School of Magical Stitches and Literature, Year 4, Week 4

This week's homework assignment involves a little more effort on our part. This task involves a little background about house elves, who are servants to wizards and witches. Most are treated well, although some are basically slaves that are constantly abused (see Dobby from Chamber of Secrets). Hermoine Granger, who came from a Muggle/non-magic family finds the fact that Hogwarts uses several house elves scandalous as she feels they should not have to serve anyone, despite the fact it generally makes house elves happy to be of service. She feels every elf should be free and starts a club called the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (SPEW).

Our task this week is to find a project that fits each letter of S.P.E.W., whether it's the designer or the pattern name. It must be the first word in the pattern name, and not SAL for S, etc.

I haven't figured out exactly what I'd like to stitch for each one, but I do have some options. We are to stitch 200 stitches on each project. If you'd like to suggest anything, please feel free! My WIP list can be found here.

1) S - I haven't decided which project yet, but I'm thinking either Sleigh Ride stocking or See Ya Later Alligator. I like See Ya Later better, but feel like I should really pick up Sleigh Ride as it's been a while since it's been touched.

2) P - Princess and the Dragon - I think this is an obvious choice. It's been moving along so well! Currently it's here:

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

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

200 stitches should finish off that gap under the princess' foot, or just move the bottom along some more, or possibly even work up the left side a bit. I've been filling in a lot, but not really progressing on the actual pattern. 

3) E - Evening in the Shire - I think this is my only 'e' project, so should be easy enough to get a few more stitches in. 

4) W- Witchy Stitcher's Universal Monsters SAL. I have completed this one and used the greens from Room 3 (#fancyfishman) for the 200 required stitches. 

So please let me know any suggestions or what you'd like me to work on. I have a loose plan and provided I can get a little time tonight I should get at least one of these completed, possibly 2 more. Evening in the Shire will work for the yellow and gray for the LOTR group too, so that would be getting 3 total tasks crossed off with one project. :) 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

School of Magical Stitches and Literature, Year 4, Week 3

I'm a bit late posting this one, as this happened last week, but I'll try and keep to separate posts now to keep them from getting too long again.

This week we are welcoming the other schools and the champions have all been selected. There was a surprise 4th entrant in the Tri-Wizard tournament since the Goblet of Fire used to choose each school's entrant is only supposed to choose one student per school. Our champions are Victor Krum of Durmstrang, Fleur Delacoeur of Beauxbatons, Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts and also Harry Potter of Hogwarts.

Our assignment this week is to stitch 200 stitches of a certain colour for each champion, and an additional 200 stitches in our favourite champion or the one we hope will win.

1) 200 stitches in brown for Victor Krum of Durmstrang:

I got my basset hound out again, which was here:

 and got a little more expression, and maybe a little creepier too without eyes to here:

Basset Hound by Brenda Franklin

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct navy aida as charted with DMC

2) 200 stitches in yellow for Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts (Hufflepuff)

For this one I got out an old WIP that hasn't been touched in a while, Twilight LeMans and it was here:

and after 200 more stitches in yellow:

Twilight LeMans by Heritage Stitchcraft

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct? linen with charted DMC

3) 200 stitches in blue for Fleur Delacoeur of Beauxbatons

I got out Ocean's Curiosity for this one which was here:

and is now here:

Ocean's Curiosity by Who Knew?!?

stitched 2 over 1 with WDW Michael's Navy on 16ct aida from Colour Cascade fabrics 

4) 200 stitches in red for Harry Potter of Hogwarts (Gryffindor)

Fortunately, room 1 of the Universal Monsters SAL has red curtains, so that was perfect to get a quick 203 stitches in:

and I chose Harry as my favourite champion as well to even things out in the curtains:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

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

And there you have it, last week's homework assignment all completed. I'll try and get this week's up in another post tomorrow or Saturday, which is already June! 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

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

The Stitchy Quest to Destroy the One Ring Intro

Here I am, not content just to work on homework assignments from one FB stitching group, I've joined a second group!

If you're interested in LOTR and/or Hobbit stories, this is a good group for that! The group can be found here. There are some general ideas for the whole year or longer, as well as some homework assignments and it's been interesting so far. I'll go over the quests/tasks we have so far so you get an idea. 

1937

This was the first task to allow the moderator/admin to get the group up and running. The Hobbit was published in 1937, so the idea is to stitch on whatever you like for 1937 minutes. I may have got there already, but I keep forgetting to update, so I've only put 700 minutes so far. 

