Incoherent Scribblings

Friendship Exchange

I had planned on working on “Fairy Flora” today after many a long week… I really was. With the exception on Monday, every day since last Saturday I have worked on the appropriate project on the correct day. (Yeah me for getting back to my rotation!)

But ever since last week I have been thinking about what to stitch Ashleigh for the SBEBB Friendship Exchange. (Have I mentioned that I am taking part in the SBEBB Friendship Exchange and Ash is my partner? I haven’t? Well, I have now!) I had a general idea of what I wanted to stitch for her, so I have been going through my freebies and browsing online trying to find the right thing and promptly discarding one idea after another.

Well, this morning I found what I wanted to stitch for her. And even though Sundays are set aside for my round robin/exchanges, of course I couldn’t wait until then to start this project. Early this afternoon when I put the first few stitches in I thought that I would just get a little start on it and then I would work on “Fairy Flora.”

However, this little project is addictive and I just couldn’t seem to put it down! I stitched one area and then moved on to another, and another… and the result is that I am nearly finished with the stitching for Ash’s exchange piece and “Fairy Flora” is still sitting beside me neatly folded in its bag.

I can’t give too much more away, but I think it is safe to mention that the piece I am stitching for Ash has quite a few specialty stitches (some of which I had not tried before) and I think that is the reason I haven’t been able to put it down.

It is approaching late evening here so I don’t think I will finish the stitching tonight, but I probably will tomorrow… Then again, maybe I can still get a few more stitches in before bedtime!

Stitching Mojo

Time for this week’s (late) SBQ! Today’s question was suggested by Jenna and is:

Lately, it seems that many stitching bloggers have experienced a loss of their stitching mojo. Have you ever lost your stitching mojo? If so, how did you get it back and how long did it take?

When Jenna sent me this question I was wondering if it duplicated a question I posed about a year ago that asked how stitchers deal with “stitching slumps.” In some ways I think the question does deal with the dreaded slump, but according to one definition, “mojo” refers to magical influence, so I suppose the question is more along the lines of “Has stitching ever lost its magic for you?”

In that case, yes I have lost my stitching mojo a couple of times. During the time I have been stitching I can specifically think of two times that stitching seemed to lose its magic for me. (And as a result, I went into a stitching slump.)

The first time that I suffered a serious slump was a direct result of my first full-time job. I was just so tired all the time that the only thing I really wanted to do was veg out in front of the TV after work and for two and a half years my pitiful stash barely saw the light of day.

When I finally did decide to start stitching again it took a while to get my mojo back because by then I hadn’t stitched for a couple of years and had some UFOs that I was determined to finish. Once I got them done though and had the pleasure of starting some new projects I was back on my feet.

At that time I also discovered Internet freebies and started building up my stash and as a result I did pretty well for about a year. Then all of a sudden I seemed to get sort of bored and didn’t stitch for a couple of months. Through a complete fluke (read: poor German language skills) I “accidentally” bought a small kit that contained evenweave and when I finally decided to give it a try it wasn’t long before I got my mojo back.

When I look back now I think the reason I lost my mojo that second time was because I had matured as a stitcher and was ready for new challenges even though I didn’t realize it. By deciding to chuck the Aida cloth in favor of evenweaves, linens, fabrics with higher counts, more complex patterns, specialty stitches, and beads I have managed to retain my mojo since then and when I see all the wonderful things still out there for me to stitch I think I can probably hold onto it for a long time to come!

Frogs in Mae

Well, the weather wasn’t very cooperative today so we didn’t go hiking… maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, since we stayed home today it gave me a chance to work on “Celtic Spring.” I hadn’t worked on her for almost a month so it was good to get back to her.

As you can see, I have begun tackling the top and side borders. Unfortunately they are going rather slowly. It took me 5 ½ hours to stitch the top border row, 50 stitches down the right hand border, and the two geometric motifs… Of course I was also visited by the frog tonight so that didn’t help much either!

I wouldn’t say that I am dyslexic, but sometimes I have a tendency to get my 9s and 6s mixed up. And that is exactly what happened to me today. There are some stitches in 936 (dark green) in these motifs but it wasn’t until after I had stitched the bottom one and half of the top one with 939 (navy) that I realized my mistake!

You might be thinking, “Duh Renée, why didn’t it dawn on you that you should have been stitching with green instead of blue right off the bat?”

Well, normally that probably would have occurred to me; Except that there is also quite a bit of navy in this pattern too. As a result, it wasn’t until I happened to glance at the model and noticed that something was off that I looked closer at the key and discovered my error.

Of course it wasn’t as easy as just pulling out the 939 either: By the time I had realized my mistake the navy thread was also woven in underneath the other colors so I ended up having to rip out almost the entire bottom motif and redo it.

Nevertheless I still enjoyed working on Mae today and am already looking forward to next week when I can pull her out again.

Friday Dance

After I finished my RR square the other day I had every intention of jumping back into my rotation. However, I got side-tracked and ended up with a happy dance instead!

I had a brainstorm Thursday morning and decided to stitch up the freebie “Spring Scissors Keep” from The Drawn Thread. I have always liked this pattern, but the main reason I wanted to stitch it because I wanted to try out the diamond-shaped finishing method that is included with the pattern. I am quite pleased with the end result and I think it turned out lovely.

I must confess though that I finished it twice. The first time I followed the instructions as written, but I wasn’t 100% happy with the end result so I ripped it apart and redid it using some modifications that I thought would work better. (And they did too!)

I stitched it on 32 count linen instead of the recommended 36-40 count (32 count was the smallest I had on-hand) and as a result it ended up being too big for a scissor fob in my opinion. I suppose technically one could use it as a scissor fob, but that is too big for me so I am calling it an “ornament” instead.
Once I was finished I took advantage of the nice weather and all the spring greenery and took a picture of it outside. I then packed it up and sent it to a special someone as a gift. (Once the recipient receives it I will tell you who I mailed it to!)

And now, I solemnly swear that I will get back to my rotation this weekend… Unless the weather remains beautiful and Hubby and I decide to go hiking in the Alps instead!

Leftovers

Since I already posted today I bet you thought I had forgotten about the SBQ, didn’t you? Well, I didn’t! I have one all ready to go and it is:

When you stitch from a kit and use the supplied floss do you have leftovers? If so, how much and what do you do with them? If not, do you usually have just enough or do you have to dig into your stash to finish?

I am pretty frugal when it comes to my floss and I don’t tend to waste much when I stitch. As a result, I honestly can’t think of a time when I didn’t have leftover floss from a kit. I usually don’t have enough floss left over to stitch the chart a second time, but I typically have enough left that I could at least get a good start!

I have never really known exactly what I should do with the leftovers, but when I was new to stitching I added my leftover floss to the appropriate bobbin if I had one and just sort of incorporated it into my stash. However, now I usually just put the leftovers back into the package along with the chart: That way if I ever decide to trade I can send the leftovers to the lucky recipient.