The Stitchy Quest for the One Ring, Quest 9

Hello again! Time keeps skipping ahead and here it is awhile since I've posted anything, included Gifted Gorgeousness. I'll try and catch up, but as we're moving office next week, it might not happen this month.

The eagle-eyed among you might notice that this is Quest 9, not Quest 8. Part of the reason I hadn't posted about Quest 8 for the LOTR/Hobbit group was that we were "fighting" the trolls. And part of how we fought them was an admin would roll a 20 sided die and whatever came up corresponded to the amount of time we had left of a 7 hour ordeal and how many stitches we needed to stitch as a whole group to get out of it. It was in multiples of 10,000 stitches among everyone, and sometimes we'd move on to the next section in a day, other times we'd have to stitch 30K stitches and that would take a few days. It was fun as you could stitch on anything and add in whatever you'd stitched without having to worry about before and after pics, just add in your totals to everyone else's numbers.

Eventually, Gandalf returned and the trolls turned to stone and we were free. That leads us to Quest 9, where we've discovered the cave full of treasure!

We have 4 tasks and are supposed to complete them by July 30th. My parents were also visiting this week, so not much time to stitch or post about anything. They had to leave for home today and although I'm working, I'm taking a moment to reach out to you as I've missed discussing these quests. What's fun about this group too, is if I don't finish everything by July 30th, then there's always a monthly catch-up event where you can finish off a task if you're so inclined. For each task we're supposed to stitch for 3 hours or for 300 stitches.

Task 1 - A cave full of treasure must have a key, so we're to stitch on anything relating to keys or caves or something hidden. - maybe Princess and the Dragon? There's a big cave that I'm still somewhat near.

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28 ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

Task 2 - We found gold and jewels in the hoard, so stitch with metallics, gold/yellows or jewel tones. Not sure on this project yet.

Task 3 - Swords and knives - Gandalf and Thorin found swords and Bilbo found a dagger (Sting! although it's not named yet, but I've always loved that moment). Stitch on something with something sharp or words/letters because each blade they found had mysterious runes on them. - Princess and the Dragon has a sword, so that's another good choice for this one.

Task 4 - We couldn't carry all the treasure with us, so we decided to bury it for later retrieval. We need to stitch on something we've hoarded in our stash, special materials, fabric or a special chart, etc. I could use the Butterfly Quote with all hand-dyed threads maybe? Or there are other projects that would fit this description as well.

I hope you've all had a good couple weeks! Any ideas are always welcome.

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!

The Stitchy Quest to Destroy the One Ring: Hobbit Quest 3

The new quest starts early morning on Saturdays, so I'm a few days into it by now, but I'm still not complete as this one is pretty involved. If you're familiar with the Hobbit and the main points, you'll remember that after Bilbo meets Gandalf and Gandalf marks a symbol on his door, next thing you know, the dwarves show up looking for Bilbo to be their burglar. :)

Hobbit Quest 3: Meet the Dwarves

This is the order of their appearance in Bilbo's house, and we're to stitch 100 stitches of the colour of their hats:

1) Dwalin - Green

Universal Monsters SAL Room 3 by Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 with DMC as called for on 28ct Al's Dark Magic by Chromatic Alchemy

I love this one and wish I had a little more time to work on it. Fortunately with this week's task I'm getting a lot of stitches in. 

2) Balin - Red

I had to work one a couple parts before I had enough red, but this fit the requirements once I added some yellow as well. 

3) Fili - Blue

Technically Fili is only the darker blue on this one.

4) Kili - Blue - no project yet, have to see what has another 100 stitches of blue in it, possibly Joy Snowglobe or Ocean Curiosity

5) Dori - Purple - no project yet, can't think of one with purple off the top of my head

6) Nori - Purple - same, no project yet

7) Ori - Grey - this will be Evening in the Shire, but I haven't stitched it yet, last time Evening in the Shire was here:

Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

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

8) Oin - Brown

The eagle-eyed viewer may have noticed this doesn't look like 100 stitches of brown, and you'd be right. I stitched 56 stitches, realized I was off by one row, frogged it all and restitched. You can count initial stitches as long as you show where you stopped, a photo after frogging, and your final stitch photo. 

9) Gloin - White

I counted and recounted and recounted to make sure I lined up the mummy (aka #fancybandageman) well and it seems correct so far. 

10) Bifur - Yellow

I decided to go ahead and stitch some of the border to make sure I was lined up properly for everything else, and then added the 100 stitches of yellow for the sarcophagus. 

11) Bofur - Yellow - there's not enough yellow left on this one currently, so I'm going to use Evening in the Shire as well. 

12) Bombur - Green (has to be lighter green than Dwalin)

13) Thorin - Blue/silver cap - has to be lighter blue than Kili and Fili

So I had stitched this part first. 

And that's it for the task this week, 1300 stitches!!! It's good though, I'm glad to see this progress and happy to fit bits of it in the Magical Stitches homework as well. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch