Finishing a Project

I'm coming to the end of my Chatelaine project, and I've been interested in watching my own responses to it. I talked about the feeling of loss; I got over that on Friday and spent the afternoon listening to a book and finishing the stitching. Since then I've found a couple of stitches that were forgotten/skipped, but I think I did pretty good.

Then I had to start the beading. Instead of starting right in on that on Friday, I procrastinated by "cleaning out" the basket next to my stitching chair. The reason I gave myself was that I was looking for my next project (and I was successful, stay tuned) but it was really procrastination. (I also knew the beads were in that basket, but it took a while to find them.) I found complete supplies for 3 beading projects that I purchased last year at the bead show, but I'm not in the mood to do any beading. I found a major finished project that I haven't blogged about (that I went through the same process with) and I will talk about that later this week. And I found the pattern for my next project (!): Quaker Turtles! You can see a picture of them here: With My Needle

I finally gave up on the procrastination and started beading. Here is the set-up I am working with.



I had to find the thread, the needle, the beads, and the tacky BOB all at the same time; I'm so disorganized that I would find one element, and then misplace it before I found all the rest. I was able to start beading by late Friday night, but I only got one thread done, and I was quite discouraged about how long the beading was going to take. However, by Saturday evening I had found a way to pin tacky BOB to my fabric and have 2 hands free for beading. That makes it a lot easier so my beading needle does not get caught on previous stitches.

So after this weekend I'm almost 1/4 way done with the beading! I am amazing myself, I thought it would take much longer. The beads are adding color and sparkle. I love the color; I'm worried that the sparkle is too much. I know some people who stitch Chatelaine projects use thread instead of the beads, and I can see why. But it is fun! But there is no way a picture will capture changes the beads make; you will have to take my word for it.

I am entering this give-away; I love stitching alphabet books. If I link to the give-away in my blog, I get 5 entries, so here it is! Violarium give-away I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be entering this one.

Swap/Giveaway

I had one entry for the clay, and I will be sending all of it to Zuleikha in the United Kingdom. There were two entries for the tools, so I flipped a coin, and Maggie R won; please, would each of you send me your address at Jane dot Compeau at gmail dot com

I will get the items in the mail as soon as I can. Zuleikha, I will send you my address on Monday.

Return G.I.T.S.

Peg wrote me that she got the Temari I sent her, so I can show it now. I actually got it stitched before I got sick, I just never made it to the post office to send it to her until last week.



This is another of the challenge patterns from the class I recently took with Barb Suess. It has 32 centers: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. I was quite please with how even everything turned out using the instructions we received in the class. I was amazed that I could make a 32-center ball by stitching stars in the 12 pentagons, it was like magic!

I used 16 shades of pearl cotton, in both DMC and Anchor brands, and I actually had one or two colors left over. Each color was used twice, on opposite sides of the mari, so you can't see two stars with the same color at the same time. The marking was done with a random green metallic I had in my drawer; I have no idea what brand it is.

I've been poring over one of my Japanese Temari books. It has a section where there are very clear pictures of c8 and c10 maris, marked with extra stitching lines (the division in black and the extra marking lines in red), and then an example of a temari stitched on that marking. There are more than a dozen of each. I'm thinking of making a methodical study of each division, stitching each different marking, following this book. I think it would be quite interesting.

I'm dragging my feet on finishing the stitching on my Chatelaine. I always do this when I near the end of a big project; it's too much like saying good-bye to an old friend. I will get through it, though.

Think Green GITS

I received this temari yesterday from Peg for the "Think Green" G.I.T.S. (Great International Temari Swap) through the TalkTemari Yahoo group. It took both of us much longer than expected to complete this swap, but Peg had a much more interesting reason than my hospital stay. She was preparing for the JTA (Japanese Temari Association) certification. We found out this week that she passed her certification! Congratulations Peg!



This Temari is a c10, with stars stitched on the pentagons, triangles on the hexagons, and white diamonds on the squares, but what I didn't see until I looked from further away was the negative space beautiful green flowers! There are other beautiful details too: the hanging loop, and the card she attached with her information. Now I want to hurry home so I can fondle it some more.

Thank you so much, Peg, for the beautiful Temari!

Hopefully she will receive the one I made in the next day or two, and then I will be able to post about it.

Swap/Give-away

Well, I've discovered that there are no would-be sculptors reading my blog. I've only had one response to my swap/give-away post, and she's interested in everything. I know I said I would pick a winner on July 31, but I changed my mind. I will wait until Friday, July 10, and I will close the give-away portion then. The swap is already completed, all the clay is gone.

I'm working steadily on my Chatelaine "Indian Summer Afternoon" and will hopefully be done with everything but the beads by the end of the week. Woo-hoo! I'll post a picture then.

New Piece of Art

Last night I was privileged to assist in the creation of a new piece of art. I provided assistance and technical guidance, but the colors were all chosen by another; the warp was all placed by another, and the weft was 2/3 placed by another.



Here's a picture of the artiste:



She's looking quite pleased because she was allowed to get up out of bed to pose with her masterpiece.

I was amazed by her concentration (she's 3 1/2). We finished 2/3 of the weaving before it got too dangerous to sit still for so long, and big brother was goofing off in the room. He did one row of weaving, and he was better at seeing where the "overs and unders" went, but did not have as much patience.

Momma is very happy to have such a good pot-holder; I'm hoping there's enough interest to make her another. When I was growing up we always ran out of loops before I was tired of weaving.

Swap and give-away

This is a picture of my box of polymer clay, Fimo and other brands. Since I've decided that I'm not planning on trying to become expert in another medium, I want to dispose of this. I had a brainstorm yesterday that I could trade these for threads! So here is my proposal: I will send you a block of clay for each skein of pearl #5 you send me, any brand. That is the swap part.

(Edited: 7/7 All the clay is gone!)



The give-away is that I have a pasta machine, an essential tool for working with polymer clay, and a bunch of other tools for clay, and I will give that away to someone who comments on this post. I will draw a name of someone on July 31, or when the clay runs out, whichever comes first.

(edited: 7/7 I will close the give-away portion on July 10)

I will send you my address if you e-mail me at jane dot compeau at gmail dot com with your address. I will be so happy to get my space back!