Fruit Cocktail by Glendon Place (and Dinky Dyes)

I related my Mixed Berry Cheesecake story already.  At the same LNS this year, I was once again digging through the depths of Stitcher's Paradise's back room, actually looking to see if there was another Mixed Berry for a friend, and I ran across this one.  Since it was small and relatively easy, I went ahead and purchased it, too.  Honestly, I'm not a fan of oranges/yellows, so I'm not sure what I was thinking, but hey, why not.

This kit also came with the Dinky Dye fibers and a 5 color sequence, specially dyed silk like Mixed Berry.  It did not come with fabric, though, but only called for white (I think?  Anyway, I got white).  I went ahead and grabbed a scrap piece they had for sale so I could start it soon.   I also kind of decided to stitch this one first as a practice for the second one.  And it's a damn good thing I did.

I noticed mine did not look like the model, my colors were in the wrong sequence.  While I don't hate the outcome, I think the sequence is far less obvious and I prefer the model.  Oh well.  To be honest, since I'm not sure I want to frame this or keep it, even, it's not the worst.   I have a beloved cousin who really liked this, I might finish it into a wall hanging or something for her.

The other issue I had with the kit was the same one I had with the Mixed Berry, in that the silks are skimpy as heck.   In fact, I ran out of the regular peach/orange, and I had to pull from my personal supply.  I blended it with the original so that the minor lot difference wasn't as noticeable.    Because of the issues with both kits, I would not recommend purchasing it unless you really like the design or just need to have the entire Glendon Place dessert series.

I started this well ahead of Mixed Berry but did not finish it first because when I finished all of the stitching, I realized that the kit did not come with the mill hill beads required.  I went through both kits/patterns and my personal bead supply and then ordered what I needed.

I started 1/14/2017 and finished 9/25/2017.   Stitched on 28ct white lugana.

Whole thing!  whoohoo!  Ok, so maybe I like it better when I look at it from a distance (still probably not going to frame it though ;) )

I still question the red beads, but whevs :)

I took pictures of this one in the setting sun like I did Mixed Berry, and I gotta say, I do love how the firey colored beads light up in that setting

And just for funsies, here is a side by side.   You can mainly see the sequence difference in the large motifs around the center/outside of the mandala.  I like the green in the middle of the motif more than I do at the bottom, where mine is on that motif; I also like the increased variation of colors on the diagonal motifs radiating out of the center, it's too blendy in mine for my tastes.   The upside is that I made sure to get the Mixed Berry sequence correct, since I was so bent out of shape about it on this piece.

Mixed Berry Cheesecake

There's a small story behind this one.

I saw someone post Mixed Berry Cheesecake (once upon a time), somewhere (couldn't tell ya where, sorry!) by Glendon Place and I fell in love with it.  Unfortunately, it was a limited edition piece and had been out for a while.  With the popularity of the Glendon Place desserts, of course it was sold out everywhere.   There were even a couple of stores that had it listed online, and yet when I ordered, they returned my money, because of course it was sold out.   I'd kind of given up (and I'm not one to engage in any illegal copying/sites).

I was in Las Vegas during my annual sojourn for MLK weekend, and I was at Stitcher's Paradise.   They have a crazy awesome, well stocked store.  More importantly are their two side rooms - one is full of fabric and is a great place to do floss tosses, and the other is full of old stock organized in those magazine holders by designer.

I've found lots of really good stuff in there and I love hanging out in there while everyone else is floss-tossing and doing other stuff.   Lo'!  And Behold!  They had one last Mixed Berry Cheesecake!

The cool part about these limited edition kits is that they have a specially dyed silk that is five of their regular colors and they tell you what the sequence is supposed to be and where to start/finish the particular portion of the design.  I think it's pretty cool.

I did not start it right away because I didn't like the fabric that came in the kit, Bashful by PTP, because it was way too pink.   So I spent a lot of time looking for a slightly pink, but not pink fabric.  I bought a lot of fabric that was pinker than the Bashful, and just sucked it up and used it.  Turns out it wasn't so pink!  Haha.   My only real complaint with the kit is that there was barely enough fiber to finish the design.   If I had made any mistake, I couldn't have finished it - and I tend to be fairly frugal with threads.  I think for a less thread-frugal person or someone who makes a mistake, they would be screwed.  It wouldn't have been much to add an extra length of each (especially the 5 color sequence that you can't buy extra of).  I have a full set of Dinkys, so I could have made up the difference for the solids - not everyone does, and of course there's the lot difference.

So here we are, my first finished Glendon Place Dessert, even if it is a mini.  I took pictures of it in different lighting to try to catch the pinkish (but not too pink) of the fabric.  My camera phone always goes bonkers with pinks/purples/blues, making them over saturated, but I'm still pretty pleased that you can tell what's going on in the design.

Started 9/10/2017 and finished 9/24/2017

Picture in the shade, the colors of the silks are pretty saturated here. 
I do love the beading throughout the piece as well.

In more direct light, the background is so pale it looks white against the berry colors, the silks are more true here, though the purples look a little grey.

