Tag: Hummingbird

A Mid-Summer Update

Well, here in the Rain State, things are damp. The temps have been pretty nice, though this week, summer has finally shown up in force, with uber-humidity. For the months of May & June, we were well above average for rainfall, coming in at nearly double the average. Which is great for the garden, which is producing cucumbers at an alarming rate.

First Pick – July. I NEVER get peppers before fall, let alone 4 of the Cajun bells, which I really need when chili season starts…

In stitching news, I’ve been working through a few things since I last posted. First, when I left off in May, I was still working on Plum Pudding. I only worked a couple more days on it, got some beads in, and got to a stopping place.

Plum Pudding by Glendon Place – DD converted to Carrie’s silks, and the awful MH beads converted to Miyuki delicas. On 28ct Sprite, though my piece came decidedly GREY instead of purple – which works out with Carrie’s vibrant colors.

I put PP away and then decided to do a rotation on IC Anatolia – it seemed my start/finish of Green Damsel wasn’t enough Ink Circles, so Anatolia it was (though Growth Rings was yelling at me too – but I needed to re-do my Tacky Bob before I could work on another bead project). I did a couple of small bands all the way across, and then a couple of the bigger ones on the left; I LOVE these Carrie’s colors!

Ink Circles’ Anatolia – Carrie’s cottons on 32ct, I think…

Then I couldn’t stop the hollering any longer – Hummingbird Lace wanted to be worked on. It wanted to be worked on so much, I completed BOTH of the remaining over-1 hummers, and started the top left inner border! I probably could have kept going, but nothing else gets touched that way, so…

Châtelaine Hummingbird Lace – bottom hummer. On custom-dyed 28ct jobelan, using DMC, silks, metallics, delicas.
Left over-1 hummer, and the beginnings of the inner border.

You can see the weekly progress photos, which I took for the Chatelaine FB page weekend challenges, in the Flick album for this project here.

Wall cloud; since we are in a hole, we can’t usually see much in the way of cloud formations, since all we have sight of is the sky directly overhead of the street – but we had this parked over us one evening, just one of many storms we’ve had this summer.

I had an impulse start around the 4th of July, mainly because I don’t have any Halloween stuff going at the moment, which is WRONG. Tempting Tangles has a Halloween SAL going from her FB page/Etsy shop, and I signed up, picked a purple fabric out of the stash (28ct Wood Violet, which my friend Judy gave to me, because, you know, purple is ME) and got part 1 in:

The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL by Tempting Tangles; DMC on 28ct jobelan. I added the feather details to the owl, just because.

Part 2 is sitting here waiting on me, but I am busy trying to finish NC’s Faerie Winter Dream, which I am not really enjoying because of the mix of Caron Wildflowers w/DMC – some WF on its own, some mixed with DMC, and then DMC 2 strands, as well as single-strand Kreinik #4. I know the mix is for visual interest, but it just doesn’t provide consistent coverage that I like. Maybe if I had put it on a light fabric as it was charted, it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but because I have it on dark, the dark shows through more than I like. BUT, once I get all the beads on, it will be awesome. This is where I am as of last night:

Faerie Winter Dream by Nora Corbett, on a 28ct linen in Winter Solstice from Hand Dyed by Stephanie. A zillion beads to come, soon…

That’s the progress of things lately; I think I did more on SC Life’s a Journey, too, but didn’t dig it out to take a picture. Stitching has been a bit of a challenge lately because we’ve added a 4-legged terror to the household; Monkey was missing poor Bean, so we’ve been looking for a kitty for her, and instead of a new black kitty – which EVERYONE ELSE can find – we found:

Opie Cunningham Rife – a Manx of all things. And one of about 20 orange cats at the shelter.

It took 30 years, but I finally have a cat that pushes things off onto the floor. I wasn’t specifically looking for that trait.

If he grows into those feet, he’s going to be a MONSTER.

 

Until next time, happy Stitching! And wish me luck this cat doesn’t destroy anything too important, and learns how to stay OUT of the water bowl (my kitchen floor is ridiculously clean, thanks to mopping up a LOT).

 

Another Year in the Books

I can’t believe another year is over! They just get faster and faster. While the beginning of the year started out cold, it’s ending up very wet; we are about a foot over our yearly average rainfall, and no end in sight, really. Record heat in July coulda used some of this precip, though what we got in September & October really did wonders for the pepper patch 🙂
Haul #3

Since my last post, which had my AAN Christmas Tree and my BtB Summer Cove finishes, I started a Mill Hill kit for my travel project – Winter Woods. I was definitely not in the mood for either Dragonflies or my Stoney Creek Journey piece, so MH Kit it was – and the only one of several in my bag that had a working copy ready to go. A couple of nights at IHOP got me to this point – some of which is very hard to see as the threads match the perforated paper almost EXACTLY:

Mill Hill Beads & Button kit Winter Woods.
Mill Hill Beads & Button kit Winter Woods.

My main project for the last 2 1/2 weeks has been Sparkly Hummingbird (or Hummingbird Lace as it is also sometimes referred to). Of course, a few nights it didn’t see much time – too busy doing holiday stuff 🙂 But I did finally get the right-side Hummer in, got the beads all in for it and the top one, and also go a start on the flower on the left side, so I’ll be very close to starting the over-1 Hummer on the left the next time this comes out:

Chatelaine Sparkly Hummingbird, on custom-dyed 28ct jobelan, using most of the called-for fibers (some converted to HDF).
Chatelaine Sparkly Hummingbird, on custom-dyed 28ct jobelan, using most of the called-for fibers (some converted to HDF).

Since it is after Christmas, I can also show some other ornaments that I finished, which went to my sisters 🙂 An Ink Circles kit, using 40ct linen & Carrie’s silks, I actually made one for myself this time, too 🙂

The Huddle, by Ink Circles, x3.
The Huddle, by Ink Circles, x3.

I am actually going to start a new project for the New Year; because it’s me, it’s another Chatelaine – Deep Blue Sea. This will put me back up to 4 Chats in the rotation 🙂 Here’s the floss took I took way back when I kitted this up in 2012 (yes, it’s been yelling at me for over 3 1/2 years!):

 

Chatelaine Deep Blue Sea floss toss - a custom-dyed 28ct jobelan in Surf from Sunny Dyes Fabrics, along with silks & metallics and lots of beads, including a selection of Swarovski pearls to show up in oyster shells :)
Chatelaine Deep Blue Sea floss toss – a custom-dyed 28ct jobelan in Surf from Sunny Dyes Fabrics, along with silks & metallics and lots of beads, including a selection of Swarovski pearls to show up in oyster shells 🙂

And speaking of the rotation, I am planning to stick to the 2-week (or longer as needed) cycle, and have Ye Olde Project Randomizer all loaded for 2016 and ready to go:

ProjectRandomizer_readyfor2016

So, we’ll see what this new year brings. With one Kid currently in boot camp and another preparing to go later this coming year, there will be many changes this year. Hopefully DH & I have the ability to deal with it all 🙂  Happy New Year to All, and Happy Stitching!