To-dos progress

Progress has actually happened! First up, I got the moon finished on Moonlight Guardian:

I think this is a good place to pause and, stitching-wise, move over to work of Papillon. I do have fabric and thread now, thanks to shopping in my mom's stash. 

For knitting, I've been working on the Ennis pullover:

I finally reached the armhole and neck shaping on the front, and that is one shoulder done AND attached to the corresponding back shoulder. That does mean that when I'm working on the other shoulder I'll have twice as much fabric to wrangle, but since I'm using a three-needle bind off for the shoulders, I wanted to go ahead and get it while I had those stitches on the needle and my working yarn. So I did think about that, and decided it could be future-me's problem.

I want to stick to my current goals, because of course I had a new distraction arrive:

In class, I ordered one of Amy's mystery samplers. I've always wanted to do one of these; she breaks the sampler into parts so the final piece is a mystery AND she's written a mystery that relates to the sampler. I do know what this one will end up looking like, but I don't know its accompanying story and I'm excited to see how all the parts go together. This one is split into 3 parts, and since there isn't a picture of the piece, I flipped over the first pack to show off the threads.

Sadly, this kit set has gone into the stash, to be on a future to-dos list. I definitely want to get the Fractur piece done first, and *that* piece is waiting until at least Papillon is finished. But may be done before Moonlight Guardian...

Current To-Do's

 Planning out which projects I want to prioritize, and actually get something frikkin finished this year.

1. I want to get the Ennis sweater done. I had hoped to have it finished in time to take *on* the trip, but I couldn't quite get the front knit in time.

2. I want to get at least the current piece of Moonlight Guardian done. I think I'll be able to take the border from the original design and adapt it to fit on the sides of the box, but that basically counts as a separate piece so I'm not including it in these goals.

3. I'm doing a group project with my local EGA chapter, a stitched filet lace piece called Papillon. The actual design, as you may guess from the name, is a butterfly. But butterflies aren't really my motif, so I was glad to receive a handful of older/vintage crochet patterns from one of my mom's friends at this recent stitching trip. I found the best peacock!

He's so chunky, I love him. This is my adaptation, to hopefully make it easier and cleaner to do in embroidery rather than crochet.

This piece is obviously a priority because I'm working on it at the same time with the rest of the group, so we want to stay on similar steps at similar time. But now that I have my pattern, I can figure out how much fabric I need. My mom is off this coming week on another stitching trip, and she has the specs so she'll see if that local stitching shop has the right linen. If not, I have a couple of options to order from online that shouldn't take too long to ship.

4. Back to knitting, I'd like to get the Anacapa wrap done. I'm on the last pattern repeat, and then it has a pretty substantial border. So even if I don't get it laid out and blocked, I'd like to get the knitting on it done and wrapped up.

5. After all that, I think I can really get started on the Fracture Trifold book. I think both the stitching and the construction will be straight forward, so the goal is to get that done from beginning to constructed end.

5 feels like a good number for my immediate plans! I'm hoping to get at least Ennis and my dragon done this coming month. I'm off on another stitching trip in April, and I'm sure those class pieces will throw off my list/priorities. So hopefully I can get some of this list completed before making a new list in a couple of months.

Stitch trip accomplishments

My annual Feb/March stitching trip, and it once again was a highlight of the year. I was definitely due a break at work; this week back I was significantly less tense and frustrated. I haven't touched a needle since getting back, but here's what I got done there!

My moonlight guardian! Now with at least some of the moon! I actually had most of the dragon himself done before this trip, but apparently I forgot to take a pic or make a post. So this trip was getting his treasure chest and the background done. Amazingly, half cross stitches go much faster, so I zipped right along. All that's left on this part is to get that moon done, and then black metallic to finish the stitching on the dragon, and outlining. I'm still debating how I'll want to outline him: the directions are for a back stitch like normal, but I'm thinking outline instead. For one thing, that'll keep the bulk of the thread on the front, which should help keep the back flat for mounting on a box. 

That's as far as I got before I had my class, from Amy Mitten:

It is a super cute sewing book! They don't quite show up in the pic, but the colors (as always) are absolutely fantastic and vivid. Hilariously, I didn't actually stitch any part of this, but spent the class time making the doodads that will be tucked away into the book:

I knew going in that we were going to wrap the handle and make the sheath for the snips, and that we'd be winding the thread winders, but I did not expect to also be constructing the needle threader. The end result is fantastic, but it was such a pain to get the layers sewn together around those frame pieces. Keeping the wire straight and the embroidery on the felt pieces lined up with the plastic resin was. A lot. On the other hand, I thought the wrap for the snips would be tricky, but there was a rhythm to the stitch (a modification of needle-tatting?) and mostly it was making sure the threads stayed straight and everything lined up neatly.