Swamablog Update

I haven’t posted anything in awhile and this is to let you all know what I’ve been doing.

Dollhouse Enclosure Project

When I last wrote I had been working to enclose one of my dollhouses.  I do have the necessary epoxy type glue that should work to adhere the Velcro strips to the plastic sheets.  Presently, I’m waiting for it to get warmer here so that I can have the windows open while using the toxic-smelling glue.

Rhoda Caroline Richardson Womble Research

I’m still waiting for the copies of the membership records of the Womble family from the Elm Street Methodist Church that I ordered from the Archivist at the Tennessee Conferences Archives, History Depository.  I called them a couple of weeks back to find out what had happened with the copies that were going to be mailed to me.  The woman I spoke with said that the minister told her he probably mailed them to the wrong address.  I gave her my address again and was told that they would be sent to me within a couple of days.  I’m considering that if I don’t receive them in a few days that I’ll send them a SASE asking for the information again, which is probably what I should have done initially, but I wasn’t sure how much 10 pages of information would cost to mail. 

Embroidery/Knitting Projects

What I’ve been doing while waiting for these much anticipated copies is working on Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum’s “Once Upon A Time” that I’m making for one of my sisters.  I had barely started it when I first purchased it back in 1995 and only started dedicating a serious chunk of my time to work on the piece in January 2012.  I’ve been trying to spend most of my weekends stitching and this past week even decided to work on it a bit during the week.

At the same time that I’m cross-stitching this, I’m also knitting a cable knit sweater of which is about a little over halfway done.   One of the knitting blogs I read suggested working on more knitting projects at one time—basically to stop being a knitting monogamist. I considered this and then while spending so much time cross-stitching during this long holiday weekend on the piece for my sister, the idea came to me to take up embroidering more projects at one time. Basically, to stop being an embroidery monogamist!  

I won’t try this though until after my current embroidery project is completely finished!

Reading

I recently finished reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, a book that I’ve always wanted to read.  Another book that I’ve finished reading is While My Pretty One Knits from the Black Sheep Knitting Mysteries series. This seemed to be a better read than the knitting mysteries written by Maggie Sefton, which after reading 2 ½ of them-the third I just couldn’t finish.  I do really like the characters in Maggie’s books, but by the third mystery the story seemed to be too much of a rehash of the first two books in the series.  It was a bit disappointing to me not to finish the third, A Deadly Yarn because the budding romance between the main character and one of the guys on the local softball team interested me, the people in knitting group were great too.  I can see I’m digressing here and will have to post something just about knitting mysteries or craft mysteries in general at a later date.

Embroidery Project Update

Earlier this year I posted how my current embroidery project was coming along.  I was able to stick with working on it regularly until about the beginning of April when I began preparations for attending Samford and cross-stitch took a backseat in my life.

When I got back from Samford, I thought that I would take it up again, but about a month later the unpredictability of life reared its head and I couldn’t do much with it until nearly two months later.  Since returning to this project I’ve been able to devote the better part of my weekends to stitching on it and have even at times kept a journal of the amount of time spent cross-stitching on it. 

The project is on of my fairly short list of 2012 New Year’s resolutions and hopefully if I’m able to complete a resolution this year, this will be the one.  Earlier this year, I had been hoping to complete the picture this summer and enter it into the county fair, but after weathering a bit of chaos in my life, I see that I was deluding myself.

I very pleased with how the stitching coming along.  The magnifier is working out very well.  However, when I moved it from the top scroll bar to one of the sidebars, I noticed that it had discolored the fabric some.  Thankfully, the dis-colorization is only on the wrong side of the fabric so it’s not visible from the front. 

Stitching progress since 14 October 2012

On a previous project years ago, I did experience the fabric getting stained from a clamp or something that held the scroll frame in place.  The stains did come out when I applied bleach to the affected area with a cotton swab.  Just call me the cross-stitching Heloise!  Thankfully, that hasn’t happened to me with this project and it’s interesting that when things seem to go wrong with projects, it’s the ones that you plan to give to other people.

I’m still having issues with flecks of the linen coming off onto the stitched areas.  I’m still thinking this is just a ‘feature’ or bug as they say in the computer world when working with linen.

The project does have some DMC brand metallic floss in it.  This is always a challenge to stitch with.  Thankfully, there are only fairly small amounts of this being used in the picture, but the funny thing is the more that I study the pattern, the more areas that I can point out as being stitched with the dreaded metallic floss.  As I was working with it today, I considered stitching the other areas that require the metallic floss just so that I could get it over with.  Sort of how one might approach walking across hot coals, their annual prostate exam, mammogram, or Pap test.

I will say that the DMC brand metallic floss isn’t completely awful to work with at least in comparison to others.  The metallic flosses or filaments that gave me the most grief were the ones that came with kits, so I could never be sure where the manufacturer got their stuff from.  I think the worst were in kits from Bucilla and Leisure Arts.  Both companies have beautiful patterns and wonderful kits, but they need better quality control of the metallic flosses and filaments that are included in them.  In the past, my first exposure to metallic floss was when working a project that required a Kreinik brand metallic floss.  This wasn’t horrible to work with, but did require a lot of patience and attention to manipulating the floss so that it laid flat on the fabric. 

 The only issue I have so far in working with the DMC metallic floss was that when stitching with a blended needle, meaning two different colors of floss on one needle.  I found that unless I worked the stitches one at a time instead of my usual method of working a row of one bar of the X for a row and then going back over this row to stitch the top bar of the X that the second (non-metallic) color of floss would loop it’s way up from the backside of the fabric.  I hadn’t experienced this with the Kreinik brand floss or filament.  The plus side of the DMC metallic floss is that I didn’t have issues with the metallic portion separating from the white stabilizing thread, but then the areas I was stitching were very small rows.  Perhaps, if I were stitching large areas this would happen.

Embroidery Update

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to spend my free time working at my cross-stitch picture.  I had blogged about this project previously, and here's how it's progressing.

 

 

 

Embroidery progress as of 23 March 2012

Using the clip-on magnifier has been really helpful to me and my eyes.  I've discovered that I shouldn't spend most of the day stitching because this leads to some eye strain.  So, gone are the days when I could spend 6 hours stitching. 

This is the second time I believe that I've worked on linen and I'm reminded again that flecks of the fabric or linen particles tend to come off while stitching on it.  The last time I embroidered on linen it did this and I searched online about this to try to find out if this is normal.  My search yielded no information, and so I still don't know if this is 'just a feature' in working with linen.  The linen fibers coming off don't seem to have a detrimental effect on the project.  It's just weird finding flecks of the linen fibers on the base of my scroll frame, on my clothing, or finding them poking out among the floss and having to pull them out from the stitches.  If anyone out there in cyberspace-the cloud-wherever has had this experience please post a comment and let me know.

Embroidery Projects

Now that my miniature project is pretty much complete, I can devote more of my free time to genealogy, embroidery, and knitting.  One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to finish embroidering a picture that I had purchased all the way back in 1995 at a needlework shop that of course sadly no longer exists. 

I had originally purchased 3 patterns during that shopping spree, with the strong intention that I would complete them and give them to my mother and two sisters.  Since then I’ve completed two of the three, which are being enjoyed by their recipients.  The last picture is Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum’s ‘Once Upon A Time’, it’s being stitched on 32 count linen.  Since making my resolution, I’ve worked on it some and am hoping that I can devote more time to it.  I feel that I’ve made some progress with it, but that it’s taking longer than the other pictures that I completed for my mother and sister. 

Picture of Once Upon A Time from the pattern

While making each of these pictures, I learned something new about the embroidery process.  The first of the 3 pictures, Damask Roses by Mirabilia, was stitched using an embroidery hoop on Aida fabric.  I remember making many mistakes with that pattern and having to frog a lot of it and then restitch those frogged portions.  By the time that I was ready to stitch my mother picture, Garden Verses another Mirabilia pattern, I had a large scroll frame that was a Christmas gift from my husband.  That made the stitching easier since I didn’t have to deal with an embroidery hoop which I felt smashed the stitches.  Also, I decided to photocopy my pattern and then mark with a highlighter the area(s) that I had stitched as a way to help me keep my place. 

