Carol Harper's most read articles

This week's stitches were the Barb Stitch and the Beaded Barb Stitch. I found this stitch easy to do and like the final look of it as well.

This week was dominated by Christmas aa Borther-in-law's and two nights of catching up on DVDs of "Midsomer Murders" (only four series to go!). But I also beaded. And I got my December Bead Journal Project ornament completed, JUST under the wire! Snowy, my owl, entered an "Ugly Holiday Sweater" contest during this week, and I think he has a chance to win, don't you? And once I finished with Snowy, I pulled out Elizabeth Almond's "Save the Stitches and put in the outlines for installments…

In the event that you are not familiar with WIPocalypse, it is a yearly challenge by Measi's Musings where Melissa, the blog owner states: "The WIPocalypse was a stitch-a-long playing up on the joke that the world will end in 2012. It’s short for Works In Progress Apocalypse."The goal of the WIPocalypse is to make progress on your projects. How you go about this is your choice." Since then, there have been WIPocalypse SALs each year and this year is the start of WIPocalypse 2018. Eac…

Having completed (this past weekend) the "Spawn" segment of "Roll Your Own", a set of 9 mandalas designed by Tracey Horner of InkCircles, I put in some time starting borders of two of the last three mandalas... a partial right side of "Revenge" on the left and the top of "Rematch" on the right (which will be the center eventually) "Return" has yet to be started: I was simply positioning the motifs so they would line up with the top row *and* be the same distances apart as all the…

The final WIPocalypse post of the year has the theme "Recap your accomplishments for the year! " This will be easy because this is one of the least productive stitchery years I have had in ages. Travel, a series of nasty respiratory infections and just general malaise pretty much dominated... At the end of 2014, I set the following goal: "I hope to make 2015 a year of catching up and maybe even re-organizing my crafting space (which is currently a hot mess!). So my stitching goals are to f…

Well, in addition to completions of TAST Stitch #100 and my February BJP ornie, I made progress on "Roll Your Own" - 9 full colors and half of a tenth!

Below is a row of Rice Stitch varieties and some Square Box Stitches in three sizes... What is missing is the original, plain Jane Rice Stitch. As usual, I misread the tutorial...

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…

A completion to celebrate the end of 2015! Well, part of one, anyway! I finished "Revenge": and here is how the "Roll Your Own" Mandalas look today: Other than that, Christmas day at brother-in-law's and then again on Sunday (for the other two in-law families who were in town for the day), lunch with the widow of one of husband's dear friends, and an eye-appointment on New Year's Eve (which is why I'm late with this check-in) took up my week. Not a great year for stitching (see…

Various things are getting in the way of stitching in the next few weeks, but I did manage to get the outlining of blocks 10 and 11 done on Friday night for "Save the Stitches": Here is how these new blocks fit into the sampler so far: I also started the outline for the third Roll Your Own mandala, "Bride": My traveling needlepoint will be coming out of limbo for the next few weeks... This is where it stood since the las trip, a cruise back in 2011: and this is how fa…

This month's theme question is "Do you start your holiday stitching this early? If so, what do you hope to accomplish this year?" In the past, I have done holiday ornaments (I can decorate two Christmas trees with the ornaments I have made in the last decade or two), and I have made two or three gifts (for people that I KNOW will appreciate the theme and the work that went into producing the item) in that same time period, but, as a rule, I don't do holiday stitchery. I don't stitch well t…

Put in one evening of stitching after International Hermit and Stitch Weekend pt 2, and got one more color done in "Cindy": Nothing else to report on except late autumn weather in August. Weird! This was one of the wettest summers on record, and one of the coolest, I suspect (only two days at 90 or over, and low 50-degree nights are pretty unusual too!). Bad weather for vegetable gardening, but the daylilies loved it!

Topic: Pick one of the WIP pieces you’ve stitched on this month, and tell us about your stitching journey with the piece. Well, I have two BAPs that have been ongoing since 2013! The first (which I did NOT stitch on this month) is "Save the Stitches", a blackwork sampler design by Elizabeth Almond. I started this back in early February, 2014 and it is now nearly half completed It was last touched in early April, 2015: The other, which I did stitch on this month, was the series of…

The topic for this month is: "Are you a seasonal stitcher, or can you stitch on any holiday/seasonal stitch at any time of year?"​ ​I don't consider myself a "seasonal stitcher" in that I stitch whatever appeals to me at the time. However, there are seasonal items which get started (and sometimes finished) ahead of the season when the magazines and charts start appearing on the market for Halloween and Christmas. Both seem to start in September of each year although there are some hints earl…

Snow today (heavy and with winds so it's drifting - predicted somewhere around 8"), I need to make a casserole for quilt guild Thursday night and we are expecting house guests either Sunday or Monday so stitching won't be a priority this week, I fear. But that's OK because this past month has been a "Stitchathon" at Cross Stitch Crazy and I managed to participate since I had all my February non-stitchy deadlines accomplished when it started. I put in a total of 14826 stitches between Februa…

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…

I did stitch this week. Not a varied routine but I stitched and frogged and stitched and frogged on the John Clayton "Golfer - Fairway" and got all but a few stitches of the greens in page one and got started on the second green on page two. The golfer is even more apparent now: The greens aren't the grass greens shown on the chart's cover photo --- more olive and lime green. But the background is beginning to take shape!BJP Owl is kitted, but I didn't work on either of those *or* on "Save…

After completing my June block for the crazy Quilt Journal and Bead Journal Projects, I went to my stash to get out the new muslin I had ordered for foundation piecing... and discovered that it wasn't muslin! It was a quality fabric with a pattern, however faint, and I wasn't about to cut it up for foundations, no matter how desperate I was to get back on track! So I decided to pull out "Roll Your Own" again, and work on the outline for "Jan". Despite a few bouts of frogging due to tangled threa…

The topic of the month is: "Talk to us about your longest-running WIP or UFO." ​Well, it all depends on what you want --- WIP? UFO? The project I will talk about has aspects of both. My longest running WIP (I still consider it that since it resides in my work bag in my stitching area and not in the cabinet of long-unfinished pieces) is Elisabeth Almond's "Save the Stitches" blackwork sampler; I started it February 24, 2014: and last worked on it April 9, 2015: It is stitched in…

This was the weekend for staying in and stitching. Football on television, snow on Sunday --- what better excuses, right? But for some reason, I had trouble motivating and didn't stitch every day, so my progress is miniscule. I worked at color #5 (of 12) on "Revenge", the seventh of the "Roll Your Own Mandalas". It is almost done --- I'd estimate a little less than 50% complete: