An Open Heart

Is finished...

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'.

An Open Heart update

I thought about the border most of yesterday and came to the conclusion that there was no way I was going to frog it. So last night I finished off the last triangle and now the inner border is complete.

I guess once the outer border is done if it's really obvious that the gap at the bottom is one thread smaller (which I can't see that it will be unless it's only 2 or 3 threads to start with) I can take another look at frogging - but I really don't want to.

An Open Heart

On Saturday I met up with three other stitchers (Melissa, Michelle and Michelle) at Gingers and we stitched the day away while talking lots and generally having a good time. I made really good progress on the inner border of An Open Heart.

Last night I (almost) finished the inner border. I was going to finish it completely before going onto the next project on my list but well, it didn't quite work out that way.

As I finished that final triangle I discovered I was one thread out, I undid half the triangle cos I was sure I'd counted the gap as being right before I'd started it. But after counting numerous times I finally came to the conclusion that I was getting more wrong answers than right answers. So I started examining the rest of the piece, and found that there was one extra thread between the middle section and the border at the bottom meaning I had a mistake on the first side of the border. I found it where the needle is resting. One extra thread in the gap.

I'm thinking that given it took me so long to find it no-one else is going to do so, and also undoing the border may not be good for the ends of the rewoven threads that I secured in the stitching and have now cut off. And of course, if I undo it it's highly unlikely to ever get finished. So I'm leaning towards leaving it as is - but I'm going to make the final decision after I've stitched the outer border.

So An Open Heart has now been put aside to work on the next item of my new PLAN.

The PLAN is to work on the things that really should be finished soon, mostly because they are for other people or some such reason like that. So I made a list - it goes something like this:

- finish the inner border on An Open Heart. (I'm counting this as done for now)
- finish my MIL's birthday present, preferably on time, even better if it's before they go home.
- finish Twas the Night Before Christmas so I can send it off for evaluation.
- Sew up the quilts for the kids - I think I have all the fabric now.
- make some shorts.
- finish An Open Heart
- finish O Jerusalem as it's now 10 years late
- do the finishing on Bug Collector so it can hang in my sons room before he leaves home.
- finish Light of the World Storykeep, again so DD can enjoy it sooner rather than later
- do height charts for them both (I have started the first one)
- do stockings for everyone (not started at all, although I have chosen at least one of the designs)
- I'd like to give out lots of ornaments this Christmas, but that means that I need to stitch them this year.
- and if I manage all that then I want to get St. Petersburg finished as well.

And as DD says 'That's the plan'.

An Open Heart

Progress on the first border:

Progress updates

Since I've been lax in posting my updates recently here's a whole load all at once.

Scissor Pouch - back being stitched on as my swimming project:

Mystical Light - I have stopped doing the UFO nights as I wasn't getting much stitching time and didn't want to waste it on UFO's:

An Open Heart - as you can (hopefully) see I've finished the inside and have (just) started the first border:

And lastly a surprise addition to the roster - Tempest:

I also had an update on O' Jerusalem, but I forgot to take a photo so it will just have to wait until next time.

An Open Heart

The other thing I did last weekend was work on An Open Heart. I am almost so nearly almost to the end of the central stitching - I'm about 2 motifs off finishing.

An Open Heart

I went to a stitching day last Sunday and did a reasonable amount of work on An Open Heart. And a lot of talking and listening and browsing the shop...

Anyway, here's my progress now. Only the last section to go now and then I can start on the borders.

An Open Heart

Ok - so here is the next latest photo with the Maltese Crosses row finished. Now that the furniture is mostly back in the right places I'm going to have no excuses for getting out O' Jerusalem again with it's stand, so it'll be back to working on that as my main piece I think, especially since I haven't worked on it at all this week and the whole point of swapping which UFO I worked on for UFO night was to work more on OJ. Tonight is supposed to be UFO night, but I might work on OJ instead, and then do Mystical Light tomorrow night. I'll see how it goes.

An Open Heart

Here's some more on this. This photo is already out of date as I stitched all this morning waiting for the carpet fitters to come, and then while they were doing the work, so I've got the next band done too and I'm up to the Maltese Crosses - I love doing these, they look so cool, but they are so easy. I'll try and remember to take another photo soon.

An Open Heart

I decided I couldn't wait for my stuff to arrive, so I went and brought a piece of art board to use as backing and tested the stretching of what I had already stitched.

I only pinned (well, I used needles as that is all I had) the fabric around the back, but it seemed fairly easy, although fiddly, to get the design to appear square on the front. So I think I will continue on this fabric and if it can't be stretched completely straight then it'll just have to be framed without a mat - I think if there is a wider expanse of fabric any left-over wonkiness won't be noticeable. But I think from my experiments that with patience it should be possible to frame it straight.

Still think I won't use the rest of the fabric though. Although I guess Christmas ornaments and things would be alright on it.

An Open Heart

Here is the latest band, well - two bands really cos I did the words as well. Sorry the photo isn't brilliant, I didn't realise it wasn't that clear until I loaded it onto the computer.

Now, I need some advice on this. The fabric is woven crooked. I've known this from the beginning but I started stitching anyway thinking it could get stretched right when framed. But I'm beginning to have doubts. I really really don't want to start over, but I don't want it skewif at the end either.

So here are some photos to try and show the problem. The fabric is cut along a thread - I pull a thread out and then cut down resulting line. All my set squares are on the boat, so I've used a book to try and show the lack of square-ness instead. It also didn't help that I was photographing on a not-quite flat surface.

In this first one the edge of the book is lying flush with my basted outline of the stitching, so you can see how the top edge isn't square to the side.

This one I tried to get the book to be level with the selvedge to show another view of the angle.

The difference in the top and bottom - I can't remember if I cut the bottom or not, so don't know how straight that is. But still, the photo helps illustrate the problem.

This is the one that's really bothering me I think - I fold the edges up matching, so it should all be straight and this is what I get.

So after looking at those - what would you do? Do you think it can be stretched out?

Oh, and just to make matters worse, I've also done Victoria Samplers Heirloom Christmas Sampler on the same fabric, so the answers will apply to that as well I think. At least I'm pretty sure that if there is any left in my stash I'm not going to start anything else on it.

An Open Heart

Another section on this one:

Part of the non-square shape of the piece is actually the fabric. It is Zweigart fabric, but I realised after I'd cut out the piece for this and for Heirloom Christmas Sampler that when you laid the fabric flat the warp and the weft weren't at 90 degrees to each other. It's not too bad - maybe an inch or two over the whole width of the fabric, but enough to make me worry it might cause problems. I'm hoping I can stretch it out when I frame them as I really don't want to have to restart or restitch them. Most of the shape however is my wonderful photography skills.

An Open Heart

Another band done.

An Open Heart

The latest:

An Open Heart

I've picked this one up again recently - got bored with plain crosses and all the gifts I was stitching.

An Open Heart

I'm enjoying stitching on this one and have got a bit further now.

An Open Heart

Finally the last picture - the newest start - An Open Heart by The Drawn Thread. This is one of the ones I intended to start in June on my weekend away, but I didn't like the fabric. I have now got new fabric and have started it for real.

So there is only one piece left now that I meant to start on my weekend away but haven't. I don't think that it will be started for a while though.