For the ‘Once Upon A Time’ pattern, I made a photocopy of it so that I can mark what I’ve stitched.  This time I’m using a colored pencil instead of a highlighter because I didn’t bother to enlarge the copy of the pattern.  Since I’ve begun embroidering this picture, I’ve noticed that my vision appears to have changed since 1995 or even since the early 2000’s which was the last time that I stitched on 32 count fabric.  I’ve started using a clip-on magnifier to help enlarge the fabric’s weave and my stitching.

What I've stitched so far

I had originally received the magnifying glass when I needed it when I was stitching a miniature rug on 32 count linen one over one.  I have yet to finish that rug, but it’s on my resolutions list after completing the picture for my sister. 

I have many embroidery projects to complete or even begin.  Soon after accumulating these, I said to myself that I wouldn’t buy another kit or pattern until I had finished all of them.  Since then, I’ve pretty much organized the patterns with corresponding fabric and floss if it didn’t include it.  I’ve also developed one pattern that was created from a picture of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.  I recently was given most of the floss for this project, but found that I needed to obtain the fabric. 

One normally doesn’t consider knitting and embroidery to be similar hobbies.  However, at a recent session with my knitting group, one of my fellow knitters brought in their embroidery supplies to give away.  Amongst the patterns and embroidery floss were several packages of various embroidery fabrics.  Some of the fabrics were of a high count and would be useful to use for my Hanging Gardens pattern or could be used in making embroidered miniature rugs.

Weeknight Projects

Diner's interior

For the past week, I’ve spent a little bit of time each evening working on my diner.  A few years ago I had made the beginnings of the counter and had even gone so far as to cover the front of it with thin cardboard.  The ‘skeletons’ of what will become the booths and tables were made at this time too. 

At that time I had considered covering the booth pieces with stained pieces of wood, but had decided against this because I didn’t want to deal with the wood stain fumes.  The instructions in Kath Dalmeny’s book talk about covering the booth pieces with brown paper.  I didn’t think the brown paper I had available would match the color shown in the book.  What I did have on hand were a couple of small dark brown gift boxes.  I saved these until I was ready to use them to cover the booths. 

Tabletops and counter section drying
after having paper glued to the backside

Over the past week I glued pieces of these dark brown boxes to the foam core booth ‘skeletons’.  Previously I had cut from nice cream-colored heavy paper the tops for the tables and the counter.  The thought of gluing the paper to the curved parts of the counter scared me, so I started off by gluing the paper onto the tops of the counter and the tables.  After this dried, I glued the paper completely to the tabletops and then started gluing it to the counter. 

Counter with heavy paper glued on top

  I was still bothered by the curved part of the   counter, so I glued the straight areas first to   build my confidence.  I had done some gluing   of fabric to curved pieces of wood and it was   always a difficult and messy process. 

Gluing the paper to curved
section of counter

I cut triangular pieces out of the edge of the paper when I began gluing the paper to the counter’s curved edge.  Little by little I glued these triangular edges to the underside of the counter.  This process worked out very well for me and as the counter’s creamy-colored surface began to take shape, my confidence in the project grew.

Gluing straight edges to counter's underside 

When I first began to make the counter and other furniture for the diner I knew I wanted to copy the items that Ms. Dalmeny makes for the diner in her book, Dollhouse Style.  However, when it actually came to making the furniture for this scene I found that I had a space issue.  The shop that I decided would be made into a diner is too small to accommodate the dimensions of the furniture that are illustrated in her book. 

Upon realization of this I decided to use it more as inspiration for my project.  I scaled down the counter’s size and then made booths and tables out of Lego to test out the sizing of those items coupled with the counter.  This turned out to be a great way to get an idea of how the diner would look when finished. 

I then transferred those measurements of the Lego made booths and tables into foam core board pieces, which I glued together to form the ‘skeletons’ for the booths.

When I first designed my counter I realized that it wouldn’t be able to be a freestanding object.  The plan is to have one end next to a wall.  The other end will be hinged to add an element of realism in that whomever is working the counter will be able to move from behind the counter out to the tables.  The plan is to put a door behind the counter.  This won’t be a working door and will only be there to hint that there is a kitchen behind the door.

