcroft House

Week 46's stitch is the Checkered, or Magic, Chain stitch. Here is mine, forming a stem for my open-based needle-woven picot stitch flower. I used GAST "Harvest Basket" and Forest Glade" as my alternating colors... I did try to be creative and use

In addition to week forty-six of Take a Stitch Tuesday (the checkered chain), I stitched on a new start this week --- a Michael Powell piece called "Home Sampler" (I Had a case of startitis): and a little on "Birds of a Feather" (Note the lazy daisy

As promised, I worked almost exclusively on "Birds of a Feather" and its border speciality stitches. In all 288 individual detached chain stitches (AKA Lazy Daisies): Next step - metallic stitches in the border --- Just couldn't face that last night so

The Portuguese Border Stitch. Kind of fun to do, and fast. I have to watch my tension, and play with curves and the like, but I think this one will become one of my preferred seam treatments! I used two kinds of threads in this piece... #5 perle in a

In addition to this week's TAST and last weekends IH&SW, I put in a few days stitching on Michael Powell's "Home Sampler": Otherwise it was Thanksgiving week so that meant prep time of a day, the actual day and a day of clean-up after... COuple that

Lesson 9 in the "Color Through The Ages" class is all about colors from the "Mod Era" of the 1960s! This twinchie is stitched using DMC blanc, 307, 792, 906, 970, 3607, and metallic 5283 threads and was completed November 24, 2012:

This is the "Beaver Moon" and I have made the following progress since the last full moon... What did I do this past "moon"? FInishes were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Fixed base woven picot, Open base woven picot, checkered chain,

Week 48's stitch is the Arrowhead stitch, something I had done before not knowing it had a name! Anyway, here is is, on the completed November "page" along with the open base woven picot, the checkered chain, and the Portuguese border.

I pretty much spent this past week working on the Michael Powell "Home Sampler" although I did take a day off to do Color Through the Ages, another day off to do TAST and last night off to go see New York Polyphony in concert at the university (if you

Buttonhole Eyelet Flower... NOT something I will come back to willingly. I just don't do stitches where my hands feel like they are ten times too large for the needle adn the stitches come out all wonky like this: Besides, I can't think of a single use

The Color Palette Challenge threw a curve ball this month --- mono chromatic! It doesn't FIT with all the other eleven challenges and so I'm thinking I won't count it in my Quilt Journal or Bead Journal Project Challenges. Instead, I will search out

This week, in addition to the TAST already posted, I concentrated on Birds of a Feather and the December color palette/crazy quilt journal/bead journal project square. Given that the color palette challenge this month didn't quite "fit" with my other

A study in how thread choice and thread color can change the look of a simple wave bargello pattern... and I used DMC 4230 for the "sky" and DMC 909, 930 and 3756 for the "sea"...

"Birds of a Feather is complete! I was beginning to think it wa going to drag on forever (I checked and the first stitches were put in in July!). So here it is, a design by Yvonne Horn of Papillon Creations, puclished in "The Gift of Stitching", Issue

Here is my take on the berry stitch --- I made up a few "forget-me-not" type flowers in perle cotton:

Well, aside from the finishes posted earlier this week (TAST, "Birds of a Feather" and Mittens & Mini-Socks "Sea and Sky"), I have no works in progress to show you... I haven't touched the Michael Powell "Home Sampler" since Novemebr 30 so it's on the

Well, I promised that I would work on Michael Powell's "Home Sampler" and I did. Not having touched it since November 30, when it looked like this: I think I made some good progress over the weekend, despite a spate of Christmas shopping with husband:

There was a TAST for this week but I haven't started it yet, and there was a Color Through the Ages piece but I haven't started it either. Instead, I worked away on the Michael Powell "Home Sampler". Did pretty well until last night when I had to rip out

It's called "Sweden" and there were two color palette possiblities. Since I'm burned out on blue, at least for now, I went with a green version: The threads used were DMC blanc as background, DMC 498 as the red "Accent" and various shades of light

And the last stitch for 2012 - the Knotted Cable Chain. I THOUGHT I had this one down but it sure doesn't look like the samples. For some reason, the large loop of the cable slipped down into the twisted chain. No clue what I did wrong... but after

The last WIPocalypse of the year and I have a little to share...Finishes were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Arrowhead, Buttonhole Eyelet Flower, Berry Stitch, and Knotted Cable Chain stitches • The December Color Palette

This past week saw the first snow to fall here in over 300 days! We got about half-an-inch on Christmas Eve, two inches on Boxing Day and as much as another inch last night. It looks a winter wonderland outside! From the front door... And from the back

Here is "Home Sampler", designer Michael Powell stitched on 27-ct even weave (antique White) using 32 colors (and 11 blends) of Anchor floss. Completed December 29, 2012. I have a piece picked out for my next start --- it's a blackwork Mandala by

I'm not happy with my completion rate in 2012. I had several, but all but 6 were small needlepoint stitch exercise pieces (I was working several Janet Perry exercises: learn-a-stitch stockings, the Bargello Club, the Stash Busting Club, Mini-Socks &