Tracy's Crafts and Cooking

Crafts from the past

Tracy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:30:41 +0000

I went home the other weekend and saw some of my first cross-stitch projects there. (I think my oldest ones are in the closet somewhere, made from yarn and a hard plastic grid, and I didn’t search for them.) I thought you all might get a kick out of seeing them, so I took pictures of them.

These first three are the ones at home. The tiny bear one is beaded and very small…only about 3 or 4 inches big. The bigger bear and the hot air balloon are both 8 x 10. The bigger bear has a funny story to it: when I was little where I rotated the whole project around to do the border and made all the cross-stitches go backwards down one side…and then redid the whole thing to fix it.

Next, here are some projects I have at my apartment now. These are projects I finished more recently, although having recently moved, I haven’t yet figured out where to hang them. The hot air balloon (I don’t know why I did another one of these, lol) has a LOT of beads and is 5×8 in an 8×10 mat. The Leaves in glass was a quick embroidery project bought because the green matches my bathroom color scheme. Bon appetit is 5×8, and a funny story about this piece is that I worked on it during my (Computer Science) Operating System Design class in senior year of college while sitting in the third row. My teacher thought for SURE I was a slacker and not paying attention. In fact, he was such a boring lecturer that keeping my hands busy kept me awake during class. The teacher thought much better of me after I finished my first exam in a third of the time allotted and received ~95% on it. Finally, Good Fortune is also 5×8 and I did it in early graduate school; it was my first time using metallic thread and doing “couching”. It’s currently on display on the buffet in my living/dining room, which is all themed black and red, so it looks stunning there.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all my old projects. By the way, I am working on a secret new project, but I cannot write about it here because it’s a gift for one of my readers! Once the gift has been given, I’ll post up a recount with pictures of it.

Long weekend, new color!

Tracy — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:15:18 +0000

I’m happy to say that I’ve started using a brand new color! Until now, I’d been sticking to earth tones: greens, browns, and greys. Finally, I’ve started into the blues, beginning with the navy blue trim all around the edge of the Enchantress’ dress. I’ve made a lot of progress with the navy blue, especially because it’s so easy compared to the spotty patches of earth I’d been working on. Lots of easy counting and stitching without having to look down at the paper every two minutes.

May 26

I think even those who thought her dress looked like cabbage before might be better convinced of its composition now.

Woodland Enchantress: Still in progress

Tracy — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:49:55 +0000

I’m sorry I haven’t been updating this blog lately. Over the past few months, I went through a 1000+ mile move, started a new job, and moved in with my boyfriend … lots of transition! I just started working on the Woodland Enchantress again the past few nights after having put it down for months. It felt good to stitch again. Plus, I got to watch some great movies while doing it, between my own collection and my new-found love: free movies and tv episodes from On Demand.

May 11		My slow progress over the past few months has been working on the patchy brown earth…very hard to count
May 14		The past few nights I’ve worked on her staff and the last section of hair

Post-graduation update

Tracy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:17:55 +0000

Well, I graduated on Saturday with my M.S. in Computer Science from UIUC. Now I’m back home in New Jersey for a few weeks TAKING A BREAK before starting a new job up in the Boston area at the end of January. This means that there will be a temporary decrease in the amount of cooking I do, but permanent increase in the amount of time I’ll have for stitching! Over the course of the 14-hour car ride back home, I made some nice progress:

Dec. 22

I finished up this tree’s right side and started bringing a dark gold down through the soil.

(Last anyone saw this area, back in August, it looked like this.) More to come very soon, I’m sure!

Post-Thanksgiving Update

Tracy — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:31:00 +0000

I had a lovely Thanksgiving, despite my journey back to school being ruined by a car accident after an already-long day of missed flights and layovers. I’m fine, but the car’s not. ‘Still waiting to hear back from insurance to hear if I can start getting it repaired yet. In any case, during what flights I did take, I got a chance to work more on the Enchantress.

Dec. 5

I unknowingly made an odd choice to work on the dark brown followed by the golden brown, but the two two colors are coming together now that I’m putting the cocoa brown between them.

In good news, I just today deposited my Master’s Thesis! All I need to do to graduate with my M.S. is get a B in the class I’m taking. This means lots more time for sewing in the coming future, while I’m procrastinating studying and/or packing.