Direct/setting sunlight, it shows off how much of the beading is throughout with the shadows.

These colors were so much fun to stitch.  So pretty and easy

Very true colors in this shot.

The middle is bead heavy.  I'm thinking of a triple mat using the pink/blue/purple (if I can get the framer to agree ;) )

I almost forgot to stitch the "natural" (not quite white) bits.

More of the corner beading.

I just added this photo because I accidentally put it through a filter and I loved it when it popped up.
So glad to have gotten this one finished!! :)

Houston Needleroll by Chatelaine - a "re-Finish"

This is a long, long winded happy dance story, because this piece has a ton of history.   So kick back and enjoy, or just skip ahead to pretty pictures.

Once upon a time, I lived in Houston (and other parts of Texas).   Once upon a time, I met Jo, formerly of Dinky Dyes fame.   We "met" on the TWBB when she was still living in Australia, but she would spend time in Houston courtesy of her husband's job, so we got to meet in real life, too.   And then she ended up moving to Houston, even on "my" side of town (if you've ever been near sprawl-city USA, you know that's got meaning).   In 2005, she hosted Martina, of Chatelaine fame, in Houston while she did a tour of the US and we had a really awesome Houston get together with a really fun group of stitchers.  Martina, awesomely, created a needle-roll design to commemorate the Houston GTG, featuring Dinky Dyes silks (the pack included all the high quality materials one associates with Chatelaine, including delicas and pearls!).

Most of the stitchers there! Someone posted this photo on the FB recently, so I snagged it.

I actually finished it relatively quickly (1/15/2006), and threw it in the finished bin.   I hadn't finished it into a needle-roll for two reasons - one is that I'm not the biggest fan of needlerolls, and two, because it's so freakin' pretty, I wanted to do something that showcases it better than rolling it up.

Recently, during the great reorganization and "better storage" attempt for my finishes, I ran across this piece again, and while I really love it, there was a major problem.   It had my married name initials on it.   One of my biggest regrets in life (seriously, one of the only thing that actually still makes me angry at myself) was changing my name after I got married (most people are surprised that it wasn't the getting married itself portion that actually works me into an internal lather).   I love my last name.  I think it's way awesome, and it's just who I am and who I have always been.   However, I was under a lot of pressure to change my name and some months after getting married, I did, like an idiot.    And as soon as I was divorced I promptly changed it back... but... well, that damn last name and/or initial pop/s up in the most irritating of places, and in this piece that's a lot of over one stitching to frog.   I couldn't just pick out the extra letter because then it would be obvious and totally off center.

The finished piece from my stash.  
The Shame!  The Horror!   Or, at least, one initial too many.

I didn't have the pattern any more and I couldn't remember what threads were used.   The letters I need were stitched, so I could have graphed it out or worked from a photo or something, and I have the entire line of Dinky Dyes silks, so I'm sure I could figure out the color used, but eh, the work.

Which brings in my wonderful pack-ratty ways.  

While hunting for threads, I rummaged through my "non-DMC" thread/fibre box and I found a binder ring holding the left overs from the skeins of the silks used in this piece.  Score!   So Maddy's Rose was there, and that part of my problem was solved.

I emailed Martina to ask if I could just get the alphabet (or rather, at least the three letters I needed).  I know she keeps a lot of stuff as digital files and I was hoping this would be a quick and easy solution to my ish.  Because I had the original it wasn't impossible, at all, to figure out on my own but I was hoping for the easy way out.  And right about that time, Martina had to deal with some personal issues, and I felt totally terrible for asking (I mean, I didn't know, but I still sure as heck wasn't going to pester her again).

And that's right about the time I was going through my external hard drive looking for pictures and information so I could finish setting up the galleries and stuff on this blog.   And I found a folder that had all of the cross-stitch stuff I'd done with Patternmaker, the program I had used in the past.   I primarily used it for the placement of letters and numbers (especially for things like wedding samplers, where inputting it into the computer and printing out a pattern was infinitely better than hand drawing on the chart).

And lo'  I had a file called "Chatelaine alpha"    It was my four initials.   Delete the fourth, spread out the letters a bit, and find the center.

Score.

I posted back during the TUSAL update, that picture of the ort jar with the pink bits of fuzz, and that was the product of tearing out all of those letters stitched over one.

Such a tiny amount of fuzz for such a large amount of work.

What I did not take a picture of was that I made a couple of boo-boos when nipping out the letters (it was a combination of picking at with a needle and using the best, skinniest, and sharpest stitching scissors in the universe - a pair of Fine Science Tools Iris Scissors - sadly they don't sell the particular model I use anymore).   I accidentally nipped the fabric and had two holes.   One was rather sizable, the other one was pretty minor.  This is 32count, so getting out over one stitching is just especially brutal.  I'm not too upset that I wasn't perfect about it.

Thank the Sweet Baby Octopus, I've done cutwork and am pretty good about fixing mistakes (if I bother), and after I finished being sad/annoyed/whatever about the holes, I cleaned up the holey bits, peeled off threads from the edge of the fabric and re-wove it so that no one would ever know my dirty little secret (well, anyone reading knows my dirty little secret, but good luck finding it in my piece).  