The Hobbit: Quest #1

Our first book quest is to consider Hobbit things, and instead of a stitch count, we were to stitch for 2 hours per task. The first task was to take time to stitch on something that reminded you of a Hobbit hole, gardens, meadows, etc. I chose a new start, Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria. It will eventually look like this:

and this is my start:

Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

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

The second task was to think like a Took and stitch something completely different than standard x's. You could use special materials, specialty stitches, etc. I chose to pick up Fleur de Lys again:

Fleur de Lys by Brodeuse Bressane

Stitched 1 over 2 with Waterlilies on 32ct Weichelt linen

Thirdly, we were to spend 2 hours stitching on something that reminded us of a Hobbit, bright colours, happy thoughts, etc. I decided on another new start(!) because Heather (Confetti Stitcher flosstube, previously Fantasy Crosstitch blog I think?) showed the Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher on her podcast and I had to start it. It's so cute!! 

These are the first 2 releases, the Phantom of the Opera and the Mummy:

I might omit the bloody mouth on the mummy, or #fancybandageman as some SAL'ers are calling him. This is my start:

Universal Monsters SAL by Witchy Stitcher

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

Intro to Gandalf

The second week of tasks involves Bilbo meeting Gandalf, the "good morning" adventures, quite humorous if you haven't read them, Bilbo not immediately recognizing Gandalf, and Gandalf scratching a symbol on Bilbo's door. 

Firstly, we were to stitch 250 stitches on something that reminds you of the morning, so any coffee drinkers were in luck, however, I really had to think about this one as I wasn't sure what might constitute "morning" vibes from my plethora of WIPs. In the end I chose:

April Flip-It by Lizzie Kate

Stitched 1 or 2 over 1 on 22ct ivory hardanger with stash threads. 

Another couple hundred stitches or less and this will be done! I shoe-horned it in by saying that birds are always singing to me when I leave for work in the morning. :)

Bilbo not recognizing Gandalf was a little more complicated. The prompt was to find something that you maybe passed over, or didn't think too much about at first, but now you must keep it in rotation, etc. For me, that is definitely Princess and the Dragon, so that moved on a little more to here:

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

In case you can't tell where I stitched, it's the arch under the Princess. And this one was one I'd thought about, but never really considered until I won the Amarinthine fabric from Sam. Then I knew this project needed to go on that fabric and I've stitched on it every year since I started. 

Finally, the easy one, was to stitch on something with symbols or letters. I pulled out Butterfly Quote again:

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs

Stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct aida with Pink Laydee, Sparkling Citrine by Jodyri and Purple Iris? by WDW

There are other tasks to join in to now as well, including the Stitch to Mordor challenge, which is a spreadsheet all divided up with stitching/day travel with the Hobbit first, then LOTR. There's also the Walk to Mordor challenge, so you can get fit too, plus the Knit/Crochet to Mordor challenge! The last one, you add your yardage every week for how much you've knit or crocheted. I'm almost done another pair of socks, so I'll have to add one of the socks, although the other one was complete well before this group even started. 

Goneril by Liz Abinante

Mirasol sock yarn

And there you have it! If you like the idea of joining in, the link is here. It's a good group so far and I like that the challenges overlap. So I can add my weekly assignments into the grand Stitching for Mordor challenge overall. The new tasks start Saturday, so I'll try and post each week about them if anyone is interested, and a separate post for Magical Stitches since their tasks start Mondays.  

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

School of Magical Stitches Catch-up Post

As I mentioned in my last post, there was a bit of an upheaval in the School of Magical Stitches and Literature. The admins/mods had a disagreement on the tasks and how things were handled and one of the mods left the group. The group still exists and the other mod started a Lord of the Rings stitching group, so I joined that too since that has been my first fantasy love and something I've followed since I was age 10 or so with the old animated Hobbit cartoon.

In case you've never seen it, here's a clip of Smaug. Terrifying!

The upshot of everything is that I'm still stitching a lot, possibly even more, although I do try and combine tasks for both groups if possible. It's manageable and enjoyable still, so I will keep on. I don't really know all the details of the issues people were having, but I assume it was the same as what usually happens, someone complained about something, someone's feelings were hurt, etc. If everyone could enjoy their favourite hobby instead of being so worried about points, which lets be honest, don't actually matter in the slightest, then maybe it will go more smoothly. As far as I'm aware, no one was actively discriminated against or bullied in the group, that would make me leave for sure.

So, on to catching up with all the past homework assignments!

Year 3, Week 10

This covered the few short days at the end of April. We were supposed to make WIP albums, with no more than 20 projects, so I tried to pick things I'd actually work on, not everything that's still a WIP. Then we had to choose our smallest stitch count project and stitch as much as possible. If we managed to finish and fully finish it as a FFO, then we'd get bonus points.

