When I'm stitching with the Monday morning gang, there's a lot of chit chat and not a lot of concentration on what we're stitching. This week I worked on my sashiko piece because all I had to do is stitch on the lines.
I was running low on the thread but knew fairly soon my order for the rest of the threads I'd need would show up. They came today. I bought the necessary thread from an Etsy vendor - mostly because shipping from Hong Kong was less than $10 and from a Canadian or US vendor shipping would have been almost $30. The price of the thread was the same.
On Monday, I completed all the stitches in one direction (verticals in this photo) and started in the other direction. (seen at the top). The timing of the arrival of the new thread was very fortuitous because a couple more rows and the first reel of thread would have been finished.
I was going to fully finish the Robin Pickens 'Seasonal Courier: Cardinal's Winter' by mounting the piece on foam core then mounting it on a background of complimentary fabric. Like in this photo:
I even had the perfect fabric for the job in my stash but couldn't locate it last week. Instead, I purchased a fat quarter that could have fit the bill. Then I found a frame in my stash that would work without the faux fabric 'mat'.
In the meantime, I started kitting up the 'Blue Jay's Summer'
in the same series and popped into Michaels today to pick up the three DMC floss colours I didn't have in my stash. I scrounged an appropriate piece of fabric from my stash (38ct linen) and went to work stitching with one thread over two.
It'll be a pretty quick stitch. I may use the same frame for all in the series and just skip the fabric 'mat' altogether.
Inspired by MaryK's Lori Holt 'stitch picker', I thought I'd fashion some of my own using bakeable modeling clay (aka Fimo) and some #24 tapestry needles. The first batch of Fimo was all crumbly - understandably so as it had been in my 'stash' for probably 3 decades. The second batch was made using Premo Sculpey and was still pretty maleable. The clay is baked at about 230ºF for 30 or 40 minutes for it to cure/harden. I made enough pickers for everyone in my Monday morning group. And yes, I had the business cards, labels, and little plastic bags in my stash. If I were to make another batch, I'd make the 'handle' a little longer.
Today I even had occasion to use one on my stitching error. That little 'handle' makes is a bit more easy to 'unstitch' stitching boo boos.
Today for lunch I met my friends, David, Shelley, and Suzanne for lunch at the Greek pavilion - Acropolis - as this week is Oshawa's multicultural festival 'Fiesta'. It begins with a big parade through downtown Oshawa every year on Father's Day and continues until the following Saturday.
Thomas and Ernest were in attendance, too.
We sat and gabbed until almost 3.
On Thursday, Barb and I are going up to Woodville for the Bolts & Bobbins garage sale. Then on Friday afternoon, Poppy, Jen1, and I will head up to Gravenhurst for the Muskoka Yarn & Fibre Festival on Saturday - not that I need any yarn (cough) but it will be fun for an overnight getaway with a couple of my girlies.
Carol Feller just did a Facebook post about knitting a top using random yarns - leftovers from other projects or skeins combined with others. She's going to cover sizing, gauge, etc. It might be a good exercise for me to actually use some of my stashed yarn. I've indicated my interest in accessing this free information on her Stolen Stitches Facebook page and website.
No comments:
Post a Comment