Incoherent Scribblings

“Catch the Wind” Tuesday

According to my highly sophisticated guesstimation system, I believe that I can safely say that I am now about 55% complete with “Catch the Wind.” As you can obviously see, I finished Anna’s skirt today and next week I will move onto her arms. What to say about this project? Not a whole lot: It is going smoothly, it is fun to stitch, and I definitely look forward to stitching on it each Tuesday.

Speaking of Tuesday, the reason that I stitch CtW on Tuesdays is because it is my SAL day with Cathy. About a month ago she told me that she was going to put hers aside for a while so she could focus on some other things, but I think she started working on it again last week.

I am just a wee bit jealous because Cathy is pretty close to a happy dance on her CtW. Though I didn’t figure I could, I must admit that I have been trying to catch up with her ever since I started mine because I thought it would be cool if we could finish about the same time. However, she has a huge head-start on me (I think she started in August vs. my December start) so despite my best efforts she will probably be done before me.

Nevertheless, each week that I work on CtW it puts me a little closer to finishing mine when Cathy finishes hers and if we are lucky we will both be finished before the end of the summer. And that would definitely be sweet!

Monday Stuff

Ta Da! My monthly Stitch-A-Thon goal has been met… Even though I must admit that including Monday afternoon into the “‘weekend” is stretching it a bit. However, the important part is that I got another pansy finished, right?

In other news, I learned that my partner for the Spring Exchange over at the SBEBB received her piece so now I can post a picture. I stitched Bent Creek’s “Signs of Spring” for Tammy on 30 count light green evenweave and finished it into a pillow. As with most Bent Creek patterns, “Signs of Spring” calls for overdyed floss but since I didn’t have any I just used the DMC recommendations. I really like these Bent Creek “Signs” patterns and will hopefully add the other three seasons to my stash soon.

So speaking of overdyed floss… As I said, I currently don’t have any in my stash. (Well, I have a couple of skeins of Dinky Dyes and three or four Weeks Dye Works that I have received in exchanges but not enough to stitch with.) However, I have recently become intrigued with experimenting with them so I decided to order some and stitch something that calls for them. (I know I am supposed to be on The Wagon until my birthday but in my defense I only ordered floss and some needles.)

The pattern I am planning on stitching calls for Weeks Dye Works and is Brittercup Designs “Britty Kitties: I Love My Cat.” The floss should get here sometime this week so look for a “fun with overdyed floss” entry in the near future!

And now I am off to cook dinner and, depending on my ambition, stitch some on “Above the Clouds” this evening.

Pansy Progress

I have chosen my Stitch-A-Thon piece for April.

Since I have not been very good about working on it for nearly a month, this weekend “Stiefmütterchen” is going to get some attention. (Actually I am cheating a little bit because I went ahead and started the Stitch-A-Thon today so that I can count the work I did today as part of my Stitch-A-Thon progress. Hee hee)

As of today this piece is now officially half-way done because since I last posted a picture I have completed two more pansies. The white one was completed last time I worked on it (March 24) and the maroon one was completed today.

I really didn’t like stitching the white pansy and I think that is why I have avoided this piece for a few weeks. First off, my fabric is a “natural” color so the white wasn’t completely impossible, but it was hard on the eyes. However, the main reason I didn’t like stitching the white pansy is because, quite frankly, I find it the ugliest one that I have stitched so far. (And that is saying something because I thought the yellow one was sort of ugly too!)

Today’s maroon pansy made up for the ugly white one though. I really like this one: Not as much as the bluish-purple ones, but the maroon one is still a good-looking little flower.

Anyway, my Stitch-A-Thon goal is to complete two pansies and since I have already done one I guess I only have one more to go. I am not sure if I will do #9 or #12 next. #9 is yellow and maroon and unfortunately kind of ugly, so I imagine I will probably opt for #12 since it is a pretty peach one. However, you just never know. Check in on Sunday evening or Monday morning to see for sure.
And for those of you celebrating it this weekend, Happy Easter!

Going with the “Flo”

Today I made some good progress on “Fairy Flora” while watching a “Harry Potter” marathon. I bought the “Goblet of Fire” last weekend, but didn’t get around to watching it until today. Once “GoF” was over I was still in a HP mood so I stuck “The Prisoner of Azkaban” in the DVD Player and just kept stitching away!

During both movies I concentrated my stitching efforts on “Fairy Flora” but despite that it feels like it is going awfully slowly: Flo has a great deal of dress and I have been working on it for the past couple of Thursdays. However, in my opinion the dress still looks more like a blob of color than an actual dress… But then again, when I look at my scans I realize that I have made a lot of progress on this piece considering I only started it a month ago.

Tomorrow we start the L-O-N-G Easter weekend (read: Hubby will be home from Friday until Monday. Damn! I just sent him back to work on Monday after two weeks off! ) and I suppose I will stitch my way through it. In fact, I think this weekend is the Stitch-A-Thon over at the FGBB so I guess I need to decide what to stitch for it…

SBQ and More Spring

Today is Wednesday and that means it is time for the SBQ! Related to last week’s question, today’s question was suggested by Carol and is:

For those of you that stitch while riding in the car or on the train, how do you cope with the bumps and the motion? Do you have any tips for others?

I have not tried stitching in the car because whenever we go somewhere Hubby prefers that I chat with him. However, I have stitched a few times on the train and I guess I was lucky because the motion didn’t affect me and I didn’t notice any bumps. I suppose the most important thing about stitching in the car or on the train is that one doesn’t easily succumb to motion sickness!
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So, onto my stitching… I have noticed that I am really stitching things with a “spring” theme lately. There is “Celtic Spring” of course, but I am also stitching “Spring” for Dawn’s RR, and just last week when I started “Four Seasons Cats” I chose to begin with “Spring.” That is OK though. Because spring is my favorite season and I love stitching spring-themed patterns I am really enjoying my stitching these days!

As I mentioned, I am starting with “Spring” on “Four Seasons Cats.” Today I finished the border and went ahead and backstitched it. I just love the pink and green in this pattern, but I must say I am anxious to actually start the cat!

I will be stitching all four cats on a single piece of fabric (30 count white evenweave) and as suggested by the model, I am laying them out two by two and in the order of winter, spring, summer, and autumn. I considered putting spring and summer at the top and autumn and winter at the bottom, but when I thought about the colors in the pattern as a whole I decided the recommend layout was probably the best.

I also thought about doing all the borders and then moving onto the cats, but in the end I decided to stitch one season up at a time. After all, it was the cats, not the borders, which drew me to this pattern in the first place. I don’t know which season I will do after “Spring,” but when I get close enough I may ask for my readers’ input… we’ll see.