My smallest seemed to be the Joy Ornament and it moved along to here:

The start of May, coinciding with the start of Maynia for a lot of stitchers, started out with the Quiddith World Cup. This is a big section in the 4th book (Goblet of Fire) and I thought this idea was kind of brilliant. Each house was pitted against the other in a 3 day long task and this was to last for the first 2 weeks of May. My house, Ravenclaw, started off against Slytherin from May 1-3. The next match was against Hufflepuff from May 4-6. The issues in the group started during the World Cup events, so the last 2 matches were cancelled.

I worked on Joy Snowglobe some more and got a little farther:

and Princess and the Dragon:

moved along to here: 

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 on 28 ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

If you notice the little label, the mods started a random number thing because of the issues they were having, so that's why there's an extra paper on this one. 

They did the same thing for the next match:

 Team Jodyri design from the Team Jodyri vs. Team KLT group

stitched 2 over 2 on 28 ct Jodyri fabric, possibly Mrs Milkybar kid? with Purple Planets and Disco Lights as well as CC Soot (I think)

I was happy to get that one finished and I still had some time to stitch, so pulled out Princess and the Dragon again:

 moving it to here:

And this is where everything kind of broke down in the School of Magical Stitches. The remaining mod created a new task:

Year 4, Week 1

And we were to comment on our thoughts on the changes, what's been going on, etc. as well as stitch 100 stitches. I pulled out Princess and the Dragon again and worked on the middle section:

And there was no prompt for this, but the middle section was so close to a finish that I continued on and finished it up:

You may be able to tell this was in my car. I've taken to bringing my stitching to work so I can have a mental health break at lunch :)

Year 4, Week 2

In the Goblet of Fire book there is an inter-school competition that brings other wizarding schools into our worldview. There will be a tournament, called the Tri-Wizard tournament for the 3 schools champions. You must be 17 years old to enter, so this week we had to pick our 17th WIP on our list, or other options if you didn't have 20, although that was easy for me, since I have 20 at least! And we were to stitch 700 stitches on that WIP. 

It turned out to be Butterfly Quote which was here:

and after 700 and a bit stitches:

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs

stitched 2 over 2 on unknown 14 ct fabric with Jodyri Pink Laydee and Sparkling Citrine as well as WDW Purple Iris?

And that brings us up-to-date with this week's homework, and I'll make a separate post for that as this is long enough! 

Hope you made it through and Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness - May 2019

Here we are again in mid-month for Gifted Gorgeousness! As always, please check out Jo's blog for everyone's posts on their gifts, gifted stitching, and shoe horns. :)

I'm still in Magical Stitches, but there's been an upheaval and things are a little different, plus there's a new Lord of the Rings group, so yes, still lots of stitching. I'd like to get this post done and then I'll try and get a couple more up to go over the other stitching and what's been going on.

Also, shortly after last month's GG, I found out from Carla's blog that Jodyri and KLT Charting were having a mini-competition, so I joined that and did even more stitching! It was a lot of fun competing in teams, and I was glad to be on #teamjodyri.

On to the GG stitching! 

KLT Charting Frogs on 28ct Chromatic Alchemy fabric (forget the name)

stitched 2 over 2 with DMC 310 and Jodyri Autumn Leaves?

This is a gift for DH and I had purchased the pattern years ago when it was an ongoing SAL, but had never started it. 

LK's April Flip-It still needs to be completed

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

This will likely end up being a gift for my Grandma for Easter next year :)

Frost by Seba Designs stitched on 28ct Chromatic Alchemy fabric

stitched 1 over 2 with Jodyri April Showers

A new start! This will be a square design when finished and I think it will make a great pillow and gift for someone. I haven't chosen who yet, although my Grandma is always my first choice :)

Do Not Meddle with charted threads on 28ct Monaco? for stunt stitching

This is for someone who can't stitch well any more and I'm so far behind on this one. Hopefully I can get a fair bit done this year, possibly even a finish. 

Another finish! This is I Love You by Jodyri Designs

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Eye of Newt by Chromatic Alchemy fabrics

This is for DH and I haven't quite decided how to finish it. 

Ballerina Dreams by Dimensions

stitched with charted threads 2 over 1 on 16ct Petra? by Chromatic Alchemy

Some of you may remember that I started this last year with the idea of finishing it in six months. I abandoned it in March since I wasn't far enough along, and finally got it back out this year and got a few stitches in. 

Evening in the Shire by Cute Patterns by Maria

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

This was a new start last month! Yes, I started another new project to meet the guidelines of the Team Jodyri vs Team KLT challenges. I've been wanted to start this one and I think it will be a gift for my eldest brother when complete. 

So, lots of stitching done, one more finish, whee! And a couple new starts. There's maybe another one too, which I'll show when I go over the other challenges and groups. 

I hope you've all had a good month!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch