Traveling Pattern

Ferret Friday will have to wait, I received the traveling pattern Thankful for Ewe today.  I'm smiling because I had looked at the pics to see how many colors I needed and actually picked one of the listed threads.  I don't know if I have enough so I do have a back up.
May get started right now.  My other BiL came in on his way through to pick up his son and they are now rooting his phone.  Joy of tech people. :)

Progress on my Love Quilt Square.  I still need to mail my other one off.  Last night and today at work I've been working on wrapping my floss on cards to store in a tackle box.  It was taking to long to sort through the things and 2 of them lost their numbers so I had to remember what those were anyway.  Then it looks like I bought the wrong color, I'll need to look back through my stash to see what I have.

Don't forget if you want to have the Stars & Stripes pattern relayed to you to comment on the post below.

Done

If I had stitched at all on Friday it would have been done then too.  Instead just over  a week on the relay.  I was hoping I could get the video of Matt Smith running the relay, thanks You Tube since BBC is slow..  (For those of you that don't know Matt Smith plays the 11th incarnation of Doctor Who)

Ok I know you really just want to see the picture of the finished project. 






  

I haven't finished, finished it yet because I'm not quite sure how to make a heart shaped ornament.  The model at the store was just framed flat.

So now to relay the pattern.  Not sent with charms or anything so you can pick out your own so if it goes to someone not in the USA they can pick their own charms and colors.  I'll leave this open till next Sunday June 3rd and then pick a winner to mail to.  It will probably be 7:30 or so in the morning Central time when I pick in hopes the person can get their addy to me and I can mail it on Monday.

We'll do this like other traveling patterns, follow the last person who stitched/is stitching it, post your progress, relay it on to the next person in a timely manner.  Lets see how many get this done before A. the relay is over and B. before the Olympics and Paralympics are over.

It has some back stitching and a few more beads and then  I just have to figure out how to finish it.  Any suggestions?  It's Friday so the first thing if I stitch today is going to be the Ferret project.  Once I've got the back stitching and the beads done I'll open it up for relay :)
My suggestion if you stitch in an over dye like I did is not to start a new row with endy bits.  Save them all up for the hearts down there and maybe you can get a better stripe pattern.  I tried to get the blue and and red as best I could but there isn't a lot of white before it fades to light blue or pink.

Yiota's Cross Stitch Kits  I love these kits and Jo who can't think of a clever nickname is having a giveaway over at her blog Serendipitous Stitching  Leave her a comment on her amazing Dark Alphabet too.  I'm envious now.  I wasn't thrilled with A-D but now that I see the whole thing I wish I had started.  She got a pretty prize pack too for finishing before the designer!

Now to the heart of the matter ;)  I added the beads and charm as it said in the row, maybe should have waited on the charm.  Then did the next band of weaving cross-stitch and started on the large cross stitch.  I was using up the endy bits and I'm thinking I should have waited for the smaller stitches at the end but ah well.

Ok last night I figured out what I think I was supposed to do for row 4 and then I did the Stars.  The next row was the same as 4 so I did that and stopped there.  There are supposed to be beads and the charm goes in the center.  I didn't have my beading needle.  I'm thinking gold beads.  I didn't do gold thread in the weaving but I think I should be going for gold not silver ;)

With the time difference I could watch highlights from the days torch relay but there wasn't a live feed so I searched around the net.  I thought the 30 Olympic Moments was something on NBC but apparently it hasn't aired yet?  But they did have Leno and he interviewed Hugh Laurie and found out that his father was an Olympic Gold medalist.  However it was never mentioned in the house.  He didn't find out his father was a rower until he and his parents were getting into some boat and he asked his Mom if his Dad knew what he was doing.  They got home and his medal was kept in the sock drawer!  Hugh says he has it in a safe now.  It was from 1938 (I think) and they didn't use all gold it's mostly tin and the gold has worn off.  I think I've heard that happening to some other medals too.

Ok copied it from my Google +  I need to spend more time figuring that out but I used the google account instead of yahoo so I can't sync the thing over here :p

Besides not figuring that out I can't figure out Row 4 on this thing.  I did the xstitch row and finished and then I did the stitches on row three and did the weaving of the blending filament which gives a tiny bit of sparkle but I didn't want to go too bold with the gold, red or blue that I had.

So someone explain Row 4  Couching: using 6 strands of DMC floss come up from underside of the fabric at the beginning of the row and go back down at the end of the row leaving several inches of floss at each end on the underside of the fabric.  Floss must lay flat on the upper surface.  Then stitch over with 2 strands of DMC floss as sown in diagram below.  To anchor floss tails left on underside of fabric wave them carefully through the over-stitching on the underside of the fabric.

Of course this gave floss numbers but I'm just using the overdye or at least I think I will.  What I think this means is starting from where the left side just under the staggered x's are, I insert the needle and then go all the way across to the other side and poke it back through.  Then make sure that huge line lays flat.  Next I take 2 strands of floss and I'm making a straight line up and down in 2 places and an x (that's what the diagram looks like, the actual grid on the front looks like boxes adn then an x and then three boxes and an x but I'm guessing the top bars are just to show where the thread goes and then you're doing two lines an x three lines x   |  |  x  |  |  | x |  |  | x until I get to the end.)  Then when I get that done I take the endy bits on the back and attach it to the border stitch?  or did the crazy stitching on the top leave something to run it behind?  Some said they had this pattern Help ME! :)

Stitched and TUSAL

 I managed the border, band 1 Herringbone stitch and some of the cross stitch before running out of the second length that I cut.

My TUSAL with my project.

I've also been working a bit on a Love Quilt Square that will be a space ship and a Princess crown square.  I think my Ferret Friday I just don't want to finally finish.  If I had sat down and worked on it all day last Friday I know it would have been done but I just did a little bit.

Just got scared by some noise on my computer.  I sat and stitched while watching some of the pre-videos on the Olympic Torch Site and then watched some You Tube.  Apparently though the live coverage has now started.

The Start

Still using my phone to take pics.  I cleaned today instead of hermit ing so haven't started yet.  Tonight my friends and I are going to see a play.  One of ours stitcher's is an actress too so we decided tonight will be a goodnight since it's when we usually met to stitch and it's my Birthday weekend ;)  Just remind me to put the sd card back in my phone!  I keep trying to use google plus and forgetting that I made the blog before I had my gmail account and they don't seem to talk to each other.  Either I need to figure out how to sync the e-mails or if I can keep the blog but change the e-mail I use to sign in.

You can kinda sorta see in the picture that its cross-stitch around the edge and a little on the insides.  There's a Herringbone stitch and something to do with weaving that they did with some metallic but with the Weeks Dye that I'm using I'm not sure if I want to do metallic?  If I do I might do Gold. I think when I get to the bottom hearts I may get out the regular dmc so the flags on them will look right.  This came with a Silver USA charm.  Of course if I stitch it I'll not have one to give away when I relay it.  Should I supply another one or let someone pick their own charm?

Olympic Torch Relay

The Olympic Torch Relay starts in a few hours http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/about/

I have a small project I found that I had bought who knows when at the LNS.  Though I did find a bigger project I was going to do during the games.  I'm going to try to do this little project during the relay.   Now the project is The Sweetheart Tree's Stars & Stripes Heart.  I cannot find a picture of it anywhere though the site still sells the charm.  It has several bands to make the inside of the heart and I'm already confused at band 4.  It's also supposed to use some blending filaments and beads it looks like but I have a skein of Weeks Dye Works Independence that color changes red white and blue so I am going to try and use that and see how it goes.

I'm going to post a pic of the pattern tomorrow.  When I get done with it I'll 'Relay' it to the next person.  I guess if the person needs the charm I can get one to mail?  How should I handle that best do you think?

Birthday Present

I saw a link to this Fossil Bag on Facebook, I don't remember where, and decided I had to have it and customize it.  I messaged my Mother who works at Dillard's in FL and asked her if they got it in to let me know how much it was with her discount.  She said my Birthday was coming up so she'll see :)  It arrived on Thursday evening and I went back to the instruction site after some digging around for it.  Since looking at it the first time I had changed computers and not all my book marks came back.  The instructions look easy enough until you look at the bag at the top of the page and then the third picture of the bag with the finished stitching.  The grid is not a grid.  It makes a nice diagonal pattern and I have no idea how they stretched it out to a grid because even with a water bottle and then the contents of my purse in the main bag I couldn't get it to stretch out for perfect X's.  They really do look like crosses.

oh blast it all.  I was trying to add pics from my phone and you can do it with a Google plus account but of course I created this site before my gmail account which is what the Google plus is attached to.

And who's bright idea was it to put the sd card in the back of the phone instead of the side?  Now it's getting a billion things off the sd card again.  Eventually we will have progress and done photos.

 original purse

 matching wallet Mom found :)

 First key I wanted to go along the bottom of the bag but the grid threw me off and it got very truncated. 

 Second key, they suggested putting something in the bag to mimic the weight so I had put a water bottle in like they did but without it , the top part of the key is off like in the next pic.

 Third key not quite far enough down but I thought I was going to make it longer and then decided not too.

 That left a big gap in the middle so I did my initials but my M is always bigger than the C so after a few tries I and pulling out I got the L and C to look right.

  Done!
                                      
and I did the wallet with another key design.  had to fill some of it to make it look right at the top.
The only time you have to go through the lining is the first and last, you can guide your needle under the leather to make the stitches which means you can't run through if you're tying to get the other row :p   I tied knots at the back but I couldn't get all of them to go down to the lining so I pulled them tight and taped the backs.  

I got the patterns from a card book and I used over dyed threads because it's my 30'th B-day and I felt like it.  Hoping the colors don't run off on it but if need be I could take it out or clean up the leather a bit.   I'll find the book later with the stuff getting the pics loaded its now time for me to head to work.

WIPoclaypse April

 I finished Merry Catmas!  Now working on Holy Crap now I have to Wrap.  Headless, handless and footless thing she is.

  
Ferret Friday.  I did a little bit of backstitching.  We went camping and I grabbed him to take a long and got a little bit done.  I realized when trying to stitch the string I somehow added another pearl in there so it's 2 stitches further down :p  Ah well.  Still debating to put the words in there or not.  Above him should say Curiosity killed the cat, but it motivates my ferret.

I did get 2 other book marks done but I don't know where I put the pieces to Book, Book, Book.  I used Read More Books  freebie pattern I got from mr.xstitch's link.  I'll have to locate the link again for ya.

I did do a little bit of Amazon April and stitched one color on my Dragon piece last Saturday at my friend's house.  It's such a little bit here and there though that you can't really tell anything changed.  I will work on it more in May as it's my husband's 10 year anniversary present.  On June 5th I will have 2 more years to get it done!

On the 15th of May it will be my 30th birthday.  I've already made sure I have the day off at work and plan on spending time with my friends.