Cut pieces of foam core board will be used as booth seats and backs.  Working on this project has spread to the weekend.  Saturday was spent cutting batting and vinyl fabric to the proper size to use for the booths and stools.  The batting was then sewn using a sewing machine to the wrong side of the vinyl fabric and I began to sew the stool cushion pieces together.  I tried to sew the pieces for the stool cushion on the sewing machine, but unfortunately found that this wasn't possible because of the pieces were too small.  I only cut enough fabric pieces for two stools.  I think that I may only have room around the counter for two stools.

I sewed a cushion for one stool today by hand.  I made the small circle of cardboard to go inside as Ms. Dalmeny suggests and put a couple of pieces of foam circles inside and then sewed it up.  What was difficult was that it wasn’t until I trimmed the seam allowances that everything fit inside.  It would’ve been nice if that had been mentioned in the book.

After covering the countertop and extended counter section with heavy paper, I hinged the sections together.  The hinges were first glued to the edges and then the tiny nails were sunk into the foam core board.  This will all be reinforced with glue to keep the nails from coming out.  I found a piece of mat board that will work for the floor.  On a shopping trip to my beloved local miniatures store, Once Upon A Time, I purchased flooring paper that I’ll use in the diner.  My hope is to arrange the pieces so that border around the outside edge is continuous.  Since flooring is the last thing that I do when creating one of my miniature projects, it will take awhile to see if this actually will work out.

Sewing the stool’s cushion takes a lot of work.  I took a break from it by gluing the booths’ foam core board seats and backs to the coverings for the booths.  I weighed these all down with books after covering with waxed paper.

Completing Those Pesky New Year's Resolutions

At the start of this year I made a list of resolutions for the New Year. My intention was to complete many projects that I had started years ago and never finished and to include some things that had been recommended to me by my doctor. I even made a list of things to do in January that were of special importance to me to do. I listed out 10 items on the list for the year and so far have completed half of them.

One of my major goals was to finish the NGS Home Study Genealogy course that I had begun back in August of 2009. By the beginning of this year I had only one lesson to complete on the second of the three CDs that make up the course. My goal was to finish the course in 2011. Finishing the last lesson on CD 2 was my top goal in January 2011. In August of this year I completed the course.

Years ago I had started crocheting an afghan. In 2010, I finished crocheting the strips of the afghan, and had started embroidering them. I wasn't making much progress because of the many other irons that I had in the fire. My goal had been to finish the afghan by the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I joined a knitting group that met once a week where I could work on the afghan at least once a week. Attending their weekly knit-ins really helped keep me on track with my goal. However I didn't finish it by my goal date, I did complete it in early October.

With the afghan complete, I could start finishing up my next project-tiling the bathroom floor of one of my dollhouses. I don't know of any miniature groups in my area, so I couldn't turn to really anyone else but myself in staying motivated. Thankfully, I had progressed enough with making the tiles that I just needed to finish cutting a slew of paint sample cards into tiny squares. I had started by cutting them into 1/4" strips and was in the process of cutting those strips into 1/4" squares. I spent a couple of weeks listening to music on my iPod while cutting the 'tile' strips into squares. As I got closer to finishing with the cutting, I got more and more motivated by the project. Once I had all the paint sample cards cut into tiny squares I began gluing each one to the floor that I had made for the bathroom of the house. It took me a week to complete the gluing process and in a couple more days I installed the floor in the dollhouse.

At the end of 2010 my former boss at Once Upon A Time, Aniene Porter passed away and all I could think about when I heard the news was all of the wonderful stories that she used to tell me about her life. Writing down all of the stories is still a goal for me and hopefully I'll get to it before the close of 2011. If not, this will be put on next years resolutions list.

Aside from my miniature, genealogy, and knitting hobbies, I also do embroidery. I had worked at organizing my embroidery materials. It's fairly organized, because there are no longer skeins of embroidery floss in bags in my closet. Now these are mostly organized into binders. I wish that I could've come up with something better, but I wanted a fairly inexpensive solution to my problem. Organizing my floss, fabric, and patterns is still an ongoing project and will hopefully be soon finished.

I've already started on a list for next year and so far have 6 items. Hopefully, these will be completed in a timelier manner than this year's resolutions.