St. Monica's Under the Sky

Awoke to snow and blowing snow this morning (as forecast, believe it or not!), and sighed with pleasure.  Sometimes, on a Sunday, I just want to have a quiet day at home, not trekking 43 km. in to church and back...just writing Morning Pages, reading Morning Prayer, and making a leisurely start to my day.  Today, I was blessed to be able to do just that!

After breakfast and some 'net travel, I moved into my 'sewdio' and finished this, complete with branches and shadows.

For those of you interested in the nitty-gritty of the process, the additional branches (compared to this) were done with simple black 50-wt cotton thread, along with the last of the quilting of the tree trunk.  The shadows on the roof (bottom right) were created with MistyFuse to attach 2 layers of fine tulle -- a bit of grey and a bit of brown -- and a touch of InkTense pencil (black) over-laid with a hint of dilute white acrylic craft paint (this last in the white area between the two roof sections).

And because one of you asked: yes, the building was assembled from little pieces of fabric and fused with Wonder Under.  The tree is also fused onto the background (a piece of my own hand-dyed muslin), but it's all-of-a-piece except for the thread-painted branches.  The roof of the bell tower and the cross were the toughest because of the angle at which the original photo put them, and because they were so **!!@@ tiny.

Still and all, looking at it properly matted, I'm rather pleased with it.  Nine down, three more to go before the show in mid-April.  :-)

On the knitting front, there was no rescuing that poor camisole.  Taking in the full amount of excess fabric through the back might have worked...but in the end, the entire piece was made at least two sizes too large for me.  Part of it was a gauge problem -- the punishment I get for not swatching (I intensely dislike swatching, but as in over 50 years of knitting this is only my second "disaster", I'm not about to start now) -- and part of it was that I simply selected too large a size for my body.  Twenty pounds have left my frame since I began that piece, so I guess it was inevitable!    No worries, though!  I have attached a yarn label to it (it's silk and cashmere), and will give it away.  I have enough of the yarn left over -- almost 4 full balls --  to make it again (swatching this time) or to make something completely different, which is likely what I'll do.

I've resolved not to let it bother me and to move on to my next UFO, which is coming along nicely.  It's a sleeveless turtleneck that I began ??? ago using "Piazza" from Schachenmayr Nomotta -- a yarn that is now discontinued, but of which I bought plenty from elann.com back in the day.  It's a cotton blend, and the colourway is a deep coral cotton twisted with white synthetic for a bit of shine.  The back was long finished, and I am making my way up the front.  The pattern I'm using was free from elann.com but I can no longer find it on their website: the Gedifra Korfu Sleeveless Turtleneck.  It's a very pretty open-work pattern with simple construction and this time I'm sure it'll fit, because the size is based on my current measurements, which I must have had before I gained those 20 pounds!

Araucania 'Atacama" - Colour #501

Resolve leads to reward, right?  My reward for finishing the turtleneck and a third UFO (a pair of cabled fingerless gloves, of which the first is done) will be to start a new project.  I have just enough Araucania Atacama to make the "Windward" shawlette/scarf with I purchased last month from designer  Heidi Kirrmaier's Ravelry shop.  I got this yarn on sale at Knit & Caboodle in Canmore some years ago (2007?) while on a retreat with the Gillihook Heritage Knitters' Guild to which I belonged at the time.  It's in a wonderful raspberries-and-cream colour-way, perfect for the coming spring.

Now while the light is good I want to work a couple more lines of that Nova Scotia tartan I've been working on in my Atlantic Seaboard Sampler (designed by Jeannette Douglas of Calgary).   Here's a photo of my progress up to bedtime last night:

Thirteen lines done and 10 to go till this pattern row is finished!

The snow has stopped but it's still breezy.  After the sampler, I know I need to go out and do some shovelling if I'm going to get into Lacombe tomorrow -- and from there to Red Deer to give my sweet little car its regular maintenance service and oil change!

Have a lovely rest of your Sunday!

Fussy, Fussy

It all began with this photo:

Bell Tower, St. Monica's Anglican Church
Mirror, Alberta - est. 1895

I love this old church, but have yet to see the inside of it, as it's been under restoration for almost as long as I've lived here.  It's no longer a functioning church; it was given over to Mirror  by the Diocese of Calgary some years ago as a historical building.  The hope is that when it's fully restored it will be a point of interest for tourists and perhaps serve as an unconsecrated wedding chapel.  The asbestos insulation has been replaced, and the rotting foundational logs replaced (under that lovely white facade, it's a 118-year-old log building!).  What remains to be done is the shoring-up of bowing walls, the replacement of the siding, and the restoration of the chimney -- including the re-creation of some of the old bricks which have broken.

I took this photo not long after I moved here -- sometime in the late autumn or early winter of 2008-2009, and decided it might make a good miniature.

Well.

Fussy, fussy.  I used my own hand-dyed fabric for the sky, and then traced bits and pieces of the building onto fusible web (in reverse, of course, to get them to come out the right way 'round)...and then trace the tree (in reverse) and did the same.  It took me a little over 2 hours yesterday to come up with this:

The 'sawed-off' edges are the edge of the original photo and also where the matt will begin!

Today I added some thread painting and quilting:

I was undecided, until I put my "Ls" around it...and it works reasonably well.  There's still a bit more quilting to do -- though I am not adding all the random branches attached to that tree!  (Artistic license!)

This miniature has taken me far longer than the others, but if it doesn't sell at the show, maybe I'll just frame it and keep it!  :-)