August Wrap-Up

It's a blue moon!

For the

I knocked off two WIPs: Maple Leaf and Japanese Octagon Box.

Maple Leaf was my Theme-a-licious piece for Altius August, where I interpreted "embrace the Olympic motto" as embrace the Olympics and be patriotic. Next month is September Smalls, for which I have no plans.

Goals for August:
1. Finish Japanese Octagon Garden. Yes!
2. Restart Maia. No.
3. Finish Maple Leaf. Yes.
Pipe dream: Make a new general use bag since my current one is getting ratty. The inner and outer shells are done. I just need to attach the straps and stitch it together.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started Cirque des Triangles.
2. Started Sweeping Cobwebs

Goals for September:
1. Work on Ganesha.
2. Work on my Granny Stripe blanket.
Pipe dream: Finish Sweeping Cobwebs.

Pictures Ahoy!

And I've done as much as I'm ever going to on Japanese Octagon Box, so let's call that a finish shall we? I made so many random changes on this. I left off the golden flowers because I didn't want to struggle with the overlay backstitching in a metallic business. I used the provided DMC conversion (which Martina warns is not quite equivalent) so there are parts where you can't really tell that there are different greens involved. I have no idea if this is true for the "proper" threads NPI and gloriana. But I can live with it. I left out the beads just under the upper Rhodes stitches. I replaced all the beads in the bottom 8 motifs with a light purple metallic. I'm rather fond of the cherry blossom(?) tree. But those over one birds were so not fun. When I was putting this away to be framed in the future I was a bit disconcerted to realize that I don't have much space left in that drawer.

Title	Japanese Octagon Box
Designer	Chatelaine
Start date	February 29, 2012
Finish date	August 23, 2012
Total time	91.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct white lugana
Floss	Mostly the DMC conversion, a couple of Dinky Dyes
	and Kreiniks that I didn't note down *is sheepish*

Hermitting Away

I spent the weekend plodding through more of Tulip Praise. I'm getting just a little bit bored with it, but I only have to fill in the purple bits in the top an middle lines to finish this month's part so I'll probably keep going.


Tulip Praise
25ct antique white lugana

August TUSAL

Now with extra red! It's mostly from Maple Leaf. The bright yellow is frogging from Tulip Praise after I decided to switch out the yellow for purple.
That's Something Wicked by La-D-Da in the background.

The Podium At Last

Altius August is about embracing the Olympic Motto and elevating your mind by learning something new. I embraced something vaguely Olympic-related and ignored the rest.
If you're wondering what a maple leaf has to do with the Olympics, well, aren't we all just a little extra patriotic around the Olympics? So here's my version of waving the flag ;)

I thought since I was stitching with a metallic thread on an opalescent fabric that it would take me a while to finish. It actually went by pretty fast. I used 2.5 spools and maybe 1/10 of a bead packet. This is going into my "to be framed" drawer (which at this point is just ridiculously full, but probably not going to decrease any time soon). I'm not sure how well you can see the sparkles in the fabric and the floss, but rest assured. It's shining with patriotism ;)

Title	Maple Leaf
Designer	Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks
Start date	July 31, 2012
Finish date	August 15, 2012
Total time	16.75 hours
Fabric	32 ct opalescent white lugana
Floss	Kreinik 003, MH 3049

A Late Start

I started this yesterday, so it totally counts as a WIP for this month's

So. The Olympics. See, I'm not a sporty person. The most athletic thing I ever did was play chess as a teen. I even managed to get out of mandatory gym class in high school. All this means that I'm rather apathetic towards the Olympics (sacrilege, I know). I don't really watch any of it. Occasionally if someone else in the room is watching something I'll watch with them, but I don't go looking. I do rather vaguely follow Canada's medal count.

Which brings me to the matter at hand. I know that there's a fair amount of people either starting something new for the Olympics or stitching something patriotic. So I decided to stitch something patriotic for the Olympics. (I was going to start on Friday but my fabric didn't arrive). I'm going for subtle but I don't think it's as subtle as I think.

Alessandra Adelaide Needlework's Maple Leaf. I'm stitching it in Kreinik 003 on 32 ct opalescent white. It is incredibly shiny.


Maple Leaf
32ct opalescent white lugana, Kreinik 003
When finished it will look like this (only, more shiny):