So, after it's all said and done, with all of the drama of the annoyance over my old name popping up to vex me again, the loss and find of the threads and letters, and the damage and repair I did to the piece: I'm done.

Looks so much better no?  I mean, correct initials, the ironing.  Life is good.

I've always been amused at the neat little nest the pearl gets to sit in.

Stitched on platinum linen.

This shot cracks me up because the beaded area in the center looks so wonky from here.  Hah.

I had already stitched this spot in 2005, so when I finished in early 2006, I didn't change it.
After all, it was commemorating the GTG in 2005, so it felt apropos to keep it like that.

This is really just to show off.    The small hole was completely covered by the stitching, so it ended up being a non-issue.   The large hole I managed to cut is actually only partially (maybe half?) covered by stitching, the rest of the damage (and repair work) is in a completely un-stitched area, but even I can't see it and I know where it is.

It's funny, because when I looked back at the original blog post about finishing this piece, I mentioned how much I didn't like the fabric choice, because I felt that the colors didn't pop as well as they would have against something like antique white.   And while working on this piece (again), I kept thinking about how much I love the fabric choice, because I feel like it's pretty and delicate (never mind soft and wonderful to work with).   I can't imagine liking another fabric choice more.  

So that's the long drama of this piece.   I do find it interesting how some pieces have so much more history and emotion behind them than others.   I can tell long stories about some pieces and nothing about others, but I still love them all.  I guess I'd have to, otherwise I would just chuck them instead of putting the energy into them.

Dinky Dyes scarf HD

So while pawing through Jo's yarn at CATS, I picked some interesting rusty/orangey stuff. I decided to make it into a scarf using the same pattern that Ann was doing for her daughter's scarf from the Crochet for Dummies book (shut up, I love Dummies books).

And lo' I have a beautimous scarf...

Come on, go ahead and comment about my awesome natural photo taking abilities. You know you want to feed my ego. It's draped over a big mesquite branch in the backyard, it's doubled and doubled again. It's a really long scarf, but it's groovy that way. It's not quite as bright as the picture, but hey, the light wasn't the best, and I decided to let the Rebel have its way with the flash. Oh, and right - I haven't washed and shaped it yet, so yeah, it's still a little funky warped.

Here's a close up of the pattern (give yourself a cookie if you find the Mona hair)

I really love the way the colors play - I really, really do.

And then there's the issue of the actual yarn. I freakin' love it and I could roll and roll in yarn like this forever. But, I have two problems when I want to play with yarn:

1) I must touch it and see it in person. I really need to, before I'll buy anything. I cannot order over the internet (if you don't count frantic emails to Jo for more), there's just a short there that makes me not believe what I"m seeing. I think too many bad internet hand-dyed fabric purchases broke me when I was making my babysteps into the wide world of internet craft purchasing. It's great that everyone loves various knitting/yarn sites (feel free to email me with info, I might be tempted into yarn bravery), but I haven't felt I could do it yet

2) I live in a horrible horrible land at the ass end of the universe, which means no LYS. I get Michaels and HobbyLobby in all of their mass-manufactured acrylic glory (not that I hate acrylic or acrylic blends or anything

So this is my first real foray into nice yarn. It's 100% superwash merino (whatever that means, except that I know Merino is sheep, therefore I assume this is wool), and it was SO soft and happy to work with. I did not want to put my project down because it just felt so good in my hands. It's kinda like going from using a Dimensions kit to using lugana with silk threads and Piecemaker needles. You can't even begin to explain the difference by using tired terms like "night and day"

Dear "more advanced (or whatever)" knitters/crocheters: I believe I have seen the light. Now someone hand me some good yarn and fly me to a good LYS. I've pulled the wool I got in SLC last year off of the shelf, and I'm so looking for another project.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Lots and lots of stitching. And I finished a couple of things.
A house warming gift from Margaret. I finished it a while ago, but I didn't post it, because I wanted to show it off to her at Vegas CATS first. It's called "When Life Gives you Lemons" by Ruby Slipper designs. Stitched on 28 ct Blush (by the blended needle).  Anyway, the saying goes "When life gives you lemons... get the salt and tequila!"

Then there is the Plum fruit cloissonne ornament I did for Stasha's RR.

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And I did a band from Gabriel for Nicole's RR

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And today I finished Shiraz Sampler by Dinky Dyes. I used 32 ct Legacy linen from Picture this Plus and I used Dinky Dyes's Warratah silk instead of the Shiraz it calls for because I'm a sucker for a pretty red.

And finally - here is a baby blanket I knitted for a friend. Yes, it's for a girl. Yes that's camoflage yarn, and no, I'll never knit another baby blanket again. I'm pretty sure this took the better part of 9 months. While you're at it, check out that new stitching chair. Yeah baby. The blanket is from the "Stitch' n Bitch" book. It's hard to see in the little picture, but the different quadrants were knitted/purled different so they show up in person. Just trust me.