Hi Everyone,
Well, I still cannot stitch on my RR as my Autumn Fields belfast is still on backorder... But I finally dreamt up how I want to set up my RR, and I wanted to share it with you!!
OK... I plan to set mine up like a tic tac toe board - each of us will stitch our house in a square, and please leave my center square blank... in that, when the RR comes home, I will stitch a central garden. At the moment I am thinking of maybe using Chatelaine's Tiny Rose Mandala Garden in the Center. I am posting a pic of it that I stitched in 2004 on a hand dyed blue fabric... I am not sure if this is the garden that will work - I will have to wait to see how my RR looks when it comes home. I may end up using the center section of one of Liz Turner Diehl's gardens instead...
There will be 14 threads between each backstitched box... between the boxes I plan to stitch the brick pathway that you see here on Liz Turner Diehl's 18th Century Colonial Garden. I will try to stitch a little bit of it in before I send it off to Annemarie so that you can see how it will look....
I have NO idea yet which house I will stitch for my own block. Now I have to sit down and do the necessary math to figure out how this idea will fit on my fabric and just how many stitches each block will be. I will get back to all of you on that so that you can look through your charts...
Do I sound too ambitious?? LOL
**** I did the math - I am terrible at math!! - but I think if each box is 80 x 80 stitches that comes to 240 stitches wide, then add the 28 stitches for two rows of bricks on each side... that is 268. I divide that by 16 since I am using 32 ct linene, and I think that comes out to be just under 17" x 17".... with my fabric between 24" wide, I think that leaves me between 3 1/2" and 4" on each border for framing... um.... if anyone is good at math, could you please doublecheck me??? Thanks!!!
Mailing options
Hi Ladies,
I think we should send our projects overseas via registered mail. I have had two incidents in the last month-one was me mailing something and the other was me receiving something. First was a Christmas gift to a friend in Ireland. I mailed it at the beginning of December and she got it in the middle of January. I mailed by airmail parcel which should have taken about a week. My friend said it arrived by surface mail.
Yesterday I received Barbara's Christmas card!
My friend in Ireland sent my gift by registered mail and even though I had to sign for it, I got it in a timely manner and before Christmas.
Just something to think about.
I had to 'frog' some backstitching on my house. I was using black and it just didn't look right to me. I reviewed the directions and thin black lines on the chart were suppose to be brown, not black. Oy-that was an hour of ripping.
Autumn Fields Belfast
Hi all - Barbara had asked me what Autumn Fields belfast looks like. It is the fabric I will be using for my RR. Autumn Fields is one of Zweigart's vintage linens and here is a pic :-) Feel free to stitch lots of pretty colored flowers and gardens on this - brights and otherwise, I think the fabric will really draw the colors out :-)
An update too
As I say, not much yet, only the border. I will start with the first house this weekend.
The title of my neighbourhood is: The Friendship Neighbourhood.
Novia
An Update
Here is a 'not very good" updated picture of my house. I haven't stitched since Sunday nght as Mondays and Tuesdays are always my long days but I hope to get a little more done tomorrow.
A possible setback already
Yikes, I got an email from Silkweaver tonight. As I had feared might happened, the linen I ordered for the RR is backordered :-(
I will give it a little while, but may have to go with something else. It has been a month now that I am waiting on two pieces of 40 ct from them...
I will let you know if this changes anything about my theme!!
An idea...
Hi
I was wondering if you ladies would be open to putting a paper in each round robin before you ship it off stating what fibers you used? When I used to coordinate round robins years ago, we did this. It helps the next person to know what colors you used and to try to match up to them somewhat....
I don't know about you ladies, but I am not very good at doing that just by eyeing someting. But if you tell me the greens you used were DMC 367 and 368, that sure makes it easier...
Your thoughts?
Nice to meet you Novia!!! So sorry to hear about your grandmother :-(
who's up for a happy dance?
Yes, it's done! This is probably a record finish for me, as I am a
verrrryyyyy slow stitcher. But I've just been so excited about this project that I couldn't put it down! The kids have been good sports this week about letting mommy stitch during the daytime hours, otherwise I'd still be stitching my bricks!
I still need to grid off the other blocks for everyone else, which I will do soon. And I have changed the shape of my neighborhood. Because I cut the fabric for my original idea, there was not enough room to do a border (with our names), but I think I've come up with a very good replacement idea.
I'm also very glad that our little group is complete - I hope Novia and Rachael and Annemarie will all soon be back in the full bloom of health, though!
Hello Ladies
I am back, but sick.
Here is the full story.
First, we (me and DH) had a short X'mas and New Year holiday for 1 week in Belgium, after celebrating New Year, my mum called me on the 3rd of January that my grand grandmother (she is 95 years old) broke her hips after she falled from a chair.
I jumped to the plane on the 4th because the doctor wanted to operate her. She was in hospital for 2 weeks, lots of discussions and examinations, at the end, the doctor decided not to operate her because my grand grandmother had heart problem, so she was sent home and being treated with pain killer.
After the wave is settle then I come back today, but I think I was too tired due to the trip and all the stress when I was in Indonesia then I get flu (started yesterday).
I am glad that I got telephone call from Rachael and Anne Marie, thank you ladies for tracking me down ;-) I really appreciate the phone call.
I really surprise with the development of our neighbourhood, a new member and what a progress that everybody has done. I have started the frame before I left and I hope I can catch up ASAP.
Novia
me, too!
Dianne and Rachael have posted such lovely pictures, that I have to jump in and add the scan of my house that I just made. I'd been hearing more & more about how pink my house is, so I thought a scan would show the colors a little more accurately. And Rachael, you can finally see the grass in this scan. I used regular cross stitches (over one and over two), satin stitches, and a sort of long-legged cross stitch. The blackish blob in the upper corner will become a magpie.
My progress for today
Here is a picture of how far I am today at 8pm. I pretty much did nothing but stitch today. I really want to catch up with everyone.
Collins seaside inn
Here is the progress on 'my dream house'. There's a second story missing, the front steps, five other windows and a porch on the side. I have left way too much space over the top, so maybe someone can make some boats or a lighthouse (or I can do that when it comes home-I can't measure this kind of fabric correctly for the life of me!). I was thinking of even sending the rest of this design which includes a gazebo and lighthouse (not really detailed) for someone else to complete. Think that would be neat?
Here is my house
Here is a picture of my house. My DH took it this afternoon during a break in the rain. He didn't move the cars but I think you can get a feel for what it looks like. The window sills and the rain pipes are out of copper and I used copper metallic thread to stitch them.
New Picture
Here is an update of my house. I actually added quite a bit. I hope that it is not raining tomorrow as I need to go out and look at the roof and gable to finish charting it. This is the first thing I have ever charted completly on my own and I am really having a blast. I will use animals from other charts though as I am pretty sure my talents aren't up to that yet.
Thank you for the invite!
Wow, what a warm group of ladies in which I have suddenly found myself! Thank you all for your very warm greetings!!
OK... I got all the emails from Su and Annemarie today. I just got in from work, so now I have to pore over them. I will get my questionnaire done and sent out this weekend (probably tonight)... just have to give it some thought :-)
Now to try to do some planning!!
Yay!!
My first photo
Okay - drum roll please. I am going to try and post my first blog picture. This is my house after one days stitching. I was able to stitch a little today and when there is a little more I will post again.
a warm welcome
We have a new kid on the block - a warm welcome to Carol, who we all know from her beautiful blog
Garden of Stitches! We're all very happy that Carol's here, too, and eager to hear her ideas and see her progress. Welcome aboard, Carol!
I started
I have finaly put needle to fabric. YEA!! After covering my entire great room in open stitching books , graph paper and colored pencils, I was far along enough this afternoon to actually start stitching. I will have to chart as I go but my house is taking shape already. I was glad no one caught me outside with about three hundred baggies of floss, trying to match the color of the brick and wood timbers on our house. I will take a picture of my progress for today and of our house and try and post them tomorrow evening.
here I am again
I don't know if the kids have been "giving" me more stitching time during the days, or if I'm compulsively claiming it in spite of their attempts to distract me. For me, this is very fast progress - but that's because I rarely stitch during the daytime hours, generally speaking.
Anyway, here's my house as of this afternoon. I have yoga tonight and won't get any more done today. Our kitty is actually a little darker IRL, but he's mostly grays and whites and teeny splotches of brown. Niek also pointed out that he's a lot fatter than this representation...
I continue to make a lot of my own tweaks to the design, as you can see.
Hello and an update from Veronica.......
I have really enjoyed looking at all your progress to date and would like to show you where I am at on my stitching.....I am going to call my neighbourhood 'Veronica's Woodland Walk'. I have taken ideas from a few different charts and played around with them to have what you can see. I was wanting to create some depth to my neighbourhood so it didn't look to flat. My hills are free-stitched from an idea on an Elizabeth's Design chart. They are supposed to represent The Cleveland Hills that I can see from my home one of the hills amongst them is called Roseberry Topping so that is my biggest one! I do have more work to do at the front of the picture as you can see but have a few ideas and will show you another picture when it is more completed. I too am only wanting DMC threads used as I will probably want to wash it on its return.....if only to get the creases back out of the linen :)
Specialty threads
I was wondering what kind of threads/floss you gals are using on your projects? If you are using overdyes, can you let us know? I am sticking to DMC because they are washable. With all of us handling each other's designs, they will probably get a little soiled even though we will be super careful. I had to wash the RR I participated in when it came home. Just to let you know.
satin stitches
The kids allowed me more stitching time than usual today, which I needed. For someone who can't lay down decent satin stitches, I made a terrible choice of designs! "Come Fly Away" has satin stitched steps, tree trunk, and grass. I had to rip out my first attempt(s), but I think the tree trunk came out okay and the steps did too (though the linen is distorted, which I hope will be remedied when I cross stitch the lawn). I have made some changes to the design, such as stitching our bird Gilbert instead of the one called for, and will continue to tweak it. (The tree, by the way, isn't finished ... this is just my giving-up point for today.)
I'm off to rest my weary head now. Hope everyone else has enjoyed a good day.
I don't want to know...
Thanks for your concerns and worries on my behalf. All these tips are great, but I'm afraid they were a little too late: yesterday evening, after it happened, I just sat there staring, and after about five minutes, I threw my fabric on the table and ran upstairs to share this with you. After that, I went to bed. And I still haven't looked. I just don't want to know. But I guess you want some sort of update. Okay. Hang on, I'll have a look...
Pheeeeeeeeew. Well, I guess if you're going to spill something, it's a good thing to spill white tea. Not a blemish in sight. I'm sorry for all the fuss. All for nothing, as it turns out. Still, it gave us some interesting chocolate-covered fabric stories to read. Let this be a lesson to us all.
a few small practical matters
Good morning, ladies!
Is it okay to with everyone to put links to our personal blogs or websites in our sidebar? I ask because I'd put Annemarie's blog in yesterday morning, but by evening it had disappeared. I've put it back in the template again. If anyone does not want her own blog/website in the sidebar, just let me know and I'll remove it.
I think it would be simpler if one of handled the template, rather than all of us making changes, possibly at cross purposes. If anyone wants anything changed in the template, would you let me know? If someone else would rather do the template changes, just say so.
Has anyone heard from Novia? She has not responded to the invitation to join this blog, nor to the other emails I've sent out. I also know she has a website, but I don't know the URL. Does anyone else?
I hope we'll all be enjoying a great day with plenty of time for stitching. I did finish my roof today (finally!). And how is your linen this morning, Annemarie? Did the tea come out?
Little trees and such.
On my quest for cross stitch freebies on the web, I ran across this
link.
http://www.dmc.com/majic/pageServer/1g010100cn/en/prid/8359/ct/os/index.html?print=1Simple, easy as pie and you can change the color of the leaves.
Here's a list of other freebies
here. You do have to become a member to see most of them.
http://www.dmc.com/majic/pageServer/1o0101006r/en/Map.html
Aaaaaaaah!
Would you believe it? Do you know what I just did? I spilled tea on my neighbourhood RR!!!! This has never, ever happened to me before! I wash my hands every time I pick up a piece of fabric, even if I want to add just a single stitch. I have spasms when someone touches my work. I took double extra care with this piece, of course, and now this... I have just spent five minutes looking in horror as the stain spread. It may just be alright, though. I don't like strong tea, and in this particular instance it was Chinese White Tea, so maybe... just maybe it will be okay. Just imagine what would have happened if I had been slobbering coffee, like I always do... Yikes!
Update on Su's progress
Here is an update on my first house progress as at 15/01/06. As you can see from the picture I have added a fence and a gate - taken from LHN Daisy Lane Cottage, the block of brown in the bottom right corner is going to be a tree (my own design) that sweeps over the top of the house to fill in the gap above the roof and then hopefully with the fence give the house area more depth. I have added apples to the little tree next to the house and I have also added some flowers (French knots) to the bush. I still have more to add to the garden and something to add to the left of the house near the apple tree.
Dianne,
Did you fill out the quetionnaire? I can't find yours. Could you send me a copy? As I am stitchingon your neighborhood next, I want to start planning :-)
A house coincidence!
Stitchers this is so unbelieveable, I had to share. I am a huge fan of Extreme Makeover:Home Edition. (Do you get this show overseas?) Last night the house they rebuilt for the family was in Seattle,Washington. When Ty, the host says ' Move that bus' (they hide the house from the family with a big tour bus), I gasped as the huge house looked just like my seaside inn on my RR! I'll have to share photos to show you once they get them up on the EM:HE website. And also, one of the designers on the show, Paul DiMeo went to the same high school as me, but he was in the grade above me.By the way, my RR is called 'Victorian Seaside village' and I am stitching an inn by Charles Wysocki.
my enthusiasm got the better of me
I decided on Friday that I would finish my design for our neighborhood RR, even though I had barely begun it. And I'm a slow stitcher. And we had company coming for the day on Sunday. And I needed to set this blog up. But hey, I thrive on challenge - that's why I'm still in the software industry after all these years. :-)
I didn't finish, but I did right my mistake (I miscounted the doorway and had to rip it out) and got the house itself filled in. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get the rest of the roof filled in after fitness tomorrow night - although I don't usually stitch on Monday. It would be nice to have the house itself at least finished. Here's where we stand now.
My neighborhood will be called Our Virtual Village, and I'm hoping that everyone will stitch a house or building or scene that sort of says "this is me!". I'm stitching "Come Fly Away" by Sheepish Designs, after thinking and re-thinking my choice. I also agonized over my choice of fabric, having specially ordered a hand-dyed piece that was just far too green IRL (lovely linen, but not for this project). Eventually I went with this 28 ct taupe Cashel linen. It's nothing spectacular, but the colors really stand out beautifully against it. And no one will suffer from eyestrain stitching on it. (After doing several over-one projects, eyestrain has become a bit of an issue for me!) So far, I have used Stranded by the Sea fibers for most of this house. I'm using colors I like out of my stash rather than what's called for. The house itself is supposed to look rather like weathered brick, which is what our real-life house is. Max, my eldest, helped me choose the color.
And now, well after midnight on a worknight, I am off to bed! Happy stitching to you all!
I too must add my thanks to Barbara for setting up our neighbourhood blog, it will be great to see everyones progress and catch up with what is happening. Wouldn't it be lovely if at some point in our neighbourhood sending we could all meet up?
My fabric is a natural 30ct linen and I have sectioned it off into 100 x 100 blocks, and there are 9 of them, but I don't mind stitching 3 when I complete this one I'm currently stitching I will do a second this will be in the centre and my plan is to have a LNS right in the middle as all villages need an LNS and its the heart of my village as I think if it wasn't for stitching and making new 'friends' our neighbourhood will have never happened with us all. As yet I still haven't come up with a name for my village, but I have one or two banging about in my brain.
I have been diligently stitching on mine for a couple of weeks now, I have a photo of the progress as at last week, but this week I have done some more, but as yet not taken a photo, I am putting some depth I hope in the design and as I managed to put the house in lower than I intended I need to fill the top a bit, hence my depth idea, I will post a picture of that progress soon, but as it stands you'll have to see last weeks progress. The house comes from a Mill Hill design called the Spring village, I have of course practically altered most of it apart from the house structure and the placement of the 2 trees, the tree on the left next to the house has now become an apple tree and I am currently adding to the garden etc.
Stitching the weekend away
Goodmorning all,
First of all: a very warm thankyou to Barbara for creating this blog. I'm terribly excited about all of this. I have wanted to blog for the longest time, but I have one problem: my camera and my computer refuse any form of relationship. I have tried to talk to them, coax them, romantic, candlelit dinners, but I think the age difference is too much of a hindrance. There's just no attraction there. And a blog about cross stitching without recent pictures is not something to get excited about, is it?
Anyway, yes, when I first saw the original Neighbourhood Round Robin, I was astounded, it was so gorgeous. Although when I say 'original' Neighbourhood RR, let me point out that this RR was also started after the participants got inspired by the Mother of the Neighbourhood RR, the French Dijon RR. Sadly, it is very difficult to find pictures of this original-original on the internet, but there is one on the homepage of the Neighbourhood RR (link provided---->). I got into contact with Su through Cyberstitchers, and we got to talking about this RR. We were both amazed at the beauty of the thing, and wondered if we couldn't find any likeminded stitchers to participate in our very own RR. So we did, and here we are.
