School of Magical Stitches and Literature Year 4, Week 8: End of the Year

Here it is, the last week of June and the last week of Book 4: The Goblet of Fire. I need to add in books I've read, etc. into the tasks, and I realized I haven't mentioned any of the extra credit stitching. I didn't have much chance to do it as I'm stitching on the other group too, so I don't know that I finished any of that part. I'll have a look through as I'm filling out all the other tasks and add it in another post if I manage to get any done.

This is the conclusion to Book 4, which is a harsher end than most young adult books, but it is still an excellent read. I hope everyone has read the books, otherwise some of these tasks might contains spoilers.

There are several parts to this week's event, and the stitch count varies. I'm not even close to done this one, so any help is always welcome! My WIP list is here.

Task 1) Stitch 200 stitches on objects that are touching (because Cedric and Harry touched the TriWizard cup at the same time)

I said the books in Room 4 of Monsters are touching, so stitched 202 stitches on Monsters:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

Task 2) Voldemort attacked at the tournament, stitch 200 stitches in black or grey

Again this is out of order with the top photo, but I had stitched the bottom room outline before filling out Room 3:

Task 3) Stitch 100 stitches on a grave or graveyard scene to represent Cedric's murder. I don't have anything chosen for this yet, as I don't know if I have anything that has this on it. Maybe a Halloween piece somewhere? Might need a new start ;)

Task 4) Harry's parents appeared to help him, stitch 200 stitches on a project you needed help with (fabric, thread advice, etc). I'm using modifications to Monsters, so will use that:

51 stitches in, Room 3 is done. I still need to stitch another 150 stitches to complete this task. 

Task 5) Stitch 200 stitches on an ingredient in polyjuice potion (this is a challenge!) because Professor Moody was being impersonated by someone using this potion. The ingredients include lacewings, boomslang skin, leeches, knotgrass, powdered horn of Bicorn and a bit of whomever you want to turn into. 

Task 6) Harry turned his TriWizard tournament winnings over to Fred and George Weasley so they could start a joke shop. We need to stitch 100 stitches on something that makes us laugh. This will likely be monsters again. 

Any help is always appreciated, and I hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

School of Magical Stitches and Literature Catch-up Post

This will probably be a long one, so hope you're up to a good read. :) When I last posted, May 31 (yikes!) we were on Week 4 of Year 4. For that week we had to stitch on something that applied to each letter of SPEW.

I chose See Ya Later Alligator for S:

See Ya Later Alligator by Jodyri Designs

2 over 2 on 28ct Nuriel's Forest by Chromatic Alchemy with stash threads

Princess and the Dragon for P:

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy with DMC 310

Evening in the Shire for E:

Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Moonscapes by Jodyri

and Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher for W:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

Year 4, Week 5: Dragons

The first task in the Triwizard Tournament involves getting an egg away from a nesting dragon mother. We had to explain how our stitching would relate to accomplishing this task and stitch 1000 stitches on a project. 

I decided to pick up my Basset Hound since Cedric transfigured a rock into a dog during his attempt, and I thought 1000 stitches might get me a finish. Turns out I only needed 545!

Basset Hound by Brenda Frankline

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 14ct navy aida

This was also my oldest WIP, going back at least 15 years I think. Definitely over 10 anyway. I'm so happy to have this complete!!

Since I had more stitching to do I said that the Princess would attack and try and get the Dragon to leave her nest for long enough to grab an egg. I only managed 413 stitches though, so I didn't quite hit 1000 this week. 

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy with DMC 310

Year 4, Week 6: The Black Lake

The second task of the TriWizard Tournament is to get back something the merpeople took. For the champions, it meant a person, for us, it means our most loved stitching piece has disappeared! The merpeople have taken our projects into the Black Lake! Fortunately they cast Impervious spells first, so nothing gets ruined. To get our projects back from the merpeople, we must stitch 1000 stitches on whatever project we love the most. 

For me, right now, that means the Universal Monsters SAL and gives me a good chance to catch up. I started here at the beginning of the week:

and stitched 1026 stitches:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

Room 1 is complete and Room 2 is well on its way! This is still so much fun to stitch on. I love seeing how they all turn out. A lot of people have made changes in the rooms, like stitching the sarcophagus in gold, etc. The only change I've made so far is the Mummy is charted with blood dripping out of its mouth. I took that part out. 

Year 4, Week 7

Some students were sneaking books about love potions out of the library. The school has decided we can make one love potion for the Yule Ball, if we stitch 200 stitches on each element of the earth (air, water, fire, earth and wood). 4 of the elements also align with the school houses, so you can stitch with the corresponding colour too. 

These will be out of numerical order of how the project is progressing, but all the photos are there :) I stitch each task as I think of how to fit in the project, so I don't necessarily finish the first part first, etc. 

1) Air - Hufflepuff (Patience, nature-loving, flexibility, co-operation) Yellow

I plan to use another stitcher's (Sherley Escribano) version of the painting in the Invisible Man's room, this one:

and since that is showing sky/air/clouds as a version of Starry, Starry Night, I worked more on the Universal Monsters SAL:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

2) Water - Ravenclaw (wisdom, creativity, community, distance) Blue

There is water in the creature's room, so I stitched 211 stitches on Monsters again:

and finished room 2 #fancybandageman as well as a small start on Room 4. 

