Olympic Finale and IHSW

The Rio Olympics are complete, and therefore the Stitching Olympics hosted by Measi are over as well. I decided to attempt 2/3 of her options, stitching in your country's colours and a distance event. 

I chose Reflections of Canada by Ink Circles for the country colours and when I last picked it up in January it was here:

and I'm pretty happy with getting about 25% complete:

stitched 2 over 2 with Jodyri Ruby Slippers on 25 count ivory Lugana

And for the distance event I decided to get back into my Letters from Nora and went from here in January:

to here:

stitched 2 over 2 with charted threads (Crescent Colours) on 28 count Lugana from Chromatic Alchemy

The fabric colour is more realistic in this photo and I'm not 100% pleased with my progress as I feel like I could have done better. I just wasn't into stitching on this one for some reason. Maybe it was too many colours after the monochrome, but it wasn't grabbing my attention at all. 

In the end, during the closing ceremonies I picked up a small to work on with big stretches of one colour, Linus from the Peanuts set:

to here:

I think I will likely pick this one up again and finish it off. Then I'll have the characters complete to send back. I'm stunt stitching these for someone who can't easily stitch anymore. Fortunately she's extremely patient, but I have some guilt about taking so long. 

Thus ends IHSW for August and check out everyone's posts over at the lovely Joyce's blog, Random Ramblings. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness and Olympic Update

It's the 15th of the month again and time to share our Gifted Gorgeousness from last month. I don't know about the rest of you, but I always have to check my photo album to see what I was stitching since I tend to change so often. 

Check out everyone's stitching at our fabulous host Jo's blog, Serendipitous Stitching and here's my monthly GG:

AAN Spider Banner:

This is stitched on gifted 32 ct opalescent fabric and I managed to complete the entire first page plus a little more. I hope this one can come out again, but with Xmas peeking over the horizon, it likely won't be for long, if at all. 

KLT Charting Owl SAL:

A finish! This was a gift from a stitching friend and I really enjoyed it. There's a frog SAL currently and I think I need to purchase it soon before sign-ups are closed. 

Rainbow Butterfly:

I managed to fix my error and start on the yellow. This will be gifted to the group that is putting together quilts for victims of the Orlando massacre.

Jodyri Butterfly Quote:

This will go in DD's room when complete I think. Or maybe be a quilted hanging? It's a really relaxing stitch and I'm loving the threads. They're Jodyri Pink Laydee and Sparkling Citrine and I'm stitching on 14 count blue fabric, not so much turquoise like the photo. 

RAK received from the lovely Kim McCool, posted here. I'll link to it since this is photo-heavy already. :)

Letters From Nora - S:

Stitching DD's initials on Nuriel's Forest 28 ct from Chromatic Alchemy 2 over 2 and with charted threads. This is also part of my Olympic distance stitching from Measi's blog to see how far I can get. I'll work on this one now until August 22nd. 

Other Olympic Stitching - Ink Circles Reflections of Canada:

This isn't part of GG, but I'm excited that I was able to get every motif except the central flower stitched at least once. I'm using Jodyri Ruby Slippers on ivory 25 count Jobelan 2 over 1. It's been fun to see each motif come alive and it's interesting to stitch one of these. I didn't get as much done as I hoped when we had a severe heat wave and I wasn't up to stitching, and didn't want to get oils on my fabric. 

I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes I have trouble deciding if I'm going to stitch an entire motif or stitch an entire row. You can see I was doing the row stitching with the bottom right totem pole.

How do you stitch mandalas? 

and Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Fun Friday!

After a busy week I'm finally posting about my wonderful RAK from Kim. Thank you again!

The package included this excellently painted Limoges box:

I love the painting of the detail on the wing and the cattails. 

Plus these wonderful threads and fabric:

The fabric has a wintry feel to me, so I need to decide which project it will work best for. I have an idea, but I'll have to grab DH for colour advice. The Watercolours will be good when I get back to Mabel's Round in Circles SAL too. 

Finally we have a fun chart and lovely card:

I have an idea of who I'll stitch the chart for and may send it off as an Xmas gift if I can get the colours correct. 

Thank you again Kim for making me part of your birthday RAKs!

No stitching over the past few days because it's too freaking hot... Rain today and tomorrow so hopefully that will help. 

Happy Stitching and hope everyone has a great weekend!

Tiffstitch

WIP Wednesday and A New Goal

I joined Measi's WIPocalypse group for their Olympic stitching this month as it was a great excuse to get out Reflections of Canada by Ink Circles. I'd been itching to get back to this one. 

