Working Around the Alphabet

I'll be happy with my entries this week - I made progress on everything. Real, visible progress. As you can see, I got five and a half more letters done of the alphabet. I might have to put the rest of the things on hold for a day or two to complete this by the end of next week, when I hope to get it in the mail to the next person - in France. Who knows when I'll get it back? It's looking pretty good so far and it's not that big a project. I needed some small things.

French Round Robin

Being the social stitching glutton I am, when I got my last issue of de fil en aiguille, I signed up for the round robin. In French. I don't speak French and -barely- read it. But so it goes. I'm in a group with five other people, all of them Francophones. We have six months to finish six pieces and so - this is the start of mine. I need to have it done in a week and a half. The design is an alphabet heart that I downloaded from the Australian version of Better Homes and Gardens. I'm using Pistachio Nut waterlilies on R&R Reproductions 28 count 18th Century Rock. Coming out well so far and stitching up pretty quickly.

Class Start - Bargello and Buttonholes

So, Wednesday night I got home from Seminar and Saturday I went to a class with my local chapter. This is the piece we started - Bargello and Buttonholes from a fairly recent issue of Needlepoint Now!. It's tilted 90 degrees - the long part that's done is supposed to be at the bottom. I did it in the Christmas color scheme. I'll be adding in gold since the ecru pearl cotton they called for. Guess I'm going to make it gaudy. Anyway, it's going pretty quickly. Maybe I can finish it soon, too.

Medieval Town Mandala - Corner Elegance

I got one of the corners done of the four in this part - it's come out really stunning, I think. The more I stitch this design, the more I fall in love with the detail. As of now, I'm almost done with the upper right hand corner, too, so I'm getting there. The next part looks like much less stitching than this one was. Maybe I can do some catching up?

Ribbons and Roses - Seminar Start

This is what I managed to accomplish in my two day seminar, titled Ribbons and Roses, by Deanna Powell. She taught it well and it will become a purse - but for now is out of the rotation until I can finish a project. I figured seven in rotation was enough for the moment, and probably too many. Anyway, this was a very good class for me. I'd never made bead "fabric" before, and got to learn the peyote stitch - her version - and it's not as hard as I thought. She uses two needles, which means you end up with less bulk on the side and less wasted thread. The small black square on the left is the beginning of the purse strap and the larger iridescent rectangle is one of the inside layers of the rose. The pink strip between the two is the finished outer layer of the rose - beaded pink organza. I've also started beading using a fly stitch down the areas where the ribbons join on the bag. I'm not sure I'll use fly stitch on all the seams, though.

Panda Progress

I can see real progress on my Panda! The whole back half of the big one is done - making this chart about a third of the way done. Yay! I hope to have this done by the end of November so my husband can frame it before Christmas.

Elegant Diamond - Seminar Start

So, this was one of my Seminar starts - a one day class by Denise Harrington Pratt of Amaryllis Artworks. It was a good class and she had all of these little boxes and kits - each one different! Talk about a lot of prep time. Anyway, she showed us some stitches and let us get to work. The diamond is completely made up of wrapped triangular eyelets - they look really nice in person. The one bump on the side is an arch stitch, and another one will be going on the other side. It's fun and I've gotten the most time consuming part done, so this is going into my immediate rotation. I hope to have it done in the next month or so.