Like the others, I started stitching my own square last week. I finally found my fabric (and I do hope nobody minds that it is a gorgeous 35 count Edinburgh sand colour) in a great needlework shop in Roermond. It was our plan to find nine stitchers to do this RR with, but in the end, there are 'only' seven of us, which means we have to fiddle with the shape a bit. Or stitch three houses on one piece! That was a bit too much for me, so I have decided to stitch rather a large design (Blackbird Design's Enduring Friendship), which will cover 100 x 140 stitches. The rest of the blank squares will be used for the names of me and my fellow Round-Robiners. The name of my RR, by the way, is 'Wacky Wanderings'. I shall be asking each of us to stitch a bit of a wacky detail. Nothing much, nothing big, it would even be fun if I had to look for it with a magnifying glass, but something wacky. I, myself, will stitch a little elf. I will tell you why in a later post.
As I said, no picture of my work until my square is actually finished, and the picture taken and developed at the photoshop in the city (how dreadfully old-fashioned). I do hope everyone enjoys following the paths through our neighbourhoods, both visitors and Round Robiners.
Too busy looking?
I was looking at the 'other neighborhood' and taking in things that worked nicely and some that didn't. I really like when they all aren't in a straight row. I don't like too much going on-ABCs, sideways animals, some houses with way more stuff aound them than others. How do you all feel about that? I would say to watch the perceptive too. I still can't believe all the beautiful house designs that are available.
A great way to start off a new year
Hi fellow stitchers!
Glad we are 'all rounded up' in bloggie world. Blogs are great and I have had fun with my own blog over the last 1.5 yrs.
Stitchingwise, my neighborhood is on a tan linen-a whole half yard of it. I found the linen on eBay. It's nice to work on, though I have to watch the stitch tension. Here's a bit of an update, though I did work on it last night also. It's there in the back. It's a seaside inn from a Charles Wysocki leaflet. I think I have a little bit too much space over the top, but maybe I can add some background design there. The other designs are my WIPs.I look forward to seeing each and every one of your progress photos or posts. 
Hi All
Hi ,
I received the invite from Babara and the new rotation from Su today. I have never written in a blog so I am not 100% sure of the etiquette ,but am assuming that the the focus is to record our progress. I think the Blog is a great idea and if we decide to pay for help with the format - I am happy to contribute. Thank you, Barb for doing all the work of setting it up.
Today I actually had some progress in that I purchased my fabbie, it is a cream colored Weddingen linen- I am not sure of the count but it is around a 28, so not to high a count and one of the lovely things about Weddingin is that the holes are pretty easy to see. Hopefully easy for everyone to stitch on. My LNS has decided to sell fat halves and quarters -Yea. I didn't have to buy twice as much linen as I need.
I have been working on charting my house as I want to stitch a simplified vesion of the house we now live in. My DH is in the military and we move a lot. I love this house and would like to keep it in stitches forever. The main problem I had was getting it charted. On the centemeter paper I have the design was to big for one sheet-I needed about six. On the millimeter paper the squares were to small. I know-picky,picky ,but I just couldn't get it quite right. I decided to ask in my LNS if there was an alternative, and there is! Two millimeter paper. They didn't know where I could buy an entire block, but they were willing to sell me a large sheet. So no excuses anymore. My fabbie will be serged and grided and, hopefully, my design charted by Sunday evening.
Now, I am not sure if I have to sign this or if it will be listed as :posted by etc.. So I will just sign it and know better in a few minutes when I have posted it.
Rachael
here we are
Last fall, a few virtual friends finally met in real life at Barbara's house in Gouda and Annemarie came up with the wonderful idea of creating a neighborhood together - a massive round robin that would require nearly a full year and a half and which would ultimately result in a gorgeous and unique cross stitch neighborhood for each of us. It took a little while to finally settle on the members of the RR: naturally we wanted to invite friends from far away to join us, and many of the people nearby who we initially asked felt that the demands of such a project were simply too great. While our members shifted, Su circulated and updated a rotation schedule and set of guidelines while Annemarie sent around a questionnaire for us to fill out regarding our preferences. Then the busy holiday season of 2005 was upon us, and things became very quiet indeed.
The New Year is now underway and nearly all of us have made some start to our first design. By March first, the neighborhoods will all be sent on to the next stitcher, and three months later, to the next.
This is our place to meet, discuss progress, check out ideas, and show off our growing neighborhoods. It is also a place where we hope you will leave your comments. And maybe, just maybe, it will inspire you to start your own neighborhood!