I left it here in January, as shown Friday:

And so far I've managed a decent amount of progress:

2 over 1 on 25 count Jobelan with Jodyri Ruby Slippers

I will say it's sometimes difficult to get much accomplished while watching the Olympics. :) 

We managed to find a way to stream the U.S. coverage through NBC by signing up for Playstation Vue. There's a free trial for a week, and I think I'll be satisfied with that. It's been interesting to watch. Here's a fun fact for everyone, all of Canada's medals have been won by women, so that's pretty interesting as well. 

My goal is to finish half of this design before moving on to the Nora Corbett letters, but we'll see how far I get. I have a date in mind to reach my goal, and if I ignore all my other obligations, I just might make it. ;)

NEW GOAL

As for the new goal mentioned in the title, I've decided to try and give up all refined sugar for a month. I'm turning 40 this year and decided I needed to challenge myself with something difficult. I'm still deciding on what "big" prize I'd like to have as a reward. Because I think that's the only way I'll actually accomplish this one. Sugar is hidden in so many things it's difficult to avoid. 

I was thinking of a half decent camera since I've been feeling more interested in photography again, and DH isn't thrilled that I always change his settings when I use his camera. Or maybe a Millenium frame or something like that? The only issue I have with the large frames is I tend to stitch on our couch, and the seat cushions are too long for my legs to sit "normally". So I use the lounger, which means a standing frame would be awkward unless I can have it at the side.

 I tried this one and ended up with a backache because I have to sit too far forward on the couch and had no back support. 

A lap frame might be useful, but I don't know if they work well on loungers. Plus I work on a lot of medium size projects, but there are a few large ones I'd like to get some serious work accomplished on. A large frame might help since I could stitch 2-handed. 

Any experience, advice or critiques on the options available would be welcome! 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Tenuous Shoe Horn Blog Party: My Summer Holiday EDIT with photo

I almost forgot to shoe horn in my Summer Holiday stitching for Jo's blog party! 

As I was looking through photos I realized I don't tend to stitch many summer or even spring designs. It's all fall and winter. But I did stitch this one back in 2012 when I was going through a rough patch:

It's from a Stoney Creek pattern called At The Fair I think. I submitted it to a local fair and got 2nd. I thought that was good because I was up against this enormous design of a loon. It must have taken years to finish! 

I have fond memories of this one for learning the pinhead stitch and my first experience with Rainbow Gallery blending filament in the flags of the Ferris Wheel. 

And in case you're wondering, no, I don't mind backstitch. :)

Thanks Jo for a fun reason to share this one!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

EDIT to add this photo of stopping at the Big Apple in Ontario to add to Bea's photos of giant sculptures in Canada 

Olympic Stitching Challenge

Today is the opening of the Summer Olympics in Rio and I decided to join Measi's Olympic Stitching Challenge! The details are here if you're interested. 

As most of you may have noticed, I'm not the best one-at-a-time stitcher, so I think I may work on Reflections of Canada for part of the time, which fits stitching your country's colours, and I may work on Letters From Nora which would fit the distance challenge part. The only one I'm not up for is the rotation challenge, although I think Jo said she was going to try all 3, good luck to her!

First I'm going to get Reflections of Canada out. I left it here in January:

And will get right back to it now. Have a good weekend everyone!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

And Now For Something Completely Different

After I finished Just One July with one finish and decent progress on a second piece I wasn't sure what I wanted to work on for August. I certainly am spoiled for choice with WIPs. A lot of them are here, but there are a few more not listed there. 

It's still been fairly busy at work, so I wanted something not too complicated to work on, an easy pattern and maybe large sections of one colour. I dithered a little on choosing, since that's what I do, but I eventually settled on Jodyri's Butterfly Quote. 

I left it here in January:

and now I've almost finished the top row completely and will be starting on the 2nd row. The word will be "caterpillar" eventually. I'm stitching on 14 count fabric from Silkweaver I think and I'm using Jodyri threads Pink Laydee and Sparkling Citrine so far. 

It was really nice to pick up something that's a little easier than both AAN and the owls for a bit. I'm not sure if I'll change to something else soon or finish the second row. I haven't decided yet. 

And here's my Owls finish!!

It was a fun little SAL and I think I may have to stitch the frog SAL that's open currently since I have the perfect piece of fabric from Chromatic Alchemy. I did a floss toss with my DD and she had fun playing with all the thread. :) I didn't take a photo yet, but I will once I purchase the pattern. 

Here are some close-ups of the last row, all owls are 4 over 2 with DMC 823:

 filling with Jodyri Flying Monkeys :D

 filling with Jodyri Christmas Twinkle - love this thread! it looks just like Christmas mini-lights

filling with Jodyri Black Widow

Thank you everyone for your encouragement in getting this done! It was close, about an hour to go before midnight on July 31st, but I made it. :) 

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch