We’re going on a trip in our favorite rocketship

As a pre-school teacher last year, I was introduced to a lot of new children’s television programs. I watched several of them to know what my students liked and how to talk to them about the show. Many of these shows were painful to watch (read: Yo Gabba Gabba). Little Einsteins, however, was actually quite well done. The title of this post comes from their theme song, and I definitely recommend this show to any parents looking for interesting television for their little ones that won’t make them want to pull their hair out (read: Yo Gabba Gabba).

So, back to rocket ships. When we last left off, I was trying to figure out how to get the buttonhole stitch to work around the window. Before attempting again, I remembered the lesson from this month’s Cyberpointers meeting, which was on Hilton Stitches. I decided to try my hand at the Jessica stitch.

First try:

Then I realized that it would be very difficult to get the blue underneath all of that stitching, so I ripped it out and tried again.

Take 2:

It’s not a perfect Jessica, and I know I made a few mistake on the last section where you have to tuck your new stitches under your old stitches, but I think it looks pretty good.

I also added the buttons and fire trail to the rocket. The only thing left now are the wings, and I think I’ll wait and stitch them later (padded satin stitch maybe?).

My last bit of progress was on the shooting star. The darker blue metallic is the Silk Lame Braid. It’s very easy to work with, but for some reason my scissors did not enjoy cutting it.

We’re going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship, Zooming through the sky… Little Einsteins
Climb aboard, get ready to explore There’s so much to find, Little Einsteins.
We’re going on a mission, start the countdown 5, 4, 3,2,1

Rockets and TU SAL

This is the first month of my Totally Useless Membership for TU SAL, and I’m already late on my first post. But, here is my TU SAL 🙂

I have started working on the Rocket Ship in the piece for the baby. I’ve stitched the purple, blue, and green, and started the red. For the red, I added a sparkly border in Krienik metallics.

I started to work the green window port in the buttonhole stitch, but ripped it out when I realized my thread was too short. Any suggestions on how to change threads in the middle of this stitch? If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to switch to another stitch because I have precut all of my floss to the same length. Whoops!

I’m still fighting a cold, so – off to go spend the evening stitching!

Space for Baby

Long time no blog!

Sorry for that hiatus. I spend 2.5 weeks with my family in NJ, and actually didn’t stitch at all there. I was planning on working on a few of my mom’s WIP, but instead I read A LOT! Every year my dad (and before him my grandparents) gives me a bag of books. Although they are plentiful, they usually last only a few weeks. I worked as hard as I could to read them before heading back to CA. It was a tough job, but I loved every minute. I still have a few more to go, but reading helped make my luggage just a bit lighter.

The other reason I haven’t stitched much is because I was waiting for THIS to arrive

Friends of mine told me over break that they are having a baby!!!!! Well, my first thought was “YAY!!!!!” and my second thought was “I have to make a needlepoint!”

They chose this piece – Space with Borders by Alice Peterson.

I ordered it right away and it finally arrived on Saturday. I was very patient and waited until Sunday to go to my LNS. I picked out these threads:

I picked out mostly Perl cotton (for speed and ease), accented with Kreinik metallics, Threadworx overdyed floss, Flair and Frosty Rays (my nemisis, but they are so nice after stitching is complete), Arctic Rays (for clouds!), and Silk Lame Braid (new to me, but so stoked to work with it!)

I started this project with our home planet – the Earth in the corner, working with the green and blue Threadworx floss. I started working the green in basketweave, but I didn’t like the diagonal lines the overdyed was making. So, I pulled that out and reworked it using 3 strands of floss in one orientation and 3 strands in the opposite orientation. This make the color changes look much more natural. I stitch the blue in continental with all 6 strands in one direction. I love the look of the water!

One thing I learned from this is the difference between basketweave and continental in terms of coverage. Wow! When I hold it up, the basketweave has very little light coming through, whereas I can see small wholes in the continental. I think I’m a basketweave convert now.

Okay, back to stitching!

Framed Snowman

Happy Hanukkah all! And almost a very Merry Christmas.

I have been very busy this past week finishing up our last week of work before a long vacation! After tomorrow, no  more work until 1/4. Which means, of course, that I’m taking the red-eye to NJ tomorrow night and not returning until 1/3. I can’t wait!!!

This month, I was able to finish one of the 2 blocks for the December Heart of the Cabin lesson. Sorry, I haven’t taken a picture yet. I won’t be taking it with me on vacation, so I’m going to fall behind on my coursework. I think this is the first time I have ever not completed a “homework” assignment on time in my life. I was thinking about taking some of my smaller projects with me (Long + Short, or the Dragon3), but I think instead I’ll just help my mom make progress on her current projects. Hey Mom, what do you think of this plan? (She usually loves it. I couldn’t let anyone else work on my pieces, but I think she likes that they actually get done when I’m home)

Speaking of Mom, she got the Snowman back from the framer today. I wasn’t involved in the process, other than to suggest that she make it into a piece that goes on as stand rather than the wall due to its seasonality. I think she did an AMAZING job choosing the mattes and frames. I love it!!!

