A new finish

Forest Light is finally finished! She took exactly 100 days to complete (using tent stitching which is much faster than full crosses) and every spare second of my time. Now, after 5 years and 6 finished charts of over one stitching I think I've got that out of my system. (for now at least) My next project is started and I'm back to more traditional stitching of 2 x 2 and it seems nice to see those neat little squares all line up in both directions.

Update time

I know I've been neglectful of stitching updates. So, here are two of them. In the first, you can see I finally have the woman finished. It was a lot of confetti stitching, but turned out well, I think.












This one is the last pic I did. I didn't want to completely unroll the fabric on the scrolls, so you just see the current section. Just one more row of pages and she'll be finished. I can't wait to see her framed and in my living room.


On a personal note, I had some much needed time off last week. My sis came to visit and we just hung out, cooked yummy food, stitched, in short, had a girly week. Giggle, we even had a spa evening. No, no pics of us in the little spa booties on our feet, with mashed avocado and strawberry smeared all over our faces while we watched a movie, sipped pink champagne and nibbled crackers with soft goat cheese on them! I can tell you, we were visions though!!

You Never Stop Learning

I used to make my pictures for my works in progress on a scanner. Then I started stitching on a scroll rod. That was such a huge problem to take it off, and maneuver it onto the scanner that I bought a new camera to take pictures. (see how my mind works, scary, huh?)

Now I had a brand new digital camera and didn't know how to use it. I tried several settings, but the pictures were never very good. I decided to start taking a picture every night after I finished stitching to practice.

OK, now I had a bunch of pictures. Then I learned how to make a cool slideshow in photobucket, and just now have learned how to post it to my blog! (see left hand side for said slideshow).

I must say, there is a sense of accomplishment there. So, may I present the slideshow that takes my stitching to the half-way point with Forest Light. The original artwork is by Jonathan Earl Bowser.

The pictures still aren't the best, but I think they are getting better. I'm still practicing every night and will do another slideshow when I finish the next row of pages.

Back to my blog and some serious stitching again. I've been wanting to do this piece for ages. The artist is Jonathan Earl Bowser and the piece is called Forest Light.

I've been stitching on it at this point for 30 days and am almost 1/3 of the way finished. It's being stitched on 28 count Laguna fabric, 2 x 1 and using only half cross stitches. There is a lot of areas with the same color in them, so it's stitching up very fast.

That's good because the stitchers I hang out with on the internet were having a conversation a short while ago. The question was asked, "if you had unlimited money and time, what pattern would you stitch?" There were some beautiful patterns for answers, any of them I'd love to do. My ultimate pattern though was, well, extreme to say the least. There is this lady named Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts who has charted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This chart is 564 x 1114. That's 628,296 total stitches. Now, I love large projects, but this is huge, even by my standards.

I was answering the question, not intending to actually stitch the chart. I don't know what happened, but the thread took on a life of it's own and now these friends and I are planning to stitch our dream charts. I guess why not? Life is uncertain and when I'm 80 and maybe not able to stitch any longer, if I didn't at least try, I believe I'd regret it. So..... the chart is purchased. The fabric ordered. It takes over 600 skeins of floss. I'm using my master set of DMC to get it started, and now need to go through what I do have to see what I still need.

This chart will take me a good long time, but I've always loved the art on the ceiling of the chapel. I remember when National Geographic did a layout of the restoration of the art, I wore the mag out looking at the pictures. I can't wait to get to know this wonderful art, one stitch at a time.

I also, briefly toyed with the idea of charting this art myself, since I do chart historic art to stitch. I looked long and hard at Joanna's chart and truly believe it can't be improved. To that end, there is no reason to even try. I'll stitch her marvelous work. I'm starting a new blog just for the project. I'll post a link to it when I have it ready.

I hope anyone who stumbles onto this little blog will join myself and the others that will be stitching their own dream charts to keep my company in our journey.

An Offering to Venus

I haven't actually added this project to my blog yet and really should. I'm stitching a model for Fine Art Cross Stitch called An Offering to Venus. The original artwork is by John Godward. It's stitching in half cross stitch, over one strand of 28 count fabric.

Internet Trolls -

- I thought I knew what that was. Obviously I didn't. I've been called one, as it turns out by someone that A) didn't know what it meant either. B) is troll-ish herself.

I wondered onto a fan forum today and started reading. The admin of this forum had suspended adding new members because of trolls. I thought, hey, wait a minute, there are over 250 guests on this forum. You see, I thought a much hated troll was someone who visited a forum or discussion group and didn't participate. If that was the case, why would this forum allow people to read posts who couldn't in turn post?

Obviously I was wrong, so I looked the term up. Turns out an internet troll is someone who joins a group for the express purpose of causing trouble. They either target the topic specific group as a whole, or single out one member they feel they can rile up, and basically harass them. Often these people are networking with other trolls, comparing how much damage they are doing, and generally having a laugh at said destruction.

It turns out I'm NOT a troll. I do visit a number of forums, and many of them I've never posted to. Partly because these groups don't seem to me to be particularly welcoming to newcomers and partly because I don't really have anything to say. These forums are almost all geared to cross stitching and I'm just interested in new techniques and ideas since I've never had anyone in my real life to talk to about cross stitch, except for one, and I taught her to stitch, so there's really little she can add to my knowledge.

I've been feeling bad about myself since I was called a troll. I've even been working to the conclusion that I should stop visiting all forums rather than be something loathed by others. Now, I'm angry at the person who called me that. I'm angry at myself for letter her get by with it and not making sure I knew what the term meant. I'm also feeling a lot better about myself in general now.

Playing blog catchup

A lot has happened since my last post.

First - My daughter's wedding. She looked so beautiful and was so happy. We did pictures before the wedding, and I was told I could NOT cry, or all my pics would be of me with red eyes and nose. Mom said I could cry at the wedding, not before. Then, down the aisle she comes, and daughter looks right at me, and says, do NOT start crying or I will! First time I ever went to a wedding where I didn't cry, and it was my baby's. It was a wonderful day, but we were all so tired when we got back to the hotel room.

My best friend/adopted sister came from the U.K. for the wedding and stayed the next week for some vacation. To us, that's watching movies, a bit of shopping, cross stitching, taking turns cooking goodies and lots of giggling. We managed it all.

The last day, we thought for a treat, we'd get some breakfast at MacDonalds. Bad idea. We both got food poisoning. I was sick enough, but in the comfort of my own bathroom. Sis was sick at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic! I missed the better part of the next week at work and have sort of been playing catch up ever since. Not to mention, my tummy still isn't back to totally normal. We both survived though, but have taken MacDonalds off our list in the future!

The newlyweds headed out to Colorado to visit a friend of the grooms who couldn't make the wedding. They got back home to Houston a week before Hurricane Ike. I was such a wreck that Friday night, as they decided to ride out the storm as the mayor advised. I'm relieved to say they came through with no more than being without power for a week. They were lucky, as they are quite close to the downtown area. My son-in-law, who thought that a hurricane would be the coolest thing, says never again. Next time they leave. Thank God.






Lastly, is what I just found in my email inbox. This is Naomi, my newest granddaugter, who won't be born for another 3 months! My son tells me this is a 3-D ultrasound. I never knew there was such a thing. It was what my daughter-in-law wanted for her birthday.