Melitastitches4fun's Blog


Spirit of Jean and Mae

The ANG CyberPointers chapter voted to offer Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees, a current Correspondence Course, to our members & I signed up! Recently, I obtained some great stash from Mae V-D, a past member of my local chapter, Main Line Stitchers, who passed away.  So, the basis of the colorway came from her threads. Plus, Mae is my middle name & my grandmother’s name!

You can see in the upper left side of the photo the Watercolours tag that has the color and lot number handwritten – now that’s old! And, I’m not sure what the overdyed floss is on the far left but it goes with the Watercolours perfectly. It is amazing that all the threads are over-dyes and makes it more challenging to select threads. 

I met Ginny, another CP and member of my other local Keystone chapter who signed up too, at Fireside Stitchery the weekend that the instructions arrived in the mail (thanks Candy for all your work) to select our threads. But, I used some Weeks Dye Works with very little variation to get what I wanted.  I was thinking how much easier it would have been to select the optional kit but I love these colors.  It’s been very fun stitching although it requires very careful counting!!  

Threads

Center portion

 



Bamboo Tea Tray, Clue 7
July 27, 2015, 9:24 am
Filed under: Bamboo Tea Tray, Melita's Designs

The seventh part in the Stitching Games 2015 run by stitcherie offered two choices: (1) You can pick one of the clues (but not a technique), do the usual thing or (2) you can play tic-tac-toe!

From the combinations of clues and techniques that were available, I selected couching/laid filling, eyelet stitches, and Lima.

Since Lima is a coastal city in Peru, I stitched the east & west “coasts” of my piece in a couching/laid filling technique from parts of ANG’s Stitch of the Month in March 2005 to create a border. And, because there is a Lima in Ohio I decided to add a couching around each of the circles to represent the Os in OhiO. Lastly, half square eyelets (not sure what else to call them) fit into each corner.

Clue 7



Discontinued DMC Stranded Cotton Thread Colors
July 4, 2015, 11:11 am
Filed under: General comments

For future reference:

DMC



Bamboo Tea Tray, Clue 6
June 29, 2015, 7:26 am
Filed under: Bamboo Tea Tray, Melita's Designs

The sixth clue in the Stitching Games 2015 run by stitcherie is “lilliputian”. From Gulliver’s Travels, a race of very small people; also meaning very small. So, the smallest area left on my canvas is the other circle (the one on the right).

I created my own round Amadeus based on my learnings from my Jean Hilton books.

20150623_223628-1



Reorganizing My Stash
June 26, 2015, 11:12 am
Filed under: General comments

No studio or office for my stash. But, my 5 foot 5 inch tall (36″ wide) cabinet (pictured below), 5 drawers (15.5″ x 19.5″ x 13.5″), 5 bags (2 large totes, 3 small totes), and a bin are now reorganized (charted projects, ground material (painted and colored 14 or 18-count canvas/perforated paper/vinyl/linen), bars, bags, threads, tools, finishing materials including objects such as boxes/coasters/ornaments/frames/rulers/snow globe). Most of my storage containers came from The Container Store (what a wonderful place). I had done this a few years ago but couldn’t find stuff easily.  It took me 5 days but I’m done! And, happy to get back to stitching!

Thanks to Linda (in my ANG chapter) for the idea of binders with top loading sheet protectors. I got ones that hold up to 70 pieces of paper not that many hold that much but it allows threads to fit with instructions for small projects (of which I have a few). Now, I will actually be able to find things! It was an eye opener to see how many projects I want to stitch.  I think road trips in the future may have to be focused on purchasing threads for projects I already own. Of course, my husband reminded me that I should try to “shop at home” in the one drawer & one bag already filled with threads before buying more!

Cabinet



Pansy Garden in Bloom

I finished Laura Perin’s Pansy & loved seeing it come to life. It would be interesting to see this stitched with some silks. Before I take it to the framers, I want to stitch a companion piece. I have the threads ready to go. However, I have a few other pieces have to get done first. Hopefully,  it’ll be done before next spring!

Pansy



Color Inspirations

I think I should explain that we had 2 photos to select from.  I selected 1 of the 2 most difficult pictures of the 15!  The combo of different greens is challenging for me to do. But, going out of my comfort zone was intentional. And, I think I included all the colors. I found the overdyed green Edmar thread in my stash that I loved for the wallpaper after I had stitched the top portion or else I probably would have placed the Edmar under the 2 rows of Rhodes. By the way, the Edmar was in a thread package I had purchased from Orna’s Etsy site! She is an excellent teacher and I learned a lot from her demonstrations of French Knots, Jessicas, and laying threads!

Here’s the final piece (photo on the left & stitched piece on the right).

Color photo     Color Inspirations

 



Color Inspirations, Day 2 progress

A very productive day!

Day 2 progress

I stitched a little more after class.

Day 2



Color Inspirations by Orna Willis

What a great class at Orna’s studio today. All those threads right in her own home! All you need to do is google her name to find her blog, Adorn, to see pictures of her studio & our class set up. Here’s my picture & my interpretation of the picture in materials I had around the house.

Photo materials

My stitching in the afternoon after selecting threads:
Day 1 class stitching

And, what I did after dinner! Looking forward to day 2.

After class progress



Stitching with Jean
June 7, 2015, 12:04 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

Recently, I have playing with Jean Hilton stitches to understand them. How they work so I can adapt to pieces I’m working on. These came from Jean Hilton’s Stimulating Stitches (infinity symbol, raccoon eyes, leaf, curved leaf, nautilus) (page 13).

Jean Hilton Exotic Crescents

The double fan doubled also from the same book (page 37). However, there is no explanation of how to make the opening in the middle. So, if anyone can share any insights, I’d appreciate it!
Double Fan Doubled