Miles to go ....

Perhaps not quite miles of backstitching anymore - I can see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel!   I've been working conscientiously, though I had to take a break from my own stitching to complete two small white-on-white liturgical linens for my church to use at Easter. (I was stitching small crosses using a single strand of DMC's Coton a Broder for a stem stitched outline.)

 In Gathering Honey, I've now completed all of the dark brown backstitching in the central garden motifs (except for the bee skep) and in most of the lower right corner.  Six of the twelve bees are finished, so just the other half-dozen to complete, as well as the brown backstitching in the upper left floral section and the detailing in the two outer frames (and the skep, of course)  The citation for the quote needs to be added, and then I'll do the chain stitches (a few more bees and flowers), and then the French knots.  It may be a push, but stay tuned to see if I can have this all done by St. George's Day.  That WOULD be a reason for celebration :)   And once again, thanks for the boosts from the sidelines! 

The Bees' Knees

Nope, I  haven't been lost in a spring snowstorm yet (that might happen today, we have a storm warning here)  - just moving along one stitch at a time, and realizing that with way more backstitch that I'd anticipated, a finish by Easter was wildly over-optimistic and can't happen unless I hold off on the rest of life, like housework, laundry, baking, eating, and sleeping :)    

The bees'  knees?  Well, I started to realize the attention to detail in some of this pattern when I read the directions calling for a a different colour and thickness of thread in the top of the bees legs in contrast to the bottom (beneath the "knees" LOL).   I do have a couple of versions of the pattern, and it wasn't until I'd completed the first set of upper legs on all of the bees that I noticed that another version didn't call for quite so much detail.  Ah, well, that part's done now and I'll just keep on going!

    I took the photo several days ago, and since then, I've added much more backstitch and completed four of the bees - my camera's having battery issues, so that updated photo will have to wait till the weekend.   At least the snow might give me extra time for stitching ......

And many thanks again for those of you who are cheering me along - stitchers are a great group :) 

Honeycomb update

It's taken a while, but the honeycomb is finished! And I've made a start on the backstitching - the gray corners of the two frames have been outlined, the flourishes stitched around what will be the wording, and I've moved onto the flagstones.   Backstitching can be barely noticeable, but it does make a difference to the finished look - that said, I generally prefer patterns that have very little LOL  And this is the first design I can recall where the backstitching is done with several different  colours (about ten, if I recall).  No predictions on goals for this week, I'll just keep on with the backstitching, and maybe practice French knots on a spare piece of linen, as there are a lot more than I'd realized, well over 100 in that small lower right quadrant of the garden on those two green stems.   There's some chain stitch as well before I get to the French knots - lots to keep me interested :)    Thanks for those who are tagging along with me here - it's good to have company!  

Buzzing ....

Not too much stitching done in the past couple of weeks - with company here there was little time to sit down and concentrate, but I did manage to make a little progress.   The dozen bees now have all the cross-stitching finished, and I've made a start on the honeycomb in the lower left corner.  The backstitching on the bees (and the rest of the design) is called for when the honeycomb's complete.   Our visiting house guest is a beekeeper (amongst other things LOL), and she very much liked this design, commenting on how accurate the bee skep was, although of course skeps haven't been generally used for well over a century. 

I also did one small band on Drawn Thread's Cloister Garden, just for a change of pace, but no photos of that one yet. 

After the snow storm earlier this week, there's water sluicing down the street now, and the temperatures are warm enough for us to pull out our spring jackets - but at the same time, we'll keep our winter coats not too far away.  I've lived here long enough not to be deceived by warm temperatures in March :)  

Once upon a time,

Gathering Honey

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, I started several stitching projects.  For one reason or another (running out of a crucial thread, life interfering, not knowing how to proceed with a stitch, etc., etc.), some of these were set aside.  And now the time's come to pick them up again and FINISH them.  Other projects are enticing, but none are currently urgent, so these three long-delayed pieces are now either in my stitching frame or ready to go.  The first is the longest-running, an old Better Homes and Garden piece called Gathering Honey (shown above).  I think there are over 4  dozen colours, and a few specialty stitches as well.  I can't remember when I started it, but I'd guess at perhaps six or seven years ago.  Here's my progress to date: 

Gathering Honey - progress to mid-February 2012

While I've stitched a lot, there's still lots more to come and it's not quick work.  So we'll see - I'm thinking that I'd like to have it finished by Easter, but in the past, setting myself deadlines has taken much of the pleasure from the stitching, so I'll keep that time in mind, but in the meantime just concentrate on enjoying each section as I do it.

The two stems in the lower right quadrant of the inner motif will later be topped by a yellow section of multiple French knots, something I haven't stitched for quite some time.  But seeing as I did a piece once that called for a couple of hundred of them, I think that the twenty or so from this pattern shouldn't be too daunting.   The threads for the design are DMC, stitched on about a 28-ct. linen. 





Two more are waiting in the wings after this one.   One's called The Cloister Garden, a design from Drawn Thread, stitched with Au Ver a Soie on 32 ct. linen in a soft mauve-y rose. 
     Here it is:

The Drawn Thread's design of The Cloister Garden , and my progress to date

 It was passed on to me from another stitcher several years ago, and after looking carefully at it and continuing with the small section she'd started, I realized that she'd started with the wrong shade of silk.  So I've re-stitched most of it, and hopefully won't take ages to finish it.  I have the instructions and suggestions from a group who stitched this together (each on her own project) - I'll see whether their ideas make my needles fly a little faster :) 



 
The final design of this floral triumvirate is another Drawn Thread design, The Violet Sampler.  Although I don't have an image at the moment of the original photograph on the pattern envelope, you can get an idea of it from my progress photo here - like the previous DT design,  it's also in silk on linen (sorry about the lack of ironing in this photo!) 

My progress on The Drawn Thread's Violet Sampler 

 The violet was the favorite flower of my mother-in-law - in her garden she cherished a few plants of this delicate spring flower from her native province of New Brunswick.   So once this is completed, I'd like to frame it carefully and hang it close to a photo of her as a young woman.

My stitching time won't  suffer from lack of possibilities :)