Can’t wait to see it in person TOMORROW!!!!!! (or, well, Saturday, but I leave tomorrow)

In the nick of time

I finished lesson 2 with only a few days to spare. Luckily, I had the long weekend to get everything done 🙂

Here is block 5 finished:

And block 6:

I’m not sure about the Flair on the top-left log of this block. It really should be a shade lighter I think, but this is all I had. I could have used the Frosty Rays I used for the hearts, but I think the weight of it would have been a little too heavy. So, for the time being I will leave it in and wait to see how the whole heart turns out. If it needs that extra color contrast, I will suck it up and rip out my stitches and purchase more threads. But, until then, I’ll save the heartbreak and the money.

 

Put it all together:

 

Okay, so I NEVER thought I would finished in lesson in time, but miraculously I did it. Next month, I REALLY don’t think I’ll be able to finish in time. I have another 3 weeks here, and then I get 2 weeks vacation back in Jersey!!!! As wonderful as that is, this piece is simply too large to bring cross-country. So, unless I can finish in the next 2 weekends, this just isn’t going to happen. But, I do plan on bringing other WIP (works in project) to stitch on the plane/in dirty jerz.

 

Can’t wait for the next lesson to come out!

Snowman Pictures

Here are the pictures of the Snowman, as promised yesterday. Ever the awesome blogger mom, my mom snapped pictures of the snowman in a variety of locations.

On her counter:

On the floor (cute toes Mom!)

And against the window

Mystery Project Revealed!

Sorry I have been gone for so long! 2 weekends ago I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in San Diego. We had a mini family reunion down there, as my parents flew out to meet us. I wrote a beautiful blog post for you all from the airport…but it wouldn’t post.

After the weekend, my mom flew up with me and stayed for a week at my place. My mom is AWESOME.

This leads us to my mystery project…which is my Chanukkah present to her 🙂 I probably should have waited until I went back to Jersey for the holidays to give it to her (wooohoo, made my plane reservations last night). But, because my mom is so awesome, I wanted to give her something to thank her, so I gave her the present early.

So, without further ado, the mystery project:

(NOOOOOOO!!! I can’t find the picture I’m sure I took of it before I let my mom take it back to Jersey. Mom, can you send me a picture of it?)

 

This is Let It SNOW-MAN by Joni Stevenson, from the September 2009 issue of Needle Pointers Magazine.

I made a few changes to the threads. I changed the golds to reds (as per my mom’s prefecnce. I also did the snow in his face and body with 3 threads of white floss and 1 strand of Kreinik 032 Blending Filament. What a perfect shimmer!!!

I used DMC Memory Thread in silver to write “Let it Snow.” I really like how it held it shape. It allowed me to form the letters, place them, then reform them until I liked the way it looked.

We’ll have it framed and I can represent it to Mom in December.

Back to the Cabin

After finishing up my mystery project, I set back to work on the Hearts of the Cabin. Lesson 2 came out on Nov 1, but I’ve just started. I know this is a course for fun, but I hate falling behind on my homework. Coupled with the fact that I’m going to be out of town this weekend, I think I might not finish in time for the next lesson. But, I have to keep reminding myself that this is just for fun, and its OKAY if I’m behind schedule.

 

I have finished 1/4 of this lesson – the light 1/2 of block 5.

The outer log is stitched with ThreadworX and Splendor. I am still in love with the Threadworx overdyed. In this log, both of the overdyed threads I used were very suble in their color change (the blue and pink/purple in this case). The inner log also used a ThreadworX overdyed thread, and you can clearly see that this one has a more dramatic color change. This part was stitched with a cashmere stitch, and I really like how the simple stitch is accentuated by the color change in the floss.

The middle log uses floss and Kreinik. The Double Star Mosaic stitch was really fun and I like the effect of it a lot, but it took a deceptively long time to stitch! But, I think it was definitely worthwhile, and I will be looking for places to use this stitch in the future.This log also calls for a bead to be placed in the center of each color block, but I learned my lesson last time and will not be stitching that bead until the end of the piece.

Here it is a little closer up.

 

And now a little further away so you can see the whole piece up to this point.

 

I think I’m off to check out a new needlepoint shop in my quest to go to all of the shops in the area. Also, there was one set of threads that I didn’t pick up for the project, so I need a couple more.

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Entertainment

I’m sitting here at work. My google reader is down to 0. I’m anxiously refreshing hoping someone else will post something new for me to read. It’s still at 0.

Then I thought, it’s not fair for me to be saddened that noone else is posting when I’m not posting either. So here you go!

HAPPY TUESDAY!!!!

(now please go post something new for me to read 🙂 )

No more mystery

Well, the mystery will still exist in the blogosphere…I’ve just (almost) finished the project.

I’ve been working on this the past week which is why I haven’t updated with pictures, but I was stitching a lot while watching the YANKEES WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!!

I have a little bit left to do to put the finishing touches on the piece, but the bulk of the stitching is complete. I should finish the rest of it tonight, assuming that couching down the memory thread doesn’t prove too tricky. I already formed it into the shape I want. Now I just need to locate the thread that I need to couch it (where could have possibly disappeared to in this small apartment?)

HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE!

 

(EDIT 30 seconds after publishing: a quick look at my old posts and I see that the thread I’m going to use to couch was in the thread box with all of my other supplies for the project. Whoops!)