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So Much Progress!

My WIP Album Link

See link above for lots of quilting photos!  I'm on a limited schedule, so quick snapshots are all I have.  Luckily I think the quality is adequate for these progress photos.  Enjoy!

Cutting Completed

Today's two hour session allowed me time to finish cutting all the white squares, wind up some thread onto bobbins, and sew the first two sets of squares together!  Hopefully this will piece together quickly.  Only, let's see, 52 of these triangles to sew together to make 64 total squares.  It's like a pointy chess board. :o     

A Night With More Stars Than Planned

I had a flood of quilt-ish inspiration in the past week or so.  Remember that Star Wars quilt I was pretty much finished with?  I finally got that last bit of energy to work on hand sewing the binding.  Maybe it's not the prettiest binding job in the world, but I think when I'm finished it will lift some UFO weight off my shoulders.

Now to what's new!  Well, I was thinking I'd try something a little bit different than my last several projects.  My insane notion that every project has to be uber complicated needs to be struck down.  So I've decided to do this simple pattern of squares and triangles (and tigers, oh my!!).  My color scheme is plain black, ivory, and a bright marbled blue fabric for accent.  Perhaps the quilting will be more shiny and embellished since the fabrics themselves are not so showy.    

A Carpenter's Star

The fabric store in town has a few sewing machines and nice little work space.  This means I don't have to buy an iron, ironing board, sewing machine, large enough cutting mat, etc.  So I just got the fabric and an inexpensive rotary cutter.  I happen to have miscellaneous sewing stuff and rulers for drafting.  So I spent an hour and a half maximum in the store before closing just cutting two of the three colors.  Hopefully white will go just as smoothly, then onto actual sewing!  I feel like I have to re-learn how to use a sewing machine every time, because it has been so long and I tend to never do quite the same project twice.  :)     

Children's Play

Hello all!  Just a shout out to anyone who happens to wander onto my blog.  I just posted an event and here are the details.  This is from a Craftsy.com class I joined on Art Quilting 101, taught by Wendy Butler Berns.  One of the question/comment threads jolted me into inspiration mode.  I thought it would make for a cool community-driven project.  :) 

Soon...

This is a placeholder for a post that I'm going to make.... soon!  I'm determined to get some stitching in, or at least I'll post some dancing photos because that has taken over my life this past year and a half.

Cirque des Triangles is still on my stand and a little crocheted baby dress is in the works stuffed in a bag atop my dresser.   

Afghan Update

Here is my latest WIP photo.  Working on round 23 of 26.  Getting closer!  How does it look?

Updated 5-28-13:  A bit late to be posting this, but here is the final product!  I am so happy with it!

Finish 2-10-12 Round 26/26

  

Puzzled?

Jigsaw Puzzle
oops...once I find the link I'll update it, promise.  6-20-13 //amw

I'm playing with new a note taking application and thought it would be nice to actually update my blog.  It has been ages! 
I've been working a little on my crocheted afghan since maybe a week ago.  It was sitting UFO style in my closet since maybe July or August 2011.  Maybe the next photo I take will turn into a new blog post!  Meanwhile, hope the link works out and happy crafting.

Background Removal

Now this is how I remove backgrounds...

Sitting in my department's computer lab, I just printed out this pattern QS Merlin by Linda Ravenscroft and had at it with a highlighter.  Hoping not to have to make too many changes later but I snapped a quick photo on my phone of the whole thing.  Thought it looked cool.  Enough to maybe warrant a blog post, even.

Today I had fully intended to go to the library and whip (sorry no pun today , it's really blind stitch, darn) out my quilt binding, and maybe still will after lunch hehe but this pattern distracted me for a bit because I had access to the giant laser printer.  (I also printed out class notes I promise O:-D)  Going to a quilt show over the weekend couldn't keep me from my stitching apparently. 

Happy sunny day!

Defending Against Frogs

Hi, blog!

After like, a month and a half hiatus, Cercles is coming along bit by bit.  Although I keep putting entire sections of motifs a few stitches over and end up frogging slash de-beading.  Good news is the replacement extension piece for the System 4 stand is working as it should I believe.  The Q-snap holder is not tilting slightly downward on the left hand side any longer.  May I internally happy dance?

