WIPocalypse now - December update

The world did not end on the 21st. Good thing, too - I have a lot of stitching and other things I still want to do!

What will be coming to an end is WIPocalypse 2012. I've quite enjoyed having a reason to blog at least monthly. Fortunately, there will be a WIPocalypse 2013, and I've already signed up for that.

The main thing I worked on this month was Marbek Nativity. I'm up to 110 hours.

(Click for larger image)

19 hours doesn't seem like much, given that I'm on vacation, but it's been a crazy month. I did get the animals done and started the wise man. I do want to be completely done with the wiseman and steps before I put this away mid-January, but we'll see.

I also did an ornament for an exchange, as I mentioned last post. This is the star from Teresa Wentzler's "Touch of Holly":

Somehow I don't have a scan of it after I finished it as an ornament...sorry!

Speaking of ornaments, I designed this year's ornament from Tor Rhuann Designs, "Holly and Ivy":
(Want the PDF?)

I also designed some fillers for a bellpull variant of the Holly and Ivy ornaments, but I haven't stitched it yet myself.

It's Bowl Week (though it seems like Bowl Month!), which means much watching of televised football. Since I'm distraction-prone during football games, and therefore timing Nativity would prove inaccurate, I started a knitting project:

If you recognize it as the Fourth Doctor's scarf, full credit goes to Tara at WittyLittleKnitter.com for the pattern. This is the Season 12 variant.

My knitting skills are so remedial that I had to search youtube videos to refresh my memory on how to cast on, but this is coming along more quickly than I thought. I may do another one someday, and I definitely plan to crochet a version for comparison as well.

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Today will be my 225th consecutive treadmill day, and I've lost 20 pounds since last Christmas. (I have probably regained some of that the past week or so, but we won't talk about that....).

All in all, WIPocalypse 2012 turned out well. I hope 2013 does even better.

Let it snow!

This year's ornament is another snowflake (because we don't get any for real here in Florida):
.
The PDF is available over at Tor Rhuann Designs.

This was a very quick stitch, which is probably good considering how late I'm releasing it! Jenna had finished three of them before I finished my first one, including a very pretty green and red version.

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In other stitching news, I finished PR Once Upon a Time:

(Click for larger pic)
After finishing it, I restarted the MarBek Nativity on CountryStitch Kiwi Sparkles "Pansy" Belfast, and 13 hours in I'm very happy with how it's turning out. I've subbed Petite Treasure Braid for many of the blending filaments, which has made the star a LOT easier to manage. Here it is at 15 hours:


In the meantime, back to December insanity!

It's that time of year...

I've crawled out from under the virtual rock with another design offering.

Tor Rhuann's 2010 ornament is a wreath biscornu. I've already done it in two colorways so far...

White candles on green:


Advent candles on white:

I've already finished the Advent one, using crystals as the candle flames, and I'm happy with the result.


PDF is already up over at Tor Rhuann Designs

Sorry for the blog silence otherwise. I've been working a fair bit of overtime of late, DH has been traveling more, and DD's extracurriculars are in full swing. So I can't promise anything other than continued sporadic posts for the foreseeable future...

San Pietro

A few months ago in Rome, I saw this:


Now, does that column not seem like a potential Tor Rhuann design?

And so it became:

and


Facebook fans of Tor Rhuann saw the initial version of this design over a month ago - life has just been busy enough that I hadn't actually finished the models until today. But now San Pietro is officially released!

I tried something a little different, with the blackwork becoming more of an independent element and less of an accent than in my previous designs. I wanted to represent the marbling in the motifs, but wasn't sure whether an overdye would provide enough variance in a small space, so it became a blackwork fill instead. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results, although I'm undecided on whether I prefer the blackwork outline around the fill or with it left off - both have their own appeal. I also made the blackwork motifs of all the same dimension, so they can be interchangeable (or extensible).

With the latency between design and release on this, maybe I should start work on the Christmas ornament now!

How Belinda got her stitching groove back...

After quitting WoW back in July, I got back into stitching. 129 stitch-hours later (for a total of 159), I've finished Mirabilia's "Madonna of the Garden"

(Click for larger picture)
She's done on 32ct SMF "Shimmering Hillside", and is actually fairly heavily tweaked. I did color conversions on the blanket, parts of the veil, and the gold ruffle. I swapped out some of the beads, tweaked the halo, and took off the fruit panel at the bottom. This picture really doesn't do it justice - it's quite sparkly in person, and I can't wait to see what my framer will do with her!

Before I pick up another large project on which I track hours, I'm going to do small pieces for a few weeks. I also have set myself a goal of finishing the snowflake afghan by the end of February, and with prime crochet time during the Super Bowl and the Olympics, that should be fairly easy to accomplish.

Also, my latest design, "Peace!", is up over at Tor Rhuann but I haven't finished stitching it myself yet.

Snowfall...

I'm sure folks in the northeastern US are tired of snow by now, but here in Florida we have to make our own.

So, here's Tor Rhuann's 2009 Christmas ornament!

(Click for PDF)

The picture doesn't sparkle very much, but I stitched this on opalescent lugana, with Waterlilies "Ink", and silver and dark blue Petite Treasure Braids. It's definitely more sparkly and wintry than the scan would indicate!

The hexagonal design was a bit of a late inspiration, and was a bit of a challenge to get to look "right" to me. But I think it was worth it.

Experiments in social networking

Good news for readers who like my designs - Tor Rhuann now has a Facebook page! Check it out over at
http://www.facebook.com/TorRhuannDesigns

There *will* be a 2009 ornament - fear not the quiet that has been Tor so far this year. I also have some other design ideas in the works.

Since I quit WoW back in July, I've gotten a lot of stitching done. And crochet as well - the "63-squares" afghan is now up to 104 squares of 121!

Light a candle...

Tor Rhuann Designs 2008 Christmas ornament is finally finished!

(Click to download PDF pattern)
Candles or lights seem to be a pretty universal winter-holiday symbol (or at least for the winter holidays I'm aware of), and I've always had a fondness for them.

This one was a bit late getting done, partly because I struggled a little with what to do for the border. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, though. I decided to play around a bit with stitch thickness - the glow around the candles is stitched with one strand instead of two.

In other news, DH and I recently celebrated our 18th anniversary. He got me a star! (Well, he got stars named after us.) I'm not a fan of diamonds, but stars are big sparkly things I think I like. For my part, I got him an 18-year single malt islay Scotch (Bunnahabhain).

I wish all of my readers a happy holiday season (whichever holiday you happen to celebrate), and many blessings in the upcoming year!

Trick or Treat!

This year I bought a green pumpkin, because I thought it resembled a goblin head. The picture I took will have to wait a bit, because DsD took the camera when she took DD and DGS out trick-or-treating a few minutes ago.

I do have a treat for you all, though - Tor Rhuann has a new design!

(Click for PDF)

I haven't finished mine yet, but when I finished the design on Wednesday night (yes, less than 48 hours ago...) I put out a request for model stitchers. I got *five*, all different and all awesome! They're all credited on the PDF, along with their finished pieces.

DD had a hand in this one as well. The little spider at the bottom? Her idea, and it was such a good one that I ran with it.

Happy Halloween!

Seasons change and so do I...

About two weeks ago, I got a rather unexpected request. Vikki Clayton of Hand-Dyed Fibers asked me if I would come up with a design using her overdyed silks. Basic constraint was 5-10 colors, using less than half a yard per color when stitched using one strand over two threads, so she could develop sample tag sets for them.

I was honored, to say the least. This opportunity would give Tor Rhuann Designs more exposure, which was both exciting and a bit scary! But a flash of inspiration and a LOT of deliberation over color choices later, I'm proud to present Four Seasons:

Colorway 1

Colorway 2

It was very hard to settle on colors, because there are so many lovely ones to choose from, but I managed to limit (ha!) myself to only stitching it twice. Vikki will have tag sets available for these two colorways at Hand-Dyed Fibers.
As for my models, I see a biscornu in my near future!

Also in my near future are two new ventures for me!

I'm starting to take voice lessons (my first one is tomorrow!). I've been singing in my church choir for about a year now, but I could use a bit of help with technique and just overall comfort with my voice. Hopefully lessons will help.

I'll also be trying my hand at DungeonMastering for the first time. I've been a tabletop RPGer for about 20 years, but have never been a gamemaster. I'm the only adult in my group who's never done so. DH got a DragonLance book from DD for Christmas and started thinking about a DragonLance campaign, since there's a popular sequence of modules based on the original Dragonlance series. He's already running a Birthright campaign at present, so I decided that maybe it was time I gave DMing a go. I probably won't be ready to actually start for a few weeks yet, but I'm excited about this.

Wish me luck!

Light in dark places

Tor Rhuann Designs' 2007 Ornament is now available!

I just finished designing this, so I don't have a stitched version yet, but here's the mockup to give you a rough idea. (I'll replace this image with the model once I finish it...)

I'm planning on using Victoria Clayton's "Midnight Rainbow" as the blue overdye, with gold and silver Petite Treasure Braids. You can, of course, use whichever color schemes you so desire.

As always, I'd love to see any and all finishes! Leave links in my comments box, or email me via the link to the right.

Update 12/11/07 23:39 - Mockup replaced with model image

A whirlwind Tor...

A year ago this week, I came up with my first cross-stitch design - a Celtic knot for a biscornu exchange. At first, I was thinking it would be a one-shot thing, but then I got the idea to do an Autumn bookmark because I missed the change of seasons. And folks *liked* it and wanted the rest of the seasons.

So Tor Rhuann Designs was born, and I've discovered a new facet of myself.

To celebrate Tor's first birthday, I registered a domain name: www.tor-rhuann-designs.com. I guess that makes me official. My current design page will redirect to the new domain, but if you have honored me by adding Tor to your favorites, you may wish to update the link.

In memoriam

Remember before God
Richard III, King of England
and those who fell at Bosworth Field
having kept faith
22 August 1485
Loyaulte me lie

Yesterday I had the idea for this little tribute design with Richard III's emblem and motto. I'm not quite finished stitching it yet (still doing backstitching) but today is the appropriate release day so I've posted a mockup that should be replaced within the next 24 hours with the real model. In the meantime, the pattern for "Ricardus" is available here

Update 23 Aug, 11:42pm: Real model finished, scanned and uploaded with 3 minutes to spare in that 24 hours!

She stitches seashells by the seashore...

Two days late, but I've finished my last seasonal bookmark!


(Click for larger picture)
While I personally don't go to the beach very often (since sun and red hair don't mix very well), the beach is a summer ritual for many people. With that in mind, I chose an array of items that one can find on beaches for the motifs.

The cross-stitching is done in Victoria Clayton's "Grasses", with an array of Petite Treasure Braids. The chart (another freebie, of course!) is available for download here. If you're new to my blog and/or my designs, all four seasonal bookmarks can be found on my design page here, or via my logo button over to the right.

Sumer is icumen in

"One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel
and the next it's rolling over me"
- "Far Cry", Rush (_Snakes and Arrows_)
Summer is here already? The past few months have just flown by!

Unfortunately I don't quite have the model for Assisi Summer finished yet - I'm pretty close, and barring sudden attacks of life I should have it done by the weekend.

But remember this cheerful fellow?

It's now available for download as Sunshine on my Scissors.

Enjoy!

Yo ho yo ho...

DD and I just got home from watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which was quite entertaining. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll just leave it at that and sail straight on to monthly goals!

Goals for May:
Carryovers:

• Finish AB's website (address feedback)(101List #22) - No progress this month
  New:
• Design Assisi Summer - Done!
  
• Make 200th workout at Curves (101List #42) - Done!
  
• Declutter DD's room (101List #5) - Mostly. DD's room is much neater, but there's still stuff that needs doing
  
• Finish PR Make A Wish - Close, but not quite...
  
  Goals for June:
  Carryovers:
• Finish PR "Make A Wish"
  
• Finish decluttering DD's room (101List #5)
  
• Finish AB's website (address feedback)(101List #22)
  New:
  
• Straighten up Spare Oom (101List #13)
  
• Sort and donate clothing/toys piled up in Spare Oom.
  
• Stitch Assisi Summer

Not very well on May's goals, although I felt busy all month. The sad thing is that of the two goals I *did* complete for May, both were done yesterday - I finished the design for Summer at 11:45pm last night. Well, it's a fresh month, and I'm close on several so I should *hopefully* do better this month. We'll see what life throws at me.

Speaking of designs, however, the last of the travelling PIFs made its way home:

This was for the soon-to-be-wed Nicole, and so I chose to do two intertwined hearts.
And with the last homecoming, the PDF release of Squared Away is now available. This only covers the four biscornus - the little sun PIF will be included with Assisi Summer in a few weeks.

Careful what you wish for...

The replacement PIF has made its happy way home to Jenn (and made good time doing so!) When I got her address, she hinted that a scissor fob would be nice.
So....

Enter a biscornu scissor fob with a design featuring...scissors.

Hitting the big time?

So I had somewhat of a strange occurrence starting yesterday, and I'm trying to figure this out...

Normally I get about 20-30 hits a day between this blog and my design page, up to 50 on days I post an entry or release a design.

Starting about midday yesterday, my design page has been getting a LOT of hits. About 325 yesterday, and about 90% of those had "No referring link". This baffles me - the remaining ones I can trace to posts on various BBs, but why am I suddenly getting worldwide traffic with no referring link?

Not that I'm complaining! I'm thrilled that my humble little designs are getting exposure! I'm just confused at the sudden popularity. Could someone enlighten me please?

ETA 4pm 3/29: Mystery solved! (Thanks, Shannon!) Apparently a link to Tor Rhuann Designs was posted on 123stitch.com, but without the hyperlink so there was no available referrer. Traffic today has settled down to normal.

Better late than never?

After the rather unpleasant hurricane season of 2004, I called a number of local places to see about getting storm shutters, leaving a trail of voicemails. Most of the larger dealers never called back.

This morning, I got a call from one of them. Two years later. Um, thank you but we already have shutters now.

Somewhat of an amusing occurrence, nonetheless.

Speaking of "better late than never", I have finally finished Assisi Spring, so you can see something other than a mockup. Ta-da!

Click for larger picture
I used Vikki Clayton's "Russian Sage" and a handful of Petite Treasure Braid for the various backstitching, on antique white Belfast. Unfortunately the sparkle isn't showing up so well in the scan. I've updated the PDF with the model picture and specs.

Spring has sprung...

...and with it the promised Assisi Spring bookmark!

I haven't quite finished the model yet, so for the moment all I can offer is the PatternMaker preview:


I'm using Vikki Clayton's "Russian Sage", and I like the effect so far. Hopefully I'll be able to post the finish later this week.

In the meantime, feel free to download and enjoy!