New Year, New Projects & New Skills

much to do this year, so while I could I got stitching & have many plans, although a small plan to curb the trend of too many plans!

Firstly Guild requirements. We had already been told that this years challenge was to do a biscournu, luckily I already was up on the play on these with my Xmas tree done, but Mum had many patterns as well & so I chose & completed this one while away:

really busy pattern, with beads & tiny buttons, but very happy with the result.
My plan to ensure that I dont get carried away with too many projects is to only have one gift, one guild project & one thing for me on the go at any one time. I also want to ensure that I try my hand at something 'traditional' each year.
In terms of gifts, I currently have two on the go, so I must not start anything for anyone else until those are complete.
For me, I have started a table runner in Ukrainian Whitework - so this also covers my 'traditional' project.

It is coming along really well, & while in Oamaru, Mum gave me this little tip to control the excess fabric...

Hair clips! - I actually had a hard time finding these, in the right size, I still think these are a little small, but they seem to be doing the job :) Oh and tiny hair clips are being used to hold the end of the thread on the balls of Perle cotton!

other plans for 2012 are: learning Punto Antico at the Embroiderers conference in the middle of the year,  & i was given a huge project which came in the form of a book, where basically I am to make a house! which will hold sewing supplies! It is called "Home Sweet Home an Embroidered Workbox" by Carolyn Pearce. WOW! there is going to be a lot of work in that, so best get stitching so I can get these 3  current projects out of the way first.

On Holiday from everything except stitching

well, almost everything, actually mostly just home & work.

We have travelled south to Oamaru for the holiday season & I hope to catch up with a few friends, even a couple that I haven't seen since High School, but let's not count the years.

Some project have been finished - yah! namely the Christmas Biscornu Tree. Perfect to have finished the project I was given last year for Christmas, in time for this Christmas. Not sure if you can see, but it was done on sparkly fabric.

Then onto some Xmas cards - I never give out many, but I try to make a few each year... really wish I could get more organised & have a stash ready & waiting.

 

I'm not sure about the sheep heads, but am very happy the way the other two turned out, & nice to start & finish a simple task.

Next I will do some work on my sampler book & I now have another biscornu pattern to do for 2012 Guild challenge. (feeling like such a stitching geek).

Finishing Touches

here is a sneak peak at some of the wording... you will get to see the entire finished result after the recipient has received it.

and yes, sometimes I bleed for my art:

Sorry about the blurriness, but taking photos while bleeding, with your left hand is tricky. Oh and please be more careful than me when framing with glass... of course, it is recommended you don't wield sheets of glass while talking on the phone. On the plus side, the following day was spent with an Ariel disney band-aid.

and here is my first Biscornu:

so, as you can see a Biscornu is a fancy kind of pin cushion, where you take two equal sized squares, decorated & stitch them together where the corner of one meets the centre side of the other, which creates an 8 sided seam around, and then you sew a button in both centers creating a dent (oh and you need to stuff it too, but not too tight or you can't do the button part) - any questions?

When things go wrong

Sometimes, things go wrong - let's face it, I don't think I have ever done something that I didn't have to unpick at least one stitch on. Normally errors can be fixed - redone if caught early enough & covered up if not too bad.
Sometimes mistakes can really work - the cat I completed 1/4 of the size it was supposed to be worked out but other times things just go wrong.
It's not all bad though - if you learn from the mistakes. Here are two from this year:

This is way too pink & too blue in the hair - I tried to use some software to put a pattern together, not good software. I have tried this again on my mum's software & will give it another go. I did learn that stitching from the computer is very doable for me (due to the trial software not being able to print it).

 This was one items from the mystery package I got from the Fox Collection. It is meant to be a picture about vinegars it came in kit form with some beads & buttons for embellishments. Nice idea, but I don't really like vinegar & couldn't see an application for it (other than wall hanging), but I thought i could change it a little & just put in Wine & port, instead of vinegars & turn it into one of those Wine bottle aprons.
That would have been fine, except that the pattern called for the stitching to be done with 3 threads, rather than 2, which is what I normally stitch in & I did start this way, but then changed at some point & didn't realise my error for some time, so I gave up. there was also some other error I made along the way... this stitching was not meant for me.

Now I'm working on a Biscornu Xmas tree in back stitch... here's my prep work:

Then I hope to do something with this:

It's Angelina Fibre... I have some ideas, but probably wont get started with it until the end of June.