Plus I've colored in the entire pattern.  One little thing off my mental, and what turned out to be an actual (on my phone's Notepad), to-do list. 

Last night was a fun pick-up rehearsal for the musical Falsettos.  The substitute saxophonist was giggly right along with me... I was beginning to go insane down in the pit with nobody to mouth random jokes/comments to.  Also, the guest oboist was totally awesome.  Her multiphonic note dealie gave me shivers of joy.  For about 10 measures then maybe 4 more for me to get over it. 

I really hope whoever is reading enjoys my rantings.  Believe me, much more goes through my head.  This is just what I happened to be thinking about at the time of this blog post.  Happy morning... my nocturnal-esque self could not sleep and therefore am awake, blogging. 

Circles, Beads, Contacts, Fire..

 

This is my next update of my beaded Cirque.  My somewhat obnoxiously sub-categorized Pictures library has these Ink Circles samplers in folders as CDC for Cercles, CDT for Triangles, and CDX for Carreaux (to be simple).  Is it bad that I heard on a bulletin board that there will be another Cirque and in my mind I'm planning what fabric count, floss or beads, cost?, and the biggest question how will they ultimately be displayed.  I was thinking that if I were to do whatever the fourth one was on 32ct over 2 in all beads, I could display the 4 in a large rectangle with the same mat size, and they'd fit almost perfectly with the same space between.  The only I guess, stipulation would be that the beads have to fit on 32 count fabric.  It might be too tight a fit, but I've never actually tried the beads I want to use (Delica seed beads, heard nice things about them).  After a bit of searching on the same website, I found some smaller beads that are a possible alternative, but they didn't have really what I wanted for color.  Here is the best I could find for purple.  I just need to do a little testing, I guess.  Also, get more beading finished on Cercles, for Page 1 is almost complete!!!  Just a side note.. the title was an obscure (and possibly incorrectly referenced) song from the musical RENT (that I listened to in full on Friday before interVarsity.. except Finale and Finale B lol), and "contacts" instead of "Contact" is because I'm getting new contacts Monday.  No Colours this time I'm thinking.  I do love the effect it has on my appearance.  The green is just so awesome.  But the new brand made of a different material lasts longer hours without getting uncomfortable.  Of course, your resident night owl said yes to that prospect.

Welcome to Falsettoland!

First pit rehearsal for The Falsettos tonight!

Here is my latest update on Cirque des Triangles.  Just a few more triangles to outline!

 Here's a photo of my initial set-up with my new System 4 Needlework stand.  It's the regular floor stand with the Q-Snap holder attachment.  The extension piece is now attached.  The Q-Snaps in the photo are 17"x17", but it was a little too tall for me to reach the part where I was stitching.  After failing multiple times trying to put the thing together, and several hours of trying different sizes of snaps and ended up with 17" wide x 8"+3" tall.  I got a few stitches/beads in last night.  

 

 Stash box! Yes!

UFO's Coming Home

 First, remember what it started like?

Now look!  Why the photo keeps coming up upside down (when it's right side up in my Pictures folder), I don't know. lol

Favorites

I was just looking at a few stitchers' WIP photos and somehow the thought popped into my head about what my favorite projects are.  Then I thought, hey this time away from my enormous box of stitching supplies got me thinking.  I mean, I have a few projects with me and I've worked on only Cirque des Triangles and UFO RR this quarter.  Well the quarter is almost over, and Triangles has a bit more outline and a lot more filling in.  See?

So just now I thought, do I have a project that I've been wanting to work on since I've been back in California?  And if so, do I want to make some sort of hierarchy or rotation system... Hmm.  I think I've been eager to work on beading my Cirque des Cercles.  So perhaps do I want to work on only the Cirques until I have the 3 of them finished so they can be framed together?  How to frame them is another issue, meep, because they're all different color schemes and sizes.  Then there is my HAED serial starting problem... uhh what I have been wanting to work on the most is Phoenix 1 by Law.  Second maybe QS Jem by Hannah Lynn Disney.  I have a full page completed on Phoenix and all the black and a bit of color on Jem.  That's a more manageable number of WIPs, right?  Maybe I should get a trunk with a lock and give the key to a roommate for the rest of the projects.

