All but the Back Stitch - The Hummingbird Cross Stitch Part 5

The yellow and black cross stitch is all done and the flower ovals have been stitched as well. All that remains is the black backstitch outline, however long that takes.

Before the yellow lazy daisies

The Hummingbird Cross Stitch - Part 4

I'm edging ever closer to finishing each day. Now that the two greens and light pink is done, it's really a matter of filling in the white spaces.

January 24, 2012

Just keep stitching, Just keep stitching - The Hummingbird Cross Stitch Part 3

I believe I have finished all of the squares of light green, dark green, and light pink, baring any mishaps. The next color I'll do is violet, which is only on the wings.

This might not take as long as I thought - The Hummingbird Cross Stitch Part 2

As you can see, the cross stitch is coming along quite well. I've been plugging away at it - about an hour each day. It is rather soothing although after a while the eye of the needle starts digging into my finger.

I did manage to miscount my stitches - twice! The first one wasn't so bad so I redid it, but the second one included three leaves that were off by one - including the area I had already redone. I let that mistake go because  it wasn't that bad in the great design of things.

It's Gonna Take Time - Hummingbird Cross Stitch Part 1

~It's gonna take time, a whole lot of precious time. It's gonna take patience and time...~

George Harrison aside, I think my hummingbird cross stitch is going to take a lot of time to do nicely. And I want to do this as nice as I can.

The White Scarf - Release 4.0

I do have to say the best thing about garter stitch is that it is so easy. I can just start knitting and only occasionally need to look down - so I can watch shows and movies while still being productive.

The White Scarf is coming along as expected. I think I may have loosened up my stitches as well. That makes it go faster, in any case. And I think I've stopped stabbing myself with the needles.

The Hummingbird Cross Stitch - Prep Time

A month ago in Michael's when I was looking for rug binding, I came across the Row O' Needlework. Most of the stuff they had was counted cross stitch.

I have done stamped cross stitch before and I have watched a friend of mine do a really complicated counted cross stitch over several months. It looked really hard.

I ended up getting the easily counted cross stitch I could find that didn't have some cutesy or religious saying. That ended up being this:

The instructions are, once again, rather vague. I am sure they make sense to someone who has done this before, but to me, it is as if I told a stranger to navigate from one end of my campus to the other by way of buildings. It's just not done. Not done well, in any case.

Whatever. I shall do it and it will be lovely.

Theatre Camp - Session 1

For the last week I have been at a theatre camp which puts on a musical in the two and a half weeks before school starts for spring semester. It's student-directed, student-acted, student-built student-advertised and students hang lights and sew costumes. The actors and musicians, when not practicing, are assigned to different backstage crews like lighting and paint.

My part in this is what we call perma-crew, which means I spend the entire day building the set. This is my second year doing this job and I work in the school theatre on the sets during the year when we put on plays. This means I get the more difficult jobs because most people assigned to this crew have no idea what they are doing.

The net result of spending 9.5 hours a day on that means I have little time to spend on my knitting and other projects. Updates will get better when I actually have time to work on it.

In other news - I spent over an hour getting a carriage bolt out of a stage extension the other day. None of the  usual methods were working. Look how many tools I used!

In no order: three hammers, a mallet, two prybars, a screwdriver, pliers, vice-grips, nail punches, a 9/16 wrench , a 6 inch adjustable wrench, and the wrangler cordless drill

Not pictured is the wrangler impact wrench and the air hose as well as the box I was standing on. For the record -I rejoiced when the bolt finally came out.

The Latch Hook Kitty - Part 1

This is something I want to get done this year: the Latch Hook Kitty. The good news is that it has already been latched.

The bad news is latching is only half of the project. The other half is actually putting it together.

So it turns out that trying to thread yarn through canvas mesh squares without a needle is really hard, especially when they don't tell you how to make the darts with this stuff.

So I have finished the face part.

Unfortunately, this isn't something I can bring back to school, so the kitty gets to wait some more in the guest room until Spring Break and the summer when I am back home and get to work on this.

I did want to finish the kitty last year, but he will have to wait a little longer.

I think after this I will stick to regular rugs and wall hangings. This construction is just too extreme for me.

Looking Ahead in 2012

Given that I'm posting this on New Year's Day, it is time for resolutions and future ideas.

My resolution for this blog is to finish more projects than I start. Put another way, at the end of 2012 I want to have less on-going projects than I do now. Furthermore, I want to finish by the end of 2012 any projects from 2010 or from 2011. I want to keep a fresh rotation of projects so one doesn't keep wasting away in some closet. 

A pipe dream I have is to make a costume set late in the Cavalier period, circa 1610-1630ish, coming off the tail end of the Elizabethan/Jacobian era and segueing into the Commonwealth era.

What I am looking to create is more from the 1630s. The falling band is falling out of fashion, but still can be seen. Trunk hose are giving way to breeches,with boots and spurs and boot hose. The hat is a large brim shallow hat, sometimes with a side cocked up with a feather.

This is the time of the Three Musketeers, after all.

Some inspiration:

Charles I : Antony van Dyck , 1635
Portrait of Charles I, king of England (1600–1649). Oil on canvas, ca. 1635.
Wears a shorter waistline doublet without points. Breeches end below knee and stockings tie off. Long sleeved doublet is unfitted and without panes.

Henri II of Lorraine, Duke de Guise: Antony van Dyck, 1634

Portrait of Henri II de Lorraine, duke of Guise; oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

Wears a buff leather jerkin and gorget, open at the front. Breeches match the cape. Notice large falling collar and turned back ruffs at cuffs. Breeches end below knee at ruffle. Sleeves are paned.

Royalist Brothers: Thomas Gainsborough, 1638

Portrait of Lord John Stuart and his brother Lord Bernard Stuart (later Earl of Lichfield)

Unfitted Doublets with slashed sleeves and front, unopened front. Large falling collars and breeches end below knee with knee ruffles.

I call this a pipe dream because it currently has a completion date of 'before I die'.

The pattern I'm looking at is the complete Cavalier Man package from Reconstructing History, which I think has everything I need.

A project that has a much sooner completion date is the Irish costume. I already have a pattern for this - the one from Simplicity patterns. I don't know about the authenticity of this - Simplicity is not known for that. Frankly, it's hard to find reliable sources about traditional Irish clothing to begin with.

But it looks fun. And that's all that matters. With any luck, I should get started on this costume this year.

It will be an adventure for sure!