CaptainsFlat's Hole Poking

Hi All. I am a lurker. I hardly ever comment, but do drop in regularly to look. I'm like that in real life too! But here, I thought I would offer something up. My Works In Progress for this year. First up, A Dark Alphabet. Planning on doing 2 letters a month.

Second up. Linen and Threads 2018 Medieval Menagerie SAL. You may have noticed, I cannot help changing things. Not just colours, but bits of the pattern as well. Nothing is sacred with me.

Third up - Tapestry Weavers SAL for 2018. It is my first year ever participating in a SAL (Stitch A Long), and I went for two big ones! Also seems to be a year of beasts.

And lastly. My Heaven and Earth Designs. I thought this little piece would take 2 years. It has been 4 years so far! Surely, this will be the year it gets finished. Or it would have been, if I did not get so easily distracted. I have my fingers crossed.



I may not be posting regular updates, as I feel I am just SO SLOW. But hopefully these are pretty enough.

I lurk here too, haha. I love that dark alphabet, I can't wait for more progress shots of that one, I want to see what they all look like! :P

>5 .Monkey.: .Monkey. I had fun with altering the original pattern! And I'm having fun stitching it. March is nearly here, but I have to catch up on number three first!

Hi - nice to see you here. You have some interesting pieces you are working on. I was a big cross-stitcher until my eyesight just couldn’t do it any more. I’ve now switched to quilting. I really like the red and black border in your alphabet piece. Hope you make a lot of progress this year.

Welcome! I'm glad you de-lurked to share your work. I love seeing all the amazing things that can be done with fiber. I once had a cross-stitch project that took me several years to finish. It was so satisfying though, I was very happy with the results and the time and effort were so worth it. Good luck with all of your projects!

>2 captainsflat: I'm glad to see you here. It's always nice to see someone doing fancy needlework. I wish that your pictures had been larger; I'd have very much liked to see the detail on the Medieval Menagerie piece.

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome! I'm *so* glad that you've decided to de-lurk, because your stuff is gorgeous!!

Thank you all. I will try and use bigger photos next update, Lyndatrue, because I really like my raucous cockatoo and my stitching frog, and don't mind showing them off!

I also enjoy a bit of cross stitch. I have been eyeing those HAEDs. The designs are beautiful but are just so large! Maybe one day I'll take up the challenge.

We all love looking at other people's projects. I just started a 2018 thread since my old one had a 2016 date on it.

March stitching round up. Only worked on two of the four. Plus an Easter exchange - first time doing canvas work! I have decided that 1 over 1 on 28 count is messing up my detail on Dark Alphabet, but I’ll push on, and maybe someday stitch it again but bigger.

Weavers Tapestry Band SAL

And the Easter Exchange. Pattern adapted from one in The Gift of Stitching #10.

>15 captainsflat: It took me a moment to realize that this was a work in progress. It will be lovely.

>15 captainsflat: - I love the border on that

Welcome to the group. Lovely, lovely work!

Hello! You've got some great projects going on. I love the Medieval Menagerie especially. Changing a pattern around is necessary for me too. I find it so strange when people feel they have to follow every detail of a pattern.

Ohhh busy bee in April! So, firstly, Dark Alphabet. I decided to try a touch of Bargello. It was fun.

Secondly, Linen and Threads Mystery SAL. I know, I know, I spelled "Mostri" with an "N". I'll take it out next rotation. I was chanting "leave out the n, leave out the n", but that didn't work. Because in Croatian, most = bridge, it looks wrong and as if bridges are being born, but I have to get over it. The quote is : The old world is dying. The new one has not yet arrived. In this play of light and dark, monsters are born. Seemed appropriate. It's by Gramsci.

And lastly, the Weavers Tapestry Band SAL. Another band changed to a quote. I can't help myself. It sounds all virtuous, but it is a quote from a podcast about werewolves. And I was reading James Branch Cabell's The White Robe (via The Weird Tradition Group on here) at the time, so everything fit.

>21 captainsflat: Oh, there needs to be WAY more on this alphabet. Lovely, lovely work.

Your work is beautiful.
Leona

Okay. So for the entire month of June, there was only finishing this:



I then started a birth sampler for 1 of 2 niece/nephews due in July. I won't post that until it is finished and handed over.

For July I also started a challenge to put at least one stitch a day for 100 days into my Heaven and Earth Designs pieces. I have two, but will firstly be working on Pumpkin Dealer. I managed half an umbrella in the first 10 days! I imagine the rest of July will be this, probably at only one stitch a day, and the two birth samplers. I am 1/3 off finishing the first.

I did something similar on one of my projects once. I had a project that I got about half-way through and then it stalled. I was working on a white section and kept finding I was making mistakes. So I decided I would only do one threaded needle each night. It worked pretty well. (although to confess, I eventually ended up giving up on the project.)

At the beginning of the year, that was my plan, dudes22, but I just started so many new ones. I am too easily distracted, and don't have enough time to do what my ambitions want. I still love all of them, and will finish them at this stage. But I just bought a whole stack of amazing patterns, and it is taking everything in me, my love for my sisters, and an external challenge, not to start all of them too!

>29 captainsflat: don't have enough time to do what my ambitions want.

Yes, that's a common problem. Reference my response to your comment on my thread about color work. Sigh. One of these days.

>29 captainsflat: - I have that same problem with my quilts. I can't tell you how many I have in various stages of completion. As a matter of fact, I decided that I would only work on those and not start any new quilts for the rest of the year. (Except for a baby quilt for my nephew and his wife) But no other new things!!!!

>31 dudes22: oh, good luck with that resolution, Betty!

Well, I am surprised that having the public pressure of doing the challenge, but then not so much pressure because it is just one stitch, is really making a difference. I have so many WIPs that a resolution to not start a new one makes hardly any difference!

Maybe it's the weather. Or the season. Or the year. But I am in a similar boat, so to speak. While I have finished some quilts early in the year, I have accumulated a lot of UFOs, well-intentioned, of course. Most of the time I have too many ideas in my head and they are like a gaggle of children crammed in a doorway trying to see what the grown-ups are doing. It's only so long before the whole gaggle, unable to keep themselves still for very long, spills out into the room....