February Smalls

Running a couple of days late, but here are my smalls for this month. Yep, smalls. I finished two.

The first is a bookmark from Pelin Tezer's Turkish Sampler (details here)

Turkish Sampler
25 ct White Lugana
My biscornu for the month is Aurelle's Biscornu #9:
This is what it looks unassembled. I didn't want to stitch the top again so I just picked out the corner motifs and stitched them in one strand.
I wasn't sure whether the red would work on that particular fabric but I like how it turned out.
I decided to bead in every stitch because I felt reckless. It was reckless because I'm very bad at guessing if I have enough beads and I always worry. This time I threw my hands up in the air and went for it anyway. I did worry at the end but as always it was pointless. I have plenty of beads left over.

Title	Biscornu #9
Designer	Aurelle
Start date	February 25, 2014
Finish date	February 27, 2014
Total time	7.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct Waterlily Linen
Floss	Crescent Colours Ruby Slipper
Beads	Mill Hill 3049

One Step Forward, One Back

The Olympics are done. Now I can get caught up on my sleep. And on my stitching :)

I picked Egyptian Sampler back up:
And put in a few stitches and frogged a few:

More about IHSW here:

Palette Cleanser

I was cheerfully working on Egyptian Sampler when I ran out of 950. No problem, just grab another. It isn't the same as the other! Cue panic and checking my other 950s. All the new ones are different from the old one. I used the old one on the two central figures (I guess I could frog them) and in the over-one (I can't frog over one). Panic and hope for a solution to mysteriously appear from the ether.

I stitched this while waiting for divine intervention. It's Pelin Tezer's Turkish Sampler. I'm not sure what's going on but her website is now shilling weird drink cozies. I think she might be on Facebook? But some of her freebies are on Cyberstitchers.

Modeled here in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather:

Turkish Sampler
25 ct White Lugana

Title	Turkish Sampler
Designer	Peliz Tezer
Start date	February 16, 2014
Finish date	February 19, 2014
Total time	10.5 hours
Fabric	25 ct White Lugana

*I've decided to frog just the last figure so that it will have the same 950. The other two and the over-one can stay and be a bit different. No one will care (because they won't be able to tell) and no one will know (except you guys, but you're on my side so it's all good).

It's Only Once Every Two Years

The Olympics are on and I've been watching and therefore I haven't stitched a thing. I know lots of people watch and stitch but I can't because I get too caught up in watching and then just sit there with my stitching.

So with all my free time going to the Olympics this week's "stitching" update is more of a Stitch From Stash "look I didn't spend that much money" update.

Mel's given a very generous Nashville exception this month, but since most (if not all) of them aren't to my taste I won't be taking advantage. Instead I bought a few DMC that I ran out of and picked up a ball of sashay yarn since I have a yen to make a ruffly scarf. Whether I'll actually make it is a whole 'nother thing, but at less than the price of a Starbucks frappachino I can live with the expense.

Items: 6 DMC skeins, 1 ball of yarn
Total cost: $7.26
I wanted a black and white yarn, but the only black and white also had tan, so I ended up with black. (My hat and gloves are black and my coat is black and white).

More about Stitch From Stash here:

Over One And Faking Specialty Stitches

I successfully tackled that some of that over-one I was worrying about. I took it very slow and fretted a lot but it came out well. I was extra stressed because some of the colours were so different that I was convinced that it wouldn't look right. But it all looks good.

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
A close up of the over-one and the vulture. I cheated so much on those specialty stitches that make up the halo! The square ones are the only ones stitched as charted. I don't know the proper terminology but I hated how the partial eyelets made a giant hole (that single space that all the stitches are supposed to go in). So I didn't put all the stitches in there; every other stitch actually stops close but doesn't actually end in the "common" space. I don't think you can tell that the stitch isn't done "correctly". And that middle circle is supposed to be an eyelet too. With that many stitches in common I knew that I would hate any eyelet but I couldn't figure out a suitable stitch. It's an even-sided symmetrical shape but not one that I know any stitches for, and a Rhodes stitch would have been too high. In the end I cobbled something involving needle weaving and latticing. I honestly can't remember what I did except that I tried to make it symmetrical and I'm really glad that there's only one!