By the way, I was thinking of doing a thing for the new year.  Like a song of the day that describes my mood, thoughts toward whoever at the time, or just generally stuck in my head for no apparent reason, and see what comes of it, if anything.  I thought of this because the song today might have been My Favorite Things by Incubus.  And the title of this post was favorites, and I felt like ranting about it!

Country Music Without Prejudice!

Country boys don't rock and roll
Yeah the record man told me so
Yeah you'll never get it on the radio
Why they trying to complicate
The simple music that we make
Oh cause if it moves my soul
I'm gonna keep on rollin, rollin

Hey, just wanna hear everybody sing (rollin', rollin')
At the top of your lungs till the windows break (rollin', rollin')
Say hey, hey, hey

The title comes from a Big & Rich song.  For some reason they have been up on my Winamp for several days.  I think I've listened to their song Live this Life about 8 times.  So I wanted to rant a little bit about how certain things are wonderful.  Such as music.  When a song, whatever the genre, language, instrumentation, or lyrics relate to me in some way, I feel stimulated.  As in maybe I want to dance, sing out loud, etc.  So today when I was blasting my go-to favorite song for when somebody asks, Stricken by Disturbed, and a few others, I thought about the emotions and thoughts this music evokes when I listen to it.  I had similar feelings when I went to Intervarsity large group this past weekend and church with various friends mostly in the past year.  I've been thinking about it quite a bit lately, and I think that there is something to be said about people coming together in groups and getting to know each other on a deeper level, whether it is through sharing experiences on a sports team, a fraternity, classroom, church, family... I also think that there's a connection between the actions of people and the events that transpire in their lives.  Think Aesop's Fables or those stories told to you when you were a kid, with a moral at the end.  A good majority of the time this holds true.  Maybe someone who scams somebody in poker will win in the short run, but think Rounders, they'll get the crap kicked out of them somewhere down the road.  In Hinduism I think this is the concept of Karma.  (Enqueue Spngebob:  10 minutes later.)  Kind of lost my train of thought there...... um, anyway, I think maybe that I need sleep.

Or stitching therapy.  Yes, that will definitely help.

Oh I think I remembered.  I wanted to say that I think the two things are similar.  Finding something you're passionate about and being modest and making an honest effort to be your best.  I'm not sure this has anything to do with God or a historical person.  Maybe those things are for people to believe in, maybe a placeholder.  And in believing in something they feel a duty to be a better person, then as a result  their life changes.  *shrugs*  The thoughts in my head are always completely different than what appear on "paper".  I am really grateful for my good friends that invite me to join them for fun events, and to talk to about the serious stuff.  It is friends like you who give me confidence that I'll find someone to share my life with.

Gearing up for Finals

New update posted by Rachel as my Round Robin leaves her.  The whales are so adorable, in that deadly nautical sort of way.

And my latest on Cirque des Triangles, which has had a small amount of loving.  I completed a few more motifs, but there is much to do yet.  Maybe next time I'll keep going on the outline.

Flying Orcas? I Mean Needles!

This is my UFO round robin, and a photo of my piece as it has arrived at its latest destination.  I am so thrilled with it so far!  Thanks, ladies! :)

I'm working on Linda's UFO at the moment.  A few hours have added up so far.  I'm doing a big chunk of one color so I can pick it up at any time when I'm on the run.  So far I have caught myself on the backward stitches a few times.  I ALWAYS start my crosses and half crosses on the top right or bottom left.  Had some down time hanging out with brothers today.  No pants Thursday. lol

Let me Outline this for You

Flying Circus!

I'm just going to say that this week has been phenomenal and I even got some time in on stitching, as it turns out while watching Monty Python's Flying Circus.. 

I would say the progress on this is slow and steady.  I've been pretty on-the-go lately.  Getting more used to the 32 count fabric.  It's cool to get so many stitches in with only one length of thread (compared to other counts) lol. 

Ren Faire!

Huzzah!

I went to my first Renaissance Faire today.  So entertaining! 

On the 2+ hour car ride up, I worked on CDT a little.  There were distractions, hehe, but the outline of Page 1 is basically stitched and some odd motifs are emerging!