3) Earth - Slytherin (ambition, cunning, waiting for right moment to strike) Green

I moved over to Room 3 in Monsters to work on the Creature, there's tons of green there! It was about as it looked in the upper photo, and 217 stitches got it to here:

4) Fire - Gryffindor (bravery, honour, stubbornness) Red

I didn't have enough red on Monsters, so I did a bit of a search of my projects until I remembered Kiss for a Snowman has a lot of red in the little girl's coat. It was here a couple months ago:

and after 200+ stitches, all red:

Kiss for a Snowman by Dimensions

stitched as charted on 16ct white aida

5) Wood (warmth, generosity, cooperation and idealism) Brown

The organ in Room 1 of Monsters is made of wood, so another 200+ stitches on Monsters:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

Check out those eyebrows!! ;)

And these are all the past events. Week 8 is still happening, so I'll add that in a separate post as this is long enough already. Hope you enjoyed the catch up! 

Btw, I've decided to only add the info under photos when I show a different project, so above when it's Monsters over and over, I only showed the info at the top photo. If you'd like it on all of them, please let me know. I thought it was getting too wordy with me repeating the same thing over and over. 

Thanks, and Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Stitchy Quest for the One Ring - The Hobbit Quest 6

I feel like there's a line from the LOTR universe about broken promises that I should be adding, but I can't think of it and I want to get this post done so I can finally get the Magical Stitches ones finished too. :) if you know it, please tell me.

Instead of a long School of Magical Stitches post, this is a short Hobbit/LOTR post about this current week's stitching. I finished it up last night, so thought it would be good to share it ASAP and then try and stay current.

This week we're working on Quest 6: A Very Late Start to An Adventure. After the big party with the dwarves, Bilbo was having a bit of a lie-in and thinking maybe he'd dreamed everything, when he gets up and Gandalf hurries him out of the house saying everyone has left before him. In Bilbo's haste, he left his pipe, his pocket handkerchief, money, his walking stick, all kinds of useful things to have on an adventure. For all tasks, you had to roll a six-sided die and multiply your stitch count by 50.

Task 1 was to stitch on something that you started later than you wanted. This was easy for me, as I always start seasonal stitching too late. I picked up my Lizzie Kate April Flip-It which was here:

 and I rolled a 4, so a little over 200 stitches got it to here:

but I couldn't just leave it there, so I finished it:

Lizzie Kate April Flip-It

stitched 1 and 2 over 1 with stash threads on 22ct ivory hardanger

Task 2 was to stitch on something you started before you had all the materials at hand. I was missing thread for the Universal Monsters SAL since it uses some of the new DMC colours, so that was another reason to get this one out and try and catch up. I rolled a 1, so only needed 50 stitches and got to here:

Task 3 was to stitch on something related to what Bilbo forgot. If you wanted to use pocket handkerchief, then clothes would work, so again, Universal Monsters SAL. This time I rolled a 2 and had to stitch another 100 stitches to here:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

And that was all for this week's quest. I'll try and get some of the Magical stitches post done tomorrow and maybe publish in a day or two.

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Stitchy Quest for the One Ring Catch-Up

Last time (May 30, yikes!) I left you with some choices still unstitched for the Meet the Dwarves Quest. The colours remaining were purple (x2), blue and yellow.

For the purple (Dori and Nori) I pulled out an old WIP, Land of the Dinosaurs. It was last here in May 2018:

and now:

Land of the Dinosaurs WOXS October 2015

stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct Jobelan Summer Sky as charted

Blue for Kili - I pulled out Dimensions Joy Snowglobe and had just enough blue! It's now here:

Yellow for Bofur - Evening in the Shire got some work again, very appropriately I think in this group, and is now here:

Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Moonscapes by Jodyri with charted DMC

I'm not a confetti stitcher by nature, so going this far away from the other stitching is always a little nerve-wracking for me. Hopefully I've counted correctly and don't have to pull the lower bit all out again. 

I managed to complete all the colours and the 1300+ stitches for this task. It was interesting to find all the different colours on projects and pull out something that hadn't been touched in a year.

Hobbit Quest 4 - A Musical Interlude

I think the group admin is a Dungeons and Dragons fan as well as a Tolkien fan because we've had more and more dice rolling challenges come up lately. This quest relates to the music in the books. I'm a fan of the music, especially given my long history of listening to the Hobbit TV show on tape before bed.

This is the story of how the dwarves lost the mountain to Smaug I think. Please let me know if you notice otherwise.

There were 2 options for this quest. If you like the music, first stitch 200 stitches on a project you don't want to end, then roll a six-sided die and if you get 3 or above, stitch 200 more stitches, if you get 1 or 2, you're done. If you have to stitch more, then you roll again, same rules, basically keep stitching 200 stitch segments until you roll a 1 or 2.

