The madness continues

On to ROUND 6?
Or not...

I finished my 5th pair of socks since March 19th. Sock Madness is down to the final 16.

Sweet 16!
And I'm still in it?

Next pattern comes out Wednesday night between 8 pm & midnight. I'm NOT a night person so I doubt I'll be knitting before my first cup of coffee on Thursday.

Thursday is also my birthday.
I'll be 50. Holy Crap!!
(Several other words come to mind but I'll refrain.)
As of now... I'm not planning on spending it sitting inside knitting all day.

More puzzle pieces have been finished.
My current obsession is perfecting my bullion stitches.
I'm more in the mood to embroider than knit.


And I'm old enough to do what I want!

Still Puzzled

How I spent Friday

I made another puzzle piece :)

Here is the blog with some other examples.

I needle tatted the basket with a smaller weight thread last year, so it wasn't big enough for a postcard. It got dropped into the sewing box for someday.

I dug it out and put it to use. It's been so long since I did one of these that I'll have to relearn how to make them before I try another for swapping.
Basket Pattern (Designer: It's me!)

I need to make a "view finder" shaped puzzle template so I can center things better. It's hard to judge where the middle will actually end up with my current method: Just guess...more or less.

I added some petals, leaves and beads at the base to offset the basket handle being too close to the top and too much empty space below. Sara took a look at it and said it looked like petals had started dropping off.
So I guess my disguise worked :)

On Saturday I basted newly purchased 30 count Hardanger fabric and set to work on a new block. I'm winging it as usual, with thoughts of making it into a Stitch Exploration fabric book page.

This is about 4 hours of work.
Free chart I started with. Looking forward to cutwork & needleweaving sections. Where I go next is still up in the air.
It's going to take a while to make a "book" at this rate.

Puzzled

Did I mention I bought a light?

And it came with a magnifying glass?
PRICELESS. Seriously recommend it!!

I've been experimenting with more puzzle pieces. It suddenly occurred to me my pieces could be like little band samplers of every technique I've ever tried with fabric postcards or fabric ATCs. I don't have to reinvent the wheel for ideas! I've already had a couple of good ones and it's okay if use them again. A needle tatted basket of flowers soon :)

I tried the Hardanger doodle puzzle piece on top first. No basting. Just outlined the puzzle shape roughly a quarter inch away and started in one corner and away I went. It's a little random - but I was practicing!
There's a tan fabric layered behind to highlight the cut work and I added some beads as quilting when I was done because it seemed like it needed something more.

Mostly I wanted to see if this type of fabric could be buttonhole stitched without fraying all over the place. I used fusible web, plus stitched the outline very close before cutting the puzzle shape. (I should not have used a pencil as I can see some marks that I thought would never show. Oops!)

I also tried experimenting with the tabs on the bottom one. To see if I could make it fit, I custom cut the top tab down to size.

I was afraid the stitch work on the bottom piece was too close to the edge, but when I locked them in place the open space from the top piece made it less noticeable I think. It's a 2nd try.
(This time it's square... for what it's worth :)

I mistakenly used 3 strands of floss and didn't realize it until I went to separate the other 4 in half. There were only 3? Damn! I ran out with an inch of edge work left. I hope I have some more. Somewhere. It was late so I haven't gone looking yet.
Wish "organized" was trait I could say I've passed on to the girls.
NOT.

While I still need lots of practice and need to study the stitch how-to's more closely, Hardanger stitches are coming so much more intuitively. I blogged about it at the time, so I'm surprised it was so long ago that I first tried.
2006. Really?

I shouldn't have held out so long without a light!
Instead of flinging it away in frustration because I can't see, I want to try more.

"I can stop any time I want"

"So are you addicted to THESE now?"

(comment by a smartass Stephani)

Okay. They're addictive!
I've made 4 now.
If there's a Whirl Into Spring drawing, I'm ready with my prize.

Because shadow or no shadow given off by pesky rodents in Pennsylvania - I'm ready to bring on Spring. Now.

I've been working on my quilted Puzzle Pieces for a swap set up by Pat Winter Gatherings. Also addictive. I don't know if they'll fit together with other submitted puzzle pieces without purposely tweaking the nearby connecting tabs a bit. Hopefully I'm not alone in needing to revise the pattern of alternating pieces to make them fit.

One alternative I can see would be to ask some entries to leave their edges unfinished. I've been practicing my blanket stitch. I think I may be going the wrong way. All the tutorials seem to work the stitch right to left but after trying the first one and feeling like I was doing it backwards, I wondered why not go the other way. So I did. Seems the same to me.

It's still NOT my favorite stitch! If front is supposed to look as good as back, I've got a lot of practicing to do yet.

(If any Puzzle Swap participants stop by and want to do a one-to-one puzzle swap email me!)