Twas the Night Before Christmas...

...is finished:

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I've finished the inside and the border. Just the heart panel to go and I'll be finished.

Stitching for Autism

On Saturday our guild chapter had its Bluebonnet Daze and we had a class for the piece Stitching for Autism by Sue Reed. This is a piece being used to raise money for Autism Speaks - 100% of the net profits are going to Autism Speaks.

Here's how far I got on Saturday. After taking this photo I ripped out the heart and the herringbone border as I didn't leave enough space for one of the borders just before the herringbone. I very nearly left it as it was but decided I really couldn't be faffed with moving the sheaf stitches in the outer border around to compensate for the loss of the four squares.

The colours are all to do with Autism Speaks, and all the stitches were chosen to have a link with Autism and it was really interesting reading it all as we stitched the piece.

So that's another for my WIP pile, and I guess my PLAN is getting a bit disrupted (I've signed up for some other classes too). Ah well, at least I'm having fun and my PLAN has been doing well until now. I'm still going to try and sort of stick to the PLAN though - I'll continue with Twas the Night, and then An Open Heart and I guess I'll just see what happens after that.

And an update on Twas the Night Before Christmas. I'm now on the border so really getting closer now.

Friday Night Stitch In

Last night I went to Gingers for their Friday night stitch in - and enjoyed myself, so I think I'll be going again.

And best of all - I've got progress, although I do have to admit that the Twas the Night progress is a couple of days worth, not just last night. I did realise when putting Santas staff in that I should have left his cuff the undone bit of French knots as now I've got to try and get them to at least look like they are under the staff when I get the new card of thread (it was out of stock so I have to wait for it). Hmm, just looking at my photo I can see all the carried thread in the snowflakes - it isn't that obvious in real life. Honest. Still perhaps it's a lesson in 'you should have been more careful when stitching them'.

Response to Cheryl

I tried three times to answer your comment in the comments, but blogger is being silly again or something, so I'll answer here. I was going to list what I had left but then thought I'd see if I could find a picture. So I've found the class listing - the class is closed now, I registered in the last few days, but the information was still available when I did a search. Anyway - here it is.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

He's starting to look really good now. I did run out of the Santas Beard stuff thanks to all the bits I ripped out from not being happy with them, so I'll have to take a quick trip to the shop later so I can finish his hat.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I made a bit more progress on this. The french knots aren't sitting very nicely, but that may be because I didn't notice the pattern only showed one loop knots and I did two loop knots. So I'm going to start from the other end and see if one loop looks better and then if it does I'll take out the two loop ones I've done. Also realised I missed a bit of his coat above his sleeve.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Since I know everyone has been waiting with baited breath :p - here is the latest on Twas the Night :D

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Here's a bit more progress. I'm going slower than I like, seem to spend more time staring at it than actually stitching. Oh well, I think once I get past the tent stitch outlines I'll do better - I'm having a bit of a problem sometimes figuring out where the outlines are.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I worked some more on the outlines today:

I got myself into a bit of trouble with the tent stitch when starting with the whisper by starting at the wrong end of the stitch. When I managed to untangle myself the difference was noticeable. I think when I get back around to the start I may undo the first stitches and redo them.

Class updates

Here are updates on the two classes I'm currently working on:

Twas the Night Before Christmas:

Desert Diamonds:

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I finally started the stitching on this class piece last night. I was supposed to be doing the tent stitch outline on the various bits of him, but after I'd done the first couple of stitches on what I thought was the outline of his sleeve I realised that it was actually compensating stitches, so I just kept stitching the sleeve proper like that was what I meant to do all along. And I've just looked at the stitch diagram and realised that I did my stitches backwards, but I don't think you can tell so I'll just keep going.

I have decided that I'm definitely not joining in on the Crazy January thing, it did sound interesting, but I know I wouldn't get far - I doubt I'd even finish the starts - last time I tried to start a bunch together there were three that didn't get started within my time frame, one I still haven't started. And I can't choose 15 projects - I either have not enough or too many. I also don't really want to just jump into something that doesn't suit what I want to achieve. And at this point in time I'm still looking to clear some of my WIP's, a couple of which are getting close (I must update you on An Open Heart - I've started on the border now - not that it shows up very well being white on white).

So I think I'll just watch and cheer on those who do want to try a crazy challenge, and try and meander towards my own random wishy-washy goals. Although they aren't really called goals or anything like that that makes it sound like work. Cos I know from experience that I'm not too good at meeting targets etc. when I'm supposed to be having fun, I just end up doing nothing, which really gets me nowhere. So maybe I'll call them vague likes.