The second option, if you don't like the music, is to pick up something that is annoying or frustrating you in some way, stitch 300 stitches, and roll a six-sided die. If you get 3 or above, you're done, if you roll a 1 or 2, stitch another 300 stitches and continue until you roll the higher numbers.

I picked up Princess and the Dragon and managed to get here after 2 sets of 200 stitches:

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

I enjoy this project very much, and despite the size, it's never a drag to work on. It's always enjoyable, even the filling in bits.

Hobbit Quest 5 - A Tale of Loss

This is the current task, which ends tomorrow. It's the part of The Hobbit when Bilbo learns about the dwarves ancestral home in the Lonely Mountain and how Smaug stole it away from them. For this quest, we had to roll a twenty-sided die (see where the D&D is from?) and multiply that number by 100 to find out how many stitches we had to stitch. The interesting part this time was we could chose how many stitches on each project, but at least 20 on each.

The projects are:

1) The People of Dale - this was a town on Long Lake and many villagers lost their lives when Smaug invaded. We had to stitch something with a person on it. I worked on Universal Monsters and got a fair bit done, 736 stitches:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

2) For the dwarves that love dark places, stitch on dark thread or fabric. I stitched a little bit of this, the left border for 36 stitches:

3) Treasure lost for Smaug stealing the dwarves treasure is to stitch beads or metallics. I pulled out Letters from Nora L and got a finish! (70 beads)

Letters from Nora - L by Nora Corbett

stitched 2 over 2 on 32?ct linen as charted except a few changes for what was available in beads

4) The Secret Door - we learn of a secret door on a map so we needed to stitch on a project with a door. I had some trouble with this as apparently I don't have many projects with doors. I settled on Ocean Curiosity which has a tiny little door in the castle:

and put in 87 stitches:

stitched 2 over 1 on 16ct aida from Colour Cascade Fabrics

5) Map - because there is a map to get into Lonely Mountain. I struggled a bit, but the quest info said "any justification will be accepted", so I said that Universal Monsters was like a map of each room with the cut-thru appearance and put in another 81 stitches:

And that catches us up till the next quest! some of this might be repeated from my previous post, but it's in nice little bits now :) 

Happy Stitching! 

Tiffstitch

p.s. stay tuned for the School of Magical Stitches update too!

Gifted Gorgeousness 2019 - June Edition

Time again to post all your monthly progress on gifted stitching or gifts received. Link up with our fabulous host Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching too!

See Ya Later Alligator - for DD

See Ya Later Alligator by Jodyri Designs

stitched 2 over on 28ct Nuriels Forest by Chromatic Alchemy with random colours

I managed a few letters to get enough stitches for one of the challenges, it will say "Blow me a kiss GOLDFISH"

Land of the Dinosaurs - DD

Land of the Dinosaurs from WOXS October 2015 

stitched 2 over on 32ct Jobelan Summer Sky (wichelt?) as charted

Hopefully I can finish this before DD stops enjoying stories and things about dinosaurs. :)

Evening in the Shire - older brother

 Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Moonscapes by Jodyri

This one has miles and miles of backstitch, so at some point I'll start into that. It is gorgeous, so it will be worth it when complete. 

Twilight LeMans - DH

 Twilight LeMans by Heritage Stitchcraft

stitched 2 over 2 on 28?ct linen as charted

These are the headlights of both cards now, and part of them reflect in the road, so it's an interesting effect once you get the whole thing. 

Butterfly Quote - DD

 Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct unknown fabric with Pink Laydee, Sparkling Citrine (Jodyri) and purple WDW thread

I was debating if that purple is too dark, out of the other colour palette, but I like emphasizing that word, so I'm going to leave it. I'm happy to be moving this one along to a finish as well. 

April Flip-It - Grandma

 April Flip-It by LK

stitched 2 and 1 over 1 on 22ct ivory hardanger with stash threads

I hope to get this one finished next time I pick it up, there's not to much left to finish now!

Fleur de Lys - DH?

 Fleur de Lys by Brodeuse Bressane

stitched 1 over 2 on 32ct royal blue linen with Waterlilies 

I had started this with DH in mind, but might end up giving it to a family member. It will still take a good long while, so no rush there. 

Letters from Nora - L - friend - A FINISH!!

 Letters from Nora L by Nora Corbett

stitched 2 over 2 on unknown linen as charted except subbing one pair of butterfly beads because they were discontinued and the central beads were subbed because I didn't have the called for colour.

I'm so happy to get this one finished. It's for a good friend who gave me a lot of baby stuff when DD was born, and this is long overdue. I don't know if any of you remember me talking about this, but I have stitched K for her as well. Now to get them framed!

Ocean Curiosity - DD

 Ocean Curiosity by Who Knew?!?

stitched 2 over 1 on 16ct Colour Cascade fabric with WDW Michael's Navy

Since I've borrowed this chart I'm happy to get more progress here too. :)

Princess and the Dragon - DD

 Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

Still chugging along on P&D! 

As for gifts, the only one received was Jocondine's excellent travel package in my previous post, and today is the start of week 3, so check out her clues to find the new place she's selected. 

Happy Stitching, and don't forget to check out all the other GG stitchers on Jo's blog!

Tiffstitch