Erica's Stitches

I've been dyeing things blue.  A t-shirt that I don't like (after all, I can't make it worse) and some T-shirt yarn  that I cut out over a year ago.  I've learned one thing.  It's easier to dye the shirts and then cut the yarn.  The yarn looks much nicer now, but it was a horrible tangled mess for a while. Since I had plenty of dye I also decided to dye some threads.  To make it easy, I left the thread on the card (no tangles).  When I took the thread off the card I love the way the card took the dye. The dye seeped underneath the threads leaving behind a wonderful pattern.  I'm looking forward to making blue things.

Last year, my birthday present to myself was some wildflower tulips from here .  It was a very dry winter and tough spring, alternating between above average temperatures and below average temperatures.  There would be a few days of warm and sunny weather followed by blizzard conditions for a few days.  This cycle continued for over a month.  I was afraid the bulbs would die. But, the tulips survived to bloom.  First where some bright magenta ones that defied photography.  Now there are yellow and white ones blooming. Tulips are on my mind.  So, as I was finishing up my last project a SAL invitation involving tulips arrived that I couldn't resist.  If you'd like to join it's not too late. All the supplies from the last project are put away so I've been picking out my supplies for the SAL.  With visions of spring colors I started going through my scraps for some suitable bookmark shaped fabric.  The best I coul...

I've finished my second First Step . The first one was in bright yellow, orange, violet and blue.   I like these colors much better.  I'm more comfortable with them and they are more soothing. The second time around I didn't need to look at the directions as much so it seemed to go faster (except for all the delays).  On the light round I only ran out of 3811.  You use a lot of floss in the light round.  I finally picked some up yesterday and finished the last two squares yesterday evening. This time around my 3 different values were more further apart from each other and the light band looks a lot lighter than I thought it would.  Even the pale colors show the textures of the stitches. My next step is to decide how to finish the two squares.  I with I could go down to the store and buy a square frame right off the shelf.  The square is 4 5/8 inches so it's going to be hard to find anything pre-made. So, I'm als...

It seems like I haven't had time to do much stitching and I haven't finished anything recently. Well, here's something small. I got to go through a yarn box from a friend of a friends mother.  The yarn wasn't very exciting but I found a kit to make a suede scissors case.  It was old enough that the instructions were done with a typewriter.  There was no date and the only name was Sandesigns.  Someone had started the butterfly but I ripped it out and started over since the stitches were not done with an even tension. Looks like a quick project, doesn't it?  It took me over 3 weeks.  But that's working a little bit every few days (or once a week). Luckily the finishing was quick and easy:  Just some glue.  Now, lets see if I can get something else done!

My second First Step is coming along. In some ways it's going much faster.  I'm familiar with the stitches and color scheme so I don't have to refer to the directions as often. But, I've been having difficulties in the medium section.  For greens I chose the DMC 500's, which are my favorite green.  I tend to have plenty of floss and lots of spares.  I ran out of 502. I have spares of every other 500 green, but not the one I needed.  I searched drawers.  I looked for projects I kitted up to see if there was any spare 502.  There wasn't. I was busy at lunch and couldn't swing by a store.  When I was doing errands I miraculously never went by a store that floss.  Finally, after over a week, I finally managed to find a skein and I'm going again. Then, I noticed that one of the gray squares didn't look right.  It turns out I had one length of gray floss that was not 415 wrapped around my 415 bobbin.   Grrr....

The pasque flowers are finally peeking out of the ground a little late this year. The temperature barely made it out of the teens earlier this week and the wind was brutal so some of them appear a little worse off than usual. But, the important thing is that they are here signally another spring with warmer weather and flowers!

A few months ago I reached into my stash for an new project and picked out First Step by Genny Morrow . You need a light, medium and dark of four colors.  I was in the middle of a color class so I picked a tetrad of yellow, violet, blue and orange.  This, for me, is unusual - no greens!  But, the colors do illustrate many of the concepts from the color class and it was an interesting exercise. I especially enjoyed the squares that where the same stitch but with different colorways.  They all look so different. When I was about  a week into the project I was having fun and happened to be by a needlework store.  So, I bought a second canvas and picked out colors for a second.  This time colors I felt more comfortable with. By now, I'm ready for something new but am stuck working another one. Note to self:  no matter how much fun you are having, the second one won't be as fun. This time I used earth tones and my favorite col...