Swedish Weaving Finish!: Celebrate Color Link Up

It may not seem like much, but it's been awhile since I've finished a project. I last showed my progress on this towel before I did the hems on the sides and created the fringe. The instructions with the kit I bought had another way of finishing the stitching, but I feel by hemming the sides that the ends of the embroidery floss will be more likely to stay put. Plus I think it makes it look finished.

I'm linking this up to Celebrate Color over at Rachel's blog, Stitched in Color. I'm sure you all have heard about the great things she's been doing to celebrate the colors of fall. I was going to post a mosaic of my fall favorites when this celebration started, but time got away from me. I don't think anyone can argue that the colors in this towel are anything but fall.

For those of you who do not know what Swedish Weaving is, this information was put up by my local needle shop.

Now on to the eye candy.

This pattern is described as resembling a wind break in autumn. (A wind break is basically a line of trees that farmers put up in order to reduce the amount of soil erosion that was occuring from the high winds in my area.) While driving out to Maplewood State Park earlier today, I passed by many trees in a wind break that had turned and could definately see this pattern in real life. Chad, on the other hand, doesn't see it and he grew up on a farm.

A close up of the stitching. I am in love with the effects you can achieve with this embroidery technique.

A close up of the hemming and fringe. I couldn't find a spool of white so I used the closest thing. The camera is picking up a higher contrast that if you were looking at it yourself.

And just because I like the obvious set-ups sometimes.

I hope you enjoyed my work. I am completely hooked on this embroidery and already have more materials to do another project. Please come back tomorrow when I will be sharing some more love for fall after spending the morning in the woods.

Thursday Think Tank

Coincidentally, my post today is in the same wave as the Thursday Think Tank over at Making Rebecca Lynne. After peeking into my brain here, be sure to swing by her space and check out what is going on with her and the other participants. Even better, Rebecca is brewing up a Pouch A-Long (or PAL, love it).

I've mentioned briefly that I've been shifting my priorities in my life. I do have a lot going on between school, work, taking care of our home, Chad, our dogs, friends, family obligations, and so on. This leaves little time for me to do what I love to do. Not that I don't love my classes, but this semester I have more lecture than creating.

I have come up with a few places where I can cut some time from and use that time for personal projects. First of all, I had to tell my boss that I can't work as early as I have been. Essentially since June or July I've been working full time or near enough. While this is great for my bank account (and enables me to buy materials), it's not so great for everything else. If you take out sleep time, I spend more time with the guys at work than I do with Chad. Fortunately, they were ok with this. So I have gained an extra 6 hours a week. I also am cutting down on the junk tv that I watch when I am home. I intend to have it on as background noise and then I find myself sucked into the drama. I know I'm not the only one out there that has this little problem, right? And finally, my time online this is wasted has been reduced (coughFacebookcough). I haven't quit it completely, although I feel that it's coming. I only log on a couple times a week and really just to respond to people who have messaged me there.

Now to the why. I feel better when I'm creating. Honestly, sitting in front of a computer (like at work) is so draining on me. And since I'm already tired most of the time, I do tend to sit with my laptop just surfing from site to site. Yes, I'm gathering information and looking at various techniques that people are sharing, but a lot of that time was wasted. I also don't start most projects because I like to finish what I start in one sitting, but that's an issue for another time. And something I'm working on.

I also am getting involved more with the great online community here. I can only do that by sharing my voice and by commenting on what others are doing. Yes, I'm guilty of being a lurker, so I've been leaving comments instead of just thinking, "Oh, that's so great!". I'm also going to use this extra time I have to get more involved with QALs, swaps, and other community projects.

Another goal of this blog here is to make new friends. Like others, I have few friends in my everyday life who do what I do. So, don't be afraid to leave me a comment or even e-mail me directly.

Wow, this was a tad longer than I intended. As a reward for making it through, I snapped some photos of the new additons to my stash and a couple projects I will be starting.

I'm so looking forward to playing with the techniques in this book. Nothing too hard either as it's all strip piecing.

This will be embroidered and probably turned into a purse.

A few random fabrics. I have an idea for the cityscapes, but nothing concrete yet.

These are going to be used in a mat for my dogs' food and water dishes. They make such a mess sometimes and it would be nice to not clean up water all the time.

My next Swedish weaving project: a nice throw that reminds me of my childhood spent exploring various state parks and canoeing almost every weekend.

A nice macro shot of the threads I will be using. Size 3, if you're interested.

Thanks for reading my thoughts today! Be sure to check out Thursday Think Tank and feel free to link up with her as well.

More Swedish Weaving

Hello to everyone stopping over from Lily's Quilts! If you want to know more about me, I have posted a bit before, or you can feel free to ask questions.

I know I posted late last night about my little Swedish Weaving work, but I already finished the embroidery.

All that I have left to do with it is hem the sides of the towel (mostly to hide the ends of the floss, the edges are selveges) and make fringe. This will not be my last experience with Swedish Weaving. I need to pick up some more materials and will be back at it.

The rest of my day is going to be spent finishing my ceramics project and then some quality time with Chad this evening. It's been a long week for both of us so we decided to do nothing later but be together and watch a movie.

I hope your Saturday is going well!

New WIP

Sometimes, I just need to start something new. Something I've never done before. Even when I have many other projects pending.

Today I was thrilled to see Feeling Stitchy do a post on Swedish Weaving/Huck Embroidery. I had been exposed to this craft when I was in Rollag this summer. I fell in love with the look and was shown the process by a very kind older woman. Once I got back to town, I headed over to my local needle shop to pick up a kit. I had placed the kit in a stack of projects to be completed, but after seeing the reminder online, I decided to pull it out and start it.

I am already hooked on it. As I was doing the zig zag rows I kept thinking of other designs I could make using this technique. For me, patterns and directions are great when I'm beginning, but once I have it down, I like to make up my own thing. And this is so easy to do even though it looks complicated. I like that it's easy to throw in my bag to take with me as well so I can work on it when I have a spare moment. I could even be done with it before the weekend is up.