Can you see all the cotton from the trees on the surface of the canal? What doesn't show in this picture is the massive amounts of it also floating in the air like snow. We've officially entered one of my two worst allergy seasons of the year (the other one is the end of August). Getting in two solid canal walks on Friday and Saturday felled me today. Consequently, the super-productive weekend I was looking forward to was only half as productive as I'd hoped. Still n' all, I did get some stuff done.
My goals for the week of May 23 were:
- Accessories: EIIP Bag: at least the next step done.
- Embroidery: Three butterflies.
- Art Quilt: May journal quilt
- UFO: UFO list
- Hand-Dyeing/Surface Design: Maybe.
Progress:
It's the vinyl that's gettin' me down...
- Accessory category: Annie Unrein Bag. If you listened to last night's podcast episode, you know where I stand on this. If you didn't listen to it, you nicely avoided a bit of a rant. This project is still working my very last nerve, but I did complete the next step yesterday, which was a fairly hefty one. Actually, this time around I avoided breaking out in not-so-pleasant-language, which is probably about the best I can hope for at this point. I think I still have three or four steps left to go. Unfortunately, I spent my best sewing-room-time this afternoon in bed with a swimmy-head. I knew I shouldn't tackle the bag when I was already feeling stupid. So this project is still a WIP, but I did achieve my goal for the week. So there's that.
Mountmellick Stitch (outline) and Lazy Daisy.
- Embroidery category: Three butterflies. I got about 1 1/2 done again, although embroidery is the perfect project for a swimmy head. Slow and repetitious is about all I can handle today, so I got a couple more outlines done earlier today when I wasn't feeling up to much else, and will be working on it again this evening. I may actually get those three butterflies done today. Part of what's taking me so long is I'm tending to now choose more complicated stitches. You can't see it too well in this photo, but the outline stitch here is a variation on a buttonhole stitch that makes more of a triangle shape to each stitch--it's the Mountmellick stitch (I picked it up from Mary Corbet's website Needlenthread.com). It's beautiful, but it has five steps to each stitch. Doing it on both wings of one butterfly took me through two episodes of a Netflix original series. This ain't speedy work.
- Art Quilt: May Journal Quilt. I got more done on this, although it's yet to be finished because I ran into hooping issues. For some unknown reason, I have a couple of 8" embroidery hoops in my house--no idea when or why I got them, but they're what I've been using. It hadn't entirely sunk in yet that there may be other sizes. When I get to the edges of this design (which I sketched way too close to the edge--there's a learning moment for you), I was having problems figuring out how to keep a fairly delicate fabric in place when it no longer fit the hoop. Going without the hoop wasn't working with this fabric, either. After watching a lesson in Jessica Marquez's Craftsy class (see my review here), I realized I could get a smaller hoop, so I had to pause until I could run to Joanns. I now own several more sizes of hoops and am back to work on this project. I'm still too close to the edge, but at least now I can fudge it better.
- UFO: Double-check UFO list. Done. It was already complete, which was good to confirm.
- Hand-dyes: Maybe. Or maybe not.
Goals for This Week:
- Accessories: EIIP Bag. Pft.
- Embroidery: Two butterflies. I'm knocking it down by a 'fly this week because I've got two evening conference calls and a third night I'm out at a meeting. I may be able to do a little embroidery while on one of the calls, but not on the other; I doubt I'll haul all my stuff to my meeting. Plus, since I'm doing Myra Wood's Bead Embroidery class on Craftsy now, I'm starting to incorporate yet more steps into some of the butterflies. I just can't leave well enough alone.
- Art Quilt: May journal quilt. This will get finished this week. And now I have to start thinking about June's journal quilt.
- UFO: This week's goal is related to my Monday Musings post for tomorrow, so stay tuned.
- Hand-Dyeing/Surface Design: no goals this week. I've got a quilt class on Saturday and my daughter's grad party on Sunday next weekend, so it's no time to dye. (Ar ar ar.)