A New Location for My Blog

If you have come here on purpose or by accident please join me in my new location which is Sylvia's Life's a Stitch. In order to coordinate my gmail account with my blogger account I had to move to a new URL. I hope you will join me there.

12 Stitches a Day at Work

As I mentioned in an earlier post Gay Ann Rodgers challenges her students to do at least 12 stitches a day on her projects and I have extended that to my stitching in general. I decided to take one of my WIPs to work and stitch 12 stitches a day on this project every work day. I try to do this as soon as I came in while I am having my morning coffee. This way if life happens and I get no stitching time at home during the week I have done at least some stitching on a project. Because this project is painted canvas and I am doing it entirely in tent stitch it is easy to pick up and put down. Here is how I have set up my work space. Since there are only 7 skeins of Impressions fibers I took a LoRan project card and attached 1 inch rings through each hole and each skein. When I need a new length I can just pull it without detaching the fiber and cut the length I want. Then i thread my needle and go. The project is small enough to prop against the wall and is next to my phone and where my laptop is docked ( it is to the right of the phone. So I can even do a few stitches when I am on the phone. I feared this project would become a UFO but by putting in my office I will work on it regularly. I estimate that it will take a couple of years to finish it but it is very gratifying to see the ongoing progress on this piece.

Stitch of the Month Year- to-Date

As soon as I joined ANG in January of this year I began to stitch the 'Stitch of the Month' mystery project. I didn't care for all the colors the instructor selected so I spent about 4 hours over 3 trips to my LNS selecting alternate colors and fibers.I wanted to select fibers available to me in the store and not order them online. Therefore I had to make a number of substitutions. Now this is more difficult when you have no idea what the entire design looks like. Initially I decided to stay with the same shade of red the designer used but substituted different fibers. I then selected a dark green and a medium blue. After stitching the March installment I decided I didn't like the blue and ripped the blue all out. I replaced the blue with a cream color.  Here is the design stitched through July.

Here is a close up of the June and July section. I am really enjoying stitching on this and want to keep going but I will just have to wait until the August installment.

July SBQ

1. Do I stitch because I want to be alone or do I end up being alone because I stitch? This a paraphrase of the question but gets to the heart of it. When I began to stitch ten years ago I did it to keep my hands busy during long faculty meetings. While I like to grab some quiet time with my stitching I also stitch in a variety of different settings such as soccer games, waiting for an appointment, or by myself in my stitching chair. So I would say neither statement is true for me. I do  however find it relaxing at the end of a busy day or first thing in the morning to sit quietly and stitch and reflect on what ever is currently going on in my life.

2. What are the characteristics of my ideal stitching group?
Ideally I would like the group:

• to have a mix of ages
• have light but fun conversation ( not gossip) 
• or discuss current issues
• and  feel comfortable enough to share our stories
• feel free to help each other
• share ideas and techniques
• laugh a lot
• celebrate together
• meet either in a shop or a public meeting space

I like the idea of it being like the old fashion quilting bees you read about.

12 Stitches a Day

I recently joined the Shining Needle Society . One of the instructors,  Gay Ann Rodgers gives us a weekly assignment with the intention of  keeping us moving forward on her projects but she is extending to the entire SNS student community. The challenge is simply stitch 12 stitches each and every day.  I decided to take that a step further. I took one of my painted canvas WIPs to work and started stitching 12 stitches per day sometime during the day. This is such a beautifully painted canvas that it is hard to tell where I have stitched but if you look closely you will see I have worked on the outer blue border and the inner blue border. I am stitching this piece with Caron Impressions and I love the way this fiber handles and looks in this design. I am doing this design entirely in tent stitch. This piece has been put aside for more urgent projects but this way I will make slow but sure progress. I will also do 12 stitches a day at home on my focus project of the day.

Walk with me...

I decided to lose weight and to mange this through exercise and good eating habits. OK now that you have had a good laugh pick yourself up off the floor and read on. If you have never worked at a university you don't know what you are missing. The pace of life slows down a bit and you have time to form new habits. While on vacation I decided that instead of going to the gym to walk on the thread mill I would walk around the campus early each morning instead. On Tuesday, I headed out with water bottle in hand for my first walk. While listening to Northanger Abbey I walked and decided to share my campus with you by taking a picture or two each day that I walk. Since it was just after 4th of July here is a picture of the students artistic expression.

This rock gets repainted on almost a daily basis throughout the year so you will probably see it again. By the way my first walk was lovely.

Something New and Something Old

 Each Thursday night of the month there is a stitch night at my LNS and each has a different theme. The first Thursday is hardanger. I decided I wanted to learn more about this type of needlework so I picked a project, collected the necessary fabric and fiber and went to learn about kloster blocks and the blanket stitch. After frogging the first attempt because I miscounted ( I only did four stitches in each kloster block) I ended up with the following. This is the beginning of a Christmas ornament in the current JCS Ornament Preview issue. Next month I will learn how to do woven bars and dove's eyes.



I also decided to go back to a long time WIP and finish it this month.This is the third part of Chatelaine's original  Mini Mandala. For some reason I have been struggling to finish this one. I think it is because I don't like some of the colors yet when I see a picture of a completed one I love the way it looks. I have to remember that how colors look are impacted by what colors they are next to. So I have put all my new starts aside and I am going to finish this WIP so I can have the three piece set framed. I started working on the set about 6 years ago and on this one in January of 2009. I worked on it for a month and then put it away until this spring when I did a little work on it and again put it away in favor of some new counted canvas and needlework projects. In going through all my stash and WIPs I decided I really want to finish it so I started on it again yesterday. Except for stitching night at my LNS I will focus on this piece for the rest of July.