Blue Moon WIPocalypse post

It’s been a busy month with Olympic stitching and some framing and finishing – so we start with the Olympics this gave me much stitching time as we fast forwarded through the TIVO recording of the NBC coverage.  I don’t pay for television so there wasn’t much we got to watch.  Anyway, the first thing I worked on was a chatelaine for an exchange –

Chatelaine based on a picture I saw of an antique chatelaine on the internet.

Here is the back of the Chatelaine for the exchange

Part of the Chatelaine is the Assisi Scissor Case we got in our July EGA meeting.   This is designed by Alice Rathofer.

She used her favorite calligraphy alphabet to create the alphabet for stitching the names on the piece.  There are instructions for two types of scissor case with this pattern.  The slip case which I used here and a scissor pocket.

You can reach Alice at our EGA chapter page – http://egasegolilychapter.org/

But wait that’s not all during the 2012 Olympics, I worked on my final ornament from the 2002 Winter Olympics.  I had originally stitched 4 ornament because that is all the charms I had but when I went to frame them I realized that if I had 5 ornaments I could frame them in circles the color of the Olympic rings and hang them so they look like the rings.

So after finishing that for my Olympic stitching I figured I should go back to my WIPocalypse list and work on my Spring TW Carousel Horse.  I put about two hours in on it when I looked on my list and realized I was supposed to be working on my Dragon Dreams Dragon Doorstop.

I think working on Winter ran over and I managed to get my months mixed up – however since I did get some time on both, I can start my Summer TW Carousel Horse.

But that is not all that happened this month.  I got my TW Winter Carousel Horse back from Edgeline Framing along with the Fairy Tale Sampler which my older son claimed as his.

TW Winter Carousel Horse

Corner detail of the TW Carousel Horse frame – it’s designed so I can use the same frame for all 4 horses

C’s Fairy Tale Sampler

But after getting those back so I could take them to the State Fair it hit me that I didn’t have a Needlepoint piece to put in the Fair so I started looking for something I could stitch together quickly.  And I found an ornament in the Sept/October issue of JustCross Stitch by Plum Pudding Needlearts.  However when I pulled a piece of canvas and the fibers I didn’t really like the design so much so I started putting together a piece of my own based on the ornament I had seen in the magazine.  This is what it ended up looking like – 

I learned that I cannot call this an original design, and it’s not an adaptation since it was inspired by a stitched piece and not a different style of art.  That makes it a derivative work.  So this is my derivative of Plum Pudding Needleart’s Witch’s Pantry.

I didn’t get a picture of the frame I put it in before dropping it off at the fair.  But I did take pictures of the other pieces I framed this week.

I’m not too happy with the framing of Black Swan’s Fire and Ice since it doesn’t look like I got it quite even. And I also got two ornaments finished as well.

I made these because they reminded me of the ornaments I’ve seen on my aunt’s Finnish style tree.
But that’s not all I did this month…
My son is moving to the Philippines in October and he wanted to have a quilt to take with him so here is the start of the Safari quilt that he kitted up when he was in junior high.

This is what the blocks look like and here are the pieces I’m still working on –

It’s been a busy month. My completed projects list for this year is now at 24 items and my Rotation list is down to 64 items. If I finish up the ornaments I started earlier this week, then I could be under 60 items on the full list by the end of the long weekend. And we’re back on track with my original WIPocalypse list so I’ll be putting TW’s Summer Carousel Horse up on the stand.

Sorry to lose a designer but, now I can post this again.

Several years ago, I stitched Morning Song for a wedding present for my sister T.  However, I customized some of the colors.  See my sister married a ginger haired man and was looking forward to having red-headed kids.  So I made the children red heads.  Well, that meant that I had to change the color of the dress because it’s just silly to put a ginger in pink.

Once I had done that, I wanted to make the mother look more like my sister so I swapped the blonde from the mother’s hair with the browns in the trees behind her so I have a brunette with ginger kids in front of an aspen grove.

Image

I was rather happy with the result because I was still new to pattern modification.  I posted the picture on my website when the gallery still worked.  I named the picture and the designer and listed what changes I had made to the original pattern.  After all, that’s what we’re supposed to do to honor the copyright, correct?   Well I got an email asking me to cease and desist showing the picture or legal action would follow.  I sent an email back asking why, what was I doing wrong since I had done everything I knew to protect the designer’s rights.  I was told since I hadn’t followed the design exactly the copyright holder was offended and wanted it removed.  I was broke in those days and didn’t have money for a legal fight so I removed it.

Since the recent death of the designer in question, I’ve heard examples of the copyright agent for the estate giving permission for posting images which were previously denied.  So I feel safe publishing my finished work of the Lavender and Lace Morning Song pattern again.

August WIPocalypse progress

Looking at my original list, I should be showing the progress I made on Spring Carousel Horse.  And the answer to that would be none!  I did get it out of the sewing room and up on the stand though.  I have,  however, been working on stitching things.  I finished Winter and he’s now at the framers so he’ll be ready to compete in the State Fair.  He got his own blog post.  I also finished Black Swan’s Fire and Ice.
I started this  back in December 2010 when I was in the mood for something small and had money to buy silk.  It’s stitched in silk and metallics.

I also avoided a mis-step.  After finishing F&I I was in the mood for a new start since I was still horsed out and not ready to work on Spring so I kitted up La-D-Da’s The Raven but before I could start it, the kids reminded me that this is the WIPocalypse and I should be working on completing things not starting new things.  The goal was to pare the list down and it’s been good to see things move from the stitching category to the finishing or framing category.  This has not made the list go from 69 projects to any smaller number though.  I do have a great arrangement with my framer.  I send him pieces and a monthly amount.  He tells me when my hostages have been ransomed.  I have 5 pieces there and Winter is paid for and my next payment should also free another.  I got Red Thread Sampler back from him this year.  It’s an odd size so it was expensive ($253) – I don’t think I’ve posted it before.

Here is the full framed piece. Here is the detail of the corner cuts  – and finally a close up of the center cut design, A needle

And a bow to help tie together the French lines and mimic the Red Thread.

I can’t wait to see what he does with Winter Carousel Horse – he’s doing the frame in a manner so I can pop out the piece and the mat in order to put a different season in the same frame.  It’s the same way businesses do their advertising frames.

So enough tangent, back to the original topic –

In order to cure my desire for a start, I worked on a piece for an exchange I joined.  The mailing date is next week so after the recipient gets it, I’ll post pictures.   So all in all a productive month.